By Peter Askew | April 17, 2008 - 4:08 pm - Posted in Domaining
in no specific order:
- For the most part, .ws .biz and .cc domains are worthless.
- SEO domaining is not easy. I’m not saying this to discourage competitors. I’m saying it cause it’s starting to beat me, rather than me it.
- Network Solutions sucks.
- There are too many domaining blogs that report ‘breaking news’. If you hit Domaining.com at the right moment, a large percentage of the headlines will read the exact same thing.
- Monte Cahn likes bowling shirts (with the Moniker logo stitched in).
- When you buy a domain direct, if at all possible, create your own account at the same registrar. Why? Transferring into another account usually takes a few hours. Transferring away, to another registrar, takes up to 5 days. In other words, 5 days for the seller to get cold feet and back out.
- The more I domain, the more I like Geo names.
- Ron Jackson, of DN Journal, works his butt off and should be thanked by every domainer for his efforts.
- And since we’re on Ron, I wish he’s only sell static ads on his site. There’s only so many swirling, swooshing, rotating, flashing ads my brain can register. (I just counted 15 on his homepage)..don’t get mad Ron, I’m just sayin’…
- Domainers LOVE conferences.
- Domainers, for the most part, like to live 1. near a beach, or 2. in Canada.
And finally -
..so, do you domain? what have you learned?
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Regarding Domaining.com
I started few weeks ago to manually delete each time I see a blog that only report breaking news without offering his on views about the news.
Because like you I find it’s very annoying and a loss of time for our readers.
I am not against these practices and in fact it’s even called buzz, but when the blogger also largely comment the breaking new.
It look likes some past interesting blogs are now champion about these practices.
In another hand I cannot blame them because they have their own audience, even if domaining.com is popular each blogger have also his own readers.
In fact it’s just a pain for me because I cannot spending my time manually filtering these headlines. I will have to find a solution.
hey Francois,
hope you didn’t take that as a barb at Domaining.com, cause I love your site.. was simply trying to say that there are a lot of “me too” sites out there.
I’ve learned that end users will, in fact, pay large dollars (200x or more reg fee) for GeoVertical domains (city+service/product) IF those end users are sufficiently “educated” as to the value of the domain for marketing purposes (i.e., driving pre-qualified local leads through organic ranking) and IF click costs for the keyword phrases in the domain are expensive to purchase at Google, etc. Doesn’t work for all verticals, but does for professional services.
Some of your comments stuck out the most to me:
.ws, .biz, .cc domains are worthless. for the most part I agree, other than holding a few good keywords that may personally interest you, or you think you can resell, these extensions aren’t good to hoard for resale - just not enough buyers. You see other markets increase year to year, but never these extensions.
the more I domain, the more I like Geo domains. I’m coming around to that too. A city or town will always be there, so these types of domains will always have value to someone. Either the place name, or city + relevant keyword. At the worst, you can always make a city directory site for the service, Springfieldhomes, ChicagoLawyers, etc.
I fit into #2 of where domainers like to live, but am open to trying #1 in a tropical location.
I domain. This is what I have learned:
Domains are like your kids. Yours are always sweeter, brighter and have more potential than any other domains…
In most cases, unless you are offered a million dollars, they are kind of hard to part with..
You can make up a lot of great excuses for under performing domains.. I usually blame myself…
Offers on your domains sometimes just feel like compliments. Would you give up your baby for ten grand? ( I am getting over this one very quickly, now…)
You can never spend enough on your domains, upgrading, cash parking, privacy, premium listings at auctions, appraisals,seo, web development, private school. Ooops! scratch private school!
You know what I mean. I think I have probably been over parenting my portfolio. Anybody else have this issue?
“You can never spend enough on your domains…”
amen to that.
lol , I had the same feelings for extensions other than .com BUT, from my SEO work and studying the serps. I’ve started seeing google is now becoming less biased towards even foreign extensions. Slowly I started investing in strong one or two word keywords in various extensions. Heres something I noticed today:
I typed “tilapia” in google, getting info for cooking, lo and behold I spotted tilapia.ws at #3, I found that very interesting considering tilapia.com is a developed site but it got trumped and was no where in the top 10 results.
I don’t go hog wild with other extensions but have been choosing high click payout/high conversion value keywords…
Something for us to think about…
John
http://unplain.com
John,
I have to tell you that I had to type it in myself to believe it. I even printed a recipe while I was there and clicked on an interesting ad. What really impressed me was that there was nothing really impressive about the site. Kind of plain, easy on the eye, no pyrotechnics..
A real SEO lesson there.
CONFESSION:
OK. Here is what had to be my dumbest domain investment that actually might not be so terrible after all…maybe.
When I first started domaining I thought TLD meant “literally” top level domain, as in .com (only). So I went and registered tons of TLDthis.com and TLDthat.com not really ever understanding it. Then when I finally knew it meant all these other country extensions, I was crying thinking of all the $$$ I spent. Now, I am thinking that some of those domains make pretty good sense and I might have to start a development project starting with TLDlist.com and TLDvalue.com. I can use tilapia.ws as an example!
