Domain Owl

This is the age of the mobile domain name. Everyone has got not just a cellphone but a smartphone, an Internet portal users can hold in their hands in line at the fast food place, waiting for the movie to start in the theater, and waiting for the kids to come out of school. The mobile domain name website designer needs to feature an app for browsing site visitors to utilize. Just signalling one point on the landing page for mobile users is a start.

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Everyone has got a cellphone. Infants and pets have cellphones. barbie has a cellphone and her doll has a cellphone. But not everyone likes the navigation or reduced footprint mobile access to Internet sites offer. My take on the mobile use of websites is that the visitation to any website can enjoy huge traffic bursts as long as there is a unique, standalone, easily navigable application (app). This can build in a number of directions.

I am confronted daily at my local bus stop by people who don’t know when the bus gets there. They are all holding cellphones. The reason they can’t access the local bus routes via internet is that the website for this service (mta.net) is the most bloated internet presence ever constructed. Getting schedule information is a tough dig.

Talk about a bloated online destination. Mta.net is the worst and most overpacked online enterprise I have ever seen, and its schedules are buried under a site map sinking under the weight of too much pablum. The overdesign of this site reaches critical traffic stalls regularly and the bus schedule I normally use has a permanent error built into its Adobe page split between the 5th and 6th age of my most used bus schedule.

What if I made a website that featured the bus arrival times and schedules for my local bus stops in an easily mobile-navigable format for simplistic mobile phone users to track and access? It sounds like re-inventing the wheel. But if the data owners don’t like their wheels to be accessible to riders, someone else can showcase the wheel and its dynamics.

Navigating an Adobe brochure on a cellphone with a screen size the size of a Lorna Doone cookie doesn’t work for me. But checking the schedule of the MTA bus route 183, MTA bus route 96, and MTA bus route 222 maps tos a series of clicks which culminate in (you guessed it) the entire multipage bus schedule download. This is awful to tab through on a numeric mobile phone keypad.

But what if a local website hosted these schedules in navigable form so that mobile users could grab their data while waiting curbside? Furthermore, a fun marketing idea might be to print stickers with this url and slap them on the bus stops so people would get the idea. Instead of worried faces and unnecessary delays, bus riders could access schedules “on the hoof”.

If a vendor or internet source online offers data in an unpalatable format, there is no law that says you can’t repackage that data on your own site and garner the clicks. By identifying bad websites and poorly accessible data, webmasters of would-be mobile features can target a repackaging strategy and spread the word. And domainers promoting these sites may see some tasty traffic.

Previously posted on 7/28/2010

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Domains can be bought for reasons like metrics, keywords, search relativity and discoverability. But many domainers also have a tendency to purchase domains they don’t know much about or on the basis of a recommendation. Often these are the very domains which lie fallow because the research involved won’t pay off for the domain owner.

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This by no means is an entreaty against buying speculative domains. Yet without the research to support a target market and niche sales opportunity for affiliate appeal and clickthrough niches, a domainer is left with just another line item. The supporting research to sketch a domain development scenario always seems like more work once the domain name is inside the hosting paddock.

So, mining personal interests for domain possibilities pays off for the domainer. Hobbyists are likely to know which websites are popular to link to, which products are hot, and which discussions and hot topics are currently churning through the demographic of target users. They know the market because they are the market.

Consider selling the domain names inside your portfolio distant from your personal interests and then using those resources in acquiring names closer to your heart. These names can become part of a strategic plan for name value development that will be easier to achieve than one ridden with extra tasks and interpretation.

Unless you yourself are an invested member of the target demographic, almost all estimations of participation of site visitors are speculative. The less distance between the actual concrete representation of this dynamic and the illusion of what’s possible for domain value development, the more tangible projected rewards will result.

From a previous post.

