Domainer's Gazette-Home

Jay Westerdal, of Domain Tools, hooks domainers up.

How? He provides several filtering tools, for free, online to sift through the desert like abundance of expiring domains.

One, I use on a consistent basis, is the Advanced Auction section of Domain Tools..

I debated whether to share this info or not, but darn it, it helps me, and - in the end - I wanna help the domainer community, so what the hell, I’ll share it.

One great angle researching domains is targeting really old domains. Domains that have been registered for more than - say - 8 years or so.

Why old domains? Well, think about it this way… Frank Schilling, plus a lot of other domainers, got very active in 2002.. so, it’s 2008 now. All domains, 8 years old now coming up for auction, were off-limits to Frank and the other odd crew back then..

and imagine, if someone registered the domain for 8-10 years, the things gotta have some value to it, right? Either in generic name value, or traffic value.

..if you had a lackey domain name in your porfolio, one that had proven no name value or traffic value, would you continue to register the name for consecutive years? Probly not.

So, guess what the Advanced Auction section of Domain Tools allows you to do?

That’s right, filter by domain age.

Simply jump in there, filter by age, and go crazy.

Does it work?

Yes.

Because Jay gives these types of tools away for free, I was able to identify, backorder, and acquire BeavertonApartments.com today, for the entry fee of $59. I was the only bidder.

No, that name ain’t gonna make me rich, but if you look at the search stats on ‘beaverton apartments’, you’ll realize $59 is a pretty cheap acquisition price.

all this cause Jay was cool to provide tools like this.

thanks Jay.

I owe you a beer at Bone’s.

I just completed the transfer of a domain name within GoDaddy, thought I’d share the process (which was extremely easy)

In specifics, I bought a .com, and the original registrant’s registrar was GoDaddy. I luckily have an account at GoDaddy as well, so I decided to simply move the domain from his account to mine. A process I assumed would be as intricate a few transfers I’ve done before.

Happily, I was very wrong. In reality, the process takes all of 15 - 20 minutes. That’s it.

And in comparison to moving a domain from registrar to registrar (Moniker to GoDaddy, say), where the requestor has to initiate the transfer, within GoDaddy, when you move from account to account, the current owner initiates the transfer.

Here are the steps below: (In my case, these are the instructions I had to communicate to the second party)

1. Login
2. Within MyProducts, Click Manage Domains
3. Select the domain to be transfered and click Account Change
4. In the New Registrant area, fill in the all new owners info (name, address, phone, all that jazz)
5. IMPORTANT - Be especially careful when entering the email address, as that’s where GoDaddy will forward the Transaction ID and Security Code for transfer. If the address is fat fingered, and accidentally forwarded to an incorrect party, realize they’ll be holding the keys to your domain name, and’ll have the ability to accept transfer into their own GoDaddy account (if they have one).
6. Agree to the terms in the Domain Name Change Registrant Agreement
7. GoDaddy’ll then list all services that will be cancelled once the domain is removed. No biggie, click Continue.
8. And I think the final step is clicking ‘OK’

The registrant accepting the transfer will then receive an email, subject line reading “Change of Registrant Pending“, and reading:

=============================================================
CHANGE OF REGISTRANT PENDING
=============================================================

Dear Peter Askew,

The registrant of the following domain name(s):

PURPLEPEOPLEEATERS.COM

has initiated a process by which you will become the registrant of the
domain name(s).

IMPORTANT: You must complete all of the steps below before the domain
can become active in your account.

————————————————————-
You may be asked to log in to your account. To safely log in:

1. Go to the GoDaddy.com home page and select “My Account.”

2. Create an account if you do not already have one, or enter your
log in name (or customer number) and password. Then, click “Secure
Login.”

3. Select “Pending Account Changes” located in the “My Account”
box.

4. Select “Accept Domains” (upper right-hand corner), then provide
the following information:

Transaction ID: 9999999
Security Code: XXXXXXXXX

5. After you enter the Transaction ID and Security Code, please
proceed through the shopping cart to complete the free transaction.

If the Change of Account is not completed within 10 days, the
transaction ID and the security code will expire.
————————————————————-

If for any reason this information is incorrect or you feel this change
of registrant request was made in error, please contact us within 15
days at mailto:undo@godaddy.com.

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Copyright 2007 GoDaddy.com. All rights reserved.

Once the receiving registrant plugs in the Transaction ID and Security Code within ‘Accept Domains’, and completes the free transaction, GoDaddy will begin processing the move. In my case, it took less than 10 minutes.

