Domain Owl

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.

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One of the worst and most ignorant comments I heard this month about doing business online is that you “can’t promote your website on Youtube because you don’t have any videos to upload”. I had to stop laughing after a few minutes out of sheer disbelief. When you wonder why the competition isn’t winning inflating the value of their domain names, statements like this will emerge as big reason why the strategy bubble on the other side has burst.

I actually read an email where this man claimed that “nobody” could watch the content of the TV site on YouTube because it was ”all taken down”. I was gobstopped. I absolutely stared at the screen in horror at this comment. Since I had spent days watching films and clips and fan videos concerning the very subject, that would not be taken down, and been on Youtube for years, this guy was full of it.

I guess that’s why Google bought Youtube, because it would “all be taken down”. At this writing, Youtube has billions of videos up and people taking part in discussions and comment exchange worldwide. These are the kinds of statements that “ROFL” was invented to cover. All i could think of was that this client was so removed from the actual user experience at his website that he had no clue how organic web traffic actually grabs hold of one of his pages and stops by for a visit.

The opportunity to gain valuable first time end user feedback from YouTube contacts is one of the most exiisting online. Using the browser traffic to get a concrete opinion about how your site fits user needs, by users who have already passed the subject and interest test qualification, is priceless. This is specially true the when the domainer is the webmaster. The communication cycle is very shrunk indeed when a user says “that picture is awful” or “There’s no place to comment”. These golden kernels of user feedback can be directly incorporated into site redesign steps.

I could tell that the client not only had never traced the end user’s navigational path to the website, but had errantly shut out all related wisdom. This client insisted Youtube was not the place for any links back to his website. He also insisted that dropping links in forums was not a good idea either. Yes, these are usually the people who come crying to me at the end of the year saying they can’t figure out where the traffic is going.

Catch a clue, buddy. People search YouTube because they want video formatted content. They search YouTube because it is entertainment not found anywhere else. They look for the sarcasm, pathos, satire, comedy and witticism that makes human communication surprising and worthwhile. I know these entries stay up for a long time because I can get response emails from youTube a year after I commented. That’s the longevity of a YouTube link marketing effort.

Nobody goes to a search engine page looking for humor. But people online check out YouTube on the hour looking for diversion. But that’s not the only end user online at YouTube. The information from a slideshow or clip, video or narrated upload is infinitely more appealing to some than blocks of dry text. If you can engage even the operators of other channels that is a dozen more users watching your site, or citing it in communications than you had before.

Youtube is the most popularly used website on Earth. That’s the planet you are now on, by the way. People go to Youtube to look for things because going through a search engine is a needless extra step when they know they want video. And when users want video content, the default is all the content that Youtube has. Video has become the easiest information to digest, both visually and by audio “entertaining” an end user into learning or knowing more about any topic.

Any website owner who does have one single Youtube to their credit deserves a stay in the domainer’s penalty box. This is because even a narrated version of a slideshow of the website, images to match, or a progression of clicks through the site can work as the uploaded video content. Why would any website manager or webmaster not want a descriptive tour of their website ready for interested would-be visitors to assess? Why waste a search opportunity and gift-wrap it for your competitors?

YouTubes has all kinds of ways to put out the SEO sign. (They’re kind of in on the whole thing). Titles, search tags, captions, bubble comments, Facebook links and channel comments drive YouTube interaction. Getting the debate going and reacting to a comment from someone else is the most exciting social networking interaction happening online today.These kinds of content triggers are exactly what spurs web traffic in the first place.

What kinds of videos on YouTube might lure viewers to your website? While several thousand domainers believe users will visit their site for no reasons, using grass-is-greener techniques with game-the-system strategies for empty parked pages, several hundred thousand domainers know a YouTube link can only help traffic stats and end user satisfaction. In fact, by qualifying your next end user by subject type and word associations, clickthrough likelihood and overall site visit times will only rise.

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A recently published article in Entrepreneur Magazine quoted a Google employee as citing the probability of getting funding from Google Networks, when connected to a member of the Google Networks employee’s own networks as a sizeable influence. Google ventures, launched in 2009, seems to play favorite son with only it own siblings. Does Google hope to attract all the best opportunities, or only venture it is already invested in through third parties?
Google’s article expresses candidly that referred deals from the personal networks of the seven investing partners are the golden children of Google’s venture arm. But opportunity seeking franchise or startup investor might scratch their heads about the point of applying for funding from a “global” venture capital grower that specifically only funds its own grandchildren. What do other investor funds think about such a narrow minded approach? And how can Google Ventures maintain a competitive profile in modern B2B business arenas with such core values?

Google has both promoted (to the Web) and denied (o the FCC) its business goals toward cornering the online market in forward thinking enterprises. Only Google can afford to overlook business opportunities not blessed by their own strategic development and those without personnel already in its own immediate business networks. This leaves good opportunities for angel funding for companies which don’t have the Google seal of Good Housekeeping on them. As a business strategy the entire functionality of a separate funding company seems like an elaborate bit of paperwork.

