A Little Bit Of Domaining Knowledge
Earlier this week I had a good friend come by to spending a few hours learning the ropes of searching for domains, where to back order drops, and the other things that I tell people before they even buy their first domain.
It was a great few hours, a few weeks back he had indicated interest in the industry so I focused him on Domaining.com and said read, research, go to DNJournal.com and learn some more and do NOT buy a domain until we talk again.
He did better than most I tell that too, he actually did not buy any domains but he did come in with a list of 25 he had picked out. He had defined what is domaining model would be (revenue from affiliates/adsense) and that he would get to know the ropes that way before going big and spending some real dollars on quality generics for investment rather than just ad revenues.
It was a breath of fresh air actually, he actually had spent quite a bit of time researching and actually did not buy a domain.
But, after I showed him some things he would not of found easily (proper way to use the Google Adwords keyword tool, etc) it opened up his eyes even more. Suddenly he saw the possibilities, since he was not reselling and was focused more on keyword targeted names with reasonable search volume the possibilities opened up even more for him.
He had me review his list, out of his 25 names he had picked out we were able to knock 20 down in seconds but then able to research the last 5 and picked two he would buy and develop.
I left the room for a bit and came back and his exact quote was "This is addicting!", I think we all agree. What he meant was sitting and searching through the GAKT tool can be entertaining, fun, and enlightening while you search for the hidden gem no one has found. I slowed him down and said get moving with what you have and then lets talk again and explained that he should not be like so many others and register hundreds of names before he even has any practical knowledge.
Well, hopefully he stays on the right path, a bit of guidance up front could go along way, he is a super bright guy and I would not be surprised if within the next year he doesn't find a way to turn it into real revenue.
Quit Paying High Prices for Domain Related Names
Why do domainers continue to overpay for domain related names or names that start with DN, or even the word domain when they have no plans to develop or brand them? The reason why, emotion. People are basing their buying on an attachment to their hobby (if you are just collecting and hoping someone buys its a hobby) rather than what they know to be right. Now to be clear, we have all done it, I have bought domain names based on an attachment to something but I did it knowing that. But when you are within the industry that the attachment is too, well not sure that it is a great idea to continue to buy based on that.
I initially had written this post on the way back from the trip to West Palm with good ole Chef Patrick (He has a blog if you did not know, ChefPatrick.com). During the trip we had witnessed something that we immediately caught as something rather obvious and somewhat concerning. Solid product domain names with immediate end user value (not domainer) and development potential selling at prices below names that had no potential outside the domainer world. As domainers we cannot keep being as incestuous as we are. The ability to continue to sell names inside the same group of people on Twitter, Facebook, Namepros, DNforum or other domain related sites at high prices is gone. We will not receive the value for our online real estate assets if we continue to do this.
Why do you keep doing it? When I first wrote this post I had pointed out the specific domains but I would prefer not to call out specific purchases because I think the point can be made without pointing out an invidual persons purchase. This is something that our long time industry leaders have been pointing out yet people ignore the advice.
Rick Schwartz has been successful selling domains at high prices based on his willingness to look out side our industry, a good portion of the top domain sales go to end users not other DOMAINERS. Continuing to put more value in slapping two words together and having the word domain, domaining, dn, or something to that effect and then paying more for that than solid keyword product names is not good. Yet it happens everyday. We all know that product related or service related names are the valuable ones, but we continue to overpay for domain related names.
Sometimes a little tough love is required to help people. For years while I followed the domain industry in the background I would read the forums, etc and see people giving advice but it was obvious they were diverting from the truth or simply were being taken as experts when in reality they had no more experience than the person they were trying to give advice too.
Well, I would prefer to help people rather than trying to hide info. I am sure people will disagree with this post, probably post a few comments that there is value in blah blah blah brandable 5 letter domain related made up word, thats crap. Unless you plan on actually developing it into something there is no value. IF you plan on branding it an developing it then you are no longer selling a domain but a business, there is a difference.
