09 July 2010 ~ 8 Comments

Domain Racing

Domains are like horses, they take investment, nourishment, training, supervision, contact with people and an opportunity to shine on the track. The domain “racing” attitude can be seen in everything from the domain name buyer’s assessment of the domain name’s “points’ to the resale value and aging potential of the value of any domain name.

Horses need nutrition, exercise, rest, training, and the right jockey. Starved horses don’t succeed, they just drop dead. Horses need the right feed and the right care to grow into blue ribbon winners. These horse racing industry dynamics can translate to the world of domains as content, test launching, SEO optimization and site plan grooming, and bandwidth and hosting provisioning.

Horses that can run are like domains that can attract traffic, keep viewers interested, and make consumers interact with commercial or monetary offers or ads that bring the domain name owner revenue. Domains that can “run” are catchy names, clear indicators of the content awaiting them, original material and derived from strong stock. A sponsor name across the saddle doesn’t mar the ability of the horse to race.

The right combination of people to bring a winner to the starting gate is the envy of any domainer. Site jockeys can ride the rails of affiliate ads, link building, and site optimization with skill.  Competitors are always chomping at the bit. Domains need discipline, not to sit in pasture idling away their years in parked pages. Pages fat with unneeded ads and filler won’t race competitively at all. Sites need the right webmaster and domainers are savvy to pursue this wisdom.

Domain racing is a challenging sport but a costly one. Thoroughbred names, like premium auction winners, can cost a lot of money to groom into money earning entities. Experienced domainers always have an eye out for the ‘dark horse’ domain that could net them a fortune. Like many horse racing agents, they scout out young domain talent to see what can be done to bring a new domain name into the senior cup winning form.

Many horse racing fans eye the “pink sheet”, the track betting notes, before a big set of stakes races. Domainers do the same thing for domain names at auction, checking stats, earnings, and provenance of names as well as their past history “on the track”. The knowledge particular to domaining, like horse racing, can pay off with the right set of contacts, advisors, and consulting experts.

Domainers need to be wary of domainer “horse dealers”, domain sellers who go flogging names of little value with falsified stats or claims of affiliate earnings without proof. The SEO or keyword factors are very much like bloodlines, and the provenance of other legacy names performing in the Internet domain world support continued investment in domain grooming.

Sometimes a domainer just feels lucky. Sometimes they want to know what it feels like to be a winner so bad they spend too much money on the wrong horse. Typos names, names purchased and developed for accidental traffic form well known proper domains names, might be said to be stakes horses. These names are practically a secondary marketing domaining, like low cost breeder racing and track traditions.

For a winning formula in domaining, newby domainers could do worse than look to the horse racing world for inspiring ideas about how to succeed in an industry crowded with competitors, fraught with luck, and dependent on the animal nature of the Internet “beast” to perform well at the right time. Timing the right domain name entry into the internet stakes can be a neck-and-neck fight to the finish.

As always, in domaining, “the horses are on the track”.

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29 June 2010 ~ 0 Comments

How to Steal SEO

I read an article recently in Rolling Stone magazine about some computer hackers and the “crime of the century”. In trying to blog about it, I found an interesting conundrum: The top (series of) search engine result(s) from searching for the article was a blog review of the article by another blogger, not the magazine author. By Google searching the article title, the top page of search results was not the source, but the review.

Rolling Stone is proud to announce digital issues, but the title of this one article or searched keywords did not render a result even at the Rolling Stone site. This means that every mention or Twitter or email or Digg gets related back to the first online result, the same blog but not the copyrighted origin. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as stolen SEO.

Thus the source website yielded the SEO to the blogger. The blog author gave due credit and links to the source but the blog entry remains the top result for another author’s work. Yet it’s a mystery why the originating publisher would pass up an opportunity to get search result traffic. It’s hard to know the thoughts of a webmaster that stalls SEO discoverability and direct search engine referrals for putative digital subscriptions.

Stolen SEO should be a crime, but the individual leaving the door open are the source originators themselves. How many times have you found yourself using the Search bar at a given site, fruitlessly entering qualified terms, but not getting anywhere? These are the “light bulb” moments domainers and webmasters should tally in their tickler file of websites to build.

