Spence Yao wrote a post today on Search Engine Journal dealing with domain names and their impact on both SEO and Social Media.
From the article:
When starting a new website, one of the first and most important decisions you have to make is choosing a domain name.
That choice will impact the website’s success in nearly every area,
included search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing
(SMM). Let’s examine how a domain name impacts SEO and SMM and then
analyze the factors that make a good domain name.
The article discusses whether or not to choose a keyword domain.
7 factors to consider when choosing a brandable domain.
I came across a site while searching called Whoisology.
The home page defines it as:
Whoisology
who•is•ol•o•gy
/"hu:%IzAl@dZi/
Noun
The comparative study of domain name whois records and their development.
A searchable domain name whois / ownership database with nearly 150 million individual
domain name
record updated regularly.
Awesome
The site is a pretty cool little site that if kept up to date will be a favorite of many domainers, especially those on a budget.
Whoisology allows you to see all the domains that someone owns (that they have the data for ) for free. Compare this with Domain Tools and the savings are off the chart.
Let's say you want to see what domains a company owns so that you can see if you have any in your portfolio that might be worth pitching. Just put in one name they own and get the results for everything Whoisology has on them.
Example - Google
When you check Domain Tools they have more domains from dns-admin@google.com than Whoisology has stored. 12,262 vs 8645. But Whoisology gives you the ability to look at all 8645 domains for free.
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Here is Whoisology
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The cool thing about Whoisology is that you can see domains by what name they start with, so if you wanted to see what kind of mobile names that start with the keyword mobile that Googled owned, you can just click M and not go through the whole list.
I will say on other searches there were registrant emails or names that Whoisology had as many results as Domain Tools. Some of the names were not updated, for example I checked a domain I sold, that was still showing under my whois on Whoisology but when I clicked over at Domain Tools the registrant was the person I sold the domain too.
The other cool thing about Whoisology is the ability to check which domains they have in their system by zip code or state or even phone number.
You may be looking for a list and someone has their names spread out, not just under one email, this way you can click the zip code and if that number is larger than the registrant email number you can just click that and see what names show, of course its a bit more work as you will see a list that you will have to click on each name individually. If its a large city this will be a lot of work and possibly unmanageable, but if its a small town it may give you more domains owned by the same entity using more than one email.
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So go over to Whoisology and check it out for yourself. I only found it last night so if you find some other cool stuff to with it, please leave a comment here.
Day in and day out when buying and checking domain names, many
domainers check the exact amount of searches for the keyword or phrase
using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (GAKT). I took a look inward and
looked at domining terms, websites and personalities in the domain
industry to see what kind of search numbers there are.
The first number is the Global Exact and the second is the Local Exact (US)
100Webhosting.com put together this infographic that takes a look at the history of domain names. Nice little piece for helping to educate those new to the business or for students that are writing about the domain space in high school or college.
Chris the admin over at DN Trade did one heck of a post to help anyone thinking about making their own custom landing pages.
The article is very thorough with links to every service and provider he writes about, one company he mentoned Unbounce seems to be an excellent solution that I started checking out today.
There are also examples of landing page galleries that others have put together. All in all this is a must read post for anyone looking to move away from parking and focus on sales landing pages.
There is a very good thread on Namepros today that should prove helpful for those new to domain investing and pondering their optimal portfolio size.
The best post so far imo is from Kate from Sds Inc:
"It's difficult to answer your question, because there are different
business models. People like Federer move inventory fast. Others hold
out for the best end user offer. Some buy domains for resale, others
make money from PPC.
The very large domain portfolios like Frank or Buydomains may be viable
only because of their critical mass. The overall quality may be average
or low, but they make enough end user sales to sustain their operations.
As for the so-called successful, full-time domainers, I think we may be
surprised if we knew the actual figures. I'm sure some are not that
successful
The majority of domainers are individuals, not businesses. Individuals
are not subject to the same pressure as corporations and tend to be less
realistic and more laid back when it comes to decision making...
