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IHG Fought to Control Domain Names But Parks Two of Their Own Generics

Elliot Silver
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5

A while back, I wrote about Intercontinental Hotel Group’s massive UDRP filing for 1,529 domain names that they believe infringed on some of their hotel brands. They ended up winning a large majority of the domain names in this filing, and the few domain names that I checked smartly forward to the proper IHG website (see staybridge-suites-reno.com and hotel-indigo-london-paddington.com as examples).

I was doing some domain intelligence today, and I came across something that was very surprising to me. Intercontinental Hotels Group owns at least a couple of fantastic generic domain names such as NashvilleHotels.com and SanAntonioHotels.com, yet they aren’t forwarding them to any of their own websites. Instead, they are parking them.

Sure, they are making money when a visitor clicks on one of their competitor’s links, but they are losing potential customers. According to the IHG website, there are 32 hotels within 30 miles from San Antonio and 18 hotels within 30 miles from Nashville. With all of these hotels, you’d think they would at least try to drive dollars instead of earning pennies (and even paying for their own traffic since Holiday Inn is a PPC advertiser and a IHG hotel).

I don’t understand why the company would park these names instead of forwarding them to the IHG main reservation website. It doesn’t seem to make sense that they would meticulously forward the UDRP-won names to the proper place, yet they haven’t done anything with these two great generic domain names.

PS, if someone from IHG reads this, I would love to buy these domain names. You know how to contact me.

GetAFreelancer.com Acquired Freelancer.com Saw Spike in Traffic

Elliot Silver
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7

Freelancer.com and GetAFreelancer.comSometime around early October of 2009, GetAFreelancer.com acquired the better domain name Freelancer.com for an undisclosed amount, although it was reportedly a “six figure sum.” The company then moved to the easy to remember Freelancer.com domain name, and according to Compete results, traffic numbers are greatly improved, despite the fact that Freelancer.com didn’t seem to receive much traffic prior to the changeover.

According to Comptete, in the last year, GetAFreelancer.com maxed out at around 289,000 unique visits per month in July 0f 2009. As of May of 2010, Freelancer.com received 364,000+ unique visits according to the same Compete chart. While this comparison doesn’t take into consideration additional advertising that may or may not be in place, the acquisition does show the value in a generic domain name for a company like this.

So what was the purchase price for Freelancer.com? Although I couldn’t find a published sales price, I looked through my email archives to find an exchange I had with the former owner of the domain name. In May of 2006, when times were arguably better than what they were towards the end of 2009, the owner was asking “$100k usd.” I didn’t reply back to negotiate since it was out of my budget at that time.

Playboy’s Smoking Jacket Website May Be Good News for Kevin Ham

Elliot Silver
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7

Playboy.com The Smoking JacketAccording to a report in today’s New York Post, Playboy is rolling out a website that should be safe for people to view at work or other environments where nudity and sexual content would be inappropriate. The new website will be known as TheSmokingJacket.com, and it intentionally contains no references to Playboy, allowing it to bypass work filters that have “playboy” blocked.

The article cited Theresa Hennessey, spokeswoman for Playboy who said that Playboy’s editorial director Jimmy Jellinek “will be pleased if TheSmokingJacket.com receives 1 million unique visitors a month.”   Playboy’s flagship website, Playboy.com receives around 6 million visitors per month.

The website was aptly named The Smoking Jacket because of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s love for silk smoking jackets. Ironically, the Post’s article joked that Playboy chose the name they did because SilkPajamas.com was already registered, but it should be noted that SmokingJacket.com is similarly registered (since 2000) and it appears to be owned by one of Kevin Ham’s companies.