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1.        Earth.google.com    www.earth.google.com
2.        Facebook.com        www.facebook.com
3.        Youtube.com        www.youtube.com
4.        Yahoo.com        www.yahoo.com
5.        Live.com        www.live.com
6.        Baidu.com        www.baidu.com
7.        Hu.wikipedia.org    www.hu.wikipedia.org
8.        Blogspot.com        www.blogspot.com
9.        Qq.com        www.qq.com
10.        Twitter.com        www.twitter.com
11.        Blogger.com        www.blogger.com
12.        Yahoo.co.jp        www.yahoo.co.jp
13.        Taobao.com        www.taobao.com
14.        Google.co.in        www.google.co.in
15.        Sina.com.cn        www.sina.com.cn
16.        Amazon.com        www.amazon.com
17.        Google.de        www.google.de
18.        Google.com.hk    www.google.com.hk
19.        Wordpress.com    www.wordpress.com
20.        Google.co.uk        www.google.co.uk
21.        Linkedin.com        www.linkedin.com
22.        Microsoft.com        www.microsoft.com
23.        Ebay.com        www.ebay.com
24.        Bing.com        www.bing.com
25.        Yandex.ru        www.yandex.ru
26.        Google.fr        www.google.fr

27.        Google.co.jp        www.google.co.jp

29.        Google.com.br        www.google.com.br

31.        Craigslist.com        www.craigslist.com
32.        Conduit.com    www.conduit.com

34.        Flickr.com    www.flickr.com
35.        Craigslist.org    www.craigslist.org

39.        Myspace.com    www.myspace.com
41.        Google.es    www.google.es
42.        Imdb.com    www.imdb.com

46.        Youku.com    www.youku.com

48.        Paypal.com    www.paypal.com

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Enom is pointing its customer to the turnkey mobile online presence in minutes. The featured goMobi™ gives you an immediate and low cost presence on the rapidly growing mobile Web. Put in some apps, and you are good to go. With an easy to use control panel, goMobi™ allows you to create a professional looking mobile website in minutes, saving you significantly on time and development costs to create your mobile website.

The goMobi advantage stems from being able to build a complete website specially designed for mobile devices of all kinds and display the information that people want to see. goMobi claims to be able to add maps, one touch dialing, and special promotions for visitors. And the service can automatically detect whether to display the full site or mobile site to visitors.

For those with domain names hosted at Enom, this could be a good way to see if the names might go somewhere. Name development is now more active and competitive than ever. With mobile Web users increasing by 148% in 2009 alone, having an easy to reach Internet site mobile presence is key to increasing  online exposure. Check out the free trial offer.

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(from an excellent article at Webmaster Talk Forums)

I would like to see a form of justice hit the internet that is much needed. As the wave of SEO development hits, so do the scammers come out of the woodwork. Like in the world of real estate where an address cannot change hands before all debts against it are cleared, a domain name should not be able to go up for auction unless the record for that domain is cleared. Transparency for SEO services unpaid should really be visible to the domain buyer.

This trend has gotten worse with the type of web administrator hunting for cheap SEO assistance. Too many operators do fly by night orders and never pay. Having a central account number or op code and a rating could make it easy for some administrators to hire people for SEO work. Like the Country Recorder’s office during escrow. Except then domain buyers could see how suspect the stats and SEO ranking really was.

I was collecting from a nonpaying SEO client today when the idea struck. In response to a message saying they wanted to hire me as a full time writer for their site, I had submitted product. A big red flag for this type of transaction is that it can appear to outside observers that the operator is voluntarily contributing. But payment collection does not allow for charging services that have not been rendered. In some cases my clients do prepay, but exactly the worst type of online scammer intends never to pay for the work.

What is a contractor could lodge a lien against a domain for nonpayment of services and/or published material? What if the web host was made aware that services involving their hosted sites and IP addresses were being used to generate fraudulent material production and illegal publishing of same without payment? This might induce shady operators to toe the line as regards payment for online content. Paypal has taken due note of the nature of these transactions, and changed their billing transaction conventions and charges accordingly.

It used to be the case that trader reporting kept users from abusing the implicit trust between members of a domain forum doing business. But some users keep a good reputation on some forums and make dummy accounts on others, which they then use to entice would-be good faith writers to perform services. The services are of a SERP improvement and SEO enhancement nature, time sensitive and non returnable, as it were.

Then these black hat domainers take the content and run. Take my nonpayer for example, Nothing short of posting in a domain forum got him to reply. The services had already been provided and the product had been displayed on the site for a week.

I am skilled at communication, but this op continued to evade payment. The op had gotten their SEO bot joy and didn’t care about me anymore. By ignoring my repeated emails, Paypal requests reminders and instant messages, I was left with few options. This was a situation the op had anticipated. The only thing left was to post as a reply in an auction thread “Please pay your invoices”. This client was trying to announce his daily domain name auctions, ignoring my constant reminders and emails.But what if domain operators had to qualify before commissioning web work?