There are many ways to skin a cat, and the ability to make good
decisions is more important than the size of the portfolio. Answer: that
depends "
There are many other good posts and the thread is just getting started with over 30 posts. This question goes back to something I have written about before, you cannot define the indefinable.
There is no perfect formula because everyone will have different levels of:
start up capital
risk tolerance
niches they want to register in
ROI demands
experience
I think the thread starter had a very insightful line that affects many new domainers and some with some experience as well. Thread starter Havela said, "I still don't understand why some domains sell for such a high price at
Sedo. As far as I can tell they have no commercial value. As long as I
don't understand this, I won't take the chance on buying really
expensive domains."
This sentiment is strong with many new domain investors imo, they will not buy one domain in the secondary market for say, $1500. They would rather buy 150 domains for $8 each. Even though the batting average for 150 handregs is probably going to be very low, many still would rather chance that then to make a big purchase they are afraid to get stuck with.
That's why experience, sticking to niches you know and doing a lot of research are very important for everyone, but especially new domain investors.
Domaining is a unique endeavor and it is very hard to model your portfolio size after someone else, no matter how successful they are.
Matthew Green just uploaded his presentation at the UnderGround Online Seminar, which is a rather interesting conference in that the location is not disclosed. Only attendees get the details on the location of the conference.
According to the conference:
This conference has hosted famous speakers like Bob Parsons, head of GoDaddy, Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek,
Gary Vaynerchuk, NY Times and Wall St Journal Best-Selling Author.
Every year, its top information means that it sells out well in advance
of the event.
The speakers each year have to have success at something other than
selling “how to earn a living online” training. They have been
successful in their own real business; otherwise, they aren’t invited to
speak. So Silver says, “this year’s stage will be filled with the
widest cross-section of entrepreneurial geniuses you’ll ever meet.”
Aged Domain Hunter was developed to analyze over 150,000 domain names
for sale daily. Our service is used by many Internet marketers and
companies all over the world, who are looking for domains that would be
impossible to find manually without using our automated system. The data
we analyze can help you drive more traffic to your business, generate
leads, find high page ranked domains, introduce you to new markets to
target, and much more.
Aged Domain Hunter is a monthly membership website. Our professional membership is open to the public for $29.99 per month.
When you watch the video, I think it would have been nice to give the people on stage chairs.
There seems to be two core areas where domain owners have a lot of frustration with bad behavior by outside parties.
The first one is Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, Rick Schwartz has led the charge on this topic and Rick has resorted to naming and shaming those that have in his opinion, tried to steal his property. Rick actually wrote a piece yesterday discussing his tactics. Rick wrote that he does not care for those in the domaining community that don't like his tactics, Rick said, "You protect your assets and family the way you see fit and I'll do the
same. Except I live in the world of reality and in reality there are
still corporate bullies roaming around taking things they are not
entitled to legally or morally."
Rick certainly has brought to light other companies that have tried to RDNH names that belonged to other domainers.
Michael Berkens from thedomains wrote a piece last week about a udrp decision on RT.org that many felt should have resulted in a RDNH. There was a comment by Domainer Extraordinaire, "
Anyone willing to try to steal a domain name is not deterred by the
possibility being found guilty of RDNH especially since there is no
consequence.
As long as domain names are worth stealing, people will continue to use this system to try and steal them." I kind of felt that he was spot on with this comment, and asks the question does naming and shaming companies that try to RDNH ? I think answers will be all over the board on that one.
To be fair the domain community can take no other action in this example, RT.org was not lost in UDRP but many including Michael Berkens thought the company should have been ruled to have attempted RDNH. Rick also has a site up at RDNH.com to help shed more light on the topic.
The second area of frustration we will discuss in this article is deadbeat buyers. Just about anyone who has transacted business on Sedo or Afternic has had to put up with them. There was a recent case where one domainer could not take it anymore. He posted a thread on Namepros and he named and shamed the buyer and his business.
