Domain Owl

The 2011 Domain Fest event garnered a small bouquet of winners. Moniker (formerly Snapnames) has posted the results. For Fijiislands.com, a $58,830.00 sticker price is fairy impressive, the standout sale of the auction. Longish name propertyappraisal.com fetched $23,530.00. An organic name, the totally potentially awesome organictea.com earned $17,650.00, a big hint to all those name searchers looking for “organic” revenue.

I’d like to see typo traffic for brassieres.com, which sold for $3,112.00. A more abstruse name, dialectic.com, earned $2,500. The multiuse product name generic, cables.info, did pretty well for a /info name, nabbing $1,315. An unusual entry shows that country code names are dead with the right shorty domain, to wit, staff.me got bid for $1,250.

The conventional wisdom about only short names selling coms under fire after news of th this next sale. The Long long domain name wirelesssecuritycamera.com got $830, this could be huge because the market for this generic product has highly specialized tiers of price ranges. Wirelesssecuritycamera.com is a long domain name but can be promoted and marketed with keywords or used as a forward.

Product based domain names can be Amazon stores or review sites, or with a little imagination real communities for product interface comparison and upgrade sourcing. Every try finding an upgrade or patch for your product Wouldn’t it be nice if you could Google your unit and get the patch or upgrade link or file at one website?

Net hitter cyberbargains.com earned, $750, a good hint to scout out cyber- starting names or cerate one for revenue or marketing. That is a real nice price for such a generic and promotable name. You can practically hear the Facebook calling. The winter product based domain name newskis.com schussed outta the rack for $675.

These name sales should illumine the sales process and value generation plan for domainers looking to leverage online web site publishing tools and resources for value creation in domain name investment.

Continue Reading

Oversee.net recently streamlined 13% of its workforce. Along with pending new hires, will allow the “new” Oversee.net to leverage core assets to innovate more effectively, improve competitive positioning and achieve growth.” Um, sure. I guess now they have less to “oversee”. Domainers wear so many hats, almost every domainer I know is their own Internet company. I’d like to see the actual product flow from an internet company just once with a profit model that reflects a monetary relationship what people are paid.

Continue Reading

DirectI, parent of BigJumbo, DomainAdvertising.com, Logicboxes and ResellerClub (amongst others) announced this week the merge with the DomainAdvertising and BigJumbo brands into a single Domain Parking Platform. The merged entity will function under the brand DomainAdvertising.com. this signals a shift in parking offerings from seller side features to a more customer based approach.

Do you need an entire company to structure a parking offering? Aren’t these generated by scripts? Where does the human factor add value? I have yet to see a compelling content generation model from any parking company, which emphasizes the metrical aspect to website and domain promotion but skips the content angle. This mirrors how I feel the parking industry should be developing. Once the arrogance of a parking company fades away, the utility of their service offering improves.

Continue Reading

Once upon a time in domainland, a domain name such as a five character generic might be had for a song. Then came the land rush, the market flooded with buyers and sellers, arbitrageurs and entrepreneurs. The cycles of name selling fury and famine drove the domain name commodity around the globe. Soon, geographically specific domain names had their vogue. And target end user markets for every type of product or service, entertainment or activity rose just as geographically specific country codes came online as well.

Domain names today should come with a monetizing plan, a social network campaign, a end user participation strategy and a promotion timetable. The monetizing plan keeps the domain owner evaluating every effort to market and develop the site behind the name. A monetizing plan for the domain name should include the webmaster’s estimation of the earnings potential of a domain name as a resale target goal product, or a growing concern online. The social network campaign can reflect back on the system architecture and programming choices of the website developer.

An end user strategy for site interaction and participation can include social network promotion and communication throughputs, but it part of a larger whole. Who tells their friends about the site, and how? What kind of content prompts the reference of an article or url via email, Twitter, or FaceBook? What sets of users are evangelists, which digest the material and act on it, and which form a passive set of visitors? This brings into focus the change in available end user niche demographics now trolling the Web looking for place to surf.

