January 2012
3 posts
1 tag
Google PageRank history for your domains
If you like to know the Google PageRank value for your domain, you’ll definitely love the new Google PageRank history page.
This page aggregates your domain PR changes through time and uses HTML5 + SVG charts to render the results.
You can access the PageRank history page by clicking on the PageRank information in the domain list or clicking the Information tab in your domain navigation...
1 tag
Announcing $7 Premium plan
Since we announced paid plans, two days ago, we received several feedback mostly from our long-term beta users. Some of them complained that the Premium plan was too expensive.
We carefully reviewed all the emails and comments we received and we agree.
For this reason, as of today we reduced our Premium plan to 7$ per month. But there’s more. We decided to thank our valuable beta users...
1 tag
Moving out of beta
We are pleased to announce that today (January 13th) RoboDomain we are moving out of beta, into monthly plans!
Since opening the doors of our beta product, we have received a lot of great feedback about RoboDomain. After an extensive test-driving and development phase, we’re happy to announce that RoboDomain is moving out of beta.
Choosing the best combination of plans has been very...
December 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Goodbye Flash charts
There are a few places in RoboDomain where we display interactive charts.
For example, there’s the costs-per-year chart that displays yearly expenses to maintain a specific domain (please note you need to add transactions to get this very cool chart!).
Just a few years ago, Flash was the de-facto standard for creating interactive charts on the web. But now we have open specifications...
1 tag
Google PageRank information for your domains
We now collect and display Google PageRank information for every domain in your account.
There are several PageRank checker tools available on the web, but we believe that having this value integrated into your domain can be really helpful when you need to valuate your domain.
PageRank is currently displayed in every domain listing, including domain list and expiring domain list.
Learn more...
1 tag
Simplified domain thumb view
You may have noticed we made a few changes to the thumbnail view of the domain listing. We weren’t satisfied with the previous version: many empty spaces and data was concentrated in a single point.
We decided to make it more similar to the list view, but keeping the domain thumbnail so that you can immediately identify your domain by its content.
This layout version also leaves space to...
2 tags
Email verification required
We recently introduced the new expiring domain notifications and we have more exciting new features planned for the upcoming months. However, some of these features requires our users to provide a valid email address.
We have never validated email address changes in the past. Because of this, a noticeable number of emails is delivered to unavailable recipients or got simply lost.
The bad news,...
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Expiring Domain HTML notifications
Last month we rewrote the expiring domain notification system. The response to this feature was simply amazing and we decided to make it even better by introducing a new notification HTML design.
The basic features are the same of the existing version.
We introduced some courtesy links to the application (1), we compute and display the distance of time to the expiration date (2) and we also...
1 tag
Domain Transaction Changes
We introduced a small update for transactions.
After logging into your RoboDomain account, you will notice a new transaction style in the dashboard.
We applied the same style over the entire application, making it more consistent. For example, here’s the domain transaction list.
We also updated the transaction list introducing new information. Now you can see the order amount and the...
September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Better Expiring Domain Notifications
RoboDomain has been sending out expiring domain notifications since its very early stage. This is a very powerful feature and one the most appreciated by our users.
We designed the notification system to deliver an email for each expiring domain matching one of the following pre-defined ranges: 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, and 2 months.
This approach worked very well in the past when the...
1 tag
Downtime - September 7th
We’re experiencing a very long downtime caused by a SAN issue that is affecting our VPS provider. We’re waiting for our provider to fix the issue on its side.
We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.
August 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Celebrities block their .XXX domain names →
Many celebrities contacted the ICM Registry to block their .XXX domain names.
Celebrities like Justin Bieber decided to have his domain name permanently banned from the .XXX list. By doing this, celebrities want to make sure no cybersquatter will be able to register domain names like JustinBieber.xxx or BritneySpears.xxx.
2 tags
.APP gTLD Project Launches & Is Pre-Selling... →
A new group of App developers have stepped up and announced plans to apply for the .APP new gTLD and is going about raising the money for the application in a very unusual manner.
