Domain Owl

The domain world is like both the sports world and the business world, where the big names make big news and the legal ramifications and business parameters change at any moment. But recently the doings of the domain bigwigs, as well as the business restrictions and legal shifts associated with domain name trading and purchase and auction sales, have caused long term market watchers to re-estimate the current market for name trade potential.

Monte Cahn suing Moniker/Oversee is an eye-opener, unless one considers the ramifications of pouring one’s hearts-blood into an enterprise during critical business cycles of the domain game and then having the rewards twisted out of all regard. The encomiums that followed Cahn’s exit of Moniker could hardly have been garnered by a self-serving coterie intent on cementing future lawsuit goodwill.

The big impact of the February Domainer Flu Outbreak (dubbed the Playboy mansion DotCom malaise by some) seemed to be the proof that domain industry news was in fact media worthy, but the mainstream media still does not absorb and reflect domain name industry news accurately or assess its importance and relevance efficiently. What is this opaque banner between the media and general public and the domain industry? Is it only visible when one is outside the domain world?

A full week after initial reports were coming down the domain blog pike, network news, even in local areas was slow and sloppy. The attempts to cover the story , even with competition of global tabloid saturation on every Hollywood street corner, was clumsy and often inaccurate. For those looking to expand their B2B media offerings, thinks about delivering a new pipeline to broadcast media sources unable to decipher the terms, importance, or relevance of domain news to their own lives and commercial enterprises.

Domain name professionals are still weighing the value of the dot-co market. Godaddy certainly has made the introduction of a dot-co domain name into the portfolio cost friendly. Godaddy continues to sponsor entry level domainers into the name game by providing discount coupon codes. These dotcom name purchase codes, the recent feature .co registration discount, and the .info cost reduction are mighty incentive when crafting a domain development plan or business agenda for monetizing a name. These savings can really add up to domain name holders with sizeable portfolios.

It’s unsettling to realize that the domain world has been around long enough to mystify and alienate would-be industry buyers and potential players in the domain space. The battles for real estate on the domain name corporate playground show testimony to the fact that this is valuable territory to acquire and own.  Changes continue apace in the online and domaining world.
Online security is no longer a buzzword but a vulture circling over the shoulder of every webmaster.

Denial of service attacks for the Barcelona DomainFest event and the subsequent cancellation resonate with the mobile phone hacking scandal in the UK and the “Hacktivism” website hack of the PBS website in the United States. Until forthright security measures for data, hosting, and website architecture layers are followed, hacking will continue as a fact of life,  as online malice spares none. There seems to be a measure of dissonance that cognitively persuades technology officers these threats are not real, and it is a salutory effect of the many hack reports that gives webmasters worldwide a chance to correct their online security and programming integrity omissions. Will they take the chance?

Some changes are long overdue. Rick Latona’s website actually looks like a website brokerage now and not a watch shopping cart. The doings of ICANN continue to amaze Internet passersby and dubious domainer onlookers. To see Frank Schilling offer parking services is not a surprise, but my expectation is that the parking market is long diminished (except for the Whypark engine). The reluctance of some domainers to develop websites that function as new media and communication portals, with provision for any level of visitor interaction, is a long standing weakness of many domainers.

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Everybody wants a blog comment with an inbound link back to their site. I see hundreds of them here and elsewhere. Link exchanges generally work to the benefit of both sites, since only the webmasters of relevant sites with SEO value need apply. Search engines denigrate the value of unrelated links. Lots of spam and lots of erroneous commenting needs to be addressed.

SEO bots scrub down the blogosphere daily. But the reality is few can keep a blog going. The number one issue with administrating a blog domain is that the blog engine needs effort and attention. Admittedly it sometimes needs more time some days than others, but administration of the blog domain that is a domain blog can absorb more minutes than observers might suspect.

One of the most surprising aspects to curating a blog is administering approval of the comments users and visitors leave at the site. Various articles should have different users with varying home urls and different email addresses. But with the effort some domainers and online contractors are making these days to promote their domain urls, some spam comes along.

Here are some notes for those reading this who attempt to comment here or spread the url word about their domain or website online. Whether it is a FaceBook page, Myspace address, subdomain, or Squidoo link, these rules for commenting apply. Links and comments promoting links will be deleted meeting the following criteria.

1. A comment with a home page name that does not relate in either subject value or keyword association with my domain or blog is probably not going to be approved. These are obvious spam.

2. A blog comment that is misspelled is probably not going to be approved. This shows the writer is not a native speaker and too careless to spellcheck. Grammar errors mean a scripted posting machine did the commenting.

3. A blog comment abusing the administrator of this site is probably not going to be approved. Comment administration decisions are final.

