As the year progresses the number of mergers and acquisitions in the domain industry is increasing at an impressive rate.

Hot on the heels of GoDaddy’s acquisition (saving?) of RegisterFly another media company acquires a domain company. Is anyone beginning to see a pattern emerging?

Oversee.net has acquired SnapNames according to a poston Jay Westerdal’s blog.

SnapNames describes itself as:

The first commercially available technology for “back-ordering” a currently registered domain name. This pioneering service helped customers gain access to domain names that were thought to be forever out of reach. In reality, most domain names cycle back into the market at some point in time, though without specialized help, most people are unable to find or buy them.

It’s an interesting acquisition for Oversee.net which already owns DomainSponsor as well as a very interesting portfolio of domains.

Are they going to start competing in the aftermarket or is this going to be run as a completely separate entity from the “mother ship”?

Most acquisitions do not have an immediate effect, so it will probably be a couple of months before we notice any changes (if there are to be any).

SnapNames CEO, Sudhir Bhagwan, has sent out an email to all their clients to notify them of the acquisition and to assure them that it is “business as usual”:

It’s important that you understand there will be no changes to the way SnapNames provides its services. This is a combination of two industry leaders with outstanding reputations for serving domain name investors and customers at all levels.

We were attracted to Oversee for many reasons, including the opportunity to offer SnapNames customers a greater breadth of service offerings. Together, the two companies can provide services that support our customers’ needs throughout the entire life cycle of a domain name, including procurement, monetization and sales.

He goes onto mention that the transaction will probably be completed in mid-June and that more information will be available on their site.

If you go to the SnapNames’ site you can view a FAQ about the merger/acquisition which covers some of the questions that people might be asking…