2 tags
WHOIS Definition Update
We just deployed a new release including several updates to the WHOIS definition database. Several new TLDs have been added to the list and we also increased the list of supported IDN domains.
The full list is available at the domain WHOIS support help page.
March 2011
2 posts
2 tags
GoDaddy SSL Certificates and Nginx
Last week we installed and configured SSL support on our RoboDomain server. We purchased the certificate using GoDaddy. When you download the certificate from GoDaddy, the package contains your regular .crt but also a gd_bundle.crt file.
That confused me a bit. I was expecting just a single certificate file.
When you download your certificate, GoDaddy prompts you a select with several different...
2 tags
Going SSL
In the past several users asked us to be able to access login and account pages via SSL-protected pages.
Today we’re switching the entire site from HTTP to HTTPS.
We originally planned to make this feature available to paid plans only, but we eventually decided to deploy SSL to all users, including free and beta accounts. We’re also flagging all cookies as secure to make sure they...
January 2011
1 post
1 tag
New Blog Design
We are happy to announce the new RoboBlog design in this first new year post.
After the successful launch of our official website in September 2010, a lot of users asked us to update the blog and they were right.
So, what’s new with it? Let’s see.
Taxonomy and navigation menu
We introduced a new taxonomy changing the old tags with new ones:
Announcement: communications, status...
December 2010
1 post
2 tags
WHOIS Definition Update
A couple of minutes ago we rolled out an update to the WHOIS definition list. The update introduces the support for more than 15 new TLD, including .br.com, .cn.com and all the CentralNic extensions.
Thanks for all your feedback.
November 2010
5 posts
1 tag
New Account Settings Section
Yesterday we rolled out an other major update. After the Import Domains page cleanup and the user-friendly Error Pages, this time we are offering you a redesigned Account Settings section.
The new section is now divided into several tabs. The first one contains your user account settings. You can update your profile information, change your password and regenerate the authentication token.
If...
1 tag
User-Friendly Error Pages
We just deployed a customized version of the standard error pages, such as the 404 and 500.
So, the next time you’ll try to reach a page that doesn’t exist, you will see our friendly robot instead of a scary blank page with a red message.
1 tag
Import Domains page cleanup
Let’s start a week with a new release. A few minutes ago we deployed an update to a few internal features and some improvements to the RoboDomain interface.
The most noticeable changes are in the Import Domains page that now looks more polished and user-friendly.
But wait, today is just Monday. The week has just began, and I’m quite sure we can expect more updates to be released...
1 tag
Server migration completed
The server migration has been successfully completed. RoboDomain is now running on the new infrastructure and, hopefully, you can now enjoy a faster navigation experience.
As usual, let us know if something doesn’t work as expected.
1 tag
New server migration
We’re very happy with how RoboDomain is going so far, our user base is growing day after day. This is a very exiting news and the time has arrived to move our main server to a new infrastructure.
Our old server is running on Ubuntu 8.04 and this release no longer offers the same number of features and packages as the most up-to-date versions. The result is that we need to upgrade to the...
September 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Whois definitions updated
We just pushed an update to the WHOIS infrastructure for several top level domains. The following new extensions are now fully supported, which means RoboDomain is now able to automatically detect and update creation and expiration dates.
.ci
.at
.cx
.bo
.ca
.ck
.cl
.cm
.cz
To update an existing domain, press the “syncronize domain dates” button in the domain overview page.
...
1 tag
What's your name?
We recently released our new support system which, as you might have seen, is tightly integrated with our main application so that you don’t need a separate account to use it.
Unfortunately, RoboDomain didn’t let you provide an alternative name for your account and all the support users were displayed with the login name… until today!
Now you can provide some additional profile...
1 tag
The new support system
We’ve been listening to you, our users, since day one. We setup an UserVoice feedback forum the same day we released the first private EAP release and, since then, we received tons of feedback.
