Domain Owl

I got an idea today from a web hosting forum I post at about a new idea. In a discussion of web hosting pricing and packages and plans, somebody threw out the idea that those webmasters who actually use the open source applications should pay a per usage microfee. Minimal per-usage fees could lower the overall hosting charges big ticket hosting companies use.

Since actual hosting is much cheaper without the heavy code files and directory trees of hosted open source and brand apps, why not introduce the idea of microfee licenses per user per site? One of the biggest blocks to new domain websites is the hosting fees that inflate any domain name investment. The price of some web hosting plans, even the lower end ones, could come into a realistic perspective for fledgeling domainers.

The hosting company usually offers an array of open source and trademarked applications. These applications are offered because they make it easy to install and compose websites with ease. But if the real price of hosting was nothing more than fixed electricity and rackspace, bulk development of even the largest domain portfolios could happen.

Low-rent hosting plans usually spell disaster because experienced domainers know the company will fold or crimp its sever management and take a powder at the worst possible time in the webmaster’s timetable. If the reference community of active websites was graduated ten thousand fold, imagine what the link building and article directory possibilities could be.

Of course, there is always the hope that one renegade reseller will purchase a monster account and sweep the hosting industry….and domainers along with it.

A pain point in a website being readied for domain name promotion is stagnant content, no content, or just plain incompetence. The application is completely installed, the template look rock solid. The approach to any domain promotion should allow critical review and construction feedback for website improvement.

Consult with a talented content writer regularly to keep content fresh. Dismantle old or outdated websites whose look and feel harks back to 1996. Content writers are like gas pump jockeys at the filling stations of the best websites on the information superhighway. They know which way the traffic is passing and what fuel drives these dynamics.

Listen to the feedback and pay attention to the responses of your content writer. They are likely to have valuable opinions about the direction the content you are ordering will play out. Let them drive some of the brainstorming process. The readability and interest level of the resulting content will be 1000% more sticky as a result.

Too many domainers count on big ticket domain buyers coming for the domain and site destination url with no value behind the reg value plus premium approximated value. But for some domains, the keywords and applications are obvious. Why not the sale by helping the new buyer?

Better yet, establishing any kind of traffic history prompts a sale better than none. By starting even a modest blog or HTML loaded site can only assist in the sale, as well as suggest a web composition for the new buyer. The Alexa rating and the traffic statistics will determine the sales value. A website file to edit or update can only help the domain sale.

Why develop a website for a domain name in advance of the sale? Because many domain buyers estimate the Google and adsense revenues to be made from any domain. The website made from any domain can assume the shape of the new entrepreneur’s mindset. but basic building blocks will always be HTML and coded scripts rendering visible text, lines, color and images.

Giving the new domainer a jump start on the website is a huge value add. Browse the forums and see what kinds of time and expenses webmasters pay to mount and compose a new site. Content, hosting and image are just the meat and potatoes.Strategy and email marketing, as well as a site plan and the interactive options are the gravy. The ad and affiliate revenues are the dessert.

So review that domain portfolio and starting picking plums to develop. Grab ideas from other sites and get the lowdown on the latest applications. Map out a budget.  Delegate what you can’t achieve on your own.  Is one day’s development work and writing and uploading effort worth the difference at the auction table?

Of course it is.

Be that domainer that goes the next step.

I was discussing the recent headlines regarding Google and typo names and for me the dominant term was PPC and typo, for him the dominant phrase was “$500 million”. That’s a planet full of money Google is raking in. What are they doing with it, exactly?

Typo traffic used to be a sideline for domain namers. Typos were names that sound like big names and popular online destinations. Domainers took a risk buying the names because you never knew when the dreaded C & D letter might arrive. But the sites would accrue traffic because humans have a tendency to misspell when working the address bar.

