We Do Search Engine Optimization.

I just received this email in my inbox, a thinly veiled attempt at sucking money out of me to register .asia domain names. Be watchful of notices to register domains to protect your trademark and intellectual property in International areas. The most common I have seen are Chinese .cn domains and .cm domain names.

Before registering any domain name with an exotic extension, make sure you contact your webmaster or local accredited domain name registrar such as NetworkSolutions, Godaddy, or Enom.com

This is the email I received:

Dear CEO & Principal

We are a domain name registration and dispute organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration and internet Intellectual property right protection in Asia. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.

On Aug 10, 2009, we received an application formally. One company named “FJS Holdings Ltd” wanted to applied for the internet keyword “Netpaths” and some domain names through our body.

Now we are handling with the registration of these domain names and find that the keyword of these domain names and internet keyword is identical with your company’s. So we have to confirm with you at two points:
1. If your company consign FJS Holdings to register these domain names and internet keyword, we will send application form to them and help them finish the registration at once.
2. If your company have nothing to do with FJS Holdings, they maybe have other purposes to register these domain names and internet keyword.

In order to deal with this issue better, please contact us by email or telephone ASAP.

Best Regards,
Tim Hu
Auditing Department
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Tel: +852-2297-9279
Fax: +852-2297-9209
Email: Tim@eworld.hk
Email: Tim@eworlddnr.hk
Website:

http://www.eworld.hk

Tim

Google is still using the domain name as a primary ranking factor. With a good domain name, rankings are nearly guaranteed.

Below is an example of a niche retail site, but if you want to rank for “Keyword Keyword” all you need to do is purchase www.KeywordKeyword.com and you will have no problems getting to the first page.

In this example, if you do a search for beach towels several sites show up in the Google SERP’s

http://www.google.com/search?q=beach+towels

The #9 result is a single page redirect site, that doesn’t mention the keyword phrase ANYWHERE on the page!

The site ranks for the fairly competitive keyword phrase “beach towels” while breaking every search engine optimization rule available. With some simple SEO this site could rank #1, and beat out target.com

All they did was spend a few thousand dollars on a premium domain name, and the rankings come with no effort.

Note to all SEO’s and entrepreneurs: invest the extra money on your domain name and you will be duly rewarded, premium domain names will increase in value like real estate.

Global toy conglomerate TOYS R US have purchased the Toys.com domain for the reported 5.1 million dollars, making it the biggest sale of 2009 so far, as well as one of the ten biggest sales ever reported.

The only problem was that this destroyed the SEO for the existing domain, causing Toys R Us to loose a ranking for the keyword ‘toys”

Now, instead of holding position #1 and #4 they only have one.

Corporate IT simply redirected the new domain name to the
Toys’R'Us home page. Toys.com no longer had its own site so Google delisted
it. They will still receive type-in traffic, but all the extra traffic from the additional Google ranking has disappeared.

Normally I recommend focusing your energy on one website and trying to build a single site into a dominant entity. However, for a large corporation with a limitless website that has the potential to rank for multiples of competitive keywords, using multiple websites can be an effective strategy.

This is the worst however. Toys’R'Us has registered the typo
domain ToyRUs.com (missing the first ’s’) but has not
forward it to ToysRUS.com. This is a huge blunder, and is causing this mega retailer tons of sales.

Toys R Us needs to contract out their search engine optimization or they will keep loosing ground to amazon.com.

.FAIL

Something is very fishy with the .me domain name registration system. Individuals who have signed up and paid for .me names are not receiving them. Multiple people have even been approved and charged for the same domain name!

Most of the really good names were registered by Afilias. There are super shady registrations where it appears that Afilias pre-registered all the good domains April 29, 2008. Afilias got a deal on all the premium .me names they wanted.

What is even more shady are the trademark dates. Trademarks were done in the year 1900, signed and sealed the same day. Very interesting. A company that was founded in 2000 received trademarks 100 years before their incorporation, and the Afilias.com trademarks were approved faster than any other trademark in history.

