Choosing a Domain Name to Develop

Elliot Silver
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14

Most domain investors have contemplated development at one point or another. Some people move forward with development projects and others opt to simply be a domain investor instead of trying their luck at development.  Here are a few things to consider:

1) Cost of development and  maintenance. Programming, security updates, and design work can be expensive. Weigh these costs against the realistic  profitability  expectation to see if it’s worth it.

2) Time commitment. Many websites aren’t (or shouldn’t be) “set it and forget it.” Think about how much time it will take to update the site (content, upgrades, inventory…etc) and determine if you’ll be able to commit that amount of time.

3) Advertising, marketing, and SEO budget. Even if you have a great website on a category defining domain name, you will still need to spend money advertising your new site and doing SEO work to get traffic. Think about whether you’ll be able to afford to do this – either with your own time or funds.

4) Add value to the domain name. If you develop the domain name, is it likely going to make an impact in search rankings? Will a potential buyer just scrap your website upon domain acquisition? It’s likely that your development won’t hurt the domain name, but if it doesn’t really enhance its value by more than you’re paying to develop it, you might want to reconsider.

5) Interesting topic. If the development topic isn’t of interest to you and you have no interest in learning more about it or dedicating time to it, you might want to pass. It’s not fun to have to research a topic you have no interest in … like tropical birds in my case.

There are a lot of considerations to make before devoting your time and your money to building a website. Sometimes we see huge sales like Diapers.com / Soap.com and we think we can easily take a big domain name, build it out, and sell it for a great ROI. The truth is that most of us won’t be able to do it.

Think about these things before you throw your good money after “bad.”

Google: “Our Algorithms Have Gotten Pretty Good at Recognizing Similar Content”

Elliot Silver
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25

There was an interesting new blog post on the Google Webmaster Tools blog yesterday discussing the issue of duplicate content and how Google doesn’t really look fondly upon websites that have the same information as other websites because of a poor user experience.

I hate taking large quotes from an article, but I think it’s important to know. Read the full post to get more information, but according to the blog post,

“Some less creative webmasters, or those short on time but with substantial resources on their hands, might be tempted to create a multitude of similar sites without necessarily adding unique information to any of these. From a user’s perspective, these sorts of repetitive sites can constitute a poor user experience when visible in search results. Luckily, over time our algorithms have gotten pretty good at recognizing similar content so as to serve users with a diverse range of information. We don’t recommend creating similar sites like that; it’s not a good use of your time and resources.”

This isn’t really new information, and it’s not surprising, but it’s something that domain owners need to take into consideration when developing their domain names. A lot of people have been asking about the issue of duplicate content lately, so this is certainly a good read.

Test and Learn

Elliot Silver
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23

When it comes to various types of website development, my philosophy has always been to test as much as possibly, learn from these tests, and move forward with successful tests or kill failing tests. I’ve been pretty open about my testing here on my blog, and I hope the lessons I’ve been learning and sharing have been helpful.

One test I’ve been running is with Epik on one domain name – BumperProtectors.com. I announced this test a couple of months ago, and I’ve been watching as traffic has slowly grown from almost nothing to over 300 visits/month. In total, 53% of its traffic in the last 30 days was from search, 34% from direct navigation, and the rest was from referrals such as my blog and other various sites. I think the site generated a couple (maybe a few) dollars a week, although I haven’t really checked much nor do I know if that is pre or post revenue share.

Yesterday, I learned that there were some de-indexing issues with sites on the Epik network, and sure enough, BumperProtectors.com looks to me like it was de-indexed from Google. Even if you type BumperProtectors.com into Google, I get no results.  Consequently, search traffic from the last couple of days has been 0.

I understand that Rob Monster from Epik will be addressing the issue today, and Andrew said the announcement will be that my site will be upgraded to an ecommerce store for free.