Morgan at Domainvestors.TV is a great example of branding, but guess what, he did not go buy your made up domain word, he was (and I am guessing here) able to hand register another made up word and has made it into something. That is why buying mixed up words with DN in them or others is not the most effective way to spend your money. Someone passed up the chance to own a product name with thousands of exact match searches a month to buy a name with exactly zero searches and no real end user potential so in otherwords, no true enduser value.
As I made clear on the bido video chat/interview on Friday I think it's a mistake to invest in made up words that sound cool, or just brandable word combinations in general. Now as I say that I am the first one to say you can build a brand on a name but this post is about domain reselling and potential fo resell or ease of resell to end users not other domainers. If you are developing to build a brand and then sell a website that is selling a business and once again, NOT selling a domain.
At the end of the day the most valuable names are product, service or geo specific keyword domains. watch the domain sales lists. I am pretty sure, but from a resell and domain value perspective the product name should of went for more than the domaining branded name. Tell me I am wrong here, have you witnessed the same thing?
The Value of Product Roadmaps when Developing Domains
As much as I try not to put to much structure in place and cause headaches when first launching this little thing called Missouri.me there are certain concepts and ideas that work well no matter how large or small your enterprise/product.
The one that I think is of the most value is the idea of having a product roadmap when developing your product, in this case a website. When developing any major site the first thing that you need to understand is that it will never be done, EVER. If you are dealing with people outside the tech world this may be a new concept to them. But if you think that you are going to wait to have every feature you will ever think of before you promote or sell product on your site you will NEVER make it to market because you will run out of money before you make it to revenue.
What we did was developed a phased approach, where phase 1 was based on core features, phase 2 on major core changes (speed, etc), and phase 3 on nice to haves.
Now within each of those phases we had a point by point description of what the feature would do, complexity, etc. Thats all fine and great but what happens next is once everyone involved starts seeing that their features are pushed out to later phases people start wanting to pull things into to phase one. Let me give you an example of this happening. Last year I was consulting for a group of doctors in the area I live in, they were starting a company and had a rather ambitious plan for a product they wanted to create. At one point in the process I stopped them and said ok, next meeting we have one item on the agenda, we are going to build a road map, I told them up front what would happen, they would all list features, they would agree to structure it in phases but then I let them know everyone was going to ask for their feature to be in phase one. So what happened, you can guess, out of all the post its we stuck on the wall (I used them to make a point), a total of 3 out of 50 or so were not in phase one. Hows that for making a visual impact of the problem.
So, how do you fix this, its natural to think your feature or idea is the most important, but you need to take the personal emotion out of it. Numbers work best. For the first few months of development I spent the largest portion of my time managing the expectations and requests from the sales side of what was being created (I was part of the sales side which makes it real interesting). I always laid out that if X feature was added then Y feature would slip and then did my best to show how revenue timelines or amounts would be impacted. So how do you balance when to add features and when to make a change in the road map, prove how many customers or how much more revenue could be added.
At some point you have to put a line in the sand though and say that phase one (launch product) is locked down, if you do not do that you will never get to revenue and your business will fail before it starts. That happened with that group of doctors, they never could get to launch because they wanted EVERYTHING day one. They could not prioritize features that were required vs nice to have.
At the end of the day your product should always be improving and growing, it should never be done, you need to have a plan and realize that you cannot have your developers changing course everyday, nothing will ever get done. Structure your development plan to get the most bang for your development buck and you will be successful.
Interview with Marc Gawith of Godaddy.com Executive Accounts
Marc Gawith
Godaddy.com is without a doubt the gorilla of domain name registrations. They hold more registrations than any other company and are the company most general consumers think of when they go to register a domain name. What some domainers do not know is they also have an executive accounts program for domainers and individuals with high value domains. Today I am interviewing one of the members of their Executive Accounts team, Marc Gawith. I think you will find some interesting insight into Godaddy.com's thoughts and plans for the domaining community.
Marc, tell us a bit about yourself, how did you end up at Godaddy.com and get into domaining yourself?
