General Domain Information

SusanBoyle.com Now For Sale

Ordinarily I wouldn’t write about the sale of a “famous” person’s domain name, but this is a different story. Andrew wrote about Susan Boyle, the Texas artist who initially registered SusanBoyle.com several years ago as a place to exhibit her artwork. Recently, another Susan Boyle became famous after her inspiring appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, and it looks like both Boyles are going to make money from it.

According to an article in UK’s Guardian,   the American artist Susan Boyle “consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn’t sold it. Yet.”

It will be interesting to see if someone buys the name, and assuming that happens, if the buyer will be able to create a non-infringing website on the domain name, as the name “Susan Boyle” has become famous. In my opinion, the production company would be wise to buy this valuable domain name, although they don’t own BritainsGotTalent.com although they do own BritainsGotTalent.co.uk. If you’re wondering, SusanBoyle.co.uk is a fan site monetized with Adsense, and currently ranked 513,478 in Alexa.

This will be interesting to watch.

Free Credit Report* .com

I read Jamie’s post about the folks behind the “Free Credit Report .com” commercials and agree that it will be interesting to see what happens with their direct marketing campaign, which includes television and interactive media. If you didn’t read Jamie’s post – or are too lazy to click over, basically the Free Credit Report people can’t say that their product is free, as a result of the new credit card legislation. They also must link to AnnualCreditReport.com, which does provide the free annual credit reports.

One thing I did notice is that the company behind AnnualCreditReport.com seems to understand domain names and consumer behavior, as they have also registered typos, including AnnualCreditReports.com, AnualCreditReport.com, and AnnualCreditReort.com. I can’t definitively confirm this because the registrations are private, but all were registered around the same date, and all are hosted on the same name servers.

However, as smart as this company is, they are also pretty dumb. They bought the typo domain names, presumably for defensive purposes, but none of them resolve! Instead of forwarding the traffic from the typos, they go to an error page. This is a stupid mistake!

If you are going to buy defensive domain names, especially if they are typos and the visitor intended to visit the site, you should make sure they resolve to the right place! I suppose it might not be necessary if your defensive registration is something like AnnualCreditReportSucks.com or something like that where you just don’t want someone else owning it, but at least lead the way for the fat fingered potential customers/visitors who mistype your correct domain name!

Quick Hits for the Weekend

I think I found a sales representative in Lowell, and he is expected to sell advertising to local businesses. My guy has 15+ years of sales experience, with the last 3 being online sales. The best part is that he lives in Lowell, and he knows the city of Lowell.   This will hopefully help to take the site to the next level.

Yesterday, Rick Latona introduced DigiLoan.com, a longer term loan company which will help people finance large domain purchases, primarily domain names that are sold via his auctions and newsletter. This is going to bring more liquidity to the domain industry, which could and should help to drive more sales in the near term.

I have always had a personal aversion to debt, but I had a long conversation about the benefits of debt with a friend who does hotel asset management. While I don’t wish to use debt as a means to buy domain names yet, I do see the value it can bring to a company – especially when a domain name comes on the market for a limited time, never to be for sale again.

Jamie had some success selling domain names to end users. I’ve discussed this before in blog posts and in a couple of interviews, and I think this is a great way to sell a domain name. It might be a bit more labor intensive and require some educating, but those sales can still be had if you have great domain names.

The auction list for the GeoDomain Expo was released last week.   There are some pretty good names on this list, although I think I have enough work on my plate…. Newburyport.com is almost finished and then I will have to start adding more time-sensitive content.

It’s 76 degrees and sunny here in NYC right now… time for a walk in Central Park.

Quick Hits for the Weekend

Time for some random thoughts and notes for the week.

I think some gTLDs like .NYC are going to be very successful. Businesses are going to want to buy them to distinguish themselves as New York companies, much like many European businesses buy ccTLD domain names. I think there will be trouble selling some gTLD extensions, but it really depends on the audience and marketing, and I have a feeling .NYC will be a winner.

After spending a few days in Lowell, I realize how important a city .com domain name is. People who hadn’t visited Lowell.com were very interested in learning more about it and how they can be on it. Getting a sales person on the ground in the area will be key to really generating revenue.

Aftermarket.com is now accepting domain submissions for the Domain Roundtable show in June.

Every day, I seem to find out something new about Google and how it can be used to increase awareness on my developed websites. Take some time to look at the main Google accounts page and check out all of the links. Almost all of the applications can be beneficial to a small company doing business online.

General domain sales may be down across the board for most domain investors, but there are still a lot of companies buying ultra premium domain names. Many companies realize there is little overhead required when buying a category defining domain name, and it can pay major dividends to do so in terms of traffic and trust. Buying a domain name in these tough times can be much better than acquiring a business, which comes with significant overhead.

Have a happy Easter, Passover, or weekend.

Best Domain Auctions on Ebay

Are you looking to find the best and most popular domain name-related auctions on Ebay?   If so, Ebay has a section called “Ebay Pulse,” which features the most watched auctions in every Ebay category, including domain names. I don’t bid on Ebay auctions much, but when I do visit Ebay, I generally start with the Domain Name Pulse section.

New to Domain Investing in 2009

I think a whole lot has changed in the domain investment industry since I started a few years ago. I would love to hear from domain investors who recently started out in the industry about how things have been going for them. If you are new to the business, I would love to hear about some of these things:

1) How did you get started?
2) What types of domain names are you buying?
3) Where are you buying and selling most of your domain names?
4) Are you buying in the aftermarket or new registrations?
5) What are your domaining goals?

Thanks for taking the time to respond – and of course for reading my blog.

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