4. A blog comment repeated word for word across a half dozen articles with identical commentary text  is probably not going to be approved.

5. A blog comment flogging an unrelated service or site is probably not going to be approved.

6. A blog comment uniformly unconnected to the content of the article AND misspelled AND promoting warez AND to a topic-unrelated site domain name url  is probably not going be approved.

7. A blog comment that is in a foreign character set and thus unreadable  is probably not going to be approved.

8. A blog comment that is too long (a page or more, 700 characters plus, ) probably not going to be approved.

9. A blog comment that is relating to an adult name or mature content site when the posted site is completely unrelated to such material is probably not going to be approved.

10. Asking for free publishing of this site’s content elsewhere on a  site with advertising and affiliates, and for free writing services on your site’s behalf will probably get deleted. Appropriate communications along these lines happen via email, not in the public comment area.

Bonus Round:

Your link will probably get deleted if it is one in  series of exactly similar posts on various stories under different email addresses and site names.

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Got original content? If not, you could get sued. So goes the conventional wisdom now developing as the frontier of Internet media, law and standard operating practices grows another branch. Those RSS feeds may not be “free” after all. For rogue operators online, the “cut and paste” method of website development may be a thing of the past. The hounds of copyright legality are upon content thieves.

Taking a bead from a domain industry leader, I reference (and cite under pain of death) Elliott Silver’s comprehensive blog post today concerning content theft. The relevant article in Wired revealed the significance of getting published in conventional print run and digital media under a syndicated banner even in this day and age. The cost of these media operations assumes use of the material under its own auspices.

The company Righthaven actively pursues legal cases against websites that puncture the value of the native content by posting it on their websites and deriving SEO value and reader interest. The details of the copyright actions pursued by this company are something every website administrator needs to know about. This is in fact a sort of domain insurance, where activities like content writing and posting build value in a site.

It should go without saying that new website ventures should contain original content. but so many newb bloggers haven’t learned that concept. And many more domain speculators actively lift feeds and copy and paste entire sections of websites as a matter of course in the race to adsense and search engine revenue. The issuing of takedown notices is a time consuming and complex activity not all bloggers and webmasters understand how to do.

Who is doing the stealing? Bloggers and other webmasters, for the most part. Silver’s article sketches a swipe at the poor Web journalism practiced by many online text contributors, but the real picture is so much more broad than that. Many (but by no means all) domain speculators populate websites using models of virtual copy theft and content “relocation”.

For what can only be slivers of cents on the dollar, random webmasters draw from the RSS feeds of multiple sites and indiscriminately repost to fill up their site pages. This practice is uneasily as common as it is overlooked and underenforced for online copyright violation. More companies like Righthaven, online services that look to police online copyright violation are needed.

Infringement is an art form for many webmasters. They seek to diffuse and obfuscate the original post yet steal or repost most of it on their own sites, often without any link or pingback to the original site.But if internet practices lawsuits go forward, a new set of rules might soon be in place.  A new rubric of online content policing might spring forth.

Many webmaster who conscientiously invest in original content would like to see this happen. Hosting companies may get involved at some point. There is a rule of common sense that should be part of every hosting company terms of service. Content theft should be an act that terminates hosting company liability. Sites composed of over 50% stolen content could be taken down by disconnect notices.

And just think what the Google rankings would scramble to show then.

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Want to use Joomla to make a website? Joomla to enhanced a domain name and build value by making a website. Sticky content and updated articles using a text-driven keyword focused engine makes a full (not a mini) website. Joomla is a free open source software domain owners can use with basic editing skills.

Test the Joomla Demo first. Browse online for free Joomla templates.

Print this article or use it as a checklist to make a WYSIWYG assisted web page with one of the best site making tools webmasters can utilize. Once a domainer knows the steps, any site becomes  a matter of keystrokes and administration interface manipulation. Use the Joomla forum when in doubt.

1. Install Joomla

Download the source code application zip files or login to your hosting account and initialize Joomla installation. Joomla is one of the pioneer content management systems with highly efficient text and article publishing tools.

At the installation layer, build the Joomla database, assign passwords, and build the site manager Joomla site administration profile.

2. Unpark servers, redirect masked forward

This is done at the domain registrar for the domain name. If you are not using a subdomain or a separate hosting account, assign the settings of the domain functionality to find the destination landing page of the Joomla application.

3. Replace Joomla’s default Web Page message with your domain message and section greeting. Sections are master categories that organize Joomla articles. Categories are division of Sections. Plot these with pencil and paper.

Replace Joomla FrontPage message with your domain message and section greeting. This can include nicknames, slang, and sets the tone for readers to see what level the text is. This can be changed as often as you like.