We strongly believe that you guys have been a fundamental part of RoboDomain development so far and we couldn’t imagine RoboDomain without your feedback.
In the last months RoboDomain user...
2 tags
New site and public beta
It’s with a ton of excitement and a bit of healthy nervousness that we’re announcing the launch of the new RoboDomain website.
This is a really important step for us, a milestone we’ve been working very hard for the last two months. It’s not a secret that we probably underestimate the task, since we originally planned to complete the entire activity in less than a...
August 2010
1 post
1 tag
Deploy August 19, 2010 - Bundler Edition
Been a while since we updated this blog. We’re very busy working on the new RoboDomain website and a branch new feature, but we continue to push small updates to the site as well.
Today we deployed a small architectural change, upgrading our codebase from Bundler 0.9 to the latest Bundler 1.0 release. We experienced a small downtime, less than 3 minutes, caused by the need to reinstall all...
July 2010
1 post
1 tag
Keep track of your new .CO domains
In about two hours from now, .CO Internet S.A.S. is going to open the registration of the .CO top-level domain. Starting from today, individuals, businesses and organizations are able to register a .CO domain name through one of the accredited registrars.
.CO domain name was officially announced in February and, since then, this extension has attracted lot of interest, mainly for its similarity...
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
About today outage
We’re currently in the middle of a very long downtime. So far, the server has been unavailable for 930 minutes, which is an unbelievable amount of time, I know. Let me explain what happened.
RoboDomain is currently a free service, but we’re trying to do our best to be as reliable as possible. Unfortunately, this time we failed.
Yesterday we received an email from VPS.net, the current...
1 tag
Deploy June 16, 2010
Here at RoboDomain we embrace many aspects of agile software development. One of these is the Release Early, Release Often technique.
We usually deploy around 10 new releases every month, but most of them contains small fixes or changes that might go unnoticed.
Inspired by the Harmony’s blog, here’s a brief summary of today’s release.
Added full whois support for .ee, .kz,...
2 tags
Changes to the .hu ccTLD WHOIS response
Last week the Nic.hu, the Hungarian domain authority, silently released an update to their Whois server interface which affected all the .hu domain queries.
All the domain information has been wiped out from new Whois response, including details about domain creation and expiration. This is how the server responds to a google.hu query as of June 1, 2010:
% Whois server 2.02a serving the hu...
May 2010
8 posts
1 tag
Now you can invite everyone to RoboDomain
To celebrate our first-commit anniversary, we are now opening the invitation-beta phase for all our RoboDomain users. Existing users can now invite friends using the invitation form available in their dashboard.
Invited users can immediately open a new account.
If you don’t have any friend and you really want a RoboDomain account, don’t bang your head against the wall, leave your...
1 tag
SHA f1e22866146242dc7e014748ba11db1bd11435d7
2 years ago, the first commit. Today is the second RoboDomain first-commit anniversary, the first since RoboDomain is publicly available.
This isn’t the real RoboDomain birthday, thought. RoboDomain was officially launched on December 15, 2009. Two years ago, I decided it was the time to stop using spreadsheets to manage my domains and start developing something more efficient.
The...
1 tag
Refresh your domain WHOIS information page with a...
A couple of weeks ago we announced the availability of the Whois information page for every domain in your account. Users’ response on that feature has been amazing and we decided to add one more feature: now you can refresh the content of the Whois response at any time by pressing the refresh button.
Internally, RoboDomain always tries to return the most updated Whois record and it...
1 tag
Autocomplete domain dates with WHOIS record...
You asked, we did. We are very thrilled to announce you that the most requested feature is now available to every RoboDomain user.
Whenever you create or import new domains, you can now choose to have RoboDomain update the domain dates for you reading the values from the Whois record.
The feature works for all the domains where creation date and/or expiration date are publicly displayed in a...
1 tag
New account dashboard
In our effort to improve RoboDomain design and usability, after domain and transaction sections there was one more area which required some changes: the RoboDomain dashboard.
