Categories: Articles

Montreal Becomes Ground Zero For Domain Name Game

I had a domain name mash up this week. A close acquaintance of mine is a partner in a company called Emall.ca. Emall.ca has been acquiring .ca domain names for many years and has been using those domains for either affiliate marketing endeavors or leasing them on occasion to certain companies.
When Yellow Pages Group announced their 2006 first quarter results this past Tuesday – Yellow Pages Income Fund Reports 2006 First Quarter Results – I was pleasantly surprised to see this in the press release:
“As part of its expansion strategy, the Company also reported the recent acquisition of 389 domain names that target a wide range of consumer categories from Emall.ca, owner of one of Canada’s largest dot-ca domain portfolios, for a purchase price of approximately $2.5 million. The acquisition is comprised of some of the most attractive generic dot-ca domain names in Canada including: autos.ca, taxis.ca, attorneys.ca, doctors.ca, and maps.ca. ‘The acquisition of those domain names gives us the opportunity to build on our strong online positioning and extend our reach and relevance through popular vertical categories. The online search market is evolving rapidly and we are moving quickly to help ensure we are well positioned to grow our share of this market in Canada,’ said Mr. Tellier.”
I got the opportunity to ask Jean-Pascal Lion from Yellow Pages Group about this acquisition when he spoke on my guest panel for the last class of the CMA – Canadian Marketing Association – eMarketing professional certificate course (you can read my Blog posting on that event here: CMA eMarketing Course Ends With A Bang).
It’s clear that Yellow Pages Group sees a core strategy in consumers who still search for root names. It also makes sense, because a domain like maps.ca will be a million-dollar-plus property in a very short period of time.
All sides win.
I also noticed that Mark Evans Blogged about the acquisition here: .ca Domain Names: Get ‘Em While They’re Hot. One key point that Evans and I emailed about earlier this week was that back in the day – when Emall.ca grabbed all of these domains – it was not as simple as choosing a domain, seeing if it was available and pumping in your credit card digits. Canadian domain names could only be acquired if you had a registered company name that matched the domain name you were requesting. That being said, a 2.5 million pay day is still putting a smile on Emall.ca’s face.
Congrats Harold.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.