Target is a good example. I don’t go to Target.com because the search engine does not render results for products I know they have. Google searching should work, unless the clickthrough link pulls that scummy trick of landing the searcher at the landing page of the site, to begin the search all over again. IMOHO that is NOT a good search engine result. It creates work for shoppers.

How is this an opportunity for domainers? Domainers win when they conceive of a website that solves a problem and provides visitors with sticky content. Nothing could be more sticky than the search result for the item the web browser is looking for. One of the lamest excuses for imitation is that it’s flattering, but decades of Microsoft success prove you can’t “own” an idea.

If the store wanted to accessibly sell lawn chairs, it would maximize keyword efficiency.  But Target has left a window open for enterprising domainers. They can make a site featuring only those items inside the niche and save the shopper time, typing, and trouble. Any site that tries to encompass too broad an encyclopedia or catalog risks alienating visitors by this response failure. The elision of likely keywords from surgical results leaves the door open for enterprising web designers.

By shrinking the ugly cycle of scanning page of items after page of items at the store site, and waiting for all this to render, a site master can marry a city name or store name with an item to shop for and make a killer domain out of keywords they can optimize until the cows come home. This opportunity is available in markets heating up right now, like online coupons from sites like Dukky. Maybe users don’t want to wait for the next campaign and want the coupon now.

Why is this a domain development opportunity? Because a website owner of “Targetlawnchairs.com” could make a bunch of listings on the site and link them to the densely buried Target.com product listings. Surfing a densely niche targeted site for lawn chairs available at Target stores allows online discoverers to skip Search restarts and navigate back and forth through a million results.

Collecting information from online Web sources and redelivering it to the web visitor is not exactly rocket science. But it is webmaster science. Domainers can execute reasonable answers to online search query problems  and compose a likely site, and shrink the type in cycle for grateful web users. The traffic should tell the tale and  bring revenue and clicks.

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24 June 2010 ~ 1 Comment

Domain Entrepreneurs

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Domaining profit scenarios include multiple pathways to domain flipping and website launch for profit. Web entrepreneurs can plan on creating multiple revenue streams from each site. But the limit on how much of a site can be created for monetary return and how much is informative content is a personal judgement call. The matrix is edited by one person: the webmaster or site admin.

Domains can be investment vehicles or active projects. Monetizing the websites and deriving revenue from affiliates and sponsors is one way, but making the website and driving web development is another. Eyeing domain name acquisitions with an objective toward development take a a trained and speculative eye. The fate of many domain names and websites can take a wrong turn with one or two simple decisions.

The profit model form many websites as entrepreneurial projects does not necessarily have to stem from the website to make it work. Online Internet users are looking for so many routes to information and so many shortcuts to organized links, data, and media any plan that targets a viable niche and delivers a quick route to entertainment or content can make a website work.

Research for homework, college papers, and general background online is hot, while many legacy sources of information like encyclopedias do not adapt well to modern readers or web researchers. Topical SEO optimized articles can make a website on Civil War history or a certain era of Victorian literature stand out. Web journalism literally rewrites its own standards daily. Webmasters can too.

A domainer can identify a group of people that may benefit from having the opportunity to buy business or personal websites from a qualified site designer. Investing in suitable domain names for this market and promoting the domain portfolio to the niche buyers would be on strategy to make money. Showing likely domainer news how to develop a site for their own entrepreneurial development might vend many urls.

Topical domain names that revolve around one subject or topic can serve to corner a market or deliver a tranche of domain buyers to one portfolio holder. But not every domainer is comfortable with this investment. Some domainers simply buy their own “taste” in names and wait until nibbling buyers make inquiring email bids.Research into names and their resale markets is helpful.

Entrepreneur domainers can work on their own or with partners. Maybe one domainer has the drive to market and sell names to other domainers, and one partner can make sites and launch applications on a tight budget and restricted timeline. The other partner might have the contacts and social skills to engage other domainers in buying negotiations. A series of successfully completed sites makes the domain partners a new site production team for hire.

