As Usual, Traffic to Cowboys.com Increases

Elliot Silver
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6

It’s been almost four years since Cowboys.com was acquired by a group of domain investors for $370,000 after a reported bidding error by an official from the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. As Rick Schwartz wrote at the time, “the “Attorney” for the Dallas Football team said days later that he thought the price was $275 and not $275,000.”

Unfortunately for the people involved in the acquisition, the development project that some envisioned seems to have petered out and there isn’t much residing on the domain name. Despite this, visitors still type in Cowboys.com by the thousands.

I don’t think Compete is a good source of data for parked domain names like this, but it shows nearly 20,000 visitors in August as NFL training camps opened, and well over 30,000 during the season last year. I am sure there were thousands of visits on Monday night when the Cowboys played the Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football.

I understand that 25,000 +/- monthly visitors is really just a drop in the bucket when compared to the nearly 2 million +/-  visitors its DallasCowboys.com website receives each month during the season, but the cost to acquire Cowboys.com would also likely be a similar drop in the bucket.

Cowboys.com is still listed for sale at Sedo, and I think the Cowboys would be wise to purchase it, perhaps via the broker representing the domain name, Dave Evanson (dave.evanson @ sedo.com). Knowing that domain investors own Cowboys.com, I would think the Cowboys would want to make more of an effort to own the name.

Having One Primary Source of Traffic is Not a Good Situation

Elliot Silver
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7

Many people have websites that rely on Google as the primary source of traffic, and consequently, revenue. Some of my own websites fall into that category, with 80%+ of the traffic coming from Google searches. If there’s an issue with Google’s rankings, the traffic and revenue vanish like my morning cup of coffee.

Similarly, there are a number of domain industry blogs and websites that rely on Domaining.com as the primary source of traffic. Domaining.com helps drive hundreds of targeted visitors a day, but when there’s a problem with that website, there is no traffic as a result.

Unfortunately, Francois is dealing with some sort of malicious sql injection at Domaining.com. He is aware that Google Chrome and other web browsers are showing a warning message to people trying to visit Domaining.com, and he is working on fixing the issue.

Luckily for me, traffic is only affected minimally, but I know there are a few sites that are seeing considerably less traffic this morning.

I am sure Francois will have this fixed ASAP, but it’s a good lesson for people who rely on a single source of traffic. Any type of change in algorithm or other type of problem with that traffic source may cause significant problems down the line. Spend time cultivating other traffic sources and become less reliant on a single source, whether that’s Google, Yahoo, or even Domaining.com.

Domaining.com Alert from Chrome

Elliot Silver
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15

I already sent Francois an email about this, but I want to let you know about an error message I just received from Google Chrome when I visited Domaining.com, and you should be cautious this evening.

According to the message, Google may have detected some sort of malware, so proceed with caution tonight if you visit Domaining.com. I visit Domaining.com several times a day, and I have never seen an error message like this on the site.

I know Francois works as much as I do, so I am sure it’s temporary.. However, if you use a web browser that doesn’t provide alerts like Chrome, you should be cautious when visiting tonight.

A screenshot of the error message I received is posted above. Let me know if you see the same thing.

Free Columbia B-School Webinar: “Who Should Invest in a dotBRAND?”

Elliot Silver
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1

Columbia University Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership will be holding a webinar on October 19th, and it might be of interest to you. The free webinar is entitled, Who Should Invest in a dotBRAND? Evaluating the Business Case for a Top-Level Domain Name, and it will be held from 10am to noon.

The webinar will bring together experts in the fields of marketing, Internet governance, and general business, including Paul Twomey (former ICANN CEO), William Barrett (Global Brand & Communications at Deloitte), Karl Isaac (Executive Director for Digital Branding at Landor), and Roland LaPlante (Chief Marketing Officer at Afilias).

Here are a list of the topics that are expected to be discussed:

  • What types of brands and organizations will most benefit from investing in a gTLD?
  • If I am a .BRAND owner what are some of the use cases to best leverage my .BRAND for marketing and brand building purposes?
  • How are consumers likely to react to these new gTLDs? Will they provide clarity or confusion to their internet experience?
  • How will search engines, social media sites, and other internet properties respond to new .BRANDs?
  • What options are there for defensive action to protect my trademarks?
  • What are the full costs and processes behind applying for and owning a gTLD?

Personally, I think gTLD domain names are going to impact the domain investment market in a pretty big way. Companies and individuals will be talking about gTLD domain names, and while I won’t predict the impact on current domain values, I do expect there will be an impact.

If you make money from domain investing or online marketing, I recommend listening in on this webinar. It doesn’t cost anything and it’s just a couple of hours.  From my perspective, the smart money is already making moves, some behind the scenes and others with more public endeavors.

Thanks to Name.com for letting me know about this.

Potential Domain Buyers: Affiliate Programs

Elliot Silver
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7

I have never been very successful with affiliate offers on my websites, but there are plenty of people that use companies like ClickBank and LinkShare to make a whole lot of money. I am confident saying that there are many young millionaires in that area of Internet marketing.

One thing I am also fairly certain of is that many affiliate managers and companies that run affiliate programs tend to think of domain names differently. Take a look through the ClickBank marketplace for example, and see some of the domain names used by affiliate offers.

Many of these domain names are pretty poor (to say the least), but they get the job done. My feeling is that perhaps they could close more sales with a better descriptive domain name because it would have a higher level of trust. What would you trust more – a name like SciaticaTreatment.com or FixYourSciaticaBackPainNow.com? More likely the first, but I digress. In addition to trust, they may also be easier to rank for the keywords, with all things being equal.

That being said, perhaps you can target the companies making these affiliate offers the next time you are looking to sell a good descriptive domain name. Perhaps you can do Whois lookups on these less than stellar domain names, contact those registrants, and pitch your name as an alternative.

I know that many of these people won’t be interested – they do the job with their hand registered domain names and many make good bank. However, someone may see the opportunity in owning a good descriptive domain name at a fair price and jump on it. I think it’s worth a shot and can’t hurt to ask.

At the very least, perhaps you can find some good affiliate offers to promote on your domain name if you end up keeping it.

Negotiation Tip: Another Reason Not to Lowball

Elliot Silver
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20

The most obvious reason you shouldn’t send a lowball offer for a domain name is because it’s unlikely you’ll even receive the courtesy of a response. I guess courtesy may be the wrong word, since some domain owners might not think it’s courteous to offer $500 for a domain name that’s worth $25,000.

There’s another important reason you don’t really want to submit a lowball offer. If you do receive a response, but you don’t receive a counter offer, you will likely be inclined to improve your offer. Now that you know someone is at least monitoring the email address, you might think to come back at $4,000. That’s still a bargain if the name is worth $25,000.

The domain owner will certainly take note of your 8x price increase, and anyone with a brain and a business sense will automatically turn that down figuring there’s gotta be additional money in the bank to raise the offer.

When I reject an opening offer but don’t give my price, my eyes light up when the potential buyer significantly increases his offer. Even if the second offer is a number I’d accept, I’d never immediately accept it knowing that the next offer will be even higher. My feeling in doing so is that I can always go back and take the offer if the potential buyer says that’s his highest offer.

That being said, when you’re on the other side of the table, you need to realize a huge % increase in your offer will almost certainly work against you, so lowballing on a domain name you want to buy is a bad strategy.

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