Google has acquired the domain name g.co that will only link to official Google products and services. The domain name acquisition in itself is not much news, but it is further evidence that premium domain names are very important in a company’s branding. “The shorter a URL, the easier it is to share and remember,” writes Gary Briggs, Google VP of Consumer Marketing . “The downside is, you often can’t tell what website you’re going to be redirected to. We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.” It is likely Google paid well into seven figures for the domain name with Domain Incite reporting that they believe the starting price for single character domains believed to be $1.5 million. Other high profile .CO acquisitions include Overstock paying $350,000 for o.co, which it uses to rebrand the company internationally, while Amazon bought a.co, z.co, k.co and cloud.co. Additionally, Twitter acquired t.co for its URL shortening service. Google will continue to use goo.gl as their public URL shortener that anyone will still be able to shorten URLs across the web. The acquisition is also a coup for the .CO ccTLD and will help boost awareness of .CO that now has over one million registrations in less than a year.

SnapNames has increased the starting bid for backorders for all deleting domain names from $59 to $69 as of 15 February they have announced. This starting bid increase applies only to orders for names that are deleted from their respective registries (not the expiring or privately held names listed from registrar partners or sellers). This change applies exclusively to new orders – any previously placed deleting domain name backorders will be grandfathered in and remain at a starting bid amount of $59; thus, $59 will be the opening bid if the name enters our system

02|14|2011 8:28 pm EDT SnapNames to Increase Prices For Deleting Domains Starting Tomorrow by Frank Michlick in Categories: News , Up to the Minute – 1 Comment According to an email just sent out by SnapNames the pricing for backordering deletion domain names will increase from $59 to $69 starting tomorrow. See the full text of the email below: On February 15, SnapNames will raise the starting bid for backorders for all deleting domain names from $59 to $69.

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The full catalogue of domains for the Moniker auctions at DOMAINfest Fort Lauderdale is now up with expected opening bids and ranges for all domains. Pre-bids can be submitted until May 13 at noon US ET

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DOMAINfest has recently announces that they will launch for the Moniker/SnapNames live auction a pre-auction bidding system. The Moniker/SnapNames live auction will take place at DOMAINfest Fort Lauderdale,Florida .