The receiving registrant will then receive the confirmation email from GoDaddy, like below:

Dear Valued GoDaddy.com(R) Customer:

The registration of the following domain name(s) has been successfully
transferred to you:

PURPLEPEOPLEEATERS.COM

Now’s the time to make sure all the information associated with this
domain is accurate and up to date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please log in to your GoDaddy.com account to view or change your domain
details:

1. Go to the GoDaddy.com home page and select “My Account.”

2. Enter your log in name (or customer number) and password, then
click “Secure Login.”

You will then be taken to the Account Manager, where you may manage
your products and services.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you have forgotten your password, select the “retrieve my password”
link on the log in page.

======================================================
AUTO-RENEW YOUR DOMAIN(S) NOW!

When you modify your option to Auto-Renew, you won’t have to do it
yourself when your domain(s) are about to expire.

1. On the Manage Domains page, select the domain(s) you wish to
modify using the checkboxes.

2. Click “Auto Renew.” If you selected multiple domains, be sure
to enable the fields with the link on the right.

3. Select “Automatic Renewal Enabled” so that your domains will
automatically renew.
======================================================

So once again, welcome and congratulations on a successful transfer of
domain registration.

Sincerely,
GoDaddy.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Copyright 2007 GoDaddy.com. All rights reserved.

That’s it, really - outside of jumping in your account to verify the name is safe and sound.

Hope that helps..

As domainers and SEOmainers, we all want traffic. Traditional domainers speak to type-in traffic. SEOmainers speak to Serp traffic, bookmark traffic, and inbound link traffic.

I spend a majority of my time as an SEOmainer, cause I’ve found traffic in this niche drastically trumps type-ins.

I do acquire a majority of new domains at auction houses, but - honestly - some of my most successful acquisitions have occurred outside that arena, by going direct. In other words, simply finding sites I like, cold calling the owners, and offering ‘em cash money. Going direct has several advantages, a few being:

• lower acquisition cost
• access to actual traffic logs (upon request)
• fully built websites sold in conjunction

Now, identifying domains to acquire direct can be a challenge, so I thought I’d share one of my favorite routes..

Good ole DMOZ/ODP shopping. DMOZ Mart you could say.

If we want to build traffic (or simply manage the existing traffic) from a nice old indexed domain, DMOZ is a great place to shop. ODP domains are typically old, indexed, and trusted.

How to find target domains in DMOZ? Well, I’ve found a several by simply drilling into a niche I liked, and searched for domains with a dead, or inoperable, homepage. Then I run a quick link and traffic check, and if those are satisfactory, I pull up the domain owner info on Whois and give ‘em a buzz. Sometimes I’ll email them, but the response rate is a bit better if you get them on the horn.

Give it a shot, you’ll be surprised what you uncover..

thought it might be helpful to toss out a quick guide along with some tools I’ve found helpful as I’ve stumbled through the domainer/SEOmainer world. I’ve broken it down into what I see as a natural split, that being the Buy Side, Development, Monetization, and Tracking..

Buying Domains

Domain Auction Houses

• Snapnames - auctions expired domain names from Register.com (and a few other smaller registrars.
• TDNAM - acronym stands for Domain Name Aftermarket. Auctions expired domains from GoDaddy.
• Pool - auctions off domains from a bunch of smaller domain registrars
• [UPDATED] NameJet - auctions off expired domains from Network Solutions

Domain Sales Companies
ie. where you can buy domain names which are ‘for sale by owner’

• Sedo
• Afternic
• BuyDomains
• GreatDomains

Domain 411 / aka ‘Whois’
ie. if you want to buy a domain directly from someone, you need to figure who actually owns it. Whois services will tell you that.

• Domain Tools - there are a ton of Whois services out there, we like DomainTools the best

Domain Development
Since I develop the majority of domains I acquire, here are some suggested resources I’ve used in the past

• Tubetorial - provides some extremely helpful internet marketing videos free of charge.
• OSWD.org - I use this site so much, I almost feel guilty. They provide free web design templates to “help make the internet a prettier place”
• Wordpress - I’ve tested implementing blogs onto acquired domains, with some success. The blog software I use is Wordpress.
• SEO Book - Aaron Wall’s comprehensive book on the world of search engine optimization.
• Jim Boykin’s Blog - Once you read Aaron’s book, follow it up by reading darn near every post on Jim’s blog.
• HTML Editor - to develop sites, I have to use an HTML editor. Use Dreamweaver if you want to pay for bells & whistles, or Coffee Cup’s HTML Editor / HMTL Kit if you want a free tool - less bells & whistles.
• Logo Creator - I actually created my first 20 website logos using Cool Text’s Free Logo generator, with pretty darn good results. I upgraded about 6 months in, dropping all of $30, to buy Laughingbird Software’s Logo Creator software - which has been *great*.