For Internet domaining partners, pooling hosting resources and creative ideas is a must. Sometimes one domainer will know the ins and outs of an auction site better than his compatriot. The market in one country and one language may be ready for that domain speculation, but the one partner’s host country domain bidders and auction name buyers may not bite at all.

If a webmaster baulks at a topic that is too broad ins cope, a niche within that topic can be found sufficient to launch the website and populate it with density keywords. Domain entrepreneurs who are partners can give each other critical feedback and inform the website project with joint enthusiasm and attention to SEO detail. The content can grow from multiple perspectives.

Different domainer teams can assign themselves into new partnerships all the time. There is no limit for project design and site launching for the online entrepreneur. When domain name value must be grown and multiplied, online peers and partners can make entrepreneurial decisions and choices to render domain names more valuable than ever.


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13 June 2010 ~ 17 Comments

Domaining for the Long Term

Domain name buying and selling is an industry, with good luck and bad luck and hard times like everything else. Long Term domain investors have learned by now not to put faith in empty promises and get rich quick schemes.  Quick recovery financially is not a guaranteed result nor is a cash windfall for every domain purchased and developed into a website.

New domainers should evaluate their best method to break into the domain name game and crack open some profit possibilities. Various approaches can be performed to break into domaining, and some are better for an individual or for a group of investors or a team of web promoters. Marketing can get the word once a site is developed and launched, but that has to be a preplanned adjunct to site development and launch.

The speed of the investment capital outlay on a domain name will start the clock on the return of investment-plus-profit scenario. Therefore a conservative domain investment strategy will put less pressure on the individual operator or project team members. A more aggressive capital recovery strategy makes every keystroke operate at a higher premiums that some campaigns cannot equal.

Different domain names will have a wider audience at different times, such as annual sporting event (Olympics) or in certain seasons (travel sites).  Ongoing steady url advancement is  the ultimate goal. The investment in time and resources during different times of the year and in anticipation of a wider and faster clicking audience online should be integrated into the domain name publicity and marketing plan.

Achievable goals in traffic building, social network attention and link building can set the stage for larger campaign to follow. Each name may have different attributes better for some methods of domain promotion than others. A catchy buzzword and flashy logo will draw some users out of curiosity, while other sites may bring only discoverability with intense keyword seeding and SEO element density.

Monetary clickthroughs trail from these dynamics. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Google, Ebay, or Yahoo. Each of those domains started as press releases and conversation starter tidbits about what the site was all about. Breaking down results from day to day domaining tasks can bring the domain name owner’s value growth goals to fruition.

Having a site is essential in today’s domain market. For those domain investors relying on parking and traffic hits, the risk is palpable. Now more than ever web users and browsers online are looking for a content result or website experience with depth and individualized options. The most basic web user is puzzled and disappointed by a parking page online, and they know they can find amusement and information elsewhere and navigate owner

A parking page or registrar sponsored landing page signals disinterest on the webmaster side, and is matched by a complementary response in the end user. the template and site builders available inside virtually every hosting plan make a index page or parking placeholder a statement of neutrality that forms an assault on an expectant end user.

Searching end users will refer to buzz already being reported about the site from other channels.  If no press release or meta tags exist, the discoverability  for the site  (and the domain)  is too low. There must be a plan to cement the domain’s footprint with associated text and keywords in dozens of spaces online before true stickiness can be tested. Patterns of clicks online from the promotional material to the destination site must be grooved for future users and search engine bots to follow.

Simply trying to monetize a domain with no site behind it is risky and leaves  a bad taste in the mouths of end users looking for a online destination and a web experience. Guerrilla marketing works best with some “flavor” behind it, something to do or see when typing in the domain name as an url address online. Intense investor or sponsor efforts must be matched by a seamless, clean designed site with solid content elements to recommend it.

A projection of formal development of a domain name, and the tools and individuals using them should be assigned and plotted. Even a pencil and paper three month plan can get the wheels rolling under a domain inspiration or grassroots blog project. These calendar notations can be edited and rescheduled.