But $500 million is a lot of money to be changing hands without some whistles being blown. if the big money in domains has putatively transferred to an all-typo model, then get crackin’ regging those typos. Hand reg, main reg with your hosting company, or buy the typo from another domainer. See if typo domain markets are your domaining bag.

Kick the tires on a typo today and see what happens.

Many new domainers coming into the market scoff at the mile high tombstones of the big domain sales. But one reason domainers watch the auctions is to see what kinds of money are flowing to what types of domain projects. The corporate money is what every domainer dreams of. And it still flows to certain names optimized for key domain name markets.

The announcement of the auction at Sedo of a name sale for six figures doesn’t happen every day. But Metal.com sold for $165,000. That’s big money for the long domain investor. Sedo continues to vend big money name sales worldwide. And trading up continues to be the smart advice to long term industry domain name professionals. Because the right name will find its corporate home.

Typos are Big PPC value, to the experienced domainer willing to risk their hosting account. Big meaning $500 million. Copyright jumping and typo squatting has been going on for some time, but the startling statistics used in this latest report reveal that Google is comfortable deriving PPC ad click revenue before the squatting pocket gets eviscerated.

Edelman and Moore allege that “for Google, typos may equal big business”. This is not news for domainers who have watched the auctions for years seeing trademark and copyright eligible names derived revenues, while other domainers receive prompt cease-and-desist letters.

So. The onus is domainers to behave morally, even when their compatriots are deriving hefty adsense and Google PPC revenues. If this the tone Google means to take with all their ventures? The researcher conclude  “That tells us that PPC funding is *causing* and *exacerbating* typo squatting”. This is serious news for domainers.

Is there a market for PPC revenue in domaining and page hosting related to exploited domain name value without a typo squat? Because if not, Google has a lot of explaining to do to verify their profit projection metrics. And critics of this research point to a  legal wrangle the authors of this report have had with Google.

Is there a witch hunt for Google? Or does the media online behemoth need some sharp and inquiring minds into their business practices? If Google is the next Microsoft, some changes should be made before they own the Internet. Or perhaps, according to some domainers, it’s already too late?

Domain Media Real Estate. That’s how I was going to start this column, but I figure “Quick and Dirty” would get more solidly interested viewers. The fact is, we domainers spend more on media than on anything else. This market tends to be ignored by its most possibly profit-making manufacturing niche: end users.

Software, hosting, domain registration, renewals, and consultant fees and online services make up our budget items. And rightly so. We domainers are putting together the sandwich of a new website with extra mayo and a thick spread of affiliates and some extra Google adsense with no Wiki, Java dressing on the side. Video cheese optional.

Webmasters are too busy or too uncertain of their data or their product at some points in web development to manufacture their own media outlets, press channels, or mailing lists. Somehow they shrunk the cycle and left something critical out of the hopper. But now it’s time to launch the site, and some essential components are missing. Like end-users and a qualified audience of leads and demographically suitable readers/visitors.

Media warez are full of discretionary business items that can improve traffic flow and SEO caliber performance of the Internet to a  given site or web page. But a listing for some tasty warez caught my eye. Why is this a good buy? review the listing.

“Launched in Summer 2008, DomainAssets.ca has established itself as “Canada’s domain industry newsletter“. It has delivered weekly news and information about .ca to a growing subscriber list of Canada’s top domain owners and industry professionals.

Interested buyers are invited to submit offers by March 3,2010. (Business assets include DomainAssets.ca web site and content, “domainassets.ca” and “domainasset.ca” domain names, and subscriber email list). PM me if you have questions”.

I like this ad because it vends the type of drill-down media and data support surgically involved domainers and webmasters like to find. But even if you don’t have a .CA or Canadian enterprise now, you might in six months. That proves an asset down the road.

Who is the likely buyer? If you have a taste for the Canadian name market, are looking to grab geo web share from the North American continent, have a French or English name base, or even have a stable of .CA names to sell, this is a good investment.