There some places online that supposedly back their members but they cost a fee to join. These types of online portals can also be a huge waste of time in the job negotiation stage. But users want SEO help and content help. Many are duffers are just promoting their sites using the job ads as link bait, e.g., “I want it to look like this site (and the site is their own).Online services like Odesk or Guru.com that seem to function similarly have their share of scammers and impose stiff fees for participation that decrease profitability.

What if they (the hiring ops) had to be accountable to the agreements they make via email and instant message for SEO content services? This client then had the nerve to send me an email (ignoring payment requests) saying that “got my email” and to take the nonpayment message down. I won’t be editing any reporting of a bad faith client until payment is made, and I told him so. I would urge anyone doing business online to to research the hiring op and determine if doing their work has more than a 50/50 chance of being paid.

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I usually skip the trades, everybody does. But this month’s INC magazine has a very good article on two guys who started InsuranceAgents.com. This business model is the one every domainer is working on. You have to wonder why the heck they overthought the whole thing. For every webmaster out there fruitlessly building the circus portal with bells and whistles, you need to read this story.

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I have come to use a new system of measurement with my domainer peers and colleagues, one that reflects their concrete commitment to developing their domains versus the merely stated intent or practice of doing so. So many domain buyers pose as active promoters it is easy to see how some domain name buyers can get lost trying to figure the players without a scorecard.

I never judge another domainer based on whether they use the same tools as I do or whether they favor the same site estimators.  No two domainers are going to use the same system, even if they have the same vendor accounts and use the same site analytics. Based on how these tools have served each domainer in the past, they will come to their own conclusion about the relative worth of each.

It’s a habit for domain name buyers and sellers to hype their latest online app or website find to each other. It’s part of the game. But sometimes I don’t really have time to expend double digit hours per month (or week) evaluating new interfaces or plugging into new websites that claim heightened value for website marketing. You can take the opinion of a domaining peer, or you ca try it out for yourself.

It’s completely possible that a “power domainer” within your acquaintance may favor you with emails concerning the latest fad website or the newest website or domain evaluator which generates the most pleasing estimation responses. it’s wise to be wary of following any one domainers and their practices and viewpoints too closely. It is entirely possible they may be affiliated with the new site or service, or derive a signup credit or kickback.

By the same measure, qualified recommendations by senior experts in the domain world can save you time and put you on a footing with the best in the business.  Checking out their communications keeps you in the loop regarding where the domain herd is moving and how fast it is going. And signing up for a new service can keep you abreast with first hand opinion regarding the efficiency of a website and how prurient their abilities are.

I had one such recent experience lately. One of my clients wanted me to make some blog posts (blurbs) on a service called BuildMyRank.com. Before this gig I had never heard of BuildMyRank.com. This program had some kind of promotional public relations slash distribution channel for brief informational posts about the clients’ relative keywords. The individual client would input the blurb and link them with interconnected anchor links at the target site.

One of the requirements of this site is that your site be “developed”. It’s not clear from the BuildMyRank prose if this means a minisite will qualify, if a parking page disqualifies the url, or of forwarding does the trick. I know I was irritated with how long the BuildMyRank.com signup process took, and the installation of the original url had unrelated interface problems that reflected a beta launch software edition.But nobody wants to walk away from a free (or paid but worthwhile) SEO advancement instrument.

I had used proformatted links inside BuildMyRank.com with my client and so duly posted a website and put up content. (At this time I had no intention of publishing a review) When I resubmitted the information for the newly developed site, many of the key links did not align and the interface keep issuing error messages not in concordance with the posted content. The keywords fit into the linking convention but the “save” operation would plug the links into the software. So I emailed customer support about the problem.

Well, you learn a lot about a website (and their “SEO” services) by the customer service response. My frustration was met with bitchy and argumentative responses again and again. The operator from BuildMyRank.com never addressed the specific bugs. They assured me that “thousands of users worked just fine” and immediately decided to close my account rather than deal with the issue.

Not only had my first attempt to use this Buildmyrank.com service broken down, but my account had significant bugs. Email to BuildMyRank.com did not yield working fruit. The difference between my client and me getting anywhere was that his BuildMyRank.com items were from a paid account service, and I was still in “free trial” mode.Would the eventual SEO value diminish or disappear under similar circumstances? If it indeed ever appeared?