I am not entirely sure I am going to accept this offer. Should I do so and then submit a reconsideration request to Google, I am taking a big chance that they like the new site enough to re-index it. If they don’t approve and/or they approve a second time but later disapprove for whatever reason, I could have a nice domain name de-indexed twice, which certainly wouldn’t bode well for this exact match product domain name’s future. It’s one thing if I am working with Bumper-Protectors.mobi or some crap like that, but in NYC, selling bumper protectors is a big business.

I look forward to hearing what Rob has to say, but I haven’t decided whether to keep the domain name at Epik.

Block Someone From Stealing Content

Elliot Silver
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22

Nothing agitates me more than when I see another website stealing my content. Well, maybe seeing unicorns killed for tasty unicorn burgers, but that’s about it.

It especially infuriates me when I do a Google search using keywords from my article and the other website is listed either above or below mine. You’d think that Google would be smart enough to know that the other website is a rip off of mine, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.

This is probably a no-brainer for those of you who are smart with web development and/or hosting, but for an amateur like myself, I just figured out how to block another website from stealing my content.

I use a DNS Look up tool and enter the website that’s stealing my content. I get that website’s IP addresses and take them to my  hosting cpanel. Under the security section, I visit the IP Deny Manager or IP Block Manager (or something similar), and I add the DNS of the offending website. Voila… my copied articles and content disappears.

Now they could change the DNS, but that wouldn’t be a fun game of cat and mouse for them. They probably spend their time sucking the life out of plenty of other websites and wouldn’t even notice you blocked them.

Anyway, it’s my way of getting a bit even.  If all that fails, you can send them and/or Google a DMCA takedown notice, but this is easier.

Adios, content pirate.

Vaultpress: Great WordPress Backup Plugin

Elliot Silver
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1

For the past month or so, I’ve been using a great new WordPress back up plugin called Vaultpress. The creator of the plugin is Automattic, the company that also owns WordPress, so you know they know what they’re doing.

I signed up a few months ago, and since the company is still in Beta, they’ve been slowly awarding “Golden Tickets” that can be redeemed for the ability to install and use the plugin. The cost of the backup is $15/month, which is more expensive than the Amazon Storage I’ve been using, but I am told Vaultpress makes it much more simple to install a back-up in the event of a database problem.

If you operate a WordPress website where data loss or complete data  wipeout  would seriously hinder your business, you should consider Vaultpress. For a few of my sites, having a back up is critical, and I trust Vaultpress with my data backups. I recommend you apply for an account and decide later if/when you are given the Golden Ticket.

Advice on Mini Site Development

Elliot Silver
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18

Yesterday, I wrote a couple of articles giving updates on my mini sites that were built by Wanna Develop and Big Ticket Domains a year ago. Over the last year, I’ve worked with a few mini site development providers and built my own mini sites, and I want to share some tips and advice based on my experience.

– Mini sites may not make a lot of money, but they can be good traffic producers

–  A mini site can help get a domain name get ranked in the search engines, which is beneficial to a potential buyer (or the current owner) looking to avoid the typical sandboxing that comes with newly developed websites once the mini site is turned into a comprehensive website.

– With the traffic some can bring in, lead generation might be a higher paying option than Adsense.

– If you can learn enough coding to enable yourself to work with a WordPress or static html template and use it for various sites, you will save money on many templates (if you have the time). You can use services like TextBroker.com or eLance to find good writers, and sites like Flickr can be a source of free-to-use images.

– If you don’t have the time (or desire) it may be worth your effort to build some of these mini sites on names you haven’t successfully monetized with PPC and/or you don’t have the time/desire/funding to build a big site/

– There are several companies out there that can build you similar mini sites. If you don’t want to do it on your own, test the various services and choose a provider that meets your needs (price, time, personality…etc).

This year, I haven’t done much more with mini sites (aside from a  Epik  site on BumperProtectors.com). I think this is more a result of buying higher value domain names that are quickly selling than buying the less expensive names I invested in during last year’s tougher times. I am sitting on less new inventory this year than I was before, and I have been focusing on growing my revenue-generating websites.

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