Generic Domain Names Archives - Page 26 of 35

Blog.com and News.com Domain Names

Elliot Silver

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August 31, 2009

I personally don’t own many domain names that end in Blog.com or News.com, but I think they have considerable value. Just about every industry, hobby, sport, country, city….etc has a blogger or news source that covers the segment. Many people perform searches for “topic blog,” as well as “topic news” to get great information.

A developed site with unique content on one of these types of domain names can lead to big advertising deals and increased traffic. First off, Google loves blogs, news, and other websites that have frequent updates and new content added regularly. When you have a blogging platform (such as WordPress) installed on a site that ends in Blog.com or News.com, Google and Yahoo are given two big hints about what will be seen on the site, and by all indication, will rank them well.

So these names clearly have value, but they can be difficult to sell at a premium price. The difficult thing about selling these domain names – especially Blog.com domain names – is that many people begin to blog for the love of the topic rather than to make money. These people don’t necessarily start their blog site to earn a living, and therefore can’t justify paying significant money for these valuable domain names. However, if you can convince them of their ability to make money from writing about their passion, it can help you raise the price when they inquire.

One way to increase the value of your domain sale is to ask a person who inquires what he has planned for the site. Probe further and ask about the topic and the amount of traffic he hopes to receive. Do a bit of research and see who is advertising in that vertical and remind the blogger that if he owns the category defining domain name, he is already ahead of the game. With his traffic goals and the key domain name, he can command more advertising revenue, which will defray the cost of the domain name. You might also research more and show him affiliate programs in that vertical allowing him to make money.

Remind him that you have the best domain name for his blog, and while the cost might be high up front, it will pay dividends in the future. You can also offer him a lease to own deal, allowing him to build his website on the domain name you ultimately control. This will allow him to slowly build his base at a fair cost, while still providing the opportunity for a buy out down the road. Of course you need to be cautious about lease deals, but they can and do work.

Below are some good Blog.com and News.com domain names that are for sale (some premium and some drops) – I do not own them:

AstronomyBlog.com
BermudaBlog.com
CapeCodBlog.com
DadBlog.com
HeadhunterBlog.com
LacrosseBlog.com
LaptopBlog.com
MatchmakingBlog.com (IMO, this is a great deal because of the high value dating leads)
NursingBlog.com

AcupunctureNews.com
AnthropologyNews.com
BeerNews.com
BritishNews.com
CosmeticSurgeryNews.com
EconomicNews.com
FarmingNews.com
GeneticsNews.com
InvestorsNews.com
ObstetricsNews.com
TeachingNews.com

Why a Generic Domain is Important

Elliot Silver

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August 20, 2009

4

Earlier, I discussed in detail why I think generic domain names are so important, and I would now like to provide a real world example of the importance.

My wife and I are looking to re-do our kitchen and bathroom floors. Black slate looks cool, but it’s difficult to clean and we want to give our kitchen a fresh look. While at dinner with friends on Friday, we saw that they had black granite flooring that my wife and I both liked. We decided that we were going to look into new flooring options, and our first to stops were HomeDepot.com and Lowes.com, both of which did not have the type of flooring that we want.

Since we haven’t done much renovation other than wood floors from Home Depot, we don’t really know many home improvement or renovation stores in New York, and I haven’t owned or needed a phone book in about 8 years. That said, my first step in searching for granite floor tile were Google searches for “granite floor tiles,” “granite floor tile,” and “granite flooring.”

Had any of these domain names been owned by a flooring company, it’s likely they would have ranked fairly high in Google, since the term isn’t ultra competitive. Fortunately for the existing companies (well, the 5 highest ranking companies anyway), the keyword domain names, GraniteFloorTiles.com, GraniteFloorTile.com, and GraniteFlooring.com aren’t developed.

People often look at generic domain names for their type-in visitor value. Although this is important, it isn’t the primary reason why I like generic domain names. Based on my development experiences, I have found that keyword domain names generally rank very well in the search engines (Bing moreso than Google), while their competitors with more brandable domain names don’t rank nearly as well.

I may or may not have bought my granite tiles from GraniteFlooring.com, but when all things considered are equal and I don’t have any brand loyalty to a local store, it makes things easier for the company to rank well organically and not have to consistently pay for visitors through SEM, which can be useful but requires continued investment. Generic domain names aren’t the answer, but they make finding the answer much easier.

Why a Generic Domain Name is Important

Elliot Silver

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August 20, 2009

9

Most companies and their brand managers prefer their brand name over a generic domain name, after all, they are called BRAND MANAGERS! The brand helps them stand out from their competitors, and they know (well, hope) their customers will remember the brand name when walking the aisles at Walmart or searching the shelves at Best Buy, or some other retail shop.

Many of the world’s large brands can afford to spend billions or millions on marketing to ensure everyone remembers their company name. They buy television commercials, sponsor the biggest sporting and other televised events, pay for stadium and building naming rights, send billions of direct mail pieces, rent billboards along the highway, have extensive Internet marketing campaigns, and do a whole host of other things to make sure customers and potential customers know who they are – maybe even more than what they actually do.