What a post - For the most part, .ws .biz and .cc domains are worthless.
What you think is worthless - it is worthless to you.
There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier - Charles F. Kettering
Worthless??????
Apparently not good generics. As well John’s post about .ws is great news!!! Great one word generic .ws or .cc or maybe even .info’s are starting to hold there own. If anyone has some worthless generic .cc or .ws domains available let’s see them. Obscure two,three and four word .com’s are turning out to be worthless.
Move your premium domains to countries that still protect personal assets.
Best.
============
Recent .cc sales
OnlineCasinos.cc = $2,500 Feb 08 Sedo Auction
Comps.cc = $1,180 Jan 08 Moniker/CAC
Hardcore.cc = $1,533 Jan 08 Sedo Auction
Poker.cc = $7,204 Dec 07 Sedo Auction
Road.cc = $1,820 Oct 07 Sedo Auction
eMail.cc = $6,912 Sep 07 Sedo
Rent.cc = $2,000 Sep 07 Sedo
Base.cc = $2,084 Sep 07 Sedo
Jewelry.cc = $2,500 Sep 07 Private
Serials.cc = $2,950 Sep 07 TDNAM
Email.cc = $5,000 Jul 07 Sedo
Co.cc = $70,000 Jul 07 Private !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CC.cc = $70,000 Jun 07 Private!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dictionary.cc = $1,000 Jul 07 Sedo
Cats.cc = $1,200 Jun 07 Sedo Auction
AstaLaVista.cc = $3,700 Jun 07 Sedo Auction
House.cc = $1,100 Jun 07 Sedo
Safe.cc = $4,000 May 07 Afternic
Ip.cc = $2,706 May 07 Sedo Auction
Life.cc = $1,000 May 07 Private
Casinos.cc = $3,000 Apr 07 Sedo
AE.cc = $3,000 Mar 07 Private
RingTones.cc = $5,000 Feb 07 Sedo
Flex.cc = $1,200 Feb 07 Afternic
Here’s another one thats off the wall: type MATT in googles - you’re see ma.tt at #1
hmmm a domain hack…
John
http://unplain.com
@gogeneric: sounds like a textbook example of the greater fool theory.
paying $20 to register a .cc , .ws etc. domain and flipping it for $xxxx. right on!! Anybody that does that regardless of the extension has my kudos. fools or not, that “fool” theory Shane suggested could be applied to all of the extensions, especially overpriced .com’s and certainly almost all .mobis. People may wake up and realize the value of a good single generic word domain with an easy to remember extension. .cc is a natural choice because it is easy to remember and your fingers are already trained to type in the c for .com. Looks better and types faster. Time will tell, so far “fools” are making lots of cash
Best.
you know what, I’d like to see a study done..
if, over the phone, someone mentioned their site was flowers.cc, how many middle america users would type flowers.cici, or even flowers.sisi
there are a lot of CiCi’s down south here, and they pronounce their name exactly as the cc extension is spoken.. then you throw in the Spanish speaking population..oye..
And how many would type flowers.com
True words, gogeneric. There are definitely greater fools in abundance. The trick is just not to be the last one
Until then, there is indeed plenty of money to be made.
@John: Matt actually ranks #1 because every version of WordPress had a link to his site in the sidebar by default. Obviously most removed it, but tons never did.
“fools” is a bit harsh. As long as your making money, it’s all just a matter of opinion. If someone can make money with .name then all the power to them. Am I sensing some frustrations in possibly a poor preforming portfolio. Relax, all’s not lost. Focus on single word premium generics, develop them, sell advertising space to end users, and repeat. Avoid typosquatting trademarks ( gives everyone a bad name), move your domains to a “safe” country (not US), drop garbage (if it’s not in the dictionary, it’s garbage) (of course 1,2,3 digits are doing well. Until the company it represents comes after them), don’t quite your day job, pay down your debt and develop your domains.
Learn wordpress.
Vote
Best Regards.
gogeneric
Obviously flowers.com would be my first choice. But if you didn’t have 1 million +++ dollars to purchase it, flowers.cc would be a great option( probably could buy for xxxxx or less.
After checking google to see what “flowers” returns the domain below came up on the first page probably because of many dollars spent on adsense. I would still take flowers.cc over http://www.flower-delivery-flowers.com anyday. Develop and sell for great profits or hold and operate a business.
My test is the 60+ mile / hr drive-by a billboard test. Which domain would you remember speeding by in your car.
http://www.flower-delivery-flowers.com
or
flowers.cc
Monte Cahn likes bowling shirts (with the Moniker logo stitched in). - That is the BEST way for Monte (moniker.com) to get attention - HOT Girls+Moniker.com=Great Promo