Godaddy Special, Grab a 5 Buck Domain!
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Amazon.com Fails the Customer Service Test
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.
Domaining Trends & Traditions
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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Hostgator Jumps the Elephant
Hostgator mentions in its newsletter that Godaddy was involved in the killing of an elephant and that they are getting a lot of GoDaddy customers.
Does this sound like business as usual, or hyped propaganda?
Bandwidth Increased to 10TB on ALL Dedicated Servers!
All dedicated servers now include 10TB of Bandwidth standard (an increase of as much as 8.5TB FREE!). This includes ALL current/past dedicated server clients as well as new dedicated server orders. You don’t have to do anything to upgrade and it doesn’t cost any extra!
HostGator Loves Elephants!
By now, many of you have heard of the actions of a competitor of ours; GoDaddy’s CEO in the killing of an Elephant (An interview of his can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFsfchClBPk). We have welcomed a very large number of former GoDaddy clients over the last month due to outrage over his actions.
A client of ours showed us the video below of someone getting excited when learning about HostGator and their funny reaction about GoDaddy CEO’s Actions (it’s funny!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rU_iegDCzs
We also had one of our clients and affiliates present us with a great HostGator “Elephant Safe Hosting” image below:
The Truth About .Co
I have to obey my conscience and speak out about .Co. I do not believe its appeal warrants the onslaught of spending the major tld sponsors have thrown its way, nor do I believe any name has the resale potential of a dot com, with very major exceptions.
From time to time hidden values in domaining can crop up, but I do not think .co is one of them. The default placement of Godaddy’s of .co as the first choice was a laughably transparent action, but not a useful one for me as a Godaddy customer.
If you aren’t hearing this message from other domainers, bloggers, registrars, and online experts, consider the source. The promotion and marketing bandwagon has been out for .co for quite some time. The dot-co ccTLD properly denotes a Colombian entity or site. But what SEO value does .co offer customers? I have yet to see any .CO name smack the Google, Bing, or Yahoo search indices with a whammy.
Godaddy and many other registrars want you to know they love .co. Where did the need to puff up the Columbian domain market come from? This might have something to do with the fact that ICANN held its major conference there recently, and to get the big domain sponsor money behind .co, it had to make a case for prevalence of .co resales. Except I do not see the level of interest in .co legitimizing any investment.
Most registrars do not even support .co in their premium auction resales and registrar support sales programs. That’s a big hint right there. Maybe big portfolio buyers want to take a risk, and maybe copyright holders to better TLD’s and guardians of trademark protection want the coverage. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Every day another UDRP or WIPO case makes the news. This (insert your country name of choice here) is suing the owners of that one (insert generic name with other ccTLD) for rights. So there really isn’t a new market for fresh .co names, because the law in domains right now basically protects the original dot com domain name holder from any cross-TLD squatting.
One has to do a lot of evangelizing when marketing and selling a domain name, and the heavy lifting of breaking in new domainers doesn’t get easier with the .co hornswoggle. The unwieldy cargo of the dot.co cause is an unnecessary one. The Super Bowl commercials and Joan Rivers aside, where is the long term investment value? For me, currently .co is a speculative buy.
But so many big names have hopped on the .co bandwagon, you might say. Yes, and they all have connections to a very tight network of big dollar, deep pocket domain buyers who may one day be looking at one of their five figure names on the auction block and want the very best of intentions coming their way. These domainers can afford to splash out big. But Mr. Small Biz or Mr. Weekend/Hobby Domainer doesn’t need to drink that Kool Aid.
Maybe this isn’t the right economy to furnish domainers with a flabby TLD that can’t carry its own weight. Too much spin and in-your-face promotion simply emphasizes for me how much I don’t want a .co domain name. But to say that .co pre-empts dot com for domain lookup and selection is horse puckey. This TLD may have its day, but that day has not yet come.
Domain Tidings
This week’s premiere domain industry activity is centered in Santa Monica, where Moniker auctions and event seminars showcase the hottest development in domaining. T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is the next big show. With luck the seminars and videos will be up on Youtubes and blogs in no time. The domain industry is getting ready to mobilize to the .co universe.
But according to reports, security at gigs for domaining is getting stricter, and Elliott Silver reported today that even Frank Schilling couldn’t get in. Recent events at other domain trade shows have given rise to double checking at the gates, a sad commentary on the abuse of some domainers last year. But the domain industry babble is all about the Super Bowl Godaddy campaign and the identity of the Godaddy girl.