I grew up in Kansas on a pretty large farm and never had much experience with the web or technology as a whole. I moved to Arizona several years ago and got a job at GoDaddy where I have learned and taught myself everything that I currently know about domains and the web industry as a whole. I invest in domain names myself and try to keep up with the current trends and use my names for testing purposes to see what does and doesn't work for my clients. I love my job and I love helping my clients and the sense of accomplishment I feel when they sell a domain name or start making money with a concept that I introduced them to.
How goes a standard day for a Godaddy Exec Account manager?
A standard day for me starts at 6:00am when I get in the office. I begin my day by processing any outstanding emails from the day prior. Once that is done I load up my portfolio of clients and begin calling customers for the next 8 hours. The calls range anywhere from follow ups from previous days dealings or related to new products, services, or information revolving around domaining. This could be products that GoDaddy offers or products that I have come across by reading industry forums or blogs from other companies. The day really doesn't end except for getting some sleep. I have my email coming to my cell phone that I am constantly checking to make sure there is nothing that is pressing that needs to be taken care of immediately.
What types of services do you help with that a domainer would be interested in?
We offer a lot of standard services that most other registrars offer but there are a couple that specifically are created with our Exec Accounts in mind, specifically domainers. We have a program that is called Domain Transfer Validation. This allows an extra level of security for domainers portfolios. It protects against domain names being transferred out of or moved out of the current GoDaddy account. After all domain names are the biggest and most important asset for domainers.
Godaddy and its site are really focused on a the "general consumer", do you think the exec account manager service is Godaddys way of saying that they understand the domainer and our needs?
Absolutely! I think that initially the executive accounts department was just created for a go between for our larger customers and GoDaddy's development. However recently our focus and mantra was changed to be directed towards domainers specifically and their needs to be sure that those needs are met. We as account managers do our best to stay abreast of the most recent happenings and current events in the domaining community.
What are the requirements to be assigned an account manager?
Currently as a rough requirement it is at least 500 domain names. However that is up for interpretation based upon the domain names and the quality of those names. For example if someone owns 100 domain names but they are all high value premium domain names that is someone that is going to be a good fit for our department as we can help them fulfill their goals with their domain portfolio. In the same breath if someone is registering hundreds of domain names that don't have any value and is trying to sell them for outrageous amounts and using up our time and resources that person is probably going to be a better fit just calling in to our general support department.
One of the major complaints from Domainers with Godaddy is the amount of steps it takes before a name can be purchased, in many cases seconds matter, any tips for getting from search to buy faster?
I would recommend creating a buyer profile which saves all of the criteria for your domain names when registering. You set this up one time and it allows you to choose the profile you are wanting to purchase the domain under. Also once you have selected the domain name and your buyer profile you can click quick checkout which takes you straight to the shopping cart without having to go through the upsells and offers.
One of my complaints has been that I have to email my list of names in to receive my discount, is Godaddy working on a way to bypass this step?
GoDaddy is currently working on a way to bypass this. It is something that we as account reps have been trying to get completed for quite some time. We know that it can be a pain to have to put the domain in an email and then send it over and wait for us to register it. We have a plan in place for discount purchasing plans for our executive accounts customers we are just waiting for it to be put into place by our developers.
What extensions after .COM, .NET, and .ORG are doing well from your daily experience?
This is a very good question and one that everyone would like to know. Honestly it changes daily given the current trends in the market. If I had to pick a domain name that wasn't a com, net or org that would be next in line based upon my daily experience it would be .me. I know it is a cctld and it is relatively new but I see a lot of people investing time and money and actually building out .me sites and driving up the value. I believe you just did an interview with Steve Sikes who has been very successful with .me domain names not only developing but buying and selling.
How has the recession impacted the registrations you are dealing with, are you seeing more drops from your customers?
The recession has definitely affected customers. We are seeing a lot of people selling domain names for very cheap to try to recoup some of the cost associated with renewing names. Others don't have the ability to sell the names before they expire and end up letting them go and other domainers that aren't in the same boat are able to pick them up through our auction site at a very good price.