Domain registration for bite.me
registered: 4/29/08
trademarked applied: 1/1/1900
trademarked registered: 1/1/1900

Domain registration for mobile.me
registered: 4/29/08
trademarked applied: 1/1/1900
trademarked registered: 1/1/1900

Here is an available name: Do.me

do.me domain name available

but do.me is not available for registration on enom.com

Gogaddy has the same problems with the .me registration

It seems that the .me registrar wants to use their auction system to sell names themselves at an increased price. Most domain names in the .me auction start at $75 but have gone for a lot more topping out at $3605 for lastminute.me

Boy lots of people have been experiencing problems with the failed .me domain name registrations.

Godaddy has been accused of bidding against its own customers in their tdnam.com domain name auctions.
Domain name auctions are a huge business, which generate millions of dollars for expired domains.

The 3 large players in the expired domains business

1. NameJet.com
2. SnapNames.com
3. Pool.com

TDNAM is the GoDaddy acronym for The Domain Name AfterMarket, and does not provide the same level of service as the 3 main services.

A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn’t just any GoDaddy employee; he’s head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn’t win.

The conflict of interest is unethical, and possibly illegal according to ICANN domain name auction regulations. However, Godaddy loves controversy and I’m sure this is just part of their marketing plan. How many more links have they gained as a result of their controversial domain marketing plans?

See the news on the Nodaddy forum with comments from disgruntled godaddy customers. Nodaddy provides Godaddy reviews and rates Godaddy services.

Slashdot has a large commentary of the godaddy VP bidding on their company auctions.

Fox news does a short story on the domain name aftermarket, and as usual offers marginal entertainment and little information. Not surprisingly this media company tells us that sex sells, specifically sex.com sold for 12 million dollars.

See the video clip of 2 women talking about purchasing valuable domain names, wishing they got into this market 10 years ago. Don’t we all?

My tips on buying domain names:

* Get a .com – these are like real estate, are scarce and will only increase in value long term
* Be prepared to spend money for good names. If your business is named Mega Yachts then be prepared to spend several thousand dollars to get MegaYachts.com
* Do not buy domains for Page Rank. PR is virtually useless on transferred domain names if they are setup on a website with a different theme.

Godaddy has a video advertisement on their domain name aftermarket website that features a script from 1992.

While viewing the video ad, remember this is published in 2008.

Some of the Godaddy transcript

For business, the internet is key
Potential is enormous
Transactions happen in real time
The web is alive 24 hours a day 7 days a week
Personal expression has taken off to, thanks to blogging and social networks (ok this did happen in 2004)
Want to stay in touch with family & friends? The internet is perfect for that too.
Think of the internet as a place where people can come together to share news, photos even video clips! (wow even video!)
The internet is doing more than making us money and bring us closer together (really? im all ears)

Yes, this is true. Its amazing that companies don’t turn their servers off at 5pm when they close their offices.

See the Godaddy video that will make you wonder if the Scottsdale Arizona company has 1992 baked into their mission statement.

This is the godaddy video advertising their knowledge of the internets. Bob parsons has hired an attractive female to lure in viewers with subliminal mind tricks, insulting the viewers intelligence with a format similar to infomercials.

With the advent of Graham Langdon’s MillionDollarWiki.com people are jumping on the wiki money making bandwagon. It seems like a safe bet with the original Million Dollar Wiki having an incredibly strong start. Graham has created a new online market using the free mediawiki code and I think its a great idea. Wikipedia.org is an great source for reasonably commercial free information, and the Million Dollar Wiki is a source for marketing and commercial information. There is no ambiguity what kind of content you will find at either website, and this is good for users.

As the original JohnChow reports, JohnCow sold the MillionEuroWiki.com domain name, but there are a lot of wiki currency domains still available.

MillionPoundWiki.com – registered 7/29/07
*MillionDollarWiki.co.uk – registered 8/23/07
MillionPoundWiki.co.uk – registered 8/20/07
MillionPoundWiki.ie – available
MillionDollarWiki.ie – available
MillionMarkWiki.com – available
MillionMarkWiki.de – available
MillionDollarWiki.eu – registered 10/1/07
MillionEuroWiki.eu – registered 10/1/07
MillionPoundWiki.eu – available
MillionFrancWiki.com – available
MillionFrancWiki.fr – available
MillionDollarWiki.fr – available
MillionPesoWiki.com – registered 9/25/07
MillionPesoWiki.mx – available
MillionLiraWiki.com – available
MillionLiraWiki.it – available
MillionDollarWiki.it – available
MillionDollarWiki.es – available
MillionDollarWiki.ru – registered 8/15/07
MillionDollarWiki.tv – available
MillionDollarWiki.au – available
MillionDollarWiki.cn – registered 6/6/07
MillionDollarWiki.in – available
MillionDollarWiki.jp – available
MillionDollarWiki.ca – registered 9/13/07
MillionDollarWiki.co.jp – available
MillionDollarWiki.co.za – available
MillionDollarWiki.co.kr – available
MillionDollarWiki.fi – available
MillionDollarWiki.se – available
MillionDollarWiki.br – available

