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.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 10:46 am and is filed under Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hi There
That’s some useful info for someone very new to the domain market - like me for instance! Thanks for that.
Where would you suggest people go to buy expired domains - is it places like tdnam and snapnames?
not a problem, hope it helps..
tdnam and snap are great stopping points.. pool.com can be another resource to use as well.
-peter
Are there any tools (free or pay) that do this on a larger scale? It’s kind of hard to do this for hundreds of candidate domain names that show up in the snapnames lists every day. I say candidate names because I would rule out alot of “junk” from those lists.
In any case, thanks for this extremly useful information - i had never thought of putting a known traffic site in for comparison.
TDNAM publishes the traffic data which seems to make things a bit easier, but at the same time creates more competition.
Great article. I find it very helpful. Oh, just in case you want to give your site more coverage and exposure, I will suggest
you give DomainersCity.com a try. DomainersCity.com. It is the first social networking site for domainers and website owners.
The link is:
http://www.domainersCity.com
The site provides the following features:
* Promote your domains and sites and build lasting network relationship
* Create custom profile and web page for your sites and domains
* Blog about your sites and domains
* Share ideas and contacts with other members
* Communicate and interact with other domainers from around the world
* Stay in touch with changing domains rules and regulations.
* Advertise and publish your your services in the marketplace section for free
* Join networking groups and create your own private Group
* 100% Free - The site is 100% free.
http://www.domainersCity.com
Excellent guidance for novices, thank you. You’re something of a contrarian though, aren’t you? Most domainers pursue domains with type-in traffic because it doesn’t go away. Backlinks can disappear and search engine listings can get dropped. But real type-in traffic just keeps on growing.
to Brian S :: no bulk tools for this that I’m aware of.. I cherry pick domains with the right stats to run this type of analysis.. I think alexa offers api access, though, if you know how to code an app to ping their servers..
to DomainerPro :: if you buy the right domains, and develop them the right way, backlinks and search rankings won’t disappear - they’ll actually grow. And I’d argue type-in traffic is on a slight decline.
-peter