Geographic Domain Names

Nice Geo Domain Landing Page from Trafficz

I was watching the New York news tonight, and I saw the Mets opened a new baseball facility in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic. While I don’t care much for the Mets (nor the Yankees), I was more interested in learning a bit about Boca Chica. Of course I did a Whois search for BocaChica.com and saw that it’s owned by a well-known domain investor, and I wanted to see what he was doing with it.
While it’s not fully developed, I think Trafficz created a great landing page for it. There are some flash images with different keywords on each. When you click on the particular keyword, related links populate the screen on the left. I think this is a nice step up for the standard landing page, and I think it could be very good for a geo domain that isn’t developed, since CTR tends to be low for parked geodomains.
While I think the best approach to geodomains is to develop them, I do think this is one of the nicest PPC landing pages I’ve seen for a geodomain.

Geo Domain Expo Recap on DNJournal

Ron’s final analysis of the Geo Domain Expo was published today, and as always, it provides some great insight into the show. The show gave me some great ideas, which I am in the process of implementing on Burbank.com. Developing a business on a geo domain isn’t easy, but the show gave me the confidence to invest more money into Burbank.com to make it the best site about Burbank, California. I will be launching a full directory sometime in Q4 2008.

Geo Domain Expo Recap

Those who know me, know I don’t particularly like to fly – scratch that – it’s taking off and landing I don’t like so much. Today it wasn’t a problem, as I slept like a baby on the flight, exhausted from the great weekend I had in Chicago.
Th geo domain industry is unlike any industry in which I’ve ever been involved. There is a sincere feeling of camaraderie, and everyone I met seems to have a genuine desire to help others. I started my blog to share what I know and have learned, and the geo domainers that I met at the show seem to have the same objectives of helping others learn and succeed in this industry.
At the show, there was very little talk about declining revenues and PPC. The real money is in development and building a business on geo domains. From what I saw and heard, there has never been a better time to develop domain names with the technology that’s available. While I felt a bit like I was behind in the times by using HTML, I learned more about solutions like eDirectory, and as I grow my sites, I plan to make the change to their platform.
Everything positive you hear about David and Michael Castello, Skip Hoagland, Dan Pulcrano, Josh Metnick, Jess Bookstaff, Sarah and Mark Mannix, Fred Mercaldo, Mike Ward,….etc.. is 100% true. These people have amazing success stories, and they are very approachable and willing to share advice and feedback. I met some great people at various stages of their geo domain development, and my best piece of advice was to grab the business cards of the most successful geodomainers and stay in touch. As someone said at the show, in 10 years from now, these people won’t just be geo domain pioneers, they will be the heads of major media companies.
This show was open to all geo domain investors, and I’ve learned that there are tons of ways to make money from developed geo domains. I believe we are on the cusp of something great, and I believe that the geo domainers are leading the way for all domainers.
Some takewaways from the show (aside from my hangover)
While the geo domain pioneers have great revenue-producing websites, the sky is literally the limit with geo domains. You can create goals for yourself and your sites, and once you hit those, you can improve on them. With new technology, new thinking, and determination, there is no stopping what you can do with your websites.
Trafficz’s involvement in domain auctions is going to change the game. Ammar and Jay have great ideas, and coupled with their technology, I think we are witnessing the growth of a giant in the domain space.
If you have good domain names but might not have the ability to execute your plans, try to parter with someone who has the expertise. Nearly everyone with whom I spoke has partnerships of various degrees, and they are able to balance their skills with those of others. Being a one trick pony is kinda cool, but you can’t be a jack of all trades – so find someone who has the skills you don’t and work out something amenable.
Patrick Carleton, MidwestBusiness.com, Jess Bookstaff, and Associated Cities know how to put on a professional show. Attendance more than doubled from last year’s show in San Francisco, and as a betting person, I would wager that it will be continue to grow. This space seems to be where the smart money’s at right now.
If you own a city .com and someone else owns a city + keyword name (Burbank.com & BurbankRestaurants.com for example), you can work together to improve both sites and make money. Just because you don’t have a pure city .com, doesn’t mean you are left out. This is an inclusive group and partnerships can benefit everyone.
While the live auction result wasn’t really impressive, I think that’s more related to the domain names that were auctioned rather than the state of the market. There were plenty of buyers in attendance (myself included – Secaucus.com), but the names weren’t great for the most part. I think that much of this can be attributed to the fact that most top city/state/regional geographic domain names aren’t for sale at domain auction prices.
Special thanks to Steve Morales. In addition to helping promote the geo domain industry, he is proudly serving our country.