Why should I use Godaddy over moniker or another register?
The answer to this question used to be price. However after the changes that were made to our executive accounts department to cater towards domainers the answer would be service. Our job here is to work for our clients without being paid by our clients. What I mean by that is I am basically your employee but GoDaddy is providing my paycheck. That is our mentality here in our department. When a customer asks me to do something I get it done to the best of my ability as quickly as possible. If there are requests that aren't requests that we get on daily basis it may take a little longer but it gets done. We as executive account managers go out of our way to make sure things get done for our customers.
Thanks to Marc for taking the time out of his busy day to do this interview.
Interview with Steven Sikes Founder of YouAnd.ME and Domainer
Steve Sikes
Steven Sikes is co-founder of YouAnd.ME, a rapidly growing online dating site. He is also a domain investor who found domaining almost by accident after offers for names came in after he would purchase a name for a new business idea. After seeing the value of domains he began investing and has recently been successful with his .ME domain investments, but without further ado. Here is Steves interview:
Steve, I have to ask, what drove you to travel around the world at 18 years of age? That sounds like an amazing experience.
I received an academic scholarship to my university, Vanderbilt, and took high level science classes like organic chemistry, theoretical physics and molecular biology my freshman year; and I'd enrolled at the age of 17. Like many others in my dorm, I was pre-med. But I was overwhelmed by the course load, while also participating in intramural sports.
When I returned home for the summer, I worked as a construction worker and read travel books at night. Books by Graham Greene, Hemingway, Bruce Chatwin, and Paul Theroux. So I decided to break the news to my parents that I was going to take a leave of absence from the university and that I was giving up "pre-med" to pursue a life as a "writer". Of course, this was some romantic notion and foolhardy at the time. But my parents always let me follow my own path, so they agreed and I sold my car and used my summer work money to pay for this trip around the world. I first boarded a Polish freighter ship in Wilmington, NC and went across the Atlantic and got off in Le Havre France. The "around-the-world" ticket allowed the passenger to use it within one year, with the stipulation that you had to move forward or diagonal in flight, and never back-tracking. So I combined this global journey with ship, train, bus and air travel, and the occasional hitchhiking. All in all, it was a fantastic experience and highly educational. I definitely made it on less than $10 per day, mostly by living in hostels or camping outdoors and cheap eats.
Care to share any stories from your travels or any or your other outdoor adventures?
The trip opened my eyes to the world and other cultures. When I enrolled back in the university, I had a new global perspective and increased confidence. After graduation, I worked at an array of jobs - while trying to write novels - a rare wine buyer, free-lance journalist, teacher, football coach at a prep school. I soon moved to Paris and enrolled in a graduate cinema program affiliated with the Sorbonne. I lived in Paris for over a year and worked a variety of jobs such as an English teacher, a crewman on a boat that went down the River Seine to Marseilles and eventually through the Mediterranean and the Dardanelles, and did some free-lance writing for local magazines and even worked as a private tutor to a billionaire's daughter - and we got to take her dad's private jet to their country house in Ireland where I got to ride racehorses. Actually, one of these horses was world-famous and won the Irish Sweepstakes and another won Belmont.
I then lived in other countries - Mexico and Brazil - and lived in the jungles in Chiapas and the Amazon, and settled in for one year living in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I supported myself there by writing, working on documentaries, teaching and translating.
You have a wide and varied background, what drove you to domaining and web development?
Purely by accident. I had returned to teaching at a few universities, and I took a sabbatical of sorts (non-paid) and hiked part of the Appalachian Trail with my golden retriever who died just last year. I was tired of my erratic lifestyle, so I decided I would start a business, even though I had no knowledge of business. I read all these books on writing business plans and starting your own business. This was when Silicon Valley was hot in 1998 with all these start-ups. So I thought I'd use my language-learning and cross-culture skills to start an e-learning company focused on language learning and cross-culture training. I learned how to file patents and trademarks and I wrote a business plan and put together a team. Then, right before I received my first term sheet from investors, a major telecom company contacted me and said they wanted to buy my intellectual property (domain names and trademark). I turned them down over a period of several weeks, but then they made me an offer I could not refuse, so that's how I learned the value of intellectual property. So, now when I start new ventures, I make sure we have solid trademarks, domains, and patents.
