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MSSB.com is Now Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

Elliot Silver
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Morgan Stanley Smith BarneyBack in June, I discussed how important it would be for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney to buy the MSSB.com domain name, which had been privately owned since at least its current creation date of 2003. The private owner didn’t really have a better buyer than the newly formed financial giant, and the new company really needed the domain name to advance its online presence, since it’s inevitable that people would shorten the firm’s long name to MSSB.

It appears that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney understood this need, and instead of going through the legal route to get MSSB.com, it looks like they bought it (the name was in Moniker’s Escrow Account at the end of September). Despite the fact that the company was formed well after the owner purchased the domain name, many companies still feel that they deserve a name like this and use the court system or UDRP process as a means of bullying. They may have even had a shot because the parking page showed financial PPC links, but we’ll never know.

In any case, as of today, the domain name is in the possession of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and the domain name forwards to their long url, morganstanleysmithbarney.com. Kudos to Morgan Stanley Smith Barney for “getting it” by getting the important domain name the company needed.

ItWasTheBestNightEver.com – How I Met Your Mother

Elliot Silver
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The writers for CBS’ How I Met Your Mother did it again. On tonight’s episode, one of the characters mentioned a website that was created by another character about a fun night they had, which they dubbed “It was the best night ever.” The domain name they used was ItWasTheBestNightEver.com, and as they did before, they set up a mini-site with a funny viral video (embedded below) about the “best night ever” 🙂

Last season, CanadianSexActs.org was one of the funny urls a character mentioned, and according to a couple of analytics companies, the website received a considerable amount of traffic, and it still receives residual traffic. They’ve also done this several times in the past. Unlike television shows that have phone numbers mentioned that have to use 555-1234 or something similar, the show is using story lines from the show and expounding on them online.

IMO, these are great viral sites and help promote this award winning comedy show.

Insure.com Sells for $16 Million – Highest Domain Sale Recorded

Elliot Silver
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Insure.comInsure.com, a publicly traded company whose shares trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange, sold its corporate name and related domain name for $16,000,000, and the company will be renamed Life Quotes. The company paid $1,600,000 for Insure.com in 2001.

The domain name was purchased by Quin Street, who as you may recall, paid $18,000,000 for Internet.com and related assets back in August. According to AboutUs.org, QuinStreet is an online performance marketing company helps businesses target their would-be customer audiences by using its proprietary technologies and media reach to generate sales leads.

I believe that this is the highest recorded price for a domain sale, beating Sex.com, which sold for a reported $12 million in 2006.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how the company now previously known as Insure.com will manage with the name change and loss of links. They may have a unique product (I do not know), but it will be difficult for them to re-climb in the search engine rankings after the name change. Not only do they lose their type-in traffic and inbound links, but they also lose the credibility that comes with saying, “hi, I’m from Insure.com.”

$16 million sure is a nice sum of money, and it’s a great ROI no doubt, but one has to wonder what they long term impact for the company will be.   The company believes a name change “is expected to reduce revenues 10 percent to 15 percent for the next two to six quarters,” however, I think it will take a whole lot of marketing dollars to purchase the traffic that will be lost when Quin Street takes over the domain name.

Fortunately for us people on the sideline, we will be able to see how this plays out for the Life Quotes, since they are a publicly traded company and will have to report its revenues.

***Update***
Some people are questioning whether it’s accurate to say it’s the highest recorded domain sale. I believe so because Life Quote is retaining so much of its actual business. From the press release: “The Company will retain all of its remaining balance sheet assets, national brokerage contracts with 25 leading life insurance companies, 50 fully licensed insurance agents, call center operations, customer and prospect lists, and nearly all of its current inbound affiliate and traffic partnerships.”

Also, was the sale of Toys.com not simply a domain sale? It had a website previously, and it also had lots of inbound links as well. IMO, since the publicly traded company is basically keeping all of its assets, it’s a domain sale with good will.

Quick Tip of the Day: Direct Advertisers

Elliot Silver
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Whether you are a domain owner or a web developer, the best advertising deals are usually direct deals with advertisers. In many cases affiliate relationships pay more, but for the sake of this post, I will focus on direct advertising deals since that is guaranteed revenue.

The first thing you need to do is obviously build a website on your great domain name. Once you have your site with unique content, add some Adsense blocks on your site. I generally recommend waiting until you are receiving search engine traffic before doing this to make certain that Google and Bing will see that you don’t have a “spammy” site with the sole objective of monetizing the traffic. I don’t have quantifiable evidence, but I’ve been told they may rank these sites lower.