In a domainer centric forum you would have thought the response would be overwhelming for the seller, it was not. There were people who said they would never do business with the seller, that it was wrong to name and shame, that people can change their mind, one poster noted that many states have 3-day cancellation clause requirements for contracts,
for example, allowing a buyer 3 days to change their mind after signing a
contract.
The buyer actually joined Namepros himself and referred to Sedo as harassing him with two to three emails a day. The seller has obviously been frustrated by the response. If there is no remedy by Sedo which one cannot expect as they are just the middleman, what is there to do about deadbeat buyers especially in the minds of those who believe naming and shaming is wrong ?
Naming and Shaming goes far beyond domaining and is used in many other industries where people feel they have no other way for a fair result. Sometimes people jump straight to it when others feel they could have handled it differently.
Scientific American just ran an article last week that was inspired by the recent naming and shaming done at a tech conference. The short story of that is that a female attendee who was tired of hearing what she deemed sexist jokes, stood up, turned around and took a picture of the gentlemen talking and tweeted it to her 9000 followers. The story got a lot of buzz and supposedly the gentlemen were fired by their company. You can read that story here.
If you do read the story pay attention to the comments where the support is overwhelmingly for those named and shamed.
Back to the Scientific American article, Janet Stemwedel dives deep into the ethics of Naming and Shaming. From the article :
There’s not a simple algorithm or litmus test that will tell you when
shaming bad actors is the best course of action, but there are
questions that are worth asking when assessing the options:
What are the potential consequences if this piece of bad behavior,
which is observable to at least some members of the community, goes unchallenged?
What are the potential consequences if this piece of bad behavior,
which is observable to at least some members of the community, gets challenged privately?
(In particular, what are the potential consequences to the person
engaging in the bad behavior? To the person challenging the behavior?
To others who have had occasion to observe the behavior, or who might be
affected by similar behavior in the future?)
What are the potential consequences if this piece of bad behavior,
which is observable to at least some members of the community, gets challenged publicly?
(In particular, what are the potential consequences to the person
engaging in the bad behavior? To the person challenging the behavior?
To others who have had occasion to observe the behavior, or who might be
affected by similar behavior in the future?)
Challenging bad behavior is not without costs. Depending on your status within the community, challenging a bad actor may harm you more than the bad actor. However, not
challenging bad behavior has costs, too. If the community and its
members aren’t prepared to deal with bad behavior when it happens, the
community has to bear those costs.
That last part resonates with me in the seller on Namepros case, I mean this with no disrespect to the seller but he is not held in the same esteem as Rick Schwartz is in domaining. Is it his status in domaining that brought about more people not liking his technique ? If it were Rick or Michael Berkens naming the deadbeat buyer would more people have responded favorably ?
So what is your opinion on Naming and Shaming ? Leave a comment
We hear many stories of people backing out and not paying on Sedo. Sedo will give the seller the information of the buyer and leave it up to them to go after payment.
There is a very interesting thread on Namepros about one such sale. Not only is the sellers post interesting with the back and forth between him and the buyer, but the wide range of comments after.
Some who believe go after him at all cost, to others that accept the non paying bidders as part of the game.
The intitial post is below:
I am SICK and TIRED of these Sedo deadbeat buyers thinking they can
get away with their foolishness with impunity. Here is my latest Sedo
deadbeat buyer story:
Danny Keck
Carolina Discount Furniture
carolina-discountfurniture.com
Read the series of communication between this deadbeat and I and let me
know what you think. Feel free to add this "buyer's" information to
your blogs/threads.
Here is the first email I sent after getting the buyer's contact
information from Sedo aver waiting several weeks for payment that was
never made:
Dear Mr. Keck:
My name is xxxx, and I am the owner of xxxx. Sedo forwarded your
contact information to me because you agreed in a legally binding
contract to buy xxxx.com through Sedo, and you failed to pay for the
domain name. While Sedo referred you to me for potential legal action
for breach of contract, it is my hope that we can come to a resolution
where both parties can be happy--you get the domain name, and I will
receive payment as promised.