The millennial niche consumer markets is reshaping food chain revenue volumes and it may be affecting small device and computer sales as well. Millennials are coming of age postcollege consumers with recreational incomes to spend but caveats previous groups didn’t have. The optimization of any such website marketing to Echo Boomers should integrate these factors into the look and feel of the website.

DINKS, Yuppies, and Baby Boomers did not have as many environmental and sustainability concerns in there foods as millennials. And a millennial niche market consumer will not be as likely to ignore chemical or medicinal warnings or aftereffects of certain types of chemical or preservatives in foods, products, home cleaning products, or clothing manufacturing processes or big box goods.

Millennials are also called Echo Boomers. The website of choice for a millennial will likely cater to a cause, which limits interaction to brief comments, ‘Like” actions, or donations, or will entertain the end user, with video or gaming content. Millennials are much more likely to type in a gossip website url as a news source than two thirds of older Internet users. Brand awareness of such a user group will include more website names than legacy product brands and site visits and searches shift toward clothing and media brands and trendy retailers than older groups.

The web user of today will likely expect a rationale behind a website and a way to interact with site instead of just encountering information and content the are expected to read. Audio and video enhancements flavor the experience in a way millennials like. The younger Internet user will be coming from sites where they are actively engaged in gaming, clicking, and watching moving pictures and animated ads. A site with “nothing to do” will bore this user from an interactivity standpoint. Millennials have a strong resonance with “MTV style content programming.

Webmasters can utilize ens user potential of millennials by exploiting the design to appeal to ease of use from mobile phone devices, cellphones, tablets and content enriched by updated media player upgrades. But millennial end users are also not shy about obtaining knowledge and participating in political or economic causes akin to their core values.

But future planning, like insurance and estate or financial affairs are not likely advertising successes for this user group. Matching millennials appeal website content and affiliates in site architecture that rewards search result lookups for this niche is key. i.e., Someone spending $6600 on a graphite hunting bow is not a match for a user who will spend $100 a month on digital downloadable game content.

Ad design and revenue potential for millennials sites should be carefully considered. Affiliate ads featuring teenage smartphones or senior disability living accessories are not good matches for content designed to attract millennials users. But products that utilize technology like digital or Mp3 content will be much more in line with this end user’s expectations and desires. Ads for TV shows or digital content can be very strong affiliate performers for programs and films that are marketed to this World Wide Web user segment.

Knowing which likely advertising offer users will click is key to implementing a monetization plan for a website or domain name. Since any buyer for that name will likely also intend the domain to be user for a similar purpose, grooming search engine results and navigable traffic to the site should be tailored to a likely demographic profile.

Social networking and TV-based content is a likely win for sites and domain names tailored to this group. Since millennials grew up with the Internet, likely sites to appeal to them will feature next-stage technology, products, and site design. Ad the entitlement so many critics attribute to this group with can work for domainers looking for product-related clicks and service offers on their millennials based web sites.

Continue Reading

I was browsing property on Trulia.com and realized when I look to the address bar… Brandable websites have become part of our lives. Yahoo is almost a verb, Google is almost a transuniversal truth online. The domain game is never at its most powerful as when the long term website development is clearly established. At one time the name Trulia was simply one of millions of undeveloped and underdeveloped names for sale. Now the word means a connotation of real estate values.

Today media governs almost every waking minute. Some type of media demands sensory attention every minute of the day. People sitting in front of laptops use testing devices, and people with GPS devices use cellphones for Internet access and photography. The letters used to orient the browser to a given website are becoming more and more easily programmable to the public mind. Where once words held an absolute value now they can be deputized as domain names and brands.

Continue Reading

A website should serve its customers, educate the public, and form a basis by which clients can decide whether or not to use the services provided. The website for a public facility such structures as a college, university, hospital, government building, or large shopping mall or a business plaza or public bureau block can diffuse frustration and allow the public to navigate their business smoothly. Domainers can spot the opportunity to mount a website such as this when a company fails to do so.

