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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
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:
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.
Its like the horror movie the reanimator where a mad scientist wants to get even with the world and prove their ideas to a disinterested public.
Richard Rosenblatt is MySpace founder who sold his web 2.0 empire to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million and immediately regretted it bigtime. His company Demand Media purchased Enom & Bulk Register, making him one of the top 4 domain name owners and brokers online. What does he want to do with this new portfolio of parked domain names sitting in purgatory collecting millions of dollars from hapless Adwords advertisers? Make a social media site! Yes, now when you type in undeveloped names such as handbrake.com or baseballplayer.com you can actually join a social network! Yes! I can’t wait to join myspace for parked names, it has to be more interesting than simply stare mindlessly at advertisements.
I talked to some domainers, and they said, ‘We own 300,000 domains, we make $20 million a year, we have just four employees and some servers in the Caymans.’ I thought, ‘If you can make that much doing nothing, what if we added some Web 2.0 sprinkle so that people would come back – user publishing tools, social networking? What if we built a platform where we could snap that into as many domains as we wanted?’ That’s when the lightning bolt hit me: You’d have a company that generates its own traffic, generates its own content, and monetizes itself. It would be the perfect lazy-man’s media company!”
Mr. Rosenblatt is a shrewd businessman, so im sure he will make money out of this deal. The small players, as usual, will get nothing and perhaps loose money on worthless advertising.
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