I'm currently the co-founder of two telehealth software companies and a Web 2.0 overseas adventure living site, and we have world-class management teams (I'm not one, just a founder) and board members. I've been very diligent about our IP issues - domains, patents, and trademarks. For one of the software companies, we had to make a very costly domain acquisition because our company name was already trademarked in a country where we intend to do future business. So we bought the name and filed a trademark, strictly for this country.
Care to share some examples of your domain investments?
I really stayed away from investing in domains, because it seemed so arcane and I really did not understand it. I continued to buy domains, really only as potential names for future companies. And to my surprise, I would receive offers for these names from companies worldwide.
Then I began reading the domain blogs and joining the domain forums and I leaned about the value of premium domains, so I started investing in arenas that I liked and considered to be future trends - mobile technology, apps, green energy, clean tech, and Geos. Like you, Bruce, I love the GEO space, as it seems to be one of the safest paths to monetization. And maybe this love for Geos is related to all my travels and peregrinations.
My domain portfolio is quite diverse - DOTCOM, DOTME, DOTMOBI, DOTORG, DOTINFO, DOTNET, and some names in other extensions.
I buy lots of domains on the secondary market. In fact, I purchased three solid DOTME GEOS yesterday, and I made an investment in premium DOTME names. I've also sold part of this portfolio for low six figures, which covers my initial investment. Many of the buyers were and are end-users who contacted me, and one buyer acquired several of my names and he and I have become good friends, but since these were private transactions, I think it would be better not to reveal his name and/or contact information.
You have cofounded several online businesses, what have they taught you about marketing online?
They've taught me how little I know. I've learned from my mistakes, and that's why I'm so happy that my current partners are experts in this arena. I'm more of an innovator - I actually enjoy creating apps, algorithms, patents, etc - but I'm re-reading SEO for Dummies. My partners have taught me a lot about text, key words, placement of text, etc., and much more. I'm still a novice in this area.
You have been a big proponent of .ME on Namepros.com, what drove your belief in .ME?
Some of the reasons I invested in DOTME - it just seemed to mesh with the direction of the web - more personalized and more user-generated content. I thought the GEOS were great for DOTME because you could develop sites with reviews, recommendations, etc, and I also invested in DOTME group names such as Teens, Teams, Family, Latinas, Boomers, Baby Boomers, Celebs, as I thought they could be great blogging sites. I thought diary.me fit the extension well, as well as Hollywood.me and several call-to-action verbs I have like chart.me.
You have recently had a very successful launch with YouAnd.ME, a tough Niche to crack but you have had success, can you tell us about the project and launch?
The founders and team come from diverse countries and continents (U.S.A, Canada, Europe, India), and we had some solid domains and wanted to start a social media site. Originally, we were going to create diary software (SaaS) for diary.me, but then we saw all these articles about the online dating boom during the recession, so we decided to go with that - and we worked a deal for the name YOUAND.ME. A recent news release states the site YOUAND.ME was started as a way to find ME a date - not exactly true, even though my girlfriend and I did recently break up.
Why has YOUAND.ME been successful to date (pardon the pun)?
- Work, work, work
- YOUAND.ME - the name has been very catchy and it's allowed us to create a brand
- Innovate, innovate, innovate - we keep creating more features, games, widgets, etc
- Extensive and strategic marketing costs and having two SEO experts aboard
- Personalization - engaging our users
- The YOU TUBE videos - seen by over 500,000 persons
- Security - we've invested a lot in creating the most secure social dating site
- Creating a new category - a SOCIAL CONNECT site - which combines dating, social networking and social media and social utility, and we realize this is very ambitious
There have been questions about .ME and SEO , looks like you have succeeded in proving that there is not an issue, any detail syou can share?