A survey of a company website from internal and external sources can yield surprising results. Factors for consideration should ease of use, correctness of information, updated technology, language, terms and standards, grammar, bilingual options, and feedback or contact opportunities for customers who need help getting to the next step. This information can be amassed by careful research when a domainer obtains a hot domain name property, preferable a short name with direct search engine keyword value that can quickly gain optimized traffic.

The company website for a corporate entity should not necessarily be the public-facing website. The corporate internal site and the company network should not have the same functionality and thus will not serve the public. If administration officials and staff choose to believe their website has a functionality for the existing user base, the existence of a better site made by a outsider can come as a rude awakening. It can also be an embarrassment for management.

Websites that follow a model of corporate jargon company philosophy, and frank inefficacy beg to redone by a domainer or webmaster who can deliver real utility to researcher and site visitors. The architecture of a site should hold enough virtuosity that no copycat will take the time and trouble to reap marginal advantages. But a weak company website begs to exploited by domainers and webmasters capable of making a superior site.

Administrators should capture the opportunity to own their own online presence instead of underdelivering on their website enough to beg an improved site from a non-stakeholder. If the staff do not have the skills to construct a professional looking website, outsourcing should take place. A consultant should be brought in if there is any doubt holes in the current website leave room for an outside to reap a benefit from the company’s own facility and services.

Architecture of a facility website should include a perspective of the physical layout that allows visitors to navigate the premises as well as convey a sense of the organization as a whole. The system map should naturally progress to questions a newcomer would have about how the location or campus interacts with visitors. The TLD .org can be used to promote a information feel for site visitors, although an official disclaimer should be placed somewhere on the site.

The public institution website can also furnish background data on staff and allow outside agencies to research data objects in the proper manner. These can be helpful to print out, or give or send to someone else who may find them of use. Companies who overlook this basic functionality of web publishing are letting their slip show. Every type of public facility should form a committee of persons who can give feedback about the condition of the current website and how it meets the needs of visitors and customers.

What a customer based website should do is allow potential customers and clientele to understand what using your business will entail what it will be like, and what path they should navigate to get the services and products they need. It is a pain point of management if an outsider can deliver this better than the host company.

In every case, people who experience the premises as a daily job or familiar place may not be best suited to understand how the physical layout looks to a stranger.
Customers, visitor, members, or clients need to have an idea of what they are going to be doing. This includes where to go, where to ask questions, where to park, and where to get related services.

Transportation and communication are two elements which can be smoothed over by providing needed information, such as distance from freeway offramps and proximity to bus line stops nearby. other unique data points will present themselves as the site project unfolds.

If a location or campus processes require detailed explanation, directions, coaching, or expansion, this should be done in a bulletin point list, slide show, or even an audio stream which mobile visitors and website readers alike can experience.
An Adobe PDF document ,in an easy to print format, encapsulating the necessary information, makes an excellent addition to any facility or campus website, or a website that aids newcomers and first time visitors to use the physical location the website refers to.

In the year 2011, people are used to referencing the internet before making the trip to any physical campus or premises. They want to know what they will need, what documentation to bring, and what telephone numbers to have or other paperwork/and or materials. A roadmap of how to get to the correct department of office is helpful, especially in a large building. Site administrator, both of physical locations, institutions, and public facilities can grasp the website as a information tool for the next generation.

Continue Reading

Got a great idea but still working out the right name? Before you buy your web hosting, check out some great coupon offers. Domain name coupons and consolidated renewal and name purchase coupons, as well as cheap web hosting deals can reduce overall operating costs while keeping reseller level development resources handy. Any other cost of the domain project, from improving marketing, to social networking, to domain promotion and/or SEO building, will benefit from additional resources freed by savvy domain shopping.

The experienced domainer can spot a noob from a mile away. Getting in the habit of using domain name sites and coupon discount codes can streamline business costs of domain creation and incipient development. Using the right registrar tools can help as well.

