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BP Cares About BPCares.com

Elliot Silver
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27

BP CaresThere was a lot of commentary on Rick’s Blog when he mentioned that he bought and was successfully monetizing many BP-related domain names. It seems that whenever Rick writes something controversial, there are dozens of opinions voiced in the comment section of his blog, and this post was no different.

I received a Google News Alert today about an article appearing on Charlotte, North Carolina’s Fox affiliate website about the owner of BPCares.com. Apparently BP wants to acquire BPCares.com from the registrant, and he isn’t interested in selling it to the company. According to the article, the domain registrant purchased this and other companyCares.com domain names apparently after seeing NBACares.com used in action by the National Basketball Association.

The article mentioned that BP has tried to buy this domain name more than once and that the company keeps calling him about the name, but it didn’t mention whether BP threatened a UDRP or any other legal action. In my opinion, it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility if it did threaten legal action, especially since the owner apparently confirmed that he registered other names related to other companies.

Smartly, the domain owner does not appear to have BPCares.com monetized (or even resolving to another website), and he didn’t mention a sales price, so perhaps his aim wasn’t to profit from the BP brand. However, it does appear to be listed for sale on Sedo without an asking price.

I don’t understand the motive for having this article written, as it only serves to show that he did register the domain name along with other corporate domain names that are similar. A quick search shows the registrant also appears to own GoogleCares.com and DisneyCares.com. If the registrant or someone he knows hadn’t mentioned the situation to the news station, it likely would have remained below the radar.

Let’s hope for his sake that BP doesn’t care enough about BPCares.com to take legal action because that could get quite expensive.

Swift Rank Investing in Hotel & Travel Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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31

As many people probably did after learning that Rick Schwartz sold SydneyHotels.com for $100k, I spent some time searching for city Hotels.com domain names to see who owns them and how many are developed. Just about all of the domain names I looked up are developed, which says to me that there is money in that business.

I was reading the comments on Rick’s Blog, and as is typical for Rick’s Blog, there was at least one negative comment alluding to the fact that the domain name has privacy guard and the owner’s info can’t be seen. For those of you who have any doubt about Rick’s sale, I can confirm that the buyer was in fact Swift Rank, and the company is an active domain buyer.

I’ve done some business with Swift Rank, having sold them some travel-related domain names last year. The company owns a considerable number of exact match geographical travel domain names in the car, hotel, restaurant, and travel verticals. Just about all of the company’s domain names are developed.

The company’s purchase of SydneyHotels.com probably isn’t their only   large recent acquisition. Swift Rank also owns the following great names, some of which were recent:

  • BostonHotels.com – Owned by Frank Schilling as of 6/21
  • LasVegasHotels.com
  • DelhiHotels.com
  • HongKongHotel.com
  • SaintKittsandNevisHotels.com
  • NewYorkRestaurants.com
  • SanFranciscoRestaurant.com

I would venture a guess that if you own any great City Hotels.com domain names (or other generic travel domain names), Swift Rank may be interested in discussing an acquisition.

Sun Sentinal Uses Rick Schwartz for DomainFest Publicity

Elliot Silver
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2

A friend of mine emailed me a Sun Sentinal article about today’s DomainFest one day power networking event, and the irony is that Rick Schwartz took center stage (Rick is the founder and principal of the competing Traffic conference). The article cites Rick’s sales of Candy.com ($3m) and iReport.com ($750k) and it discusses the DomainFest conference and upcoming auction that takes place this afternoon.

The article offers some good coverage of the domain industry, and it interviews Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky, DNJournal Publisher Ron Jackson, and “Domain King,” Rick Schwartz. Rick was very complementary about the Snapnames/Moniker auction, saying there is “a nice list of domains for grabs.”

After reviewing the domain names in the auction and hearing that Slots.com was sold for $5,500,000 this week at Snapnames (as reported by Rob Monster), I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two big deals completed during the auction or shortly thereafter. It’s clear that Moniker is working the phones in an effort to complete some large sales.

Domain Contracts Can Be Critical

Elliot Silver
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7

I had a situation last week where I wanted to close on a domain name, but the seller had concerns about the domain sales agreement I sent. Since I use a standard domain agreement I had created by a domain lawyer based in New York, I was a bit taken aback by his concerns. I thought about it for a few minutes and realized that I may have been the same way had someone random offered to buy a domain name I owned and then sent over a two page legal agreement for me to sign.