Domain promotion and marketing is time consuming. Just organizing a SEO optimization strategy draws time and energy from team members or the individual webmaster or site programmer. Milestones such as traffic peaks and click volumes should be the goals. Revenue of the affiliate and offers links will follow if the primary goal of site traffic and domain discovery is developed.

Some investors take the plunge into immediate name investment, sometimes in the auction and premium domain name arena. The investment scenarios should be matched with equal investment in formal link exchanges, content adding, text SEO and code density keyword optimization, and clean design for end users. For domain value growth, marketing and promotion benefit when there is more site product to to “sell”.

Each domain project is different, but the thirst for success is the same everywhere. Working through the various challenges and domain name elements is what distinguishes experienced domainers and long term domain investors from hobbyists looking to strike cash flow without effort. When online traffic, public interest, SEO value and a launched site follow the domain purchase, the domain name  investment is sure to pay off.

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12 June 2010 ~ 17 Comments

Choosing a Hosting Account

One of the most critical decisions any domainer will make is the choice of hosting account and the company they decide to have host their domains online. Hosting companies are online service vendors who garner the host records and domain traffic execution to filed HTML content per the domainer or webmaster. Some registrars offer hosting as well.

The hosting account is a must as a transition stage between mere domain names owned via a registrar and live domain sites and managed parked pages. The hosting buy operates to provide every domainer with resources for website development. The cost can vary, and efficiency handling webmaster requests will dictate which hosting company the webmaster chooses.

But not all hosting accounts are created equal. The online  interface and the ease of use is demonstrably better at some hosting companies online than others. Facility for the domain administrator is key when choosing a hosting account. This means the operator should be comfortable logging in regularly and using the password functions to access the domain hosting administration menu.

Not all hosting companies provide this. While the landing page or “top” page has an index of features, these are often created from templates in the case of resellers. Reseller accounts for hosting are “branch” hosting accounts generated by interested users to function as hosting companies themselves. These may have the look and feel of the “parent” hosting company but they do not necessarily have the service benefits.

In some cases, if a reseller chooses to give a domainer a good deal on hosting it is their choice to go with that host. But keep in mind the communication relay and information for technical and customer support will only be as good as the operator of that account. The quality of this can be hard to predict from just a slick hosting company offering template.

Hosting can be available in blocks known as packages. The packages will likely have names corresponding to the their level of service offering.  The “junior” or “baby” web hosting accounts will likely have one name or single tolerance database structures and installations options. These database allowances determine the flexibility of the hosting account. The amount of websites hosted at that address online can vary.

The competition for the domainer’s web hosting dollar has gotten severe and the attractiveness of cost friendly hosting options is different with each hosting offering. Affordability and performance will shake out the best hosting company buy. The thin marginal differences in components inside the hosting offering will be what webmasters and SEO optimizers are shopping for.

Multiple websites can be hosted inside the hosting account purchased for one domain. The key benefit in today’s development market for websites is how many blog installations and portal or forum installations a website hosting account can provide. But there are SEO and ad credits for the advertising side of domaining as well with some hosting packages.

No formal license or minimum coding experience is necessary to buy a hosting account. Price breaks per individual hosting companies exist for quarterly and annual and biannual billing, some on a prepaid basis. Free hosting does exist yet the sites made from such a resource often have ads from the hosting company the user or site owner cannot control.

Owner incorporated accounts directly administrated by the domainer are best. Cost effectiveness and uptime are the optimum qualifications for a web hosting company. Reviews and recommendations should be plentiful. the monetary method of payment should have some protections as well, such as Paypal or via credit card.

Industry domainers can refer the better choices in hosting companies for those domain name owners who don’t want to take a risk.  Some hosting companies actively encourage new commerce and offer discount coupons, like Godaddy.com. Some advantages of one webhost like a free parking option or a unlimited email might matter to one domainer more than another.

Some hosting companies offer sterling references, like HostGator. They will have some good testimonials at the site.  Other web hosting companies specialize in price or online versatility when it comes to variety of open source or Windows based site building applications.