The emails from BuildMyRank.com are snotty and stupid. This told me a lot about how they approached getting things done. Knowing this so far in advance was a relief. I hadn’t recommended this site to anyone yet. They would never know how many referral clients they lost, domainers with huge portfolios looking for SEO results and only the assurance of a trained site operator to work with.

I don’t know the net benefit of is service to my client, but I do not recommend BuildMyRank.com. The argumentative and offensive stack of response emails form their “administrators” reveals a bunch of coffee drinking teenagers pretending to run a business. Risking your url’s white SEO hat on this company is a risk. If you get difference experience at BuildMyRank.com you have my heartfelt congratulations.

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Have you gotten bogged down with everyday activities and missed a prime domain name deleting from your hosting or registrar account? Assigning an old email address, spam filtering, and the wearying upsell chain of emails from your hosting account and registrar can make even the savviest domainer skip any subject lines from those domain auto-generation lists.

Make a spreadsheet or get a small notebook. On each page (or in each column) write down the name of the domain you bought, the place you purchased it, how much, and the expiration date. If you have the Paypal address or the email contact and name of the person who sold it to you, this could be queried later on if there is a contested name change.

If you used an online forum, resales portal or auction house, get the user name and note whether or not the person exchanged proper trader rating data. Selling a domain name can be something that domain owners trumpet to the skies, especially if they made a profit. Following the purchase, Google the domain name to see if any comments (or protests) regarding the domain name sale have been published online.

The domain purchase price becomes the new start value for the domain. Every marketing cost or time investment must evaluated for change in domain value from here on in. Don’t use any other projected values discussed in the negotiation phase of acquiring the domain. Those are not concrete. Your goal is to change this domain name purchase value and increase it until the name can be marketed for resale.

Create  a page in the notebook or spreadsheet for domain traffic and SEO measurements. It is worthwhile to note online metrics generators searches for the name on such and such a date, and tabulate changes at these same generators for the name later on. If you jump around using sweetheart sites to get the values you want, the data validity won’t be as strong as all values over time.

As stated, the domain purchase price is the establishing value. This value can be inserted into a variety of formulas. These formulas can be used to generate reports for domain name auction or resale data later on. By establishing an origin data point for all your domain calculations from then on, you can make a quarterly growth table for all the values. These would be traffic, new user signups, offer inquiries, or ad responses and Google revenues.

The notebook domaining method can be used if you only have one or two domains and don’t feel a need to mechanize the data. But it gets easier as you buy more domains to just add the basic information and let legacy formulas through the sreadsheet take over the work for you. Also, exporting data be  comes easier to cut and paste into a computerized spreadsheet, especially if you are catching up.

Regarding domain name expirations; If you outline the Expiry date in red, or sort regularly once a week to check domain name expirations in the spreadsheet, you do a quick check for renewals due, So, when the panic strikes in the middle of the night your most valuable domain is slipping away through the droplist, you can flip pages or scan the top dates for calmness.

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Domainers decide their brand based on their name and their gmail address can be a big part of their presentation and communication strategy. If you’ve invested time and effort establishing a brand then make sure your gmail is not taken. People tend to assume those using the gmail account are associated with the domain or website. Don’t wait until you start receiving strange emails from people who claim you owe them money.

Don’t use gmail? Doesn’t matter. Someone else does and they may be hiring work or doing business as you, the legal owner of the domain name online. Go to Google mail (gmail) and search for available name. Cement this brandable domain name marketing resource by registering the account using your own data, and security information. Even if you never use the email address, it’s certain nobody else can and pretend to be “you”.

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One blogger here on Domainowl.com has noted that domains were $6.99 with privacy included. Sorry, but you’re wrong. Dot com domains are still $8.50 at Smartico (I checked). If anyone is interested in other Indian or Asian domains here are some discounts:

.CO.IN, NET.IN, ORG.IN, GEN.IN, FIRM.IN, IND.IN are $4.89 with a maximum of one year registration to be enjoyed by Smartico customers.Another single year limit discount is .IN domains, which are $4.83, .ASIA names are $12.03, (single year domain purchase limit) and and .CN.COM’s are $12.03, ten years limited.

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