The hiring of Danica Patrick and NBC Biggest Loser Trainer Jillian Michaels have stirred the cup of controversy, which Bob Parsons of Godaddy likes to do himself. Whomever the Hollywood icon is, the sneak preview shows a likely suspect. Domainfest attendees will have a chance to educate the dot com entrepreneurs prowling the Playboy mansion later this week. The auctions taking place can be bid on by proxy or at Moniker online, or via a broker attending Domainfest.
Boo! Godaddy Domain Discounts
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Register or transfer any available .COM, .US, .MOBI, .BIZ, .NET, .ORG, .CA, .CO.UK and .IN domain for just $1.00!*
Applies to the first year only of new or transfer registrations. This offer may not be used for renewals, bulk registrations, premium domains or Sunrise/Landrush domain registrations.
Limited to one order per customer, expiring after 10,000 redemptions or on November 27, 2010 (whichever comes first).
Discount will be reflected in your shopping cart;
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* Plus ICANN fee of 18 cents per domain year when applicable.
No Parking on the Dance Floor
As a regular domaining administrative chore, I have to go into my Godaddy domain manager to release domains for transfer or forward them to an url, or regulate their DNS records. I am not picking on Godaddy, I just happen to have a a large amount of domains there and I was reminded this morning about a topic in domain name management I feel strongly about.
One of the unhappy reminders that a domain is making no return on investment is that the dollar sign in the GoDaddy domain manager does not have an impression. The Godaddy parking product is a service that cost money to make money. While that makes sense from a certain point of view, those who know that Google Adsense also offers a similar service for free little understand the added value their premium buys at Godaddy.
Like many domainers, I view the value-add from a Godaddy service as a convenience when snapping between accounts, juggling hosting logins, and tickling domain name administration responsibilities. Of course, the service to enhance a domain’s profit from either GoDaddy or Google Adsense means little if no net profit comes to each domain’s money making channel.
Domain placement inside the ad serving revenue systems is critical to the dollars and sense monetary return of any domain investment. I find the Godaddy cash parking solution an interesting test of Adsense feasibility. If it (the site content, keywords, and links) will pass the Godaddy CashParking qualification standards, it’s probable that Google also will accept the content construction on the domain, and vice versa.
Each revolution of the domain development cycle remains more concretely value -adding than any other domain marketing service or promotion item. Four keywords and some links and a graphic or banner thrown in and the domainer is the proud owner of a (yawn) template formatted parked page. Yippy skippy, sound the call to hounds. Alert the media. (Let the yawns be heard from Peoria to the Three Gorges Dam).
The profit over time to recoup the domain acquisition includes the registration fee, hosting fees, and any subfees like auction premiums and premium auction purchase prices. Add in the sliver of a monthly hosting cost divided by number of total of domain sites hosted at that hosting company and you’ll have your derivative monetary goal and revenue target.
For the domainer who has thousands of domain names languishing, the parked page is simply time management. But the parked page was never meant to be a permanent solution. It was only supposed to be a short and temporary detour on the information superhighway. A lay-by, a soft shoulder in heavy domaining weather when the webmaster’s plate was full. Parking was supposed to be what webmasters did when their site was a flat tire and needed to go into the shop.
I am always disappointed to see parked page because it seems to me a domain name worth buying has a site worth making lurking behind the domain name transfer. Parked pages are models of domain development which hinge on the barest modicum of content, for my money almost a haphazard shrug of a site. To me the challenge of domain development and site potential for site use, for sites of all types, is to expansive to default out of.
There are so many things people go to the Internet for. They want education, they want advice, they want entertainment and employment. They want to be entertained while being educated, and they want to be advised about how to shop.They want to know more about things to buy, how to buy them, and who to buy the from. And they want to know the best information they can get, on every topic under the sun moon and stars.
Every name has a page waiting to be developed to spring forth. People want to do what they always liked to do, with broader scope and greater choice. Online users of the internet want to be educated about how to shop and want to know how to be employed shopping online. They don’t want to read the books, they want to read excerpts and snippets and online reviews and comments about the books. They want to read about the writers of the books and Google them incessantly.
Every subject imaginable has a market, a website, a links directory, an article repository, a shopping portal or a video hosting destination model that can adapt to it. Dare I say it, even a blog! After reviewing all that potential, do four keywords and some links really do the project justice? Does a competent webmaster want to display some lookalike template that tells visitors “Continue snoring, go away”?
And why on God’s (for the moment) green earth would you pay for it?
