Collusion on Drop Auction Bidding

Elliot Silver
-
26

During the past year, a few people have mentioned that they received emails from other bidders competing on domain auctions, although primarily involving drop auctions. The competing bidders reached out in an attempt to thwart their bidding, to keep their own acquisition cost down. Judging by the fact that I was told about this, it’s obviously not something that’s appreciated.

There are a number of reasons people reach out, most of which seem to BS. Sometimes it may be to ask the other bidder(s) to stop bidding since it’s a domain name they really want for “personal” reasons. Others may threaten that they are prepared to bid very high, so they may offer their competitor a cut to step aside – or consideration on a future auction. Some may even ask to stop competing and make a joint bid – to be partners in the domain name (a humorous idea considering the situation).

Whether these actions are illegal or just unethical aren’t for me to decide since it probably differs in each jurisdiction and to each person’s values, but there is one thing I can say for certain. It makes some people very uncomfortable to receive emails with requests such as these. Although some recipients may be too polite or politically correct to call someone out in public, it bothered a couple of people enough to mention it to me.

So… if you are involved in an auction, don’t reach out to other bidders. You may think the other guy doesn’t mind or won’t care, but I bet you are probably wrong.

Expedited Fax # at Network Solutions

Elliot Silver
-
5

I recently bought a domain name from a company who hadn’t touched its domain name since the late 1990s. At the time, they were using Earthlink for Internet service, and the Registrant Contact was listed as Earthlink, while the Administrative Contact was their company contact information. The domain name was registered at Network Solutions, and although they had some control over the domain name, they didn’t have full control.

As a result of this, the owner was unable to push the domain name to my Net Sol account, and he was also unable to send me the transfer authorization code so I could transfer it to Moniker. Network Solutions required that he would have to fill out a Primary Contact Replacement form and fax it back to them to verify domain ownership.

Long story short, they said it would take either a couple or a few days to review the form and approve the change. In the life of a domain reseller – and/or anyone who has five or six figures sitting in an escrow account awaiting a domain transfer – two or three days is a long time, especially when the contact information is the only thing holding up a transaction.

After a couple of phone calls with Network Solutions, I was informed about an expedited fax number that Network Solutions has, and some type of forms are generally approved within a couple of hours instead of days. In case you ever need it, the expedited fax # I used was (570) 708-0171.

Follow Along as a Category Killer Domain is Built from the Ground Up

Elliot Silver
-
12

I’m not writing this post because Rick sent me bottles of wine.   I am writing this post because I think we all have a great opportunity to observe the launch of a new brand on a generic domain name – Vino.com. By following the progress of this company from its infancy, I think we can all learn quite a bit for our own projects.

Over the coming weeks and months, keep your eye on site changes.   Do Google searches to see how rapidly pages get indexed by searching site:vino.com. See how the pages rank for competitive terms like “wine of the month club,” “wine club,” “vino,” and other related search terms.   See how Rick and his team go about building and getting back links for the site by searching for link:vino.com in Yahoo Site Explorer.

You might even consider signing up for the service. For $69/month, you will get some unique wines, but more importantly, you can see what offline marketing efforts Rick and his company are making to promote their brand. As a wine of the month club, the hope is that people won’t cancel their subscriptions, so you can see what they are doing to keep membership active.

It’s not often that we have the chance to follow a start-up, but Rick has given us this opportunity.   As much as its important to follow the success of Vino.com, it will also be great to learn insight about how an entrepreneur builds a business on a great generic domain name. Rick announced that Latona’s has launched a consumer products division, and that is going to be interesting to follow as well.

I recommend these things to follow along as Vino.com grows:

  • Join the newsletter
  • Test the customer service
  • Navigate the site
  • See SEM efforts in Google and Bing
  • Sign up for the club

My hope is that Rick will share some insight into the site’s growth. It would probably be in his auction company’s best interest to show how an entrepreneur can take a generic domain name and build a business on it.

Top 10: Reasons I Like Working for Me (and Why it Sucks)

Elliot Silver
-
11

I’ve been working for myself full time for a little over two years. Below are the top ten reasons why I enjoy working for myself. To add a twist, I am also adding a reason for each about why each thing sucks!

1.) I can make my own hours and work whenever I want. I can also take vacations whenever I want. I can go to the gym in the middle of the day, eat lunch whenever, take time off to visit friends…etc. I can pick and choose which domain conferences I attend, and I don’t need to get permission to attend a business conference.

  • I tend to work 12-14 hours a day, and it’s not straight through the day, so I can work until midnight or later on some days. If I am in the middle of a big project, I can forget to return phone calls, and this tends to hurt friendships (sorry, Adam). I have become a workaholic and don’t stop working until something is finished or I am forced away from my computer. I love what I do, but it’s still consuming.

2.) There is no need to get anyone else’s approval when I make acquisitions, sales, or have expenses. I can rapidly make deals on the fly and be creative with terms if necessary.

  • Great… spending thousands of dollars without a second opinion that has a vested interest in my business. Nice. I am also in charge of my accounting… too bad I took Financial Accounting during college the semester I pledged my fraternity. That 1.92 GPA for the semester haunts me sometimes.