With the hopes of getting 1,000,000 visitors per month, perhaps Playboy should consider reaching out to DomainBrokers.com about acquiring SmokingJacket.com.   According to a note in the Whois record, “Domainbrokers.com  is  authorized  by  the  domain  owner  to  facilitate  the  sale  of  this  domain.“

SuperMedia Launches “Super” Domains

Elliot Silver
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14

Super Media, LLCPat Quinn from Big Iron Design emailed me this morning to share information for a follow-up to a post I wrote about SuperMedia’s acquisition of “Super” domain names. The company spent quite a bit of money acquiring domain names in the aftermarket, and it looks like they’ve launched a number of them.

Some of their new portals include:

When you visit the websites above, SuperMedia seems to be using a redirect to AskLearnHire.com, followed by an immediate second redirect back to the website you visited (you can only notice it if you watch your url bar change). If you visit AskLearnHire.com directly, you can learn more about the purpose of these mini-websites. It appears that the company wants to build small websites for social networking and interactivity between businesses and consumers. In my opinion, this is a smart move.

SuperMedia hasn’t built all of their websites out yet, as SuperPainters.com, SuperMoving.com, and SuperFlorists.com, which were mentioned in my original article, have not been developed yet. It is very possible that they are testing these portals, perhaps supported by television and/or print campaigns.

Welcoming DomainAdvertising.com

Elliot Silver
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11

Domain AdvertisingI would like to welcome a new advertiser to my website, Domain Advertising. You may have previously met company representatives at a domain investment tradeshow or read about the company’s founding in a profile, written by Ron Jackson. Domain Advertising is led by domain industry veteran, CEO Dan Warner, and the company has significant financial backing from the Ashmore Group and the Directi Group.

One of the primary offerings of Domain Advertising is what they refer to as “hyper contextual parking solutions.” The company can help domain investors create and test fantastic looking landing pages with a focus on generating maximum revenue for its customers.

Each domain name is optimized with hand selected phrases based on commercial usage and search volume, and the landing page is designed by hand with individually selected images placed by designers. Domain Advertising has an extensive library of images covering hundreds of verticals.   Each image is contextually specific enough that they qualify to be used as clickable images when used in conjunction with the bound phrases – a function not allowed in Google systems. This level of customization can be tested and optimized on an ongoing basis, helping to drive additional revenue.

Although I can’t share links to specific landing pages because of the rules of sending traffic to a parked page, I can share a few sample landing pages the company created and hosts:

Domain Advertising also works directly with advertisers, allowing their advertisements to be placed directly on the sites of publishers. This helps drive additional revenue for publishers, as a layer of management is removed and more relevant links are placed directly on site, driving higher CTRs.

As one might expect from a company that is led by Warner, Domain Advertising is a technology focused and customer centric company. You can sign up for Domain Advertising services and you can also connect with Domain Advertising on Twitter. I look forward to a good relationship with them.

Vuvuzela: World Cup Horn Trademark?

Elliot Silver
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2

Before the 2009 Confederations Cup and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, most people outside of the African continent probably had never heard the persistent buzzing of the vuvuzela, a plastic horn that is constantly heard during soccer matches. Announcers and broadcasters have had to make big changes to compensate for the buzz, which apparently generates a sound with decibel levels greater than a chainsaw.

Because of the phenomenon, people across the world, including in the US, have taken to the vuvuzela. In fact, a guy was kicked out of Yankee Stadium the other day because he wouldn’t give up his vuvuzela.   Of course as a result of this, people have been registering vuvuzela-related domain names to capitalize on the craze.

These registrants need to be careful of their registrations, as these domain assets could potentially become liabilities for some domain registrants. According to an article in the New York Times, the vuvuzela was created by a man named Neil Van Schalkwyk after seeing a tin trumpet in a soccer match, and in 2001, he created the first plastic vuvuzela, while trademarking the word.

Interestingly, a look into the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) shows a dead trademark for the vuvuzela, which was filed for in 2005 and abandoned in 2008, according the the record.

The battle lines continue to be drawn, and it’s probably only a matter of time before domain names come under scrutiny, perhaps after the 2010 World Cup has finished. With speculation about the horn’s place in the the 2014 World Cup already taking place, this could be a playing field in which domain owners should stay away.

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