Browsing registrar coupons is a good way to check out cart prices and decide whether to invest in more domain names. Here is a way to work out some possible searches for those lightning strikes of brilliance that comes along. Domain name keyword suffixes such as -fire, -work, -now and -grid, as well as -trip, -advisor, -muse, and -zero can work well to make an abbreviation or keyword into a brand name domain.

Look at the keyword domain site www.geartaker.com. This is a fantastic example for using keyword formation to make a splendid new domain name. The word combines “gear”, a hot keyword, and “taker”, an easy to spell and remember suffix keyword. If your new website idea or domain concept is a destination portal or listings directory, consider suffixes such as “pit”, “hub”, or “Box”.

When looking for the right domain name to match your concept, use a pencil and paper. Start a workable lexicon of developing a unique domain name and then use this morphology technique to start a list of domains to search for at your favorite (cheapest) registrar. Think in terms of synonyms, also A common synonym for TV, for example, is “tube”. To get real peentration into your field of name potential, think of all the possibilities to search for your keywords and then try synonyms. the shorter, the better.

Frankly, reviewing the search results for domain name at a registrar can be informative. if every TLD and sub-TLD in that category is taken, it might be worth picking up. It also might be worth searching to see when the name drops, who owns it, when the name will expire, and how active parking solution has been incorporated for it, if any. The name game in parking has changed in recent years to reflect the expectations of many domain investors for undeveloped names.

If a name is part of one of the aggressive parking systems such as Whypark, the name has been carefully monetized. Parking systems alow owners of multiple domain names to orchestrate administration task and schedule updates and maintenance of certain parked names within provided content and link encouragement programs. These include SEO promotion for those keywords that apply to the involved domain names.

Some registrars, such as Godaddy.com, have an extensive suggested list of domain names available through standard registrar vending and premium auction purchase. This can be a great deal when bulk renewals come due. Bundling renewing domains with discount codes and buying new dot-coms at a discount is part of a strategically cost-sensitive domain investment business model.

Make sure to test out how the domain keywords and/or synonyms work with other words, such as “Free”, top, high, and money category keyword names formed with words in that category such as price, value, free, cheap, and dollar. By working these out into a list, the domainer can test for previous purchase and current ownership while keeping tabs on the domain development trends of other competitors.

Continue Reading

Remember all those people who said the domain name game was falling into disuse and only a few big players would or could afford to be around this time this year? Well, all that conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window with a review of the news from the domaining landscaper of today. Some if it sounds new, some it sounds familiar. If it sounds like you’ve heard some of the news before, it means you are a card carrying domainer.

Make no mistake, the big names still govern the world of domains, and when Frank Schilling vends his millionth name or Google tries to partner with Skype, the headlines are about search engine movings and shakings. Yesterday Google was trying to establish specific infrastructure to take over the online world with categorical strategy, yet in the face of antitrust probes Google is suddenly a baby-faced child with no evil intentions whatsoever.

Online privacy has become an increasingly thorny issue, with major hackings taking place one servers in a disturbing frequency of instigation. When the ICE gets involved in domain names and hosting issues, commerce has arrived in the domain sector. The issues continue to make domainers wonder how much say they should have in their own industry. New precedents are being set every day for how domain name portfolio owners should make decisions about their names in the context of laws and ICANN regulations..

ICE claims that because servers are located in the United States, the material and code on those servers operates under American governmental jurisdiction. United States law enforcement has been in the news recently seizing potentially hackworthy servers, which should be more than enough to make rogue coders and sniffer system operators go dark. But does this mean clients of less than savory websites will simply seek out web hosting that is globally redundant? This makes the “redirect” of any webmaster to placing the hosting and domain name on separate servers of critical importance.

Some domaining debates will never grow old. Where does the value potential of country code top level domains really lie? Can peer domain name appraisals and monetization assessments be trusted? Do language barriers between character based alphabet lexicons interfere or enhance search engine results? Does a premium domain sale commission equal highway robbery? How far from cybersquatting is copyright infringement, and how much is a domainer liable for finding out? The argument over the efficacy of parking programs evolves endlessly and further again.

