Domainer's Gazette-Home

I revisited one of my favorite blog posts today, from Tropical SEO, written by Andy Hagans..

back in ‘06, he wrote a post that still speaks volumes to me, nearly two years later..(hell, I even commented on it back in May of ‘07)

for us domainers, it specifically speaks volumes, due to the fact the we’re all really pack rats, siphoning in domain names with the eventual “vision” of developing them out into some wide swath portal power.

Now, the somewhat unspoken secret in domaining is this: domainers are lazy. Sure we collect all these names, but do we develop them to their full potential? No. Shoot, I’m even an exception, cause I develop all my names, but since I consistently buy more and more, I can only spend a limited amount of time on each property, possibly creating 25-50 pages of content. After that, I gotta bolt cause more names are on the block - names I need to buy.

And if you look at Andy’s post, you’ll see my comment.. it definitely helped me re-focus my priorities at that moment in time, but a month or two later, I became re-addicted to buying names, and throwing more into my portfolio.

Today was another re-focus moment. I’ve got to stop buying domain names. Or slow down at least. I’ve got a portfolio of solid names. Both from a dictionary level, and from an SEO level with 10 years of age on them, thousands of backlinks, and uber-commercial possibilities.

I can’t pick 20, cause I’m a one man operation. I realistically can only pick 5, max, maybe. Five I devote myself to. And possibly one I hang my hat on. One I live and breathe. One I fight for. “The Big One“, so to speak.

Once I get One generating some consistent cash flow, then I hire some folks. Then I can make my other properties their “One”.

thanks for letting me brain dump this out..

The domains I target and acquire, I tend to develop and keep. As I collect more and more names, though, a few fall by the wayside.

One of those wayside name became RomarBeach.com.

Romar Beach is a stretch of sand right down the road from Gulf Shores Alabama..

Take a peek of it on MapQuest here

So I bought this one a while back, and parked it over at Sedo waiting for a moment to develop it..

that moment never seemed to come..

the name was small’ish though, a touch too small to submit to the conferences, or even spend time trying to sell to a fellow domainer friend..

then I realized I had never auctioned a name off at Sedo yet… So I thought, I might as well pimp this blog out, see if there are any takers..

and if the name ain’t enough, based on Sedo stats, it receives an average of 176 pageViews per month (over the past 12 months.)

so, who’s interested? $100 bucks will send this thing to auction..

and if it ends up selling for more than $259, I’ll use the proceeds to officially join the ICA..

UPDATE: you, my fine readers, are too kind.. RomarBeach.com is now on auction at Sedo..

bid away!

for some reason, I kept thinking of Oliver Twist for this CTOPD..

“More day old bread please?”

“Absolutely, here you go…”

“But that’s a piece of cake!??!”

“No, that’s day old bread…”

Don’t know what CTOPD is? Read here..

Directions to get to my friends house in Oxford MS:

Head down Old Sardis Road

Take a right on College Hill..

then, WATCH OUT FOR THE PLANES TAKING OFF

and go straight for 2 miles, his complex is on the left..

First Beat Media is about to receive a nice chunk of traffic, and - potentially - a very large check.

why? and who’s First Beat Media? (note to self - I need to add them to my domain name company list)

well, here’s their bio:

First Beat Media, Inc., a domain acquisition, online entertainment media company who targets PREMIER industry leading domains and develops them into strong portals. We feel prime domains is the first step in building an online brand and deliver instant-targeted traffic to our site.

and here’s why they’re in such a good position:

Google just announced their hosted ad management service…named ‘Ad Manager‘

… guess who owns the domain AdManager.com?

Not Google. That’s right, First Beat Media.

Remember the AdSense Consulting team who used to own AdSense.com?

well, check out their historical traffic stats in Alexa for their domain when Google AdSense was launched:

in this case, it ended up being more of a hassle than reward for ‘em, as folks hounded them by email and phone, believing they were Google..

they eventually conceded, and sold the name to Google for an undisclosed amount - but I’m sure it was a hefty undisclosed amount.

As of print time, AdManager.com leads to a dead page, so First Beat shouldn’t encounter the same annoyances AdSense Consulting did..

First Beat should simply sit back, champagne and cigar ready, waiting for caller ID to read:

GOOGLE
Mountain View, California

I’m gonna say this first off.. I’m a Jim Boykin disciple..

he was (and is) instrumental in my education on domaining and SEO..

and after I got a chance to meet him at Pubcon Vegas 2007, I realized he was simply an all-around nice guy..

so fast forward to tonight.. I’m considering attending SMX Advanced in Seattle, so I decide to view the provided video..

minutes later, I crack a wide smile when I happen upon ole Jim, rocking out, air guitar style (to what song is a debate, it seems to be 38 Special’s “Caught Up In You”.)

screen grab provided here:

and video here

Jim… am I right? Was that 38 Special? I could be wrong… possibly AC/DC’s “Givin’ the Dog a Bone” ?