When a company chooses a unique brand name over a generic domain name, they are missing a big piece of the puzzle – Google/Bing/Yahoo/Ask searches. Sure, a company can pay for search engine marketing campaigns, but organic search results are much less expensive, and they don’t require the same amount of money for constant upkeep, although a great website is costly. SEM costs a lot of money, and if you stop, the traffic will stop coming as well.

Keyword domain names generally perform better than non-keyword domain names when it comes to search engine results for the searched keyword, especially with Bing. When people search for a specific product, and they either don’t know the brand they want or simply want a comparison of brands, they would probably type the product name in Google or search engine of choice.

In fact, have a look at some Google search comparisons of brands names vs the generic name (Global Monthly Search Volume, exact match). You’ll see that although the brands sometimes to get more search volume, there is still a significant number of people that don’t look for brands – they look for products.

Candy: 1,220,000
Hershey: 90,500

Cell Phones: 1,500,000
Verizon Wireless: 3,350,000

Mountain Bikes: 301,000
Trek: 368,000

Vodka: 368,000
Grey Goose: 74,000

This isn’t scientific at all, but it shows that many people either aren’t satisfied with a particular brand or they would like to see some sort of comparison, to get an idea of their options (ie Bing is “the decision engine”). If a generic domain name is well-developed, it will rank right up there organically, allowing the company to capture a significant amount of that search traffic (at no incremental cost). They can compete with the big brands at much less ongoing cost, aside from website upkeep.

With Lowell.com, about 20% of my traffic is type-in traffic. I am sure this percentage is much higher on an established brand like Verizon or Apple. However, there will always be a significant percentage of people who find the website via Google, and many of them are searching for generic search terms, as witnessed above. If a company owns top rankings for a well-searched generic term, they might not need to spend millions on brand marketing, since the consumer might find what they want simply by seeing the meta tags and trusting the generic brand.

If a company owns the generic term, they can build a site on that domain name ala Toys.com, and either brand the generic domain name or make sure there is easy access to get to the main brand. Doing this can help both websites rank for the generic term, rather than just taking one out of commission by forwarding the type in traffic, since a forward rather than a stand alone website will probably remove it from Google and other search engines.

In my opinion, when it comes to Internet marketing, a generic domain name can handily beat a known brand at a fraction of the cost.

Internet.com Network Sold for $18 Million

Elliot Silver

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August 10, 2009

2

Internet.com Sold for $18 Million Publicly traded WebMediaBrands, Inc. reported the sale of its Internet.com division for $18,000,000 to QuinStreet, Inc, in an all cash deal that is pending approval from the WMB board of directors. The Internet.com Network is comprised of many different brands focusing on developers, IT, Internet news, personal technology and small business.

Internet.com brands that are also presumably included in the deal are BlackberryGuide.com, InternetNews.com, DatabaseJournal.com, WebDeveloper.com, JavaScript.com, Developer.com, and many others. Each of these brands operates on its own website under the Internet.com umbrella.

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.” Owning the Internet.com brand will enable the company to continue expand its online presence, reaching the estimated 15 million unique visitors who visit the Internet.com Network. Owning the Internet.com brand will be a powerful marketing tool.

WebMediaBrands will continue to operate MediaBistro and the Graphics.com Network, among other brands.

Do Sports Teams Get Domain Names?

Elliot Silver

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August 7, 2009

6

I want to examine whether American professional sports teams seem to value generic domain names for their websites. Surprisingly, there are a whole host of sports teams that do not own the exact keyword .com domain name of their brand, even though they are losing a considerable amount of traffic as a result. I searched NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL team websites, and I found that National Basketball Association teams own the most team name.com domain names, and National Hockey League teams owns the least.

Since most sports team names are very generic, they are expensive to acquire. However, losing ticket sales and team memorabilia/collectibles revenue (or having to pay a commission for them) should be incentive enough to spend the money to buy these domain names, as evidenced by the purchase of Bobcats.com by the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats last year.

By nature, American Internet users seem to default to the .com domain name when looking for a specific brand, and that holds true for sports teams. This can be witnessed by examining the public stats of generic sports domain names during the season. For example, Dolphins.com seems to spike at the beginning of the football season and then in the middle, even though the Miami Dolphins didn’t own the domain name until a recent UDRP filing that was Suspended.

It’s interesting to note that it doesn’t appear that the league or team values have anything to do with the acquisition of generic .com domain names. The Dallas Cowboys are one of the three most valuable American professional sports franchises. Yet they weren’t willing to pay $275,000 for their generic .com domain name when it was up for auction (which is a story in and of itself).

According to reports in Forbes Magazine, the approximate combined value of teams in each league were: NFL: $30.6 billion, MLB: $14.5 billion, NBA: $11.4 billion, and NHL: $6.6 billion. This doesn’t parallel the % of teams that own their own .com domain name, although the least valuable league does own the least amount of .com domain names.

