CES 2010: Take a $1,688 Gamble on Smart Televisions

Elliot Silver
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Consumer Electronics Show

This morning on the CNN website, there was coverage of the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show currently being held in Las Vegas. CES is one of the preeminent technology tradeshows that features product launches, pre-release gadgets and technology, and previews of electronics and other devices. Companies who are featured at CES are looking for buzz for their new products or upcoming launches.

In the article, CNN reported that, “‘Connected TV’ and ‘smart TV’ are two terms that already are being tossed around CES this year. Both refer to the idea that couch potatoes are looking for ways to get the power of the Internet and social media onto living room television sets.”

To me, “smart tv” or “smart televisions” sounds more brandable for a category of televisions, similar to smart phones. As a domainer, I did some domain research on that term and found the following:

For under $1,700, you can buy the domain name for a term that could be big in the next couple of years, and for under $7,000 you can buy both. My business model is built around short term flips, so it’s not a gamble I want to take, but it could be worth investigating if this type of investment appeals to you.As you may recall, SmartPhones.com sold for $95,000 at TRAFFIC.

I don’t have any affiliate or advertising relationship with Buy Domains or Page, but if you want to reach someone at Buy Domains, drop Sonia an email, and if you want to reach page, visit his website.

Common Abbreviations & Mister Steamy

Elliot Silver
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Mister SteamyThe holiday season commonly features many infomercials and other television commercials featuring products to purchase online or over the telephone. There is a lot of remnant television time to purchase at great rates, and we generally see more commercials such as the one for the Prayer Cross discussed on my blog on Sunday.

One commercial I recently saw was for a laundry product called “Mister Steamy,” and of course they use the MisterSteamy.com domain name, which the company registered in March of 2008. Unfortunately for the makers of Mister Steamy, the company didn’t take into account the common abbreviation people in the US use for the word Mister, which is Mr.

It seems that someone in Shanghai, China was able to register the domain name MrSteamy.com in November of 2009, taking advantage of the typo traffic from the infomercials and television commercials. Making matters worse for the laundry product makers is the fact that the PPC advertising for MrSteamy.com is X-Rated, as Mr. Steamy could certainly be a porn name.

One reason I don’t like geodomain names (or other names) that have common abbreviations like Saint and Fort is because many people may abbreviate those using St. or Ft. If you don’t own both versions of the domain name, you risk losing traffic to the alternative. It’s a shame the makers of Mister Steamy didn’t think about this and spend the additional $8/year to register the other domain name, which was available.

Finding a Domain Owner Using Archive.org

Elliot Silver
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When trying to buy a domain name from a person or company in private, I frequently come across private registrations. I usually use the Whois history tool to see if there was an email address previously on file. I concurrently visit the website to see if there is contact information on the page.

Oftentimes people or companies acquired a generic domain name many years ago, and sometimes their projects failed or the domain name isn’t being used any longer. When the Whois history tool doesn’t help and there isn’t any current contact information on the website (or the site doesn’t resolve), there is one great option to find contact information: Archive.org.

Simply visit Archive.org and search for previous iterations of the website. You may find a phone number, email address, or the name of people previously involved with the website and domain name. This information can be used to inquire about a domain name.

Think about it this way. Most of the low hanging fruit has already been plucked. The great generic domain names that may still be acquired are out there, but many require sleuthing and research. Archive.org is another great tool to use to contact domain owners.

Buying Domains at Bankruptcy Auctions

Elliot Silver
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I spent some time with someone who mentioned that his company filed for a strategic bankruptcy in the past year. Although I have recently come to know this person and his family pretty well in just the past two years, I had known of his company since I was a kid because of his company’s regional television commercials. In fact, I was joking around with him by imitating some of the lines that were frequently used in his commercials.

When we were talking about the bankruptcy, I asked him about his company’s fairly generic domain name (contained part of his brand but would have been defensibly generic since many other companies use the term). He mentioned that it sold for $3,000 in a bankruptcy auction, along with other business assets (both intellectual property and tangible equipment and goods).

After doing some research, it seems the site still gets about 2,000 visits per month and has a ton of back links. I feel the name would have been worth at least $10,000 to a domain investor based on traffic alone.   I was a bit bummed because I would have bid on the name had I known about the auction, and I could have used the site for lead generation, which probably would have yielded several hundred dollars in commissions or referrals each month. This was a very targeted business, and customers would spend thousands of dollars on services. Operating this type of business was difficult with this economy, but the leads that continue to come to the site have value – especially since the bankruptcy was fairly quiet.

