I never thought I would say (write) that, but it’s true. I LOVE Canada. Well, maybe not Canada or Canadians per se. I don’t have anything against Canadians of course, but that’s not really the point.
Ok, so what IS the point? Well, after some diligent analytics and analysis, I noticed that Elliot’s Blog is the #1 result of 29 MILLION+ results for the term domain blog. Now I am not that full of myself to think that I have the BEST domain blog, but at least in Canada, for today, I am #1!
Last week, Buy Domains offered a free webinar called “Analytics for Your Small Business Website” and over 400 domain developers and businesses joined the discussion. Due to a scheduling conflict (DomainFest), I was not able to attend, although it was something I wanted to attend.
Because of the large demand and the fact that many people couldn’t attend who wanted to attend, Buy Domains is offering a second webinar. This isn’t going to be the recorded version from last week – it’s a live webinar. The details are as follows:
Date: February 10, 2009
Time: 2:00pm EST
Cost: FREE
To register for this event, visit the event registration website. I will “see” you there.
On their Adsense blog this morning, Google announced a new way for domain owners to monetize undeveloped domain names. “Adsense for Domains” is now available for some domain owners, and it can be found in the Adsense Setup tab in the Adsense account. Essentially, domain owners can load their domain names into the Google back-end, provide keyword hints, choose link and text colors, and change over their DNS to Google specified servers. It all seems pretty easy.
There are going to be differences between what parking companies offer and what Google will offer, and some of which can be gleaned from the quick start guide. For starters, domain owners will not have the luxury of adding graphics to their landing pages. Additionally, it is doubtful that Google can offer the same extraordinary level of customer support that is given by most parking companies.
The bottom line on all of this will most certainly be the bottom line to domain owners’ bank accounts. By getting rid of the middle man, Google should be able to pay more than parking companies, which would be very problematic for parking companies. Unfortunately, if Google becomes THE parking company, they could make their own rules, lower payouts and ultimately harm domain owners in the long run. This is an interesting development that will have long lasting repercussions on the domain industry.
I just read on Big Ticket Domains that Google is now letting people edit their own search results if they have a Google account. This new feature is called “Search Wiki” and it allows users “to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results.” Interestingly enough, users will be able to see comments made by other system users.
Although changes that are made will only effect the search results for that person, it will be interesting to see if they decide to give any weight to this in their algorithm. The power of public opinion is great, and it would be a good way to determine if a website has valuable infomation or not. The problem would be that competitors would have the opportunity to alter results.
The official release can be found on the Google blog.
Google Chrome looks like it’s going to change web browsing habits if it’s widely adopted. Unfortunately, Google Chrome for Macs hasn’t been released yet. According to the download page, “Google Chrome for Mac is in development and a team of engineers is working hard to bring it to you as soon as possible.”
At face value, after reading a few reviews, it looks developing domain names will be even more important, as users only have one box to enter a search term or domain name. If the user enters TropicalBirds.com, he will see this website and possibly other websites that are related (although I can’t confirm whether entering a specific website will return similar websites).
As I have witnessed with some domain names, Google does not seem to like parked domain names in their search results. In fact, many domain names I’ve purchased that were previously parked are completely out of Google’s algorythm and I’ve had to submit a reinclusion request. If you type them into the Google.com search bar, they won’t even show up. This doesn’t bode well for parked domain names that rely on type in traffic because if browsers type in the domain name into Chrome and it’s not in Google, they may not be inclined to visit – or they will be dissuaded by seeing a website that doesn’t look developed.
Again, user adoption is going to determine the impact Chrome will have on search.
The way a domain was used in the past could potentially impact a domain owner, so researching any potential domain acquisition is important. Not only could prior usage put a domain owner at risk of losing his domain name due to a UDRP, but there could also be untold legal risk when acquiring a domain name, and also issues with it appearing in search engines. All of these potential problems can cause much financial turmoil as well as take time to remedy and reconcile.
The first and probably the most obvious concern is prior TM infringement with a domain name that may have multiple meanings. If a domain name was previously parked, and the PPC links infringed on another company’s mark(s) where the domain name is also confusingly similar to that company’s marks, the company may have a legitimate complaint. If a new domain owner takes possession of the domain name, it doesn’t negate the issues that existed before. The complainant could cite prior use of the domain name, and the new owner’s claim of non-responsibility probably wouldn’t fly. I think this is especially so in the case of three letter .com domain names, where there may be many companies whose trademarks could be infringed upon.
If a domain name was involved in spam or phishing emails, the new owner may be held accountable. I am not an attorney, so I am not going to say what liability may exist, but from a public relations perspective, it could be detrimental. People may have posted their spam/phishing messages in forums or other websites, all linking back to the domain name. If the domain name gets developed into a website, it might be tough to be legitimized if enough questions were raised – forever linked in Google search results.
In addition to these issues, there are also spam blacklists that exist. If a domain name is put on the list, many mail servers may not accept incoming mail from certain domain names. While that may not be important for mini-sites or for parked domain names, if a business is built on that domain name, email access will be critical. A company may be able to appeal to the blacklists (like Spamhaus), but I don’t know how to handle that.
If a domain name was previously parked or if there were other major problems with it, Google and Yahoo may have banished the name from their listings. Upon changing ownership and/or building a new website on the domain name, it might not even appear in Google or Yahoo because of the domain name’s past history. There is a way to remedy this however, by filing a reconsideration request with Google or asking Yahoo to re-review the website. Neither of these will guarantee that your site will appear, but it’s a good start.
Research is key when buying a domain name. Archive.org offers a great tool to see what the website looked like at various points in time, allowing you to see the history of the site. Domaintools also offers many valuable research tools to see the ownership history, blacklist history, screenshots, and some other useful tools. While you may think you are buying a domain name with a clean history – or one whose history will be cleared when you buy it, but it reality, it’s always buyer be ware.