A curious quote from the Google Ventures article says “We don’t invest to help Google sell products or services. We don’t avoid companies that do that, but it’s not an objective of ours”. This sounds like the way companies talk when they are distinctly trying to not say their fundings are targeted to individuals already associated with their company. Life science companies and bioscience starups don’t really have an association with Google ventures or Google products, but it’s a safe bet the workplaces of those funded startups utilize Google products and apps. Just as if they were really Google business partners.

If you think this doesn’t sound like an equal opportunity funding resource, you’re probably right. Which makes it a target for every ethnic based startup requiring venture capital funding. Google Funding claims it invests in areas which Google “understands”. This is obviously the strategy behind the conception of Google Funding in the first place, to make sure a Google Ventures employee was already part of the ownership of anything they fund. So, what was that about Google not trying to monopolize its business venture clients in a monopoly-type business practice?

So, all a startup CEO needs to do to secure B2B enterprise funding is to target Google Funding using one of its own “areas of understanding” and tapping a Google Funding staff member or employee to be part of the enterprise. Just a hint: you’ll probably get accepted. In case the original CEO’s or partners look for fersher pastures, this leaves the Google ventures staffers holding the bag, and the blueprints and the copyrights. Just as Google intended it to be. (or B2b).

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Think you are too right-angled to forge a TV site? The days of cheesy, gray area TV links and download fears are past. This is not a niche site concept, this is the site everybody and their brother will visit. And Emmy awards traffic could be driving users to your site right now. As the big awards show comes up on the calendar for the best in television programming acting directing and production, savvy viewers want to catch details they missed.

TV sites promote themselves, but even business cards can get passed out on the train bus or wherever you have lunch. What’s the most likely thing you will be talking about people can overhear? When people ask you what show you are talking about, tell them what site you found the information on. Give them a card. No kidding just yesterday two different people wanted to know what TV sites I wrote blogs for. Yes, Virginia, they will come.

Make sure you provide formats for end users looking for TV new and updates. Visitors today are using whatever is nearest when they overhear a conversation or see a Facebook entry about a TV show. Facebook has even expanded its pages to allow a personal blog page for a Facebook group to follow a specific TV show. As everyone knows by know, a website without a social media adjunct isn’t worth anything.

Use are looking for information and discussion about their favorite TV show and the characters as well as the latest happenings. They are using laptop, desktop, tablet, cellphone and Iphones for information. The way to capitalize best is to launch right now. I would be willing to cut my rates in half for a TV site client, it’s that easy to write for. And the payoffs during international searches are to die for. Just keeping a running blog people can Twitter during the Emmy show is real, viral content.

Today the SEO value of any TV site is now is huge with potential. The person who collects the most updated information is the winner of the public’s never-say-die taste for new television related content. The only websites more frequently visited right now than TV sites are gaming sites. And when TV and game site visitor niches interconnect, you’ve got statistics gold.

If you have a TV name in your domain portfolio and you are not developing it right this second, shame on you. Time to roll up your sleeves and get out the hostings passwords because this is the time to make a website about TV shows like there never has been before. Provide some HD video options, connect the site search tools, and rewrite the title bars and you’re already haflway there. Start linking up new streaming site links and locating RSS feeds to populate secondary pages.

So many domain owners know how to buy great domains but they do not know how to fashion a website the public wants. The money needs to be earned! But Google searches and Bing searches and Yahoo searches for TV shows are stellar every day! Why not be part of that traffic that has to go somewhere.

Right now the searchable keywords for any television show are very clear, the name of the show, the network it is broadcast on, and the character names or the names of significant episodes are all a webmaster needs to know. Putting this together in a basic blog can be the beginning of your own social media success story.

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First time purchasers of discount web hosting ask the question: Can budget hosting perform as well as cheap web hosting? What is the better deal, Godaddy $1.99 hosting or the Hostgator offer of $3.99 a month for web hosting? Fatcow is offering hosting for $4.67. One bright part of a downturn in the economy is that server farms and wire hotels can’t support indefinite co-location, and even the biggest webhost has to lower prices in search of new business.

Hosting usually can be discounted using a prepaid model. But many experienced webmasters can investigator such discount offers and find key attributes to their web site architecture plan missing. Then adding this extra feature in can bring the cost to a premium web hosting package cost. So where is the savings? Justhost, InMotion, and others have tracked the pricing of major competitors and offer similar packages. Hub, Ipage, Greengeeks and Powweb offer price-competitive web hosting platforms with variable feature profiles.

Powweb even offers extended attribute web hosting packages for $3.88 Canadian. This is a great break for the Canadian and North American webmaster looking to shave costs if a reputable web host is attainable. Load balanced servers make sure static server installation never give viewers blank white screens again. Statistics interface programs and social media credits make budget web hosting not only a cost reduction option, but an improvement to current resources.