4. Replace global configuration setting with your Domain Name

In the Admin interface, navigate to the Global Configuration setting. Edit the text. This will show up in the blue frame of the Explorer window in the browser.

5a. Make custom logo using Cooltext.com.com.

Shrink text to fit banner footprint, or use basic Cooltext generated .jpg to make further editions to the graphic for a fine tuned logo presence.

5.b. Replace Joomla logo with custom logo.

Introduce logo graphic to various levels of the interface where they apply.

6.  Mockup 3 main headers (PNG’s) and ad graphics for sponsor ads.

Copy and save the PNG file to your desktop to get file size attributes in pixels. Then convert to a .jpg and edit. Then save as a PNG again to upload to the file manager inside the appropriate template files.

7. Upload 3 main header graphics

Navigate to proper place in the template files in the file manager. Delete placeholders @template/images/header.

8. Write text for 5 newsflashes

Newsflashes are succinct blurbs that alternate inside the browser for quick text bites. Add or edit content inside the admin menu using the Joomla category for Newflashes.

9. Write Text for 6-7 Original Text Stories

These can be done while the webmaster or domain owner is waiting for installation. Using article template files and search and replacing keywords per website domain name can make multiple Joomla site launches easy.

Use 2 news stories, one site review, one “about us” introduction story, and then three translations of current features stories touching your field or topic. Rewrite them in your own words and link back to the source material.

10. Replace OSM ad client accounts and pictures w/substitutes

Default will feature fruit or general images. Navigate to banners area and edit client data or add a new client and input images. Select these ads in the OSM banner and advertisement sections. Make new “customers” for your contact ads.

11. Edit 4 text ads (advertisement module)  to reflect putative ad code.

If you can’t get code from Adsense for your domain name or don’t have it yet, edit the code furnished to reflect keywords, topics, offers and likely ad text from your site’s keyword generator. This can help proof the site.

12. Unpublish non domain specific resources .

Many Joomla module defaults will simply not apply to your site concept or design.  Delete key concepts/irrelevant resources. They can be re-introduced later as needed.

13. Edit poll/add poll module to reflect domain specific content matter

Use a creative time to pencil out a fun survey question and funny poll answers. Joomla offers a small window but makes a site look extremely complete with these multiple features.

14. Compare meta tag & keywords to meta tags for domain forward entry.

Navigate to the appropriate Admin areas inside the menu. Use this tool as a way to furnish key data to Google search result and main site info areas.

15. Verify Masked Domain Resolution to new web site’s public url

Make sure when you type in the domain name, the masked domain shows with the new Joomla landing page. Visually check how the words look against featured front page text.

16. Archive sample Joomla data to archives, add additional keywords to existing stories.

Archiving and deleting get rid of things you don’t want and can’t use.

17. Edit header 1, header2,  header 3

These are the file names of the main three graphics that alternate in the background of the landing page banner area.

Navigate to the theme area in the file menu and find the graphics for the header image. Substitute  the new ones and and in a separate window test them for a fit. Using a one shade block image as the  lighter header mask can lighten the area within the graphic and result in a lighter shade using th default theme..

18. Add Graphics.

Replace the library of standard buttons with custom colors or icons with a special feel. The Media Manager inside Joomla handles all images. Upload topical images and select those directories you chose for the images inside the categories and sections for those types of stories and articles.

19. Edit the Joomla Wrapper.

The Wrapper module allows a feature of an entire other site within the current site. Pick a great recommendation site or sister site to your topic and add commentary and criticisms, tips and feedback. Reward visitors with a best of breed snapshot of a another great site.

20. Edit ‘home”.

Navigate to the home page in the text editing menu (the Frontpage) and create the first text eyeballs will see when your Joomla website loads in a visitor’s browser.

21. Edit weblink boilerplate.

Edit the test in the weblink area after making categories for them. Categories can be functional or topical, i.e. “New sources”, or (subject related )Gossip Blogs. Furnish about ten entries at least to make custom resource web directory for your site. Be as complete as possible when furnishing plate “About Us”.

Edit the default “About us” page in the articles menu and edit the “More About Us” page too.

22. Edit Joomla Community Text

Use  the Joomla Tutorial to fill in the blanks.

23. Convert Template if default style does not work for you.

Milky Way and JA Purity are the main default installed themes.

With a safe beta version in the default Joomla installation theme format, experiment with template uploads. Using the Joomla Administration menu, change the templates and preview them. Upload zip files after unzipping to the file manager in the hosting account using the FTP utility.

24. Edit the weblink directory

Web Links should be likely browsing destinations of your topical visitor or site user. Add links to the Joomla accurate details, keywords, links and category text.

25. Schedule future article publication.

Make sure to input future publishing articles in the Joomla interface to keep the flow of material updated and the schedule of text constantly new.

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