I explained to him the different sections of the agreement, which included a section discussing the cost and payment terms, a section where it states that the domain name isn’t encumbered and/or had no trademark issues, a confidentiality clause, and other standard contract sections. I even explained that when he buys a big ticket item like a car or television, and even when he checks off a box of terms and conditions when registering a domain name, he is signing a contract.

In the end, I opted to move forward without the agreement rather than kill the deal. I was able to determine he was the original registrant 12 years ago (only able to see Whois history dating back to 2001), and everything matched up. Since I paid via Escrow.com and it’s a generic name, there were no special details added to the standard agreement.

On deals where certain conditions need to be met, it’s very important that a contract is used to protect both buyer and seller from any legal troubles that may arise down the road. It’s important that both parties’ expectations are laid out in the agreement, along with the ramifications if terms aren’t met. Rick had a post about his Property.com deal this morning, and you can see why an agreement can be very important, especially when it involves more than a domain sale.

I recommend using a sales agreement on most deals that you do, especially because you can re-use a boiler plate agreement that you paid for once. A standard domain sales agreement is one tool that is good for you to have on hand, and it isn’t very expensive to have created for your business.

Rick is Right About Development

Elliot Silver
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11

When it comes to development, Rick made a good point yesterday. One of my biggest obstacles when it comes to development is myself. With domain sales down for me, I have been spreading myself thinly in an effort to build revenue generating businesses on my domain names.

  • In the last two years, my company has built Lowell.com, Burbank.com, and Newburyport.com into full-fledged businesses, which require frequent updates, client meetings, sales calls, and time devoted to city research.
  • I have my domain blog, which I update every day with news, advice, and commentary. This takes a considerable amount of time, but it’s a good outlet to share and learn.
  • I am in the process of building out Torah.com into a fully operational website, which will have a whole host of features that one would expect to find on a website of this nature.
  • I have a bunch of mini sites, which don’t take a whole lot of time to manage, but they do take some time adding content, testing layouts, researching topics…etc.
  • I spend time acquiring good domain names and looking to make deals to sell other domain names.

I find myself going in circles sometimes because it’s not easy to manage all of this. Building businesses takes time and effort, and I am finding myself having less time to do the things I enjoy. There is a fine balance between spending the right amount of time building a solid business and spending too much time getting few things done.

I completely disagree with Rick about his belief regarding search engine traffic, and I can’t understand how his domain names would lose traffic with mini-sites, because one would imagine the type-in traffic would at least stay consistent, however, that’s a topic for another day.

If you are a domain investor, you need to figure out what you want to do with your domain names before you do it, especially if they may be difficult to re-sell quickly. If you are planning to develop them into a business, it might be best to focus on one and make it into the best business possible before you start another project. Staying focused on one project is difficult, especially when you are working alone.

Take it from me, buying and selling great domain names isn’t difficult. Building a business on a domain name is a completely different story, and while I don’t regret any decisions I’ve made, I am finding it much more difficult to gain traction with some of my projects, since I can’t always focus on one project at a time.

The Domain Name Matters for SEO

Elliot Silver
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5

I read Rick’s Blog this morning about search engine optimization specialists and spammers, and I agree that there is a lot of crap out there. I also know there are a lot of smart people who do this for a profession or a hobby, and a number of people helped me out when requested (THANKS!!).

One thing I took away from Rick’s article is that a company’s domain name is very important for SEO. Rick said, “Want the best SEO guy? Do a damn Google search!” He proceeded to search for the best SEO guy, and guess what returned #1? A listing for Mic Tienken, whose website resides on www.bestseoguyintheworld.com – a domain name with the keywords Rick searched.

Personally, I am less colloquial when I search, and I wanted to find the best SEO company. Guess who came back with the number one result… SEO Image, with a website not residing on SEOImage.com, but a website on www.bestseocompany.com, the exact search phrase I used.

If you want to improve your SEO rankings and do good SEO, it’s as easy as analyzing the obvious things on the professionals’ websites, and clearly the domain name matters for search engine optimization.

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