Domainer's Gazette-Home

There’s a certain amount of positive nervous anxiety I encounter each time I’m chasing a domain at auction.

“Am I Paying Too Much?” ; “Is This Thing Gonna Throw *Any* Money?” “Did I Run Enough Analysis”.

A few weeks back, I was able to identify an experience where I encountered the same mental state.

In my brothers newly refurbed Porsche GT3.

Like I mentioned before, similar to me buying auctioned domains and breathing new life into them, my brother does the same for (lightly) wrecked cars - usually Porsche’s.

The GT3 he won at auction had some fender-bender damage to the front, but the body, and rear of the car - which tends to be most important cause that’s where the engine is - was fine. So he bought it, fixed the front, and now has this:

So he took me for a ride in the mountains of western NC a few weeks back, and gunned it on a few back roads. This is pretty much identical to what it sounded like, especially all the gear shifts (although this example ain’t his car):

It sounded like it was physically chewing up asphalt. I was definitely in an ‘excited-uneasy’ state of mind, quite like my domain auction moments.

Maybe I should challenge Jim Boykin to a race.

the more I play, and the more I learn in this online space, the more I desperately feel the need to learn.

the aspects I’m comfortable with - domaining, SEOmaining, HTML, CSS, SEO, PPC, tracking, hosting, etc..

don’t seem to matter when it comes to aspects I’m *not* familiar with - mySQL, PHP, Javascript, C#, basically the hard coding stuff. The stuff I yearn to learn.

And coming from the ad side into the development side, it’s tough to determine where to start.

I wanna learn more about dynamic websites. I wanna learn how to code. I wanna learn how to administer databases. I want to be a Domaining and SEOmaining Terminator.

Imagine - a domainer who knows how to hand code apps & administer open-source databases. One that understands how to establish dynamic websites, and CMS applications that wrap around them.

I’m an idea guy, when it all boils down. An idea guy without a development background.

That’s gotta change.

The days of domaining and developing static HTML sites are coming to an end for me.

The days of domaining and developing full-functional dynamic website applications are on the horizon.

Today, I’m gonna to start learning : )

Since I’m an SEOmainer, I tend to pay attention to a niche of domains typically ignored by traditional domainers. Domains which, in most cases, are ugly. Ugly, in that, they typically possess several hyphens, word abbreviations, and registered under the ‘red-headed stepchild’ gtld’s like .info or .ws.

I pay close attention to these domains cause, at the end of the day, traffic is traffic, whether it’s driven to rumcakes.com, or rum-cakes.biz.

I’m - basically - the online version of the Statue of Liberty, welcoming the wretched refuse…

Like Lady Liberty, I’d have my own tablet, and it’d read:

Not like the brazen Almighty Domainers,
With conquering limbs astride from registrar to registrar;
Here in our humble spare bedroom shall stand
A mighty SEOmainer, whose American Express card
Is the imprisoned lightning, and his name Peter Askew.
From his beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; his mild eyes command
The dew-soaked Blue Ridge Mountains.
“”Keep, your 2 letter .com’s, your dictionary terms!”” cries he
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled domains yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming registrar.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

View the original poem here

maybe the .mobi guys are moving into the plastic bag market:

actually no, looks like this is the spawn of some New York City fashion industry folks..

on the back of the box they advertise their url, which is mobi-usa.com.

They’ll kick themselves whenever they realize they could have registered plasticbag.mobi during the landrush..

one small suggestion to all the SEOmainer’s out there… I don’t suggest using a dot/period for your title tag:

My wife and I live in an old 1926 Cape Code style house here in Atlanta. We bought it in July of 2006, and from what I learned from the neighbors, are only the 3rd residents in the house. A lot of history in these walls.

it got me thinking about domain names, specifically the history and life-cycle of an individual gTLD. Wayback machine obviously gives us a snapshot of what the domain name was used for, but what about the stories behind the pictures? Who owned it? Why’d they buy it? What was their intention for the domain? etc..

So, I decided to give a somewhat intimate look behind a domain name I recently bought within Snapnames, and eventually sold at DomainRoundtable..

the domain is: DayTradingSchool.com

the story begins waaay back in December of 1998.