The perspective that domaining is an investment commodity market becomes more concrete when news about domain name sale commissions cloud the actual profit from any resale or auction purchase. Every domainer has to burn through a learning phase where backlink checkers, affiliate programs, web hosting complexities and comparative auction returns get examined. The fact that a modern domain name owner might have to wade through news feeds, purchased clicks, and paid posting is now a norm.

Domainers are now specialists in SEO, short names, numericals, and typo names. The establishment of a keyword domain name or a brandable domain can still make news when it resells in an auction frenzy. Flippa, SEDO, Godaddy and WhyPark are the talk of the domaining town. Traffic and parking programs have gone from performing a sidewalk shuffle to requiring approval to introducing innovative options again. Are domainers the customers of parking companies, or vice versa?

The exotic fringe of today’s practicing domaining professionals dance through a maze of traffic control, statistics manipulation, and illegal practices experimentation.Will the day come when actual Internet “Coast Guards” patrol the Web, actively chasing down smugglers of illegal clicks? International law works well in theory but when does a website operate in international waters?

Domainers may need to become astute in setting the deal terms in place when multiple continents are involved. The good news is that ideas become fresher and minds become more open to new website and domain based concepts as business online every day. Given the success of many nonsense words that became global brands that control online commerce today, the ability of anyone to select and leverage a domain name is now just a registrar shopping cart away.

Who knew that one day the Internet, not the sky, would be the limit?

Continue Reading

Ever see a website that has more finish than the product? Ever wish the people that built the website had had a hand in the manufacture of the sale item? This kind of mismatch still has no name, but corporate/product dis-synergy might be a way to express the situation. Webmasters and domainers now engineer entire sites for which there may or may not be concrete services behind it. A brick and mortar store is no longer required for commerce.

Webmasters have cut corners as long as the history of the Internet has been around. This was initially assumed to be the growing pain of new information technology. The beehive of change was at work. Mistakes could be forgiven. But today companies can be their own agencies. With the new media available online, navigating the gray flannel jungle is no longer an issue. Researching the customer means researching what the customer wants.

The Web is now  decade or so old and everyone remembers the first phase of growing pains of almost all the big websites. in fact many brands have repapered over their awkward growth stages with shinier logos, better websites, and more feature-rich platforms at the IP address of note. Selling the product is the effect behind the cause. Everything else is so much hand-waving that real buyers will see past when their checkbooks are open.

If companies  have a poorly received campaign, they can erase it instantly. This can be done overnight online these days. But the carefully created website with an end sum gain in unit sales must utilize top methods for product featuring without causing a letdown when the humble product enters the frame.

In “Lover Come Back”, the brand is product named VIP in search of an three dimensional realization. But sales of virtual wares is completely possible online. The trick is making sure customers get what they want. That’s a tough sell when the product is so intangible.

Today, the Internet is the incubator of change. Colors and light are in the hands of the web architecture artist,and webmasters can revolutionize their look with a minimum of real consumer waste and with an eye to cost. But care should be taken not to overshadow the product and its attributes. Pointing up the products strengths is what websites are for, ideally. But many websites devolve into overlay artistic statements, ad blitzes, or powerhouses of overdesigned text.

In 1961, there was a movie starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson about rival advertising executives that compete to land the big new account with a big firm. They compete to launch a huge new product with a stellar advertising campaign, complete with Times Square billboards and marquee treatment. This is the era of “Mad Men” and how Madison Avenue defined consumerism and the products people buy.

In the film, the actual product does not exist. The competing pair dream up an entire ad campaign to catch the eye of the potential consumer, building to a frenzied fever pitch. At some point the game ends and business intrudes. Then they realize they don’t have to have a great product they just need to produce something to sell. this ends up being candy mints laced with alcohol that make the customers, very very very happy indeed.