Update from the Geo Domain Expo

I have to run to the Trafficz cocktail party, but the Geo Domain Expo has been fantastic so far. While the past year or so has been a bit “bumpy” for the domain industry, the prevailing feeling in this sector of the industry is genuine optimism and excitement. Dan Pulcrano just released some very good news about his company, and I’ve heard other stories about tremendous growth for geographic domain owners.
The pioneering geodomainers continue to see growth in their websites (both in terms of traffic and advertising revenue), and new geodomainers like myself are more excited about the opportunities in this niche than anything I can recall. I haven’t been to a conference where people have been so willing to share advice and knowledge. As I’ve been told by several people, we aren’t really competitors, so it doesn’t hurt us to help someone else.
Instead of focusing on how the changing economic times are hurting revenues, lower PPC payouts, and the struggling economy, people at this conference are enthusiastic and excited about changes that are going on today. While I may be pessimistic about the health of the domain industry at times, I am very optimistic about my geodomain holdings.

Breaking News: Boulevards Cracks Quantcast 500

Boulevards Cracks Quantcast 500
Boulevards network, at 360, now ranks among Internet’s most visited properties
Chicago, IL., July 14, 2008 – The Boulevards network now ranks among the top 500 properties on the Internet, according to traffic ratings compiled by Quantcast Corporation.
As of July 11, Boulevards’ city guides and local information services achieved a rank of 360 among Internet destinations tracked by Quantcast.
“We are pleased to be counted among the world’s largest Internet properties,.” said Boulevards CEO Dan Pulcrano in an announcement at the Associated Cities Geodomain Expo in Chicago.
“Quantcast has performed a tremendous service for the industry by becoming the first ratings service to transparently aggregate data from multiple sites into a unified ranking. This is the Forbes 500 of traffic ratings.”
“Before, many companies flew under the radar and lacked visibility because their traffic was distributed among a network of URLs,” Pulcrano added. “Now, Quantcast adds up unduplicated traffic data from all of a company’s services, then publishes and ranks the results for all to see.”
Boulevards’ rating includes aggregated traffic from Boulevards’ high profile city guides, which include LosAngeles.com, Seattle.com, Philadelphia.com, Denver.com, Dallas.com and Houston.com as well as the popular MovieTimes.com site, formerly known as “Mr. Movie Times.”
Boulevards reaches a combined total of 50 million users each year, delivering more than 300 million ad impressions annually.
About Boulevards New Media Inc.
Boulevards owns and operates sites under the primary city domain in the majority of Top 20 U.S. cities and continues to push the boundaries of the city guide industry. Born in 1994 with the idea of “inventing the local media of the future,” Boulevards’ sites were among the first city guides to allow community postings for both events and businesses. The company offers a suite of marketing and lead generation services to both local and travel-related businesses.
With properties such as Los Angeles.com, Seattle.com, San Francisco.com, Denver.com, Houston.com, Washington DC.com and Philadelphia.com, Boulevards operates in 23 of the nation’s top markets, and is the largest U.S. operator of city guides branded with high-ranking, intuitive “cityname.com” URLs.
The Boulevards network reaches more than 4 million unique viewers each month, of which 91 percent are in the U.S. With traffic ranked alongside such companies as Oprah.com and MTV.com, Boulevards is one of the nation’s leading online media companies.
About Quantcast Corporation
Quantcast provides the first open Internet ratings site that enables Web publishers and advertisers to easily understand Web demographic trends. The company’s transparent Internet ratings promote openness and accessibility to accurate data by allowing web publishers to contribute directly to the service.
Contacts:
Public Relations, Quantcast Corporation contact@quantcast.com 415.738.4755
Boulevards New Media Inc.
pr@boulevards.com
408.271.3500

Evaluating the Geo Domain Auction

I was just checking out Moniker’s tentative Geo Domain auction list on Mike’s Blog, and I think there are a few good domain names for sale at reasonable prices. Chances are good that I’ll be bidding on one or more of these domain names, but I wanted to post what I believe are the best values in the auction.
ColoradoRiver.com $25,001 – $50,000
NewRochelle.com $50,001 – $100,000
OysterBay.com $25,001 – $50,000
SanJuan.com $250,001 – $500,000
SantaClara.com $50,001 – $100,000
Secaucus.com $1 – $5,000
Versailles.com $50,001 – $100,000
My best piece of advice for anyone who is thinking about bidding is to do your due diligence and research prior to the auction. Don’t just focus on the domain name, but research the actual geographic area. Try to envision what you would build on the domain name should you win it, and determine if you will be able to turn a profit. As most geodomain owners will tell you, a geodomain needs to be developed to unlock its full value. Have a plan, and be ready to implement it if you are going to bid.
I may be bidding on one of these names, but it really depends on whether or not I think I will be able to manage another project at the moment. Once I return from my honeymoon, I will begin selling ad space in Lowell and Burbank.

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