Soon the newb domainer will have experience handling domain name transfers, addressing host records, resolving HTML files with type in traffic, and other hosting tasks. And hosting can always be changes. The best practice is choosing a hosting account is to start making websites for the domains, using a small account,and build from experience.

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08 June 2010 ~ 11 Comments

Travel Domains

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Buying travel domains is an acquired taste in domaining careers that demands a certain hard driving point of view about domain name investment. But when you are traveling it’s the perfect time to assess whether or not that city has adequate website coverage. On the ground line of sight estimations about what information web seekers and search result finders want will be visible immediately.

Travel domains are domain names that correspond to content involving certain niches of geographical destinations or advice or travel fares and routes of certain intended demographics. Train trips, bus rides, city attractions, and restaurant reviews make the grade for topical and SEO friendly content. A local writer or native content contributor usually has the edge on any other researched writing, plus tips for local travel and buzz.

Travel searchers want to know what to do when they walk out of the hotel, what is the best and most fun thing to do or where to go to, and how is the best way to get there.  Yet often travelers are guided by available material from a hotel room or lobby brochure, which has been provisioned by advertising and licensing agreements. The visitors want to have a good time, they don’t want to drill down into fact checking.

It is surprising how many cities have geographical place names exactly corresponding to the municipality name, yet have little actual appeal to either the people that live there or the people that travel there. This is because many webmasters design a site that is unfriendly to the actual user yet pencils out in an academic or monetized site plan. The site may bring traffic, but may not be usable enough to go viral.

The usability of a site is related to its discoverability. The users of a good travel resource will be much more likely to convey the url to others on the plane, in the lobby, in the travel bureau or in the office. The types of details can range from movie showtime availability to driving time to local kid’s attractions. But some of these things can be populated by search results and RSS feeds.

Sometimes the travelers wants better data. They might want to know the best local place for gravy fries, a hot towel with a haircut, or a massage. But opening the hotel menu sometimes gives a queer slant on the blocks away restaurants and venues. Even someone staying in their own city might look askance at the offerings placed at the desktop of every guest’s room. Travel sites solve this problem.

Links can help provide quick reviews of the local offerings, especially when the hotel has free internet service. Sometimes just asking the concierge can yield some good results about weather, driving conditions, medical facilities, childcare, salons and more. Sometimes travelers are looking for niche dining and attractions to tell the folks about, and sometimes they want familiar branch locations of places they know without risk.

Making a viable travel domain site should include something no other sites   for that destination has. Local bus lines, museums within walking distance, hot or cold weather specialty venues might be of some interest. Travel makes people a little more open minded about how they spend time. People who might never go bowling or ice skating might get the urge by seeing a feature ad on a prurient website.

Promoting SEO for your travel domain may mean getting quoted and twittered about your updated content. People like to mention where they got their information when they blog about travel or vacation antics.  The article sites that allow links back can drive inbound link metrics up, and the outbound links can belong to local businesses and sites under review.

One of the most frustrating things to see happen when a travel domain is under development is the profit-colored glasses take over intuitive site design. Travel sites are really about content, they aren’t meant to compete with game sites or shopping portals. By allowing potential visitors to the travel destination to get a peek at what’s waiting for them, they will come to the well again and again.

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04 June 2010 ~ 11 Comments

Taste Making Domains

When website technology makes the cover of TIME magazine, the webmasters who skip taking note and continue on their geeky ride to stardom suffer. Collaborative filtering is what Netflix and Blockbuster have been doing for years with our movie choices. TIME’s article assumes that consumers and listeners are such spineless jellyfish their taste in music is a non-static dynamic one Pandoresque taffy pull away from new consumerism online.

Webmasters have seen this kind of taste making before, usually linked to consumer side reviews or specification linked technology elements. How you buy a computer online or how you buy an Ebay object show massive marketing heave in complementary response to every click. Vacuum cleaners and diapers get the same treatment from sites like Target.com and Kmart. Online consumers have learned to accept this collaborative response as a constant.