We're ranked high in all the search engines. Our traffic was so high that our servers crashed. We're up to about 100,000 page views per day, after launching less than 2 months ago.
We have many mini-sites and we do buy keywords and we also have purchased a number of high-profile dating domains and sites in multiple extensions, including YOUANDME.NET and ONLINEDATE.NET, but YOUAND.ME is the main site.
You are going to be launching some Apple iPhone apps, facebooks apps, and others, whats your feeling on social network marketing compared to standard online marketing?
Excellent question. I know some "dating" companies have generated more revenues from their apps than their actual sites. Our apps are very feature-rich, very innovative and we will be able to integrate them into our YOUAND.ME web and mobile sites. With Facebook, you have a community of 200 million, Hi5 has over 80 million, and the iPhone apps really provide great marketing opportunities as well as revenue generators. The same for Blackberry Apps, as well as Android, and the entire social networking companies that use www.opensocial.org. Obviously, these sites and platforms enable you to tap into a large user base - bigger than most countries. But the caveat - you must have engaging and compelling apps, or they won't catch on and stick. I hope our apps will.
One question that always comes up these days is the drop in PPC revenue, how do you plan to combat that in your web development and domain investments?
Another great question I'm not really qualified to answer. I'm focusing on increasing the value of the company with more innovative and proprietary features, and we also look at indirect competitors who are getting major companies to advertise on their sites - because they've reached the sweet spots - large customer base and the desired demographics. We hope we'll have 100,000 members on YOUAND.ME by the end of 2009, and at the present growth rate, we should be there.
Per the other domain investments with premium domains, you are right - lots if uncertainty there. It seems for sites and companies to succeed, you will need well-developed sites, a brand, and a tribe (a following). But what do I know - I went around the world and I still haven't "found" myself...still searching for the answers...and a girlfriend (just kidding)
Thanks to Steve for taking the time to answer these questions! I hope you have enjoyed his story.
Free Minisite Ebook – Wordpress News Aggregator in 15 Minutes
Wordpress Minisite News Aggregator in 15 Minutes
UPDATE: A new version also now exists at How To Build A Wordpress News Aggregator although not in downloadable format, if you want a PDF this is the post for you.
Minisites for your Domains come in many different forms. One that has become popular is taking a niche and building a news aggregator using Wordpress and the FeedWordpress Plugin which is built specifically to aggregate RSS feeds from sources that you choose. This How-To Create A Wordpress Minisite Tutorial will show you how to create a Wordpress Minisite aggregating news for a specific topic, in this case using Cpanel and Fantastico.
If you do not have hosting with Cpanel and Fantastico then you should head to Hostgator.com, since they have packages that allow for unlimited Wordpress installations at very low prices, I use them for all of my hosting for both my dedicated servers and blog hosting for BruceMarler.com
Originally I was going to paste all pictures and info in one blog post but after seeing the length of the post I feel its best to offer it is a PDF document in a sort of informal E-Book format (for free of course).
To download the Wordpress News Aggregator in 15 Minutes Process click this link (its free) Wordpress Minisite News Aggregator in 15 Minutes
A Few Random Domaining Thoughts
A few random domaining thoughts and some insight into what will be coming next on BruceMarler.com:
- I have someone looking for a domain with the word "media" in it, not a bunch of random letters with media, but something that can be used for a company presence online. If you have something please use the contact me form at the top of this page to submit. It must be a .COM. Please send price in the message.
UPDATE: The buyer has selected the name from the dozen or so we received last night.
- Expect some video blog posts in the upcoming weeks.....
- I have had a few takers on the video domain sales concept but no one has sent their video, this is a chance to get your domain in front of viewers and giving it the pitch you want. No commission, should be fun.
- Expect some interviews with interesting domainers in the upcoming week as well. The first one was alot of fun to put together and provides some really good information on how this domainer became successful. I should be posting this on Monday.
- Really trying to talk myself into moving a few of my higher dollar per day parked domains to a developed model but having a hard time pulling the trigger, have a really good classifieds site that does well parked but I am thinking of using oodle.com's API to build a full fledged classifieds site since the traffic already exists. If anyone has had experience with building a free classifieds site feel free to contact me using the contact me link above.