Long story short is that domain investors should monitor bankruptcy auctions. Toys.com was won in a bankruptcy auction – one that most people didn’t know about at first. A few months ago, I learned of a bankruptcy auction via Google Alert for Friedmans.com and CrescentJewelers.com, two bankrupt jewelry stores whose websites at one time had significant web traffic. I didn’t place a bid on the auction, but it’s good to know about them anyway, especially if you run a jewelry business.

As more and more companies file for bankruptcy, there are bound to be good deals on domain names that people may never learn about. It’s equally important to research the company’s history and customer service situation to prevent buying a hot potato, but in some cases, the quality domain name will outweigh the risk.   Bankruptcy auctions would seem to be another source for domain acquisitions.

Comparing Google Exact Match Search Volume to Type-in Traffic

Elliot Silver
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I spoke on the phone yesterday with a gentleman who is just beginning to get his feet wet in the domain industry. The person has done a lot of keyword research, registered a hundreds of dollars of keyword domain names, and he is now exploring his options to begin generating revenue. I asked him if the domain names receive traffic, and he said they receive thousands of visits a month.

I was very surprised to hear that new registrations were receiving so much traffic, so I inquired further. It turns out the names aren’t parked (or being monitored) but the owner assumed Google search volume equated to type in traffic. Unfortunately, this isn’t accurate by any means, and I generally find new registrations (except hot trends) do not receive any type-in traffic at all.

I haven’t done a ton of research on the comparison between average monthly search volume in Google and type in traffic, but I thought I’d share some information I have from some of my domain names. The figures might not be entirely accurate, since some of the traffic to my sites could be repeat visitors, so I will not use sites where I know this happens frequently.

Google exact search volume for: tropical birds: 5,400
Type-in traffic for TropicalBirds.com: 215 uniques (4% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: torah: 49,000
Type-in traffic for Torah.com:1,052 uniques (50% total site traffic – keep in mind other extensions are developed websites)

Google exact search volume for: chain cat shark: 36
Type-in traffic for ChainCatShark.com: 5 uniques (5% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: chain cat shark: 36
Type-in traffic for ChainCatShark.com: 5 uniques (5% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: gun collection: 5,400
Type-in traffic for GunCollection.com: 32 uniques (100% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: middle valley: 140
Type-in traffic for MiddleValley.com: 32 uniques (100% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: tequila fest: 91
Type-in traffic for TequilaFest.com: 18 uniques (100% total site traffic)

Google exact search volume for: hockey goalie helmets: 880
Type-in traffic for HockeyGoalieHelmets.com: 9 uniques (100% total site traffic)

I have found that the longer the domain name (and more words it has), the less type-in traffic it receives, especially when compared to search volume. However, longer tail keywords do tend to rank better when fully developed, and the higher the ranking, obviously the greater percentage of search traffic it will receive.

Owning a domain name where the keyword string gets search volume is good, but you can’t assume that will equate to type in traffic.In fact, when you look at the numbers, I think you will find the % of type in traffic compared to the exact match search volume is fairly small.

If anyone else is willing to share their information, perhaps we would have a more compelling discussion.

Buying Domain Names for Expected Growth

Elliot Silver
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Parking MeterIn the New York Post this morning, I read about a cool new iPhone application that is awaiting approval from Apple called NYC Broken Meters. Users will be able to find broken parking meters in New York City, syncing information provided by the city with GPS mapping. Since NYC allows people to park at broken meters for one hour for free, it’s a handy tool.

The company plans to operate its website on the domain name NYCBrokenMeters.com, which is perfectly fine. However, I do think it would have been smarter of them to buy up other city BrokenMeters.com domain names for future growth. I think this is a neat app, which isn’t limited to one city. If the city of Chicago would release this information the same way as the city of New York, they could easily create Chicago Broken Meters…etc.

People often ask for my opinion on buying extended names like this, and I think this would be a good example of when it’s a good idea. If your company has the ability to easily expand to other areas, even if it’s not quite in the cards yet, I think it’s wise to spend the extra $10/name to buy those other domain names. Whether we’re talking cities, towns, products…etc.

Not only do you risk a competitor taking domain names that could match, but there are others who could register them and make you pay out the nose when you’re ready to move forward. It’s usually just a matter of time before someone else will grab them.

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