Percentage of teams that own their .com team name:
NBA: 76.7%
MLB: 73.3%
NFL: 53.1%
NHL: 26.7%

National Hockey League Teams – Do they own team name .com?
Buffalo Sabres Yes
Carolina Hurricanes No
Colorado Avalanche No
Columbus Blue Jackets No
Dallas Stars No
Detroit Red Wings No
Edmonton Oilers No
Florida Panthers No
Los Angeles Kings No
Minnesota Wild Yes
Montreal Canadiens Yes
Nashville Predators No
New Jersey Devils No
New York Islanders No
New York Rangers No
Ottawa Senators Yes
Philadelphia Flyers No
Phoenix Coyotes No
Pittsburgh Penguins No
San Jose Sharks No
St. Louis Blues No
Tampa Bay Lightning No
Toronto Maple Leafs Yes
Vancouver Canucks Yes
Washington Capitals No

National Basketball League Teams – Do they own team name .com?
Atlanta Hawks Yes
Boston Celtics Yes
Charlotte Bobcats Yes
Chicago Bulls Yes
Cleveland Cavaliers No
Dallas Mavericks No
Denver Nuggets Yes
Detroit Pistons Yes
Golden State Warriors Yes
Houston Rockets Yes
Indians Pacers Yes
LA Clippers Yes
LA Lakers Yes
Memphis Grizzlies Yes
Miami Heat Yes
Milwaukee Bucks Yes
Minnesota Timberwolves Yes
New Jersey Nets No
New Orleans Hornets Yes
New York Knicks Yes
Oklahoma City Thunder No
Orlando Magic No
Philadelphia 76ers Yes
Phoenix Suns Yes
Portland Trail Blazers Yes
Sacramento Kings Yes
San Antonio Spurs Yes
Toronto Raptors Yes
Utah Jazz No
Washington Wizards No

National Football League Teams – Do they own team name .com?
Arizona Cardinals No
Atlanta Falcons No
Baltimore Ravens No
Buffalo Bills No
Carolina Panthers Yes
Chicago Bears No
Cincinnati Bengals Yes
Cleveland Browns No
Dallas Cowboys No
Denver Broncos No
Detroit Lions No
Green Bay Packers Yes
Houston Texans No
Indianapolis Colts Yes
Jacksonville Jaguars Yes
Kansas City Chiefs No
Miami Dolphins Yes
Minnesota Vikings Yes
New England Patriots Yes
New Orleans Saints No
New York Giants Yes
New York Jets No
Oakland Raiders Yes
Philadelphia Eagles No
Pittsburgh Steelers Yes
San Diego Chargers Yes
San Francisco 49ers Yes
Seattle Seahawks Yes
St Louis Rams Yes
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Yes
Tennessee Titans No
Washington Redskins Yes

Major League Baseball Teams – Do they own team name .com?
Arizona Diamondbacks Yes
Atlanta Braves Yes
Baltimore Orioles Yes
Boston Red Sox Yes
Chicago Cubs Yes
Chicago White Sox Yes
Cincinnati Reds Yes
Cleveland Indians Yes
Colorado Rockies No
Detroit Tigers Yes
Florida Marlins Yes
Houston Astros Yes
Kansas City Royals Yes
Los Angeles Angels No
Los Angeles Dodgers Yes
Milwaukee Brewers Yes
Minnesota Twins No
New York Mets Yes
New York Yankees Yes
Oakland Athletics No
Philadelphia Phillies Yes
Pittsburgh Pirates Yes
San Diego Padres Yes
San Francisco Giants No
Seattle Mariners Yes
St. Louis Cardinals No
Tampa Bay Rays No
Texas Rangers No
Toronto Blue Jays Yes
Washington Nationals Yes

A Domain Name Doesn’t Matter

Elliot Silver

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August 6, 2009

24

If you have a unique business plan or web development idea that can’t easily or quickly be replicated, the domain name you choose for your website hardly matters. You can be CrazyCrazyCrazy.us or some other funky domain name, and you will still have success if there’s a strong market for your product or service. The domain name matters much less than the idea and execution.

If your idea isn’t completely unique or you are entering a market where there is considerable competition, the domain name can be critical to your company’s success or failure.

In just about every market, a new industry leader can emerge (or a new company can instantly be competitive) if he has the category killer domain name for the industry, as long as his product is at least competitive with the industry leaders. The company doesn’t necessarily need to be innovative to gain market share – just competitive.

New companies need to be innovative to take market share away from the leaders, or they need to spend considerable sums of money on marketing to get consumers to think its products are better or to give them a reason to buy them over its competitors products. A domain name doesn’t necessarily do all of this, but the category killer domain name does convey trust and is instantly recognizable.

Torah.com may not be the best looking website yet, as it’s a work in progress. However, I receive many Jewish-related questions every week from people who think Torah.com is the expert. I may not be from Lowell or have the most comprehensive site about Lowell (it’s debatable), but hundreds of people still visit Lowell.com each day, and many people book their hotel reservations right on the site.

A new company can spend a lot of money on marketing to convey trust. A category defining domain name can be expensive, but it can give instant credibility to a new or rebranded company.

Generic Domain Names

Blog.com and News.com Domain Names

Why a Generic Domain is Important

Why a Generic Domain Name is Important

Internet.com Network Sold for $18 Million

Do Sports Teams Get Domain Names?

A Domain Name Doesn’t Matter

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