- Thinking I may attend the GeoDomain conference at the end of this month, will depend on some schedule stuff, but think that it would be valuable to attend.
Sedo .ME Premium Auction Ends Tomorrow
Being a believer .ME domain names I have been watching the Sedo premium .ME auction which is currently running and ends tomorrow at 1PM EST. There are some premium .ME names in the auction that fit the extension well and I think with the current economic situation can be picked up at what will end up being bargain prices.
As I have mentioned before, outside of .COM and .NET the .ME extension seems to resonate the most with people outside the domaining world. As has been mentioned many times .ME really is the most brandable "alternative" cctld. With the net being more and more about personalized and localized content there are many possibilities to play off .ME.
Now, I am a realist and am not saying .ME is taking over .COM , please do not start screaming that I am nuts and dotcom is king. I get that. But I do think that .ME is going to do better than many domainers may expect (or want....).
Take a look at the list of domains being auctioned, might be your time to get a name at a bargain price:
pay.me
bet.me
book.me
download.me
compare.me
tell.me
print.me
film.me
rock.me
add.me
employ.me
sell.me
locate.me
test.me
join.me
pick.me
support.me
order.me
reward.me
message.me
manage.me
drink.me
power.me
discount.me
remember.me
market.me
clean.me
ring.me
promote.me
.TEL a Domainers Extension or Not?
After seeing several blog posts and much discussion on twitter the past few days about .TEL I thought it was time to run a poll on if .TEL is a domainers extension. My personal thought are that .TEL is not really a domain investors extension due to lack of monetization options. I have spent quite a few brain cycles on trying to find reasons to invest in .TEL and have pretty much concluded that I will not be.
That said, there are always people that will find a way to be profitable off new extensions, it will not be the majority but the minority that finds a way, and I believe that will be even more so the case with .TEL.
Vote in the poll to the right to show where you stand on .TEL.
Rather than repeat all the various commentary here are a few other blogs that have commented on .TEL this week:
Domain Name Buying and Selling Do’s and Don’ts Part 3
OK, final installment of Domain Name Buying and Selling Do's and Don'ts. Some of the comments I have got through DM on twitter and in email from those that know me have been fun and actually have led to some fun ideas for future blog posts. Keep in mind these are mistakes that most domainers have made at sometime or another (myself included) and are meet to help not berate.
After todays installment I will leave this theme of posts for a bit:)
1) If you are selling a name based on traffic and revenue, DO make sure you test it at multiple parking providers first. Although I prefer Parked.com in most cases I find that certain names perform better at other parking providers (I do much better with adult names on SedoPro). Now why it is important, I recently sold a name on 2 years revenue that at Parked.com was making approximately $20 a month. I tested this same name on SedoPro and it made $80 a month, thats a major difference if you are looking at a 2 year revenue multiple. $480 compared to $1920 just by taking the time to test on multiple parking companies.
2) Do NOT backorder domains at just one drop catcher. You will miss names you want guaranteed, it takes no more than 3 minutes to add the backorder on a second site (or even 3rd). I routinely use Snapnames and Namejet (to a lesser degree Pool) and have even on occasion use Godaddy backorders. If its a good name its worth the effort to cover your bases.
3) Do NOT ask for appraisals on forums, when I was a newbie I did this, its bad for 50 different reasons. Its not worth the effort.
4) If you are trying to move a traffic name be prepared to provide more details if its a name you are asking for more than $1XX on. I see people acting surprised when people want to see referrers, keywords, 3 months revenue, etc. If you cannot provide that is fine but do not expect to get the same revenue multiple that someone who can provide would get.
5) This one is more of an annoyance than anything, READ the forum rules before posting a for sale thread. The rules are there for a reason, the rest of us are abiding by them, you need to as well.
Thanks for reading once again. If you are into traffic names item #1 above is probably the most important one out of this 3 part series.