Sixth patent for “Adwords for Top Level Domains” — GoDaddy gets
Domain registrar continues to collect patents for ways to prioritize domain name search results.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a sixth patent to GoDaddy related to a way to position domain names in response to a user’s domain search.
I first wrote regarding GoDaddy’s idea in 2011 following the USPTO granted the first patent, 7,890,602, for “Tools enabling preferred domain positioning on a registration website.”
Domain name registrars accept marketing money from registries in order to feature their top level domain names on registrar websites. This may be a banner on the home page, a special price, or showing the TLD as an option high up in search results.
As the number of top level domain options grows by hundreds, one-off marketing deals are going to be harder to manage. That’s where GoDaddy’s system comes in.
The best way to describe it is an “Adwords for Top Level Domains.” TLD registries could place some sort of “bid” with GoDaddy. GoDaddy would then take this bid, along with a quality score for the domain search/TLD, into consideration when deciding the order in which to present domain options to the client.
The latest granted patent, 8,620,761 on December 31, is a continuation of the initial patent. Other GoDaddy patents related to this idea include:
8,171,110 Tools enabling a preferred placement service for domain registration websites
8,195,652 Preferred placement service for domain registration websites
8,280,952 Methods implementing a preferred placement service for domain registration websites
8,370,217 Methods for determining preferred domain positioning on a registration website
The patents list the inventors as GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons, chief marketing officer Barbara Rechterman, EVP of Finance (CFO at the time) Mike Zimmerman, Senior Director of ICANN Policy James Bladel, and VP of Domains Richard Merdinger.
