01 October 2011 ~ 12 Comments

2011 DomainFest Name Sale Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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01 October 2011 ~ 3 Comments

Oversee Drops Safety Net

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

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30 September 2011 ~ 2 Comments

Domain Parking Industry Shift

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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21 July 2011 ~ 20 Comments

Administrating the Public Facility Website

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.

owlgraduateA 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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25 February 2011 ~ 1 Comment

Domaining Weekly Recap

ICANN switched the June meeting from Jordan to Singapore, proving that (as I have long suspected) ICANN members must have elevated Frequent Flyer miles to enjoy than us common folk. I can’t even figure out how I would look across the aisle to a Middle Eastern person with the polarization of races and nationalities due to world politics at present. ICANN has the resources to hold the meetings online anyway, I am not convinced of the merit of these trips around the world.

Demand Media, a global player in the domain name registrar market, posted fourth quarter earnings and operations financial results. The surprising thing is, the operation of any registrar can be changeable with the market. The time was when everybody was throwing up a shingle trying to be a registrar, outpacing every competitor with gimmicks, clever marketing, and real value. But now you’re likely to see mere templates overlaid with old registrar subcontractors shilling for renewal income.

But Enom, one of Demand’s biggest flagship registrars, still has eleven million domain names. That’s a big chunk of the parking market right there. I’d like to know how many of those names are parked in programs other than those hosted by Demand Media. That might change some of those financial reporting numbers of the parent company this time next year.

Well, ICANN certainly raised a few eyebrows by cutting their sponsorship fee in half. But speculators remember when they doubled it, so it’s hard to feel the love on that. The rising concern over whether or not Triple Z adult TLD marketing and commerce will be appealing, let alone feasible is rising in the mainstream domaining industry. But will the Triple-X TLD bring a new breed of domain name buyers and sellers into the market?

The release of foreign country code top level domains has been an interesting experiment for the domain world, yet most investors and auction analysts still confirm that dot com is king. Generic names now popping up in the ccTLD spaces may be more subject to being targeted by WIPO actions or UDRP arbitration as a nice reward to the owners for their labors. Domainers have to keep an eye on their legal budget and their

I read an interview with the President of WIPO. The contention that copyright and trademark infringement protection is universally applicable eludes even the most conservative of domainers. Witness the endless logroll of headlines which tout cases that follow one case logic one domain name, and another individual set of standards the next. One thing is always a truism, cement the primary base of investment resources in the dot com for best returns.

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09 May 2010 ~ 3 Comments

No Parking on the Dance Floor

parking

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?

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