Domain Monetization

Contextual Ad Platforms
ie. you’re paid for each click or impression

• AdSense - the 900 lb gorilla. Highly recommended. Extremely targeted ads, and fair payouts.
• Yahoo Publisher Network - the newbie. Can compete/win against AdSense in certain niches, but not many. Targeted ads are a problem, mainly cause their advertising base isn’t as large as Google.
• MSN Content Ads beta - has been announced but hasn’t truly rolled out yet
• Kontera - In-Text Contextual advertising provider. I’m not a fan of the ad format, but these guys seem to target the ads better than their competition…which is below
• Vibrant Media - another In-Text Contextual advertising provider

Affiliate Companies
ie. you’re paid for each lead your domain/site generates
These companies will represent a slew of advertiers who’ll pay per lead you send them..

• Commission Junction
• Azoogle Ads
• Share A Sale

Domain Parking
ie. when a user visits your domain, they’ll be presented with a list of paid links, example here.
(I don’t park many domains, but when I do, I use Sedo)

• Sedo
• Parked.com
• NameDrive
• Revenue Direct

Selling Domain Names
when you simply want to sell domain names you own.

• Sedo
• Afternic
• BuyDomains
• GreatDomains

Domain Tracking
Once you begin collecting domains, you’ll slowly turn into a morphed mathematician, analyzing traffic to determine ways to best monetize your stream of visitors.

Site Side Tracking
ie. tracking you place on your domain/site to analyze visitors

• Google Analytics - Free, but do you want to allow Google access to your site statistics?
• eXTReMe Tracker - Extremely popular tracking system - Basic version is Free
• Site Meter - Basic version is Free, Premium version starts at $6.95 for 25,000 page views
• Mint - $30 per site

3rd Party Assumption Based Traffic Guestimators
ie. tools online you can use to guess what another domains/websites traffic levels are. These are all free to use.

• Alexa
• Compete
• Quantcast

whew.. talk about a brain dump..

Traffic.

It’s what I chase. Some folks speak to type-in traffic, but like Andy mentioned, I’m a bit suspect of type-in traffic numbers. They just don’t quite seem to add up.

I tend to concentrate on domains which receive traffic from previous bookmarks, search engines, and inlinks. (And if these domains are lucky and receive type-ins as well, then it’s icing on the cake.)

The most common way I identify these type of domains is researching domain auction drop lists for names with current or existing traffic, domain name heartbeats I like to call them (think I heard that phrase somewhere - but can’t remember where)..

To do this, I have 3 usual stopping points. Alexa.com, Compete, and Quantcast - all site traffic estimation tools.

let me give you some screen shot examples of a recent domain I researched, and eventually bought.

In this case, I was using Alexa. The first shot presents the traffic estimates from the past 6 months, which in most cases shows a flatline/zero - but don’t let that throw you off.

(had to erase the name - sorry)

I typically jump to the ‘Max’ tab, located on the far right. This’ll tell me if there were any old domain traffic heartbeats back when the domain was fully live and operational.

and as we can see, it does have some heartbeats. Now, to get a rough understanding of traffic numbers these graphs represent, and to create some type of benchmark, I’ll toss another site into the comparison tool, a site which I’m aware of daily traffic levels.

In this case, I’m gonna throw in Tony Hill’s site, cause Tony was kind enough to share that his site received an average of 300 visits a day for the month of June 2007. (I typically use my own sites as benchmarks, but thought I’d use Tony’s in case any newbies out there don’t have direct access to raw traffic numbers)

Now, with this knowledge, I can see Tony’s traffic on the graph during June ‘07 is slightly higher, maybe double, than the domain I’m researching for the same time period. So, in this case, I’ll assume my site received around 150 visitors a day during that period, and could have the potential to receive double or triple that if I correctly design the site moving forward.

I typically repeat these steps with Compete and Quantcast as well, just to be safe and generate as many data points as possible..

Again, traffic is the name of the game. Traffic = Sales. Traffic = Leads. Traffic = Clicks. The more sites I can acquire with traffic flow, the better.

I used to ignore 404 “site no longer exists” websites I’d stumble upon online. I viewed them as roadblocks.

I’d back button and dig deeper elsewhere in my research.

Then it hit me.

In simple terms,what are 404 ’site no longer exists’ sites?

They’re abandoned websites. They’re abandoned domain names.

They’re acquisition targets.

Most importantly, they’re acquisition targets *before* they hit the open market on TDNAM or Snapnames.

And since they’ve been abandonded, chances are you can acquire them on the cheap.

If the site has traffic, inlinks, and respectable topic rpc (revenue per click from adsense), it’s worth your time to investigate.

don’t let these suckers slip through your fingers!

They’re passive income waiting to work for you…