3.) Every month, the pressure all falls on me, and I tend to work better when there is more pressure.

  • I work longer hours, become ornery, and don’t have time to do the things I enjoy when I am under pressure and facing a deadline.

4.) When something is successful, I can take credit for making it happen and it feels good to accomplish something on my own. Of course, I thank the people that assisted, but a successful project for my company doesn’t necessarily mean much to others.

  • It’s great to have personal successes and to celebrate them with my family and friends, but I think it was much more fun when I was working on a team in the corporate world. I miss that camaraderie.

5.) I don’t have to share the profits with business partners or investors.

  • Since everything is self-funded, there’s more pressure to make things happen.

6.) If there’s something I want to test or explore, I don’t need to make a business decision to justify it.

  • It can be better to learn from someone else’s previous experience, and people tend to be more willing to share their unbiased opinion when they have a vested interest.

7.) I have the chance to meet with others who are in the same business as I. There is a lot of networking and open discussion among domain investors who work for themselves.

  • At the end of the day, just about all of us are competitors in some way. Those who consistently buy and sell domain names are usually competing for the same domains in auctions, drops, and private acquisitions. There’s a fine line between sharing and keeping the cards close to vest.

8.) Having a blog has allowed me to connect with many of the most successful domain investors via email, phone, personal meetings, and business meetings. I have received great advice – everything from domain investing to general business advice to personal advice.   I doubt my company would be in its current position without the blog.

  • The blog has also exposed me to unconstructive comments (mostly anonymous cowards).   I appreciate all comments that are constructive – especially if someone disagrees with me so I can see a different point of view, but it’s irritating when people leave comments that are meant to be hurtful to me or to other commenters when they don’t add value. I guess the bad economy has left some people pretty bitter about things.

9.) I can work from wherever I want. In fact, right now I am writing this on an airplane.

  • I tend to work wherever I go – even when I am on vacation.

10.) Over the past 6 years, I’ve learned quite a bit about the domain industry and even the politics within the industry. I have built a good gut feel for things and believe I have good instincts when it comes to making business decisions.

  • If my instincts are wrong, there isn’t anyone with a vested interest to help – especially on confidential deals.

Using All in One SEO Plugin

Elliot Silver
-
0

I have the All in One SEO plugin installed on all of my WordPress websites. It’s a free plugin from Semper Fi Web Design that makes the process of SEO much easier and automated. However, up until today, I wasn’t really harnessing the power of the plugin on my websites.

For most of my sites, I was basically using the default settings that come with the plugin. Each post/page title would be listed as the article title, and I didn’t add a meta description sentence for individual posts. I figured Google and Yahoo would be smart enough to pick up the content and rank it accordingly.

Although it’s worked fairly well, it’s silly not to use this plugin to its fullest. From here out, I plan to add a different page title and description instead of the default, which was the post title and the first 160 or so characters of the post. Usually that would be a lead in, but not really the meat of the post.

Over the next few months, I will monitor the percentage of my traffic that comes from search to see if it increases as a result of my efforts. With many people using WordPress for various websites, blogs, and mini sites, it doesn’t really make sense not to install the All in One SEO plugin – and once it’s installed, it’s silly not to use it.

Problem with WordPress Upgrade

Elliot Silver
-
11

Wordpress LogoI think about 50% of my websites are built on the WordPress platform, while I use Dreamweaver for the others. I am not a programmer, and at best, I am a novice developer, so I like WordPress because it’s easy to operate. One of the best aspects of WordPress can also be one of the most frustrating. Whenever WordPress rolls out a new version, or a plugin is upgraded, WordPress lets the publisher know that the newest version is available.

The notice is in a spot to ensure that people upgrade, since security patches are generally a big component of upgrades. It isn’t distracting, but positioning of the notice makes you feel like it’s very important to install the new version, whether it actually is critical or not. All you need to do is click the “Please upgrade now” notice, and you are taken to a page where you can easily upgrade to the newest version with the click of the mouse. Sounds simple, but it can cause major headaches for you.

With a custom designed website residing on the platform, an upgrade that goes wrong can lead to problems, which aren’t always obvious. Despite having an issue a few months ago that was the result of an upgrade gone wrong, I decided to take a chance and upgrade to WP 2.9. I had recently backed-up the entire site, so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal if things went haywire.

The day after upgrading, I found that a post missed the schedule, which was an issue that happened last time. I did some testing (changing to the default theme and turning off the plugins), and I had the same issue. I got in touch with my designer, and he did a bit of research on the issue. Luckily for me, he found a thread on the WordPress Support Forums, where several people complained of the same issue. In a few minutes, my designer found the potential solution, which worked for my site.

The same type of WordPress problems can exist with a plugin upgrade, patch installation, or other WordPress upgrade. Before you are tempted to upgrade, make sure you back-up your full website. If you do run into a problem, do a Google search to find others with the same problem so you can either diagnose it or find someone who can diagnose it and remedy it for you. It’s great that WordPress makes it easy to upgrade, but it can cause you problems if things don’t work out as expected.

1...160161162...214Page 161 of 214