Once your Adsense blocks are showing relevant advertising, you should make note of all of the advertisers whose ads are showing on your site. Make sure you have both text and graphic banners, as some advertisers might choose one over the other. You should also contact friends and colleagues in different areas of the country and ask them to email you those advertisers as well, in the event that there is some geo targeted advertising.

I would then do some research on the advertisers, and contact the companies who most likely have the smaller marketing department, allowing you to get directly in touch with the decision maker. Let them know they are currently advertising on your site via Google, and you would be willing to give them great space on your site. You might even offer exclusivity if you can make it worth your while financially.

Do some research to estimate what they are paying (using Adwords) and offer them a compelling deal. You might also want to keep at least one Adsense text block so you can keep an eye on new advertisers.

If you can make a good argument about why an advertiser should be advertising on your website, you just might score a great deal.

As an FYI, you don’t necessarily need to install Adsense on your site, as you can do the same thing simply by searching Google, although you won’t see banner advertisers.

Brand Protection Extends Beyond Typo Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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Many companies that do business online know that it’s important (maybe even critical) to buy typos of their company name. Just type in different variations of ElliotsBlog.com to see how I feel about that (EliotsBlog.com, ElliotBlog.com, ElliottsBlog.com and maybe even a couple I forgot about). Some people are bad spellers, have fat fingers, or have other issues that cause them to accidentally mistype a domain name. When the company owns its typos, it doesn’t have to worry about losing this traffic.

However, typos aren’t the only defensive domain names a company should consider when making strategic domain acquisitions. Companies should also take what their customers call their company into consideration as well. After all, consumers will be typing the domain name into their browsers if they don’t use a search engine. I purchased the shortened version of my father’s business name (not really a generic that people would type in randomly), and surprisingly it receives a bit of traffic every month.

There are plenty of other companies who employ this domain strategy as well. I found some of these examples of smart domain buys, even though some of these companies don’t do much business online:

Salvatore Ferragamo – Ferragamo.com
Mercedes Benz – Mercedes.com
McDonald’s – MickeyDs.com
JC Penny – JCP.com
Radio Shack – TheShack.com
Dairy Queen – DQ.com

One example of a company that may have missed out on purchasing a domain name is Bed, Bath, & Beyond, when BedAndBath.com sold on Sedo for $50,000 to a company other than BB&B. Several years back, there was a northeast retail chain called LeeJay Bed and Bath (now out of business), but most customers called it Bed and Bath. Additionally, many customers refer to Bed, Bath and Beyond as Bed and Bath, and if they do it aloud, they probably do it online as well.

Although $50k is a lot to spend on a domain name that isn’t the exact business name, I think this would have been a smart buy for BBB. You have to assume anyone typing in BedAndBath.com is looking for a bed and bath store (if not BBB), and Bed Bath and Beyond probably has everything a visitor would want. Considering that the name still gets over 5k visitors a month and the store likely spends a whole lot of money on Adwords, they could have saved money in the long run, rather than spending it on PPC links on BedAndBath.com forever.

The price of other domain names is something that should be considered when trying to protect a brand. If the business is referred to by a common phrase or term, and the matching domain name would cost more than the LTV of the potential lost customers, then the money would be spent more wisely elsewhere.

Another consideration in this is purchasing alternate extensions for brand protection, and I will discuss that in a post later on this week. Someone asked me for my thoughts on that topic last week, and I will discuss those later.

Domain Industry Leaders to Speak on Panel at Ad:Tech New York

Elliot Silver
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Ad:TechAd:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference and exhibition held several times during the year, in a variety of locations, including New York, Shanghai, San Francisco, Tokyo, Beijing, and other media centers throughout the world. If you are involved in the interactive space, you should make it a priority to attend Ad:Tech – even if you simply opt for the free exhibition floor pass. Ad:Tech New York will be held from November 4-6 at the Javitz Center in New York City.

I just learned that some of the domain industry’s leaders are scheduled to speak on a panel at Ad:Tech New York in November. The Domain Industry Workshop, “Domain Tips to Drive Your Business Forward and Save Money” is sponsored by leading domain investment companies, Sedo.com, Media.net, Name Administration, Inc., and NameMedia, Inc.

Featured panelists include Jeremiah Johnston, COO and General Counsel of Sedo.com, Div Turakhia, Founder and CEO of Media.net, Frank Schilling, Managing Director of Name Administration, Inc, and Bob Mountain, VP of Business Development at NameMedia. This panel will be held on Wednesday, November 4 from 2:10pm – 3:00pm.

If you want to sign up for a free exhibit hall pass, you must do so by October 2, or the price will increase to $35. You can also see all of the conference pricing options for the New York show on the Ad:Tech website.

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