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.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Big agree to all the above Elliot…the Expo was a great time. First class all the way from the people to the food. Include yourself in the list of “approachable and willing to share advice and feedback” people. The future looks bright for Geo domainers.

  2. Great news and great report, Elliot. Yes teams are good and what’s driving the social media revolution, another area of unlimited potential for any GEO domain. FYI
    doshdosh.com/the-bloggers-guide-to-team-marketing/

  3. Elliot,
    What makes edirectory so much better than the other directory script solutions out there?
    From looking at the edirectory web site, it costs $1500 vs. $100 for products with similar features.
    If you went the monthly rate route with edirectory it is a lot cheaper than buying your own license but do you really want a company to control your sites using the hosted edition?
    – Richard

  4. It was great meeting you and everyone else at the show. Definitely, a spectacular group of people out to help not only themselves but others in the industry. As a newcomer to the industry it was awesome to see how welcoming and open everyone was to sharing ideas and information.
    Thanks for the wine too (not like a needed anymore at that point) Maybe you can review that one on Oenophiles.com 😛

  5. Elliot,
    It was a pleasure to meet you and I think the conference was a huge success. I want to completely reiterate what you said above in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs. The comaraderie is fantasic (no competition), development potential is high, and the leaders in the geodomain space are first class people.
    I am as excited as ever to begin development on Lahaina.com and already looking forward to next years conference. I also plan on becoming more vocal in the geodomain space, especially internationally, going forward.
    -Conor

  6. Absolutely agree with you Elliot (and the other responding attendees), I felt ‘this was a great event!’ In fact the best of the 3 events I’ve attended this year! I met some really great people here. Everyone was very friendly, encouraging, nice, approachable, and genuinely supportive. Not the usual ‘cliques’ that are at so many shows. This was ‘a great networking show.’ And very enlightening to the future of GEO sites and domains. I’m very glad I attended this event.
    I enjoyed meeting you Elliot, and ‘all’ the other geodomainers and trend setters in this field. And kudos to Associated Cities et al, for making this a very enjoyable and successful event.
    Congrats on your Secaucus.com purchase. Maybe you might want to have a firesale with your Burbank.com??!? 😉

  7. The Geo Expo was a great time. It was truly a creative experience. Elliot thanks for the champagne and I enjoyed smoking the Cubans with you in front the Four Seasons at 3am last night. I am sure you are catching up on some needed sleep.
    Gordon, Associated Geos holds it’s Expo once a year. We are thinking of several locations and one being tossed around is Branson, Missouri (Branson.com). Don’t hold me to that but being in the center of the US makes for shorter travel times from either coast. Look forward to everyone’s suggestions on the topic.
    I am sure Ron Jackson will present a true picture of the Geo Expo in his story coverage recap this week. I enjoyed meeting such an excited, motivated group of people at the event even though other industries are fearful of their futures at present. We are at the right place at the right time.

  8. Great to finally meet you in person Elliot!
    It was my first domain-related conference and I found it excellent. The conference met my expectations and much much more. I returned home from the conference armed with many years of knowledge, insights and know-how to help me build, develop and monetize my own geo domain. This is a great testament to the quality of the conference, its speakers, sponsors and, most importantly, participants.
    Those that I had the pleasure of meeting at the conference included leaders, veterans, and newbies and all were very open to share their knowledge, experience, ideas and feedback. It was simply an amazing setting to learn for a newbie like me. Thanks to everyone!
    Of course, I didn’t meet with every single participants and it would be extremely useful if Associated Cities and the conference sponsors would publish/distribute a list of all participants in attendance (maybe name, company/geo domain, contact info, etc).

  9. David,
    I’ll be there next year, though my personal thoughts are that Branson is a bad idea. Although it is in the middle of the country, it isn’t easy to get to. Not even any direct flights from the NY area…Dallas, New Orleans, Austin would be great central choices in my book…

  10. Gordon:
    I think you meant to address your email to my brother Michael.
    And, yes, I agree with you that Dallas would be a better choice for the 2009 Expo because there are more direct flights from each coast.

  11. Looks like i missed a good networking event.
    I must say that from the time I purchased my first geo-domain until now, it still feels like the gold rush.
    I now have over 100 geo-domains, mostly Australian. Many of these names are relevant not only in Australia but in other major cities in the world eg CityofNewcastle.com. (eight cities that i know about)
    I am interested in finding out the value of such names and also te value of my box sets like Cityof(every capital city in Australia).com
    I am also developing these names as business directories and with only one telecanvasser have been able to secure hundreds of advertisers in alimited test market. The world surely is the oyster for geo-preneurs. I look forward to removing landing pages and replacing them with modern and sophisticated directory software.
    I am sorry I missed your event but would love to be among like minded people like yourselves at your next event.
    Keep up the pioneering, Mick from Downunder.

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