The owners and programmers of Pandora.com have a gleeful exuberance and gosh-gee-whiz exuberance of a winning website at the top of its game. Opening Pandora.com’s box would seem to be fun, I haven’t had the time nor the inclination. But to change up the model of the appeal of a Pandora business plan is a challenge all webmasters can relate to.

The domain is the brand, the starting point of a functional online destination. Creating a “Pandora” for computers and suggesting netbook or Ipad choices could also be the next big collaborative software requiring a recommendation engine. It could also be a shopping list item for domainers cruising the dollar domain threads or the dropping and deleting auction site lists.

Forming domain names to eventuate as Pandora-like portals for other consumer items or objects thus becomes a valid domaining goal. The name Pandora itself does not pertain to music or technology but rather to classical mythology. That the broad arc between those dynamics has been bridged shows the stamp of an impressive marketing campaign. The user clickthrough and site visit frequency ramps up the SEO value of any such site.

But what about the rest of us who haven’t chosen wannabe music fans as our target market? Lots of web surfers don’t want to be informed about their taste and neither do they  want suggestions about what the webmasters think they are supposed to do or buy or click next.  Generally these type of pointing fingers take the form of affiliate ads. YouTube and Tivo aren’t as sales oriented in the recommendation engine tactics so the pain isn’t felt as much.

The key market for Pandora would seem to be people too dumb or impatient to discover music for themselves. I guess if it doesn’t slay you in the first ten bars, you won’ t be tempted to buy it or know it or learn it. Pandora has transformed music appreciation into a game of “Name That Tune”, where consumers can turn thumbs down on any ditty they don’t cotton to.

Pandora.com has an intrinsic value in that it slyly siphons content from the corpus of music created worldwide across history. That is a very large target base of Internet browsers to tap. And they didn’t pay for the development.  iTunes mined the same demographic, with its  lead samplings and suggested additional tracks and artists.

The core value of a recommendation engine is its database of users. Pandora taps the musical tastes of users who have ranged through its site answering questions, scanning titles, and selecting artists. This type of data works through the filtering model and products likely pathways of additional similar choices. But the associative (SEO) model still works too.

It is hard to argue about the success and popularity of Pandora, but it confounds the logical webmaster in me to do it. FaceBook was just such a site, and now an industry of privacy and security software companies are making bank doling out protective code to people who give crib notes on their lives to people (Friends) they haven’t spoken to in decades.

The domain market contains many expansive opportunities for those with ideas and commitment to their collaborative projects. The domain model like Pandora.com as a suggestive filter or recommendation engine has merit. The broad range of objects this might apply to could start another domain gold rush in recommendation engine domains. Toys, books, kites, model airplanes, surfboards, a portal for anything can be created with such a model to work from.

Now that the public and online Internet user base has developed a taste for having their choices filtered back to them in the form of additional product or item suggestions, any domainer can identify their target object and build a ‘Pandora” of their own. There are no limits, from game playing software to Barbie clothing. The Web (and TIME Magazine) has spoken. If you build it, they will come.

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27 May 2010 ~ 9 Comments

Single or Multi-Domain Strategy

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A one domain strategy is a long game for those who have an investment view of finding return value on their domain name investment. One domain name with exceptional startup values, traffic, integrated SEO presence, domain ranking  and corporate or brandable name can be purchased using the entire investment nest egg or capital funding. A single domain can be a hobby or part time employment investment avenue.

A multiple domain name strategy includes various tools bought in bulk or employed over time in combination with one another that they return a  higher dollar value the one domain name itself. Not every name will benefit equally from like methods of marketing and promotion, yet every domain will feel some complementary benefit to the overall domain portfolio promotion strategy. The webmaster must administrate the content and keyword density efficiently.

Some names will have more traction than others from the get-go. Each domainer will have to decide if this means the “favorite son” gets more attention or less. Some domainers choose to focus on the most popular domain name in their stable. Some domainers try to shore up equal SEO results for equal time spent utilizing marketing and promotion tools.