Because it’s likely the readership is exactly your customer, client and end user. And getting the end user into the web site visitation cycle is the thing domainer dreams are made of, my owlish friends.

Four Mainstays of Wireless Domaining

1. Doing your Paypal billing & banking using encryption key.

Yes that big long scary number. Know it by heart and be able to key in time-sensitive domain banking transactions anywhere, even on  a borrowed device or computer. Pipe money to and from bank accounts and be able to terminate the secure window at will. No more scraps of paper or scannable files saved to the desktop.

2. Online Desktop

The online desktop is a site you make with your favorite links, password reminders, tasks, and calendar items tickling your review in one dashboard. If you’ve got 5 minutes with a neighbor’s computer, 10 minutes in a guest lobby, or 15 minutes in a courtesy workstation, you can get something done.

Those standalone tasks you hate can get sexy when you can envelope them in time otherwise wasted. Links include WHOIS lookup bars, registrar login, and stats login pages. Don’t wait until you get back to the hotel room. Buy it send it vend it NOW.  Bid for auctions between airport patdowns and leverage value from every texting tap.

3. Take Advantage of the Draft

Communications eat time. But few people take advantage of the draft function of email. If you draft partially written emails to your hosting account executive manager, domain forum buddy, content writer, or business partner, a few quick edits make an entire email. Save a store of drafts to complete with a few quick changes and watch your domaining time management soar.

This saves digit labor while waiting in line, stabbing the cellphone through the tunnel, or adjusting the spelling errors while carrying suitcase and tickets. Request price quotes or domain bids in seconds instead of hastily (and error-prone) punched minutes. Draft the email, then consider your options on the plane or in the cab.

4. Game Change Your Media

Newsstands are the original wireless news source. Put the device down and scan the print pages of your favorite bookstore or browsing stand. Check out the publications foreign to your everyday sphere, like gaming, technology, beauty, fashion, sports, industry, politics, the arts, and hobbyist stuff like photography and crafts.

Getting some additional perspective from outside your domaining fishbowl adds dimension to your thinking and communications. Enrich your repertoire of current business and cultural practices, while staying informed about consumer preferences and marketing trends. How to do it wireless? Download issues, web pages, screenshots and pdf files for later. if the Internet is down you are still rolling.

The architectural lasagna that is now Chile after a massive earthquake has given the spur to domainers grabbing Chile and geo names for that region. Spurred by the recent experience of the Haiti disaster, domainers can buy a name and route traffic or lease the url and forward it to legitimate sites covering Chilean recovery or information and news sites.

The Chile quake was initially reported as 8.3 but may have been as high as 8.8 on the Richter scale. The death toll for Chile is still in the triple digits and searchers are attempting to liberate any trapped survivors.

Word on the wires is that the new compendium of Oracle after swallowing Sun is giving birth to a great new brainchild. This new bonanza is a crashing spear into the world of domaining; A new domain name registrar and hosting company that will blow the socks off current market leaders (rhymes with Schmoe-daddy).  Sparcstations off the forward bow!

No name has been chosen by Sun/Oracle yet, but super secret teams in Cupertino and Mountain View are already clashing over turf. The technical entity will not be in violation of any super secret hosting or redundancy agreements because the new spinoff corporate entity will be a separate company. Sweet! The domainer’s mouth waters at the possible debut deals offered….

Domainers in the know and technical cognoscienti scoff that nobody can topple the Danica-fronted Big Daddy.  But hosting service watchers have heeded the firestorm of complaints that “Schmoe-daddy” customers have. Buying the registrar is the nice part, some domainer running an ICANN-powered fruit stand will make a tidy bundle.

Godaddy is going to lose a lot of share to the next big name/hosting reg that comes along.  A catchy name, a viral vid, and tier pricing by “Sunacle” could bring an avalanche of hosting customers their way. If Oracle and Sun can bring it to market and capture the whole domaining market, Sun will finally have beat Cisco at something.