Bringing with her 20 years of marketing experience, Elisa Cooper joined Brandsight in 2017 to lead the organization’s marketing strategy and execution. A domain name industry veteran, Elisa has worked closely with many Fortune 1000 companies in assisting with domain and brand protection policy development and has spoken and written extensively on these topics.
Posts by Elisa Cooper.
I’m finally getting to an age where many of my closest friends are beginning to reevaluate what is most important to them and what really makes them happy. Two of my closest friends have made major career changes. One left a successful legal career as a partner at a prestigious San Francisco firm to become a representative in the Idaho state legislature. The other left a successful medical practice to teach French to middle schoolers.
Read full postDomain names can be valuable assets, but many corporate domain name portfolios consist of non-resolving domains. In a recent survey conducted by Brandsight, more than 91% of domain professionals said that ensuring domains redirect to relevant content was an extremely important or somewhat important goal. That said, it’s not uncommon for less than half of corporate domain name portfolios to point to live content. Sure, there are adult-themed domains or those registered anonymously for future use that purposely do not resolve, but those are the exception to the rule.
Read full postBrandsight recently concluded their Third Annual Domain Management Survey. Designed to uncover issues of greatest concern to corporate domain name professionals, the survey was sent to more than 300 companies. The companies that responded spanned all verticals, ranging from financial services to high-tech to consumer packaged goods. Of those that responded, 18% had portfolios smaller than 500 domains, 34% had mid-sized portfolios containing 501 – 3,000 domains, 32% had large portfolios containing 3,001 – 10,000 domains.
Read full postFor close to 15 years, when it comes to domain name management, I’ve personally touted two things: 1) the importance of using a single, secure, corporate domain name registrar and 2) the importance of having a fully-consolidated domain name portfolio for even the largest portfolios. And in many ways, this made sense back then. With a single, corporate-focused registrar, domain professionals were able to access and manage all domains from within a centralized repository.
Read full postAs we move further into the summer months and the demands made upon domain professionals typically ease, now is the ideal time to review domain name portfolios. And technology solutions can greatly automate this process. Ensuring that portfolios are pared, appropriate levels of security are implemented, and domains point to relevant content are all key areas upon which to focus. Paring Portfolios Always easier said than done, most corporate domain name managers freely admit that domains exist within their portfolios that are no longer needed or even wanted.
Read full postFor years, we’ve been talking about the need to point defensive domain name registrations to relevant content, and the importance of tracking traffic. Generally speaking, most corporate domain name registrars provide high-level traffic statistics. But here is the dirty little secret that most registrars don’t want to discuss – most of the page views being reported by registrars are the result of bot traffic. After all, who would possibly be typing in www.
Read full postWell, it’s that time of year again. The time of year when I look back at all of the biggest domain news stories from the last twelve months, and also reflect on my predictions from last year. As expected, GDPR has had a major impact on the ability to access domain ownership information. And we did indeed see a number of M&A transactions over this last year. However, there wasn’t a lot of new .
Read full postMatt Serlin is the former Chair of the ICANN Registrar’s Constituency and is currently a member of the Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) team on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data. For the past several months, Matt has met at least 2 times each week with members of EPDP team. As a reminder, the EPDP team is comprised of 31 individuals representing various groups within the ICANN community including intellectual property interests, the governments who participate in ICANN, as well as the at-large users and contracted parties.
Read full postBrandsight recently concluded their Second Annual Domain Management Survey. Respondents to the survey were corporate domain name professionals. Of those that responded, 35% had portfolios that were between 3,000-10,000 domains and another 30% had portfolios greater than 10,000 domains. Fifty-seven percent of respondents reported that they manage domains out of the legal department, with the remaining respondents’ portfolios managed out of IT, marketing and other groups. This year’s survey revealed that for 53% of respondents, managing domain name portfolios has become more difficult.
Read full postCorporate domain name portfolios often consist of domain names that do not resolve to relevant content. In fact, it’s not uncommon for less than half of corporate domains to point to live content. Sure there are domains such as those that point to “sucks” sites or those registered anonymously for future use that purposely do not resolve, but those are the exception to the rule. Most domains that do not resolve were registered defensively or acquired via acquisition - without much thought given to where the domains should actually point.
Read full postFor years, corporate domain name portfolio managers have struggled with determining whether or not their portfolios were the “right” size. Managers of mature domain name portfolios have often felt that their portfolios were bloated, containing domains that were no longer needed. Conversely, domain managers of newer portfolios have sometimes known that gaps existed. Regardless, the question remains - just how many domains should a corporate portfolio contain? Undoubtedly, trademark registrations are a leading indicator of domain portfolio size.
Read full postWith GDPR coming into effect this May, it is almost a forgone conclusion that WHOIS as we know it today, will change. Without knowing the full details, how can companies begin to prepare? Communicate Changes First and foremost, ensuring that brand protection, security and compliance departments are aware that a change to WHOIS access is on the horizon is an important first step. Just knowing that the ability to uncover domain ownership information is likely to change in the future will help to relieve some of the angst that is likely to occur.
Read full postListen as Matt and Elisa review some of the biggest domain news stories from 2017.
Read full postGiven that it’s been a few years since my last domain name year in review, I’ve really enjoyed looking back at this year’s biggest domain name stories, and seeing how this industry has evolved. This year in particular has seen some notable changes which are likely to impact the domain name landscape for years to come. So without further ado, here is my list for 2017: 10. Mergers and acquisitions continue to shape the domain industry landscape
Read full postA recent study conducted by Brandsight has revealed that 28% of the top 500 most-highly trafficked sites now employ registry locking. In contrast, only 15% of the top 500 most highly-trafficked sites were leveraging registry locking in 2013. Back in 2013, only 356 of the top 500 most-highly trafficked sites could be registry locked, but that number has also risen significantly so that now 396 of the top 500 most-highly trafficked sites are eligible.
Read full postListen as Matt speaks with Becky Burr as she shares her thought on ICANN60 and GDPR
Read full postThis summer, Brandsight conducted a short 5-question, anonymous survey to collect feedback from those responsible for managing corporate domain name portfolios.
Read full postListen to Matt and Elisa as they discuss topics of interest at the upcoming ICANN meeting in Abu Dhabi
Read full postThe schedule for ICANN’s annual general meeting in Abu Dhabi is now available at https://schedule.icann.org/.
Read full postWhy does all of the discussion around potential options for WHOIS in the era of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) feel like déjà vu?
Is it because issues around WHOIS never really go away, and become a hot topic every few years?
Read full postListen to Matt and Elisa as they discuss .CAT, additions to the ICANN BOD, and ICANN’s new WHOIS manager.
Read full postIf you are reading this, you probably already know that we recently launched our new Brandsight.com website.
When we started thinking about our new website, we tossed around the idea of launching with a new gTLD, as opposed to .COM. But it didn’t take long for us to decide that promoting our new company in .COM was the right approach for us.
Intuitively – we knew it.
Read full postListen to Brandsight’s first podcast where Matt Serlin and Elisa Cooper discuss their love of domain names and their decision to join Brandsight.
Read full postRecent posts.