How things have changed. Today the company has to produce not only a finite product, but have specifications, tests, consumer panels, reaction reviews, test groups and response surveys. And that’s just in the beta testing phase. The instant gratification of buying a product online is the result of a groomed navigation path webmasters have in mind. Overstepping the product promotion plan is an error that leaves customers wondering what they bought.

Therefore when purchasing web hosting, look for the value adding features like email account setup, blog broadcasts, HTML friendly design with updates that save time executing automatically online. Look at the timeline for a Facebook and Twitter account, and make sure the cart does not come before the horse. Follow the sales cycle through to its logical conclusion without mixing up the marketing pieces up too much.The proof should be in the profit statement.

Continue Reading

Not many domain shattering events happen anymore. But when a Internet giant moves, domainers feel the ground shake. Ripples are spreading through the online community at the blatantly militaristic stance one company is taking toward online commerce. Is it time for online retailers to have their own uniform commercial code?

A new California law is costing many California B2B merchants their livelihood, but business watchers wonder if normal sales tax should apply to online transactions. The sales tax applied to online transactions for the new law derives from an older community based model of economics where sales taxes pay for local community services. This creates an opportunity for non-Californian business to snap up the lost revenue their Californian counterparts will miss out on.

Many other online service vendors such as Overstock.net are also defending executive decisions not to support additionally taxed vendors. This decision by Amazon.com leaves online merchants in a disadvantageous position due to nothing more than inconvenient geography. The entire model of doing business online, whether from Ebaycom or Amazon.com or a central platform website becomes a diceroll when tax issues throttle a business.

The time for an ombudsman for domain and online commerce has come, especially when the overall economy will suffer due to a poorly thought out law. With over forty other states without the added tax to furnish services, the California online retailers and merchants will suffer for poorly planned government greed. How come California domain owners, online business merchants and B2B specialists didn’t have a voice in this new law enactment?

Amazon has long been a Internet leader in storefront capacities and the direction that the commerce regulation is taking is becoming conflicted. Amazon in articular is choosing to sever relationships with California based affiliates rather than be tasked with collecting additional sales tax from those vendors for sales and monitoring their sales tax reporting and collection through their sales channel.

The domain name world has been rocked by the announcement that California Sales Tax is now due from Amazon storefronts and vendors per transactions. This means that Amazon affiliates must collect additional tax. They therefore must feature this surcharge or above the line additional charge in all their billing, pricing and advertisement offers.

This knocks the online shop and commercial B2B seller for a loop. The allows persons not located in California to exercise a business advantage over the same business type owner not sourcing goods or operating from a California location. Governor Jerry Brown of California has enacted legislation that removes a California merchant from the list of desirable business partners an online vendor or product portal desires.

Californians need to act to prevent unfair business competition this law allows. If the California business operator wants to remain competitive with a non-Californian entity, they must pay in effect a surcharge for conducting Amazon transactions in this manner. That Amazon refuses to operate along these lines should come as no surprise. The Amazon success model does not include a tax-collection attribute

Amazon stores are enriched website design offerings and blog templates that enable site users, vendors, and home businesses to feature and lit their products on the Web. This can happen from their own site, an Ebay listing, via an Amazon account, or via affiliate websites and online stores. Supposedly this is an effort by California tax authorities to collect lost revenue for online goods.

The model for the Amazon store website will also change wit this legislation, as customers and site visitor must be advised of the additional taxation. Amazon.com avoids this issue by eradicating the presence of Californian merchants within its network altogether. The anticipated $200 million net increase in revenue will probably not materialize.

But with the proposed additional ten per cent charged to the buyer, prices (and terms) will not be attractive to the public as much as the non-Californian competitors would offer equal merchandise. This is a matter which should be addressed by many legislative and judicial authorities, and begs the question regarding whether the internet should have it own branch of legal business code and standards and practices for protection against unfair laws and poorly constituted commercial legislation.

Continue Reading