Managing a domain portfolio takes planning, managing one domain requires simply attention to detail over various platforms and promotion campaigns. An approach to article writing for url promotion via resource quotation may not work for every domain keyword association. Domainers should evaluate their promotion skills and purchase domain names which can benefit best form each employment of their SEO optimization skill set and site content enhancement techniques.

Link building may not apply equally well over a broad array of domain names of various types. Some names may remain parked simply due to lack of time on the domainer’s part to develop them. Scheduled activities such as link building and article writing and submissions should be penciled out as far as time commitments go. The sum of many domain development parts equals much more than the sum of its SEO result.

Time assessment to develop should be an important element of additional domain name acquisition value analysis. A numerical domain or typo domain will not have the same branding appeal as a nonsense word with a catchy sound and funny onotomological effect. Domain names for best use are verbal and should encourage repetition and viral communication in an expanding loop outward. When end users stumble over difficult to pronounce or unknown domain names,for viral spread it’s game over.

Multiple domain investment will use up more time and absorb more attention than a single domain marketing project. Domainers should explore the full scope of domain name promotion and marketing options before considering themselves having tapped the full value of development potential. Experience using domain development applications, promotion websites, domain auctions, and online domain link building tools will factor into any domain name acquisition and business plan analysis and strategy further down the line.

A classic business error in the domain handling sciences is to quickly acquire many more names than the current time and resources of any domainer can reasonably develop to return value on time. A more wise domain name investment and development course is to hone SEO optimization skills and familiarize themselves with the necessary tools to promote a domain names value, and then multiply labor with supernumerary domain acquisitions.

Unless keyword and topic similarity are more than 80% congruent, each domain name’s value increase will depend on consistent SEO promotion. But a domain name traffic development strategy might take turns pointing each promoted domain name at another, thus algebraically transferring metrics of traffic while bolstering overall SEO domain name recognition.

One domain name can have multiple domain strategies, but the same domain names with the same marketing steps can be repeated over time and receive the value of an applied campaign to promote page rank escalation, SEO result optimization, Alexa categorical data fulfillment, and overall traffic increases. A social network campaign can follow these types of domain name development or operate congruently.

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11 May 2010 ~ 5 Comments

Domain Database Marketing

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The market for domain name resales generally lies within the groups of domainers who are looking for a certain keyword or keyword combination for their domain, investors looking for a startup brand or a domainer  solidifying his position in a certain keyword, subject area or term domain name group in the portfolio. These domainers make better customers because they do not need to be educated so much as to the value of a potential name.

The domain sales approach needs qualified data. The domainer customer for a domain name resale will ask tougher questions and demand relevant statistics for page rank claims and boasted-about traffic volumes. This means demonstrated metrics and dated reports should evolve over time of ownership of the domain.The values of the traffic and page ranking should be common denominators across the board, not a flash in the pan from only one.

Page ranking from the buyer’s preferred source of information, and domain name value analysis from the buyer’s chosen instrument of domain valuation will rule the sale. Domain name brokers and domain estimation tools are meant to support discussion and negotiation, but none of them are final verdicts on site value.

Domainers should maintain records of status checks at each page ranking site over time. These tables can be valuable when demonstrating domain name value. Domain name page rank changes over time. Even content and subject matter from Internet users can change with no webmaster control. If a change occurs in the maximum page ranking or SEO results, they can point to historical periods of record traffic volume and SEO popularity.

Domainers will look up and evaluate the time the current owner has had the domain registered to them and evaluate the domain name potential in part with respect to what the current owner has done with it. It is likely that traffic and clickthrough patterns were more robust in the past than currently, Domain name buyers will want to know why. Referrer traffic may be made available to the prospective buyer as the seller sees fit.

One of the most current value-adds to a domain sale is the site database. For a blog site or a open source application, a domain name that comes with a database can be valuable indeed. Although some domainers do vend their legacy databases after domain sale elsewhere, the best putative use would be to naturally support the domain name organically and linguistically associated with its seo-coordinated and name-associated database table.

If the website database is packaged with the domain sale, a cash value should be attributed to it in addition to the metrics governing the domain name valuation.The new buyer of any domain cannot assume all material published in association of that url or site name belongs to the new owners. Explicit terms in the domain sale contract must be negotiated for this. If the database table and its contents are to be rendered in a certain form.