December 1998 -
DayTradingSchool.com was originally registered by Thomas L. Busby and the the DayTrading Institute of Mobile, Alabama, for the purpose of promoting their day trading educational series. In 2001, an additional domain was registered by the company, DTITrader.com, which mirrored their company acronym and business focus. They successfully operated DayTradingSchool.com for 8 years, but in March of 2007, they failed to renew, and the domain entered the grace period and was listed on the Snapnames auction block. (they continue to use DTITrader.com)

February 2007 -
I personally stumbled across the domain running a routine analysis of the latest domain drop list. The name represented a nice hybrid for me, as it seemed to generate a nibble of type-in traffic each day, plus additional visitors from the serps online. I envisioned creating a day trading school directory, where I could list, as well as advertise, day trading institutions offering classes for future traders. It seemed like an interesting opportunity, so I tossed it into my Snapnames queue. The auction was scheduled to begin on 3/5/07.

3/8/2007 -
Auction close day. A few heavy hitters are in the room (vaxis, bonkerstwo, bigmooli, dubya, & fatjobbie). I decide to dip my toe in the water, and place a high bid of $571. At 3:08pm the action starts. Vaxis drops an offer of $596. I counter with $621. Vaxis counters with $646. The other bidders - bonkerstwo, bigmooli, dubya, & fatjobbie - bail, so it’s down to vaxis and me. I begin running numbers in my head - potential traffic levels, potential EPC, potential re-sale value in 2 years. I come up with a number I’m willing to spend. Vaxis and I slug it out, and the price rises to $1,224, with vaxis as top bidder. I’m becoming less interested at this point, but decide to lob one more offer, $1,274. It’s all I needed. Vaxis bails, and I become the new owner of DayTradingSchool.com

3/9/2007 -
At the time, I was occupied with some other projects, but moved to design a quick and dirty homepage, just to get something live. I populate the page with a 336×280 contextual ad unit. Here’s the “fancy” logo I created for it:

3/9/2007 - 3/31/2007 -
Traffic to the site for the remainder of the month wasn’t bad, and my gross payment at month-end wound up being $5. I figured, once I developed the site, I could boost my revenue to around $100/mo. I’d just need to dedicate some time.

April, May, June 2007 -
I begin to successfully monetize a few smaller domains on Sedo. Since there’s no development resource needed for these types of domains, I concentrate my time on this niche for the next three months, while also entirely re-designing Planet BnB (and placing daytradingschool.com on the back-burner.)

July 2007 -
I identify 5 domains within Snapnames coming up for auction within the next two months - 5 names that end up becoming ‘must-have’ properties for me. At this point, live domain auctions were generating some buzz, and since I self-finance all my acquisitions, the more liquid cash flow I have available, the better. As I ran a quick inventory check, DayTradingSchool.com stuck out as a possible candidate. DomainRoundtable was coming up in mid-August, do I decided to submit it for consideration, with a reserve of $1,500 (to stimulate some interest).

August 2007 -
Jay let’s me know it’s been accepted. I complete and fax all the paperwork over.

8/15/2007 -
Domain Roundtable auction day. DayTradingSchool.com is listed waaay down the list. The auction starts mid-day, and my domain finally comes up for sale around 9pm. Where’s it gonna go? Is the money train gonna stop in Atlanta? It..finally goes up….and…it sells for the reserve. Queue the “wha wha whaaaa” music. Actually, though, I needed the money back out of it, so I was successful in that regard. So, to recap the investment, I bought the domain for $1,274, sold it at auction for $1,500, paid DomainRoundtable a 10% finders fee - $150, and pocket an industry thumping $76. Bam.

8/24/07 -
Domain Transfer Request begins for DayTradingSchool.com.

8/30/07 -
Domain Transfer Request completes.

around 9/1/07 -
Domain transfers to new owner, and is re-pointed to new host.

and as a follow up -

Guess who it now belongs to? Our fellow blogging friend, and Almighty Domainer, Frank Schilling and Name Administration.. ha.

Good Luck with ‘er Frank. She served me well : )