While looking at your website, it is evident that you could benefit from
my domain name. The hyphen in your current domain is really dragging
down your site's value, not to mention the lost traffic from people who
forget to type that hyphen into their browsers. I am confident that you
will recoup the cost of my domain name easily just from the new traffic
you will receive. And you don't have to build another site. Just
forward this domain to your existing site to capture that traffic.
So I am convinced that you NEED this domain, and not purchasing it would
be a mistake. I will work with you, as long as you pay as agreed. I
can also lease the domain to you (you make monthly installment payments)
if price is an issue.
I need to hear from you ASAP so we can settle this matter. Thank you for your time and attention.
Danny Keck's response:
I
think money must be the issue on your end. I have never had anyone
pursue $497.00 like it was the lotto prize before. I have many
customers who are used to finding me with the hyphen. I simply changed
my mind on this matter. There is nothing legally binding here so I would
appreciate it if you and Sedo would quit harassing me.
Danny Keck
My response to this, with comments:
Dear Mr. Keck:
My position on this matter is clear. The amount of money involved is
not the issue. There is a principle here, and it is unfortunate that
you as a business owner do not understand this. You made a commitment
to buy the domain through the Sedo marketplace. Sedo lets buyers know
that any offer made on their platform is legally binding, and you should
not click "buy it now" if you are not in agreement with that. There is
no "I changed my mind." That is not acceptable.
You can either pay what is owed willingly, or you will be forced to pay
legally. That is up to you. I will give you 24 hours from the
timestamp on this email to contact me to make payment arrangements and
to submit payment to me. If payment is not made within the time period
specified, the next communication you will receive will be a Summons for
you to appear in small claims court concerning this matter.
Please keep in mind that amount I will be seeking from the Court will be
far more than $497, and will include court costs, my travel expenses to
your county in NC, and other remedies allowed by law. I also reserve
the right to post your name, website, and contact information
identifying you/Carolina Discount Furniture as a deadbeat Sedo buyer
online until payment is made. My comments regarding the email you sent
me are in bold, below.
I think money must be the
issue on your end. (Why wouldn't money be an issue on my end? I am in
business to make money, just as you are). I have never had anyone pursue
$497.00 like it was the lotto prize before. (The amount really doesn't
matter. The issue is that you made a commitment to buy through Sedo and
reneged on that commitment. The same thing would happen if the
purchase price was $60. I have had collection agencies come after me
for $25 medical bills!) I have many customers who are used to finding
me with the hyphen. (This may be true, but you, not I, went on Sedo to
buy xxxx.com.) I simply changed my mind on this matter. (So commitment
means nothing to you? I wonder if you are so generous as you expect me
to be if a buyer makes a commitment via contract to pay for furniture
and then decides to change his or her mind and not pay what is owed).
There is nothing legally binding here (I would suggest reading your
contract again) so I would appreciate it if you and Sedo would quit
harassing me.(You are responsible for paying Sedo's commission, so they
may continue to contact you or take whatever action they deem necessary
to collect...I have no control over this.)
Final response from Mr. Keck:
Do what you gotta do.
The Seller: These deadbeats think they can get away with this because of the cost
and inconvenience involved with pursuing them through the legal system.
Now one commenter left a message that a Google search for Carolina-DiscountFurniture.com has this Namepros post on the first page.
Dan wrote an article in The Guardian that is sure to make any domainer smile. Dan said the following, "My students get extra credit if they can show they've registered an internet domain name for themselves. In any future course I teach, this will no longer be optional; it will be a requirement."
Dan pointed out how Facebook and Twitter and other social sites have their place, but that its a mistake to leave your online reputation in the hands of a third party.
The real key to this story is the comment section. The number of people that in 2013 feel that owing a domain, just one, was foolish, a waste of money, would rather have a latte and many other reasons shows why we are still in the first inning.
It reminds one of this famous faux pas, “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a
fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s
lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.
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