One good way to protect the free use of a database without the domain owner knowing about it is to age the HTTP written expiration date of cache files so the past users can’t pull down from memory legacy content. If the site owner or webmaster decided a body of content (by category, for example) needs to be archived and removed from public server view, they can reserve this content for future resale without it necessarily being attached to the domain name.

Adding original images to a blog or application article site engine can also increase the value of the database. If the database is paired or packaged with the domain name, explicit inclusion of the photography, any video or sound media, and graphics files must be stipulated in writing. Words and objects to support a domain name’s value, gathered over the course of domain development efforts over time , can be an important negotiating factor and value addition to any domain name sale.

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28 April 2010 ~ 11 Comments

Google Provides SEO Inspiration

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Google is often regarded as the mountain domainers aspire to ascend. But a secret few domainers realize anymore is what a valuable research tool Google still is, especially for domainers. Finding new avenues to promote a domain can start by reviewing where the domain link already exists, and what other information is attached to that link.

Got a domain? Try Googling it.  This is pure web research that cuts to the heart of any domain. The resulting cache of sites and listings for the domain name should provide ample ideas for linking, bookmarking sites, and publicizing other names in  the webmaster’s domain portfolio. Yes, it’s as old-school as it gets, but try it. Domain research can still yield new ideas and concepts. Google your domain. See where that query leads.

I Googled Domainowl.com and got a result at something called RankArea.com. The entire database record for my domain name was blank, but there was a sweet index of compiled DomainOwl Tweets and posts.  Maybe they need a prodding via email to complete this listing? This makes a nice summary page in a broad prose format should I ever need one. RankArea could be a valuable link and a reference url. I bookmarked it.

I Googled DomainOwl and got a neat result that landed me somewhere called ServerSiders.com. They had a lot of information about the technical side of DomainOwl, and I made a note to keep this site bookmarked as a domainer toolbox reference url. I want to check out how my other domains are reported there. Here is the capsule summary they had online:

The site is using the Apache web server. The programming language used on the site is PHP and the main language used for the site’s textual content is English. The site was launched on Friday, April 9, 2010. Domainowl is using the javascript libraries jQuery, pngfix, WordPress Content and Wp-includes. The server that hosts domainowl.com is located in Wayne, United States. The server is located on the 1&1 Internet AG network. Domainowl.com is using Google Adsense for monetization. Domainowlcom is published using the WordPress blog software, which is written in the PHP programming language and uses a MySQL database to store its data.

By using Google to suss out likely sites using my domain, I also discovered more about the OWL ontology and vectors of owl based clipart. This is an improtant source of graphics for the domain webmaster hat I wear. When can you have enough owl based clipart? Answer: Never. Into the bookmark cache that link goes.

I also found out that OWL was a technical term of code used to format handled objects. I am not sure exactly what it means but having large amounts of resident text online in HTML that connect the word “domain” to “owl” can’t hurt. This entry goes into my tickler file for rainy day research. Thus the bookmark cache is growing for marketing related sites and ideas to market the DomainOwl stable of domain originated products and services.

Next top result was something called Listorious. I found it fascinating that there was a indexed entry of all current “echoes’ of the DomainOwl posts. Clearly you could scan Listorious and see where your posts are hitting online at one site, without even logging into your blog. There was differently structured entry for DomainOwl at Listorious:

Listorious says Domainowl hasn’t created any lists. But only do I intend to change that statement, but in doing so learn how I can populate the Listorious site reference for all my online domain sites. This was an action item that didn’t even exist fifteen minutes previously, but it will close a marketing loop in future, in a place where Domainowl already has traction online.

Fifteen minutes of searching sites and reviewing results, and a set of cached bookmarks to edit results and submit information to for all my domains as the material comes ready. Serversiders.com, RankArea.com, and Listorious.com were some of the top Google results with my domain searched. Enhancing those linked bits of site data can only help my domains stay SEO friendly in the long run.

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