*note, if I did not include your coutry, It’s not because I don’t love you or you aren’t important, I’m just too tired to lookup all ~200 countries.

Why did I research all the names and post them for a domain name squatter entrepreneur to purchase? Variations abound. I have a lot of other projects and obligations, and at this point it’s more fun to be on the sidelines watching this unfold (along with John Lampard, Matt Jones and Angel ). The original MDW has an excellent, passionate marketer behind it and it should be a resounding success. However, like the MillionDollarHomepage.com, I think the marketplace will only support one website, and it will be the first player in the game.

There’s no reason not to try your hand at the money wiki table, with the right skills you could produce a winner!

*update* - use the code cvos to receive a $5 discount when signing up for the MillionDollarWiki.

I have compiled a list of services I use to help me acquire, manage and broker domain names. These are almost all free services that can help a webmaster purchase a desired domain name or get a name that is pending delete. If you’ve ever been frustrated that some other guy seems to get the best domain names, read on.

Namescout – Excellent free service with a very intuitive interface that any Adwords user should recognize

Domain Name Aftermarket – Godaddy service offering domain name auctions at low bids
Domain Alert – Another Godaddy service offering alerts to changes in domain names. Similar to Domaintools.com
Sitefinder 301 – Sitefinder301 uses the Open Directory Project and the Internet Archive to find sites that are relevant to your niche that you may be able to buy. Check for domain names that have not been updated in a long time.
Domain Tools Advanced auction – Excellent tool allows you to search domain names by dmoz and yahoo directory listings, extension and alexa ranking and ranks them hierarchically. You will find great domains with this tool.
Register Compass – Similar to the advanced auction above, but this service costs $30 per month.
Instant domain search – Search through available domain names with a lightning fast ajax interface.
Domains bot – domain name suggestion tool. It may be able to help you come up with a good name, or you could just spend senseless hours trying to coerce the computer to find you a good available name.
Afternic – marketplace for premium domains, buy and sell domain names.
Sedo – Domain name parking services uses google adsense to give you revenue from empty domain names.
Just dropped – Search for domain names that have recently expired.
Moniker Appraisal – Looking for a domain name appraisal? Moniker is one of the top brokers for premium domain names.

If you want to order expired names you need to do it through an automated domain name recapturing service to secure domains that are pending delete.

There are 3 domain name capture services that will backorder dropped domain names:

Snapnames.com
Pool.com
Namejet.com

If I missed any feel free to post them in the comments.

Should you use keyword stuffed domains or hyphenated domains? Is this the magic elixir that has eluded you in cracking a top 10 Google ranking? Did you already purchase a 10 keyword domain name based on the advice of a domain name representative who wanted to sell you more names?

Here’s the bad news: It’s a bad idea

If your business is selling office furniture you want a unique name, not  www.office-chairs-desks-lamps-pencils-staples-tables.com  This will not make your business better and will not provide an easy name for customes to remember. Further, it could possibly hurt your ranking because the majority of keyword stuffed domain names are quasi spam or made for adsense sites with no real business purpose.

Even if some search engines *cough* MSN *cough* may rank some spammy sites better today, there is no guarantee this will be the case for the future. If you spend $10,000 developing and promoting www.baby-clothes-pacifiers-beds-dolls-shoes-bassinets.com  and then the algorithm changes and leavs you on page 359, you’re in big trouble. And even worse, you can never tell this name to a potential customer for they will never remember it.

For proof, do a search for Computers.  You will not find super keyword stuffed domains and even computers.com.

Instead, focus your creative energy on a unique business name that will represent who you are and grow with you for the next 50 years. I love names that are dissociated with the product and have a unique brand of their own: Nike, Skype, Apple, Sony.  You know exactly what products they sell just by a short, unforgetable 1 word name.