The dashboard is the first page you see when you login. It should provide you an immediate status of your account, including of course your domains and transactions. While the existing dashboard provided all these details,...
1 tag
Improved expiring domain email notifications
Last week I was sharing with a friend of mine a few ideas about how to improve RoboDomain expiring domain notifications. In the middle of the conversation I realized there was a small change I could immediately implement to make the email notifications more meaningful: include the number of days before the expiration immediately in the email subject.
In fact, when you receive a lot of email the...
1 tag
Watch your expiration dates in Microsoft Outlook...
One of the reason to use RoboDomain is to be informed when a domain is near to expire. The most part of domain maintainers offer email notifications but, you know, due to the huge number of items in our inbox, often emails don’t get the attention they deserve. Even worse, emails can be caught by your spam filter and you end up forgetting to renew your precious domain.
Since the first...
1 tag
Integrated WHOIS information
At the beginning of the story, we promised a better integration of the Whois tool within the application.
Here it is! The Whois information page is now available in your domain section, for every domain in your account.
Compared with the Whois tool, this page offers a more detailed interface, designed to be easy to understand also for non-technical audiences.
If you prefer the original Whois...
April 2010
2 posts
1 tag
New Domain and Transaction interface!
Yesterday we rolled out a bunch of improvements to the domain and transaction pages in order to make domain management a bit more pleasant. These changes are the result of the high quality feedback we received from our early adopters since the beginning of our private beta program.
First, we re-implemented the domain overview page from scratch. We started listing all the information we know about...
1 tag
DNS Lookup Tool
When we launched this blog, we demonstrated the usage of our WHOIS tool. Today I want to show you a new simple but effective tool just added in our arsenal: the DNS Lookup Tool.
The DNS Lookup Tool allows you to lookup DNS records for a specific hostname. Simply enter the hostname you want to query, select the DNS record type and press query.
The result page contains the dig-like server...
March 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Quick domain switch
Do you track multiple domains? Now you can jump to any domain in your account using the quick domain select.
Do you want to suggest a feature? Visit our feedback forum.
1 tag
Happy 25th Birthday .com
25 years ago, the 15th March 1985, the first .com domain was registered: symbolics.com. The same year, five other companies signed up for a .com domain name: BBN.com, Think.com, MCC.com and DEC.com.
.com Today
Today, .com is an integral part of a technology boom that reshaped the way people work, live, play and connect with family and friends. Much to the amazement of its creators. “I...
1 tag
Contextual domain information
This is a very exciting week for RoboDomain. After squashing some bugs and unveiling our new mascot, I’m really happy to announce a new feature most of you are probably very happy to see.
Once you add a new domain in your account, RoboDomain automatically collects some data from internet. For instance, we get DNS information, whois registry details and IP addresses. Some of this information...
1 tag
New Twitter account and mascot
RoboDomain now has its own twitter account. Follow @robodomain for the latest news and updates.
For the occasion, we also decided to reveal, for the very first time, our official mascot.
February 2010
7 posts
1 tag
Updates for this week
Even if we don’t push new features every day, we are constantly working behind the scenes to improve RoboDomain reliability and performances.
Here’s what we deployed this week.
1. Notification email bug
We recently discovered the links in the notification email were pointing to www.example.com instead of www.robodomain.com. The issue is now fixed.
2. Hosting Package list sorting
...
1 tag
DomainingTips.com opens DomainDiscussions.com... →
DomainingTips.com has launched a new domaining forum at DomainDiscussions.com.
1 tag
Whois this Name Server?
Sometimes you run a Whois query for a specific domain and you find yourself looking at the name server list asking who does this name server belong to?.
Now the answer is just one click away.
1 tag
New feature: Hosting Company information
This week we finally rolled out some changes to the domain page and a new feature called infotip.
This is the domain page before the changes
and here’s the page with the new features.
As you can see, the page now contains some information about the current hosting plan, if available.
The transaction list at the bottom of the page has been improved. It now displays the name of the...