The savings in a budget web hosting plan eliminates the additional costs of the amortized license payments, administrative costs, and server upkeep that makes a hosting happen. The costs might be backup generators, additional staff, or updated programs and upgraded scripts that keep third party applications fresh and allow new web hosting account users optimum flexibility and choice when designing their newest site. Such budget web hosting accounts have full price features, such as online stores, search engine credits, and Cpanel, as well as multiple site builder options.

What does the webmaster sacrifice choosing low cost web hosting? Nothing, if they are a smart shopper. Increasing security concerns on the part of webmasters should restrict low cost server choice and budget web hosting accounts to well know web hosting companies with sterling customer service histories. Better yet, researching the probability that the new web hosting company won’t be shutting its doors is a safeguard against having to migrate the project files all over again.

Today, web hosting companies are competitive in their search for the low cost high volume web hosting customer. They understand that an individual client or a bulk buying domainer wants the least expensive cost possible for mounting their new domain name projects. The domain customer looks at every aspect o the web hosting offering, such as MySQL and Plesk features. And a budget web host offering can allow for variations in the website development model. The new hosting buy can allow testing of scripts and sites through cross-platform hosting access.

Such Linux or Windows choices can allow demonstration of tools and open source applications from customers with hosting that does not cross the Windows/Linux barrier. This can yield benefits by looking to a wider range of choices in the
internet design and coding model. Cheap web hosting with Linux and Windows can admit webmasters into a staging area for the operational environment of their choosing.

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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.

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Anybody want to know why I don’t use Amazon.com more? Because their website prevents me from doing so. The last time I used Amazon.com to buy anything the address I was living at was different. usually on any online vendor like Ebay or Itunes you can retrieve your lost password by requesting a change code sent to your email. But not Amazon.com.

So in three different “custom service” queries, my zip code did not match my email login and my last four numbers of the credit card. Why the hell the password just didn’t reset it anybody’s guess. There is no option to fix this. very single way to get a forgotten or lost password is tied up in a transaction I executed 6 years ago.

Unlike websites with far more commercial savvy, (like Godaddy), and I kept going through the “customer service” queue, there was no other option except to get stuck in this endless trap. This is a bothersome and frustrating effect.

Why can’t Amazon.com operate their password retrieval operations for customers in any manner that doesn’t end in a hassle and frustration? This is a word to the wise both for shoppers at Amazon.com and those who would furnish an Amazon store online for their site visitors. Because those online users sharing my experience aren’t going to be clicking on any Amazon store products anytime soon.

When a website makes it this hard for you to spend money, run. Whatever business they are in putting the customer first isn’t it.

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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.

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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?

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The worst thing that can happen when a webmaster gets presented with a new project is to find that the client has already chosen the web hosting plan. This is because many website clients decide on a web hosting plan before seeing the site take shape. This is an error which can cost a project personnel, energy, time, and vital resources to correct.

The needs of a website change with template selection, affiliate program installation, open source application integration, and email and newsletter incorporation. The web hosting interface is the starting point for every administrative task. Web hosting choice should not always be determined by cost, however. But variable offerings can now eliminate sheer cost as a concern and drive the web hosting decision by the attributes it offers for HTML publishing and web project planning.

But whereas a neighborhood race driver knows the best shops to get parts at, the race car owner may insist on flashy parts, unneeded additions to the interior, and extensive add-ons. A webmaster can work with managerial choices of others, but where web hosting is concerned, the entire health of a website and its marketing campaign can hang in the balance.

Webmasters are clients of multiple web hosting companies at the same time. The ease of use of any web hosting plan carries the webmaster further in ever optimization goal. But often the we hosting plan of a new website must span the skills of all parties involved working on the site.

The orientation of the vertical elements, banner placement, and menu items can be a reflection of the power of a web hosting company. The synchronization of the email, the coordination of the domain name,  and the response time of page requests must be bundled in a price sensitive package.

One of the most common web hosting plans I suggest to new clients is the Godaddy economy plan. This can bundled with a domain name for a budget $1.99 domain name purchase with three months of development breathing room.

This menu can be dictated over the phone after a time, due to familiarity over the phone without reference to the website for clients and guest bloggers. Complex and unfamiliar pathways to a website or domain name manager are never a good sign with a web hosting purchase.

When GoDaddy publishes in semi-annual and holiday discount domain codes, it can be a great bundled bargain to obtain multiple TLD domains of the same base domain word company or brand. Occasionally subdomains and sub-TLD names can serve the website better than a compromised domain name choice.

The periodic discount option to obtain privacy services can be invaluable when managing a domain portfolio, vending a domain offer, and/or establishing SEO. Privacy is also of use without penetration of the public, hackers, and potential vendors to your home or business.

Email, SEO vouchers, and optional open source applications can provide much more web hosting capability than most websites need, at a bargain price. Keeping an eye on the online forums for current coupons, offers and deals can leverage even more value from a discount web hosting plan. Getting the most attributes suitable to the website project is the best served goal.

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