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We’re Raising Money for the Ronald McDonald House Again: Please Help

Elliot Silver
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1

RMDHLast year, my wife Karen and I participated on “Team Ronald” for the 42-mile, 5 Boro Bike Tour, and with your help, we raised nearly $4,000 for the Ronald McDonald House of New York City. On May 1, 2011, we are doing it again.

This year, we’re starting a couple weeks earlier, and we’ve raised our fundraising goal to $5,000. In addition to riding and raising funds, my company is also a sponsor of Team Ronald (via DogWalker.com and DogGroomers.com). RMDH is a great organization, and we are going to do what we can to support it.

If you aren’t familiar with this non-profit organization, the Ronald McDonald House provides support and care for families who have children battling cancer. The people at Ronald McDonald House help make the lives of child cancer patients and their families better (and easier) when they need it most – as they fight cancer.

According to the RMDH website, the organization’s mission is to “support each family and coordinate emotional and physical services, psychological care, ministry support, wellness programs, tutors, music, art, transportation, activities for siblings, holiday and birthday parties and camaraderie for parents struggling with their child’s cancer diagnosis.”

I ask you to please consider making a donation to the Ronald McDonald House of New York to help us help them. No donation is too small (or too big!). I know they will really appreciate anything you can give, and I personally appreciate your generosity and kindness.

Contest! Make $50 by Selling Me Your Crappiest Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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65

We all have crappy domain names in our portfolio. Maybe we were a bit buzzed when we registered them, had spelling problems, or there were other reasons for registering these crappy domain names.  Well, now’s your chance to make $50 from your most terrible .com domain name.

Here’s how it will work:

  • Everyone is entitled to submit just one horrible .com domain name they own
  • Submitted domain names must have been registered prior to February 1, 2011
  • On Friday morning (3/4), I will pick out the 5 worst domain names (in my opinion) and set up a poll
  • People can vote in the poll, which will close on Sunday night at around 10pm (one vote per IP)
  • I will then pay $50 via Paypal for the worst domain name, as voted by blog readers, and the winner will push the domain name to me.

So, look through your domain portfolios and select your absolute worst .com domain name and post it in the comment section (No trademark infringing names). If you post more than one bad domain name, you will be disqualified because I don’t want to have to sift through your bad names and pick the worst one!

When was the last time you made $50 from your crappiest domain name?

If you have any questions, post them here.

Domain Development Tip: Become an Expert Before Building Your Website

Elliot Silver
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16

I’ve built a number of websites over the past three or so years. Well, correction, I’ve had a number of websites built to my specifications, and I’ve built just a few small ones. I’ve learned quite a bit from my experiences, and I want to share one important lesson today: know the area in which you are building, and know it well.

Your website will likely be visited by people who know the topic much more than you, especially if you bought the domain name primarily because it was a category defining name. If they see you building a site only as an opportunity to profit rather than providing a beneficial service, those in the know likely won’t return. You may still get traffic from search engines, but it won’t build a community on, or following for, your website.

While this might not seem like a big deal since you can still capitalize on traffic from Google, it really is a big deal, especially if you want paying advertisers. The people who are passionate about the topic may own businesses that would be your advertisers, and they are also the people who would visit your advertisers and give them value for their ad dollars.

I’ve found it very difficult to gain traction with some of my websites where I had little interest and/or involvement. Sometimes it’s better to put up something rather than parking to make additional revenue and get rankings for a domain name, but it will take a lot more time and effort to really grow a domain name into a revenue generating business if you aren’t an expert and/or don’t have experts managing your site. It’s one reason why Burbank.com will have a local salesperson by the end of the year.

The next time you have a great domain name for a topic you have little interest in, you should realize it’s going to be an uphill battle to build it and make money. Either become an expert before you build, or flip it and buy a great domain name in a field in which you already are an expert or have more than just a passing interest.

Can You Flip Vacation Home Domains?

