Two weeks ago, I shared with you about how long-time domain investor and serial developer, George Verdugo, took to Twitter in hopes of discovering .ws emoji domains up for sale.

I share and discuss how to use GoDaddy Aftermarket data to determine a proxy bid amount likely to win more GoDaddy expired domain auctions.

Over the last 18 months and counting, I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of bidders participating in GoDaddy expired auctions. Between auction bots and increased bidder count, closing auction prices for expired domains skyrocket to unbelievable values.

While I’ve not researched data to back this next statement up, I’m guessing GoDaddy’s adding the estimated value — based on their GoDaddy Domain Appraisal Tool — is likely the culprit to increased activity and inflated closing auction prices.

For instance, expired domain auctions that would have normally closed at or below $50 are now closing anywhere between $300 – $600.

I don’t know about you, but such a pricing influx can wreak havoc on a quick-flip domain strategy, especially when considering the average domain hold time is over 400 days or so to flip.

Most domain investors, like myself, don’t sit around waiting and watching expired domain auctions with the ole’ eagle eye. I typically set a proxy bid amount, walk away, and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, this once successful strategy’s pricing no longer gets the job done with the exponential swing in closing auction prices.

To better understand how much I would need to adjust my proxy bid strategy to start winning more GoDaddy, hopefully, expired domain auctions, I decided to dive into the details of expired auctions with bids I’ve lost dating back to the beginning of the year.

This is the question George Verdugo, a successful long-time domain investor and serial developer, tweeted last week in hopes of uncovering a few undervalued domain assets.

If you’ve been around the domain industry two seconds or longer, then you’ve likely heard the name Rick Schwartz, also known as the DomainKing™.

He’s certainly not a new face to industry. A living legend, by many standards, not short on vision, stories, and facts/opinions about domain, business, and life in general, having held more than 30 jobs in a 5 year span.

It’s been almost 5 months since I wrote about GoDaddy adding sorting and filtering to its Domain Investor App.

Earlier this week, Paul Nicks, VP and General Manager for GoDaddy’s Aftermarket, took to Twitter to announce that GoDaddy released a complete re-write of its Domain Investor App.

Yup, it’s the second week of the month and you know what time it is, right? That’s right! It’s time for Verisign’s Top Trending Keywords Report.

Moments ago, Verisign published to its blog July’s trending keywords registered for .com and .net domains.

It’s no secret that companies of all sizes have been known to invest in domain names in addition to their core business.

Some of these companies started because of a domain upgrade for their brand and digital presence.

Others invested in domains for brand protection and to stave off the competition from owning prime digital real estate.

And in some instances, companies have solely acquired companies, thriving and dying, based on domain portfolios.

While domain investing is quite common amongst a growing number of for-profit organizations, I’ll explore a few arguments for and against non-profit organizations investing in domain names.