Elliot Silver
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33

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was impressed that the owners of a vacation home in Vermont where I stayed had used StoweVacationHome.com to market its two homes. This was one of the deciding factors for me since there were a few that I liked fairly equally (the home was great, BTW).

That day, I ended up hand registering a few VacationHome.com / VacationHomes.com domain names as speculative investments – and who knows, maybe I will end up using them one day.

This morning, I was looking through the NameJet’s 50 Most Active Pending Delete Backorders email, and I saw MiamiBeachVacationHomes.com listed. I visited NameJet to place a backorder (more to monitor the auction than to bid), and the name has 18 bids and a current bid of $100 prior to the auction. I do not believe this domain name had been developed before, so the bidding appears to be on the name value alone.

It got me thinking about whether there is value in some of these unregistered domain names – and there are many large city VacationHome.com / VacationHomes.com domain names available. This morning I hand registered several names like:

  • ParisVacationHomes.com
  • PhiladelphiaVacationHomes.com
  • TokyoVacationHomes.com
  • TokyoVacationHome.com
  • AmsterdamVacationHomes.com
  • DublinVacationHome.com

I like the singular names (VacationHome.com) for individual home owners to market their homes, and I like the plural names for companies that may broker local vacation homes – or people that own more than one vacation home.

Anyhow, IMO, some of these types of names would potentially make good flip opportunities. VRBO is a great place to start finding potential buyers, as they allow you to email the home owners and many have phone numbers to call. As the HomeAway brand grows, more listings will be added.

People often ask me what types of names I would hand register to flip, and here’s a set of names I like and are available for you to buy if you do your research. I do strongly recommend you do your research before buying because, IMO, an available name like DetroitVacationHome.com would not make an excellent investment. A domain name like DallasVacationHome.com or NashvilleVacationHome.com might be good.

Guest Post: Matt Bentley on the Recent Google Algorithm Change and Its Impact on Domain Investors

Elliot Silver
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28

Google Unleashes “Revenge of the Niche Publishers“

Though it’s gone largely unnoticed in the domain industry, a Google algorithm update announced today may just be the best news the domain industry has heard in years. A first step towards ending the long reign of the “MegaSite”, content factories churning out endless supplies of content and ranking solely by the size and authority of their domain.

Or, it may just be another PR move from a search behemoth increasingly under fire for the declining quality of their results. Only time and detailed analysis of the results will tell.

So why should domain investors care about Google changes?

Since ~2007 Big G’s never-ending quest to fight spam has increasingly emphasized Site Authority ie, how big and well-linked a website is. Eric Schmidt famously stated that “[big] brands are how you sort out the cesspool” of the internet.

The unsurprising result of an emphasis on Site Authority was the rise of MegaSites like eHow, AssociatedContent, and About.com, where non-expert writers could make it to the top of the search results not because of their knowledge or the quality of their content, but because of the power of the host domain.

For those with multiple domains, 1+1+1 = 2. Three articles posted on 3 niche sites are worth far less than 3 articles posted on one mega site. The more domains you have, the bleaker the picture.

Now, with the Farmer Update, the pendulum may finally be swinging back in the other direction.

The domain industry needs this change. We need expert bloggers, mom-and-pop businesses, and niche publishers to be able to compete successfully in the search results, on their own domains. If they can’t, they’ll shift resources to social media platforms and hosted content solutions like article marketing rather than spending a lot on a domain for a site that nobody visits.

And finally, domainers increasingly are niche publishers. For those learning scalable domain development, targeted search traffic is an increasingly necessary replacement for declining parking revenues.

As of today, that goal may have just become a little bit easier.

=====
Matt Bentley is a niche publisher, domain investor, former CEO of Sedo.com, and founder of BetterSEO.com, a stealth-phase content analytics startup.

My Largest Check Ever

Elliot Silver
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20

I was very surprised to receive such a large check in the mail a couple of days ago. Thanks to Brian Gilbert for following through on his word and sending me the money he owed plus interest…

It’s too bad the bank said there were not sufficient funds in the account.

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