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RealEstate.com Sold for $8.25 Million?

Elliot Silver
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30

Robin Wauters at TechCrunch is reporting that RealEstate.com was acquired for $8.25 million. I assume the site, which ranks #3 in Google for the term “real estate,” was included in the deal. In my opinion, this is a hell of a deal for the buyer. I don’t entirely trust the accuracy of Compete, but they peg the traffic at 600k+ visitors a month and growing.

RealEstate.com is the category defining domain name and has a bunch of traffic, and I am surprised it sold for under $10 million. Of course I don’t know any financials behind the company so my opinion is simply based on the domain name and traffic.

Based solely on the merits of the domain name, do you think $8,250,000 is a fair deal for RealEstate.com or do you think it’s worth more or less?

We Know About Cheesecake, But What About Other Food .Com Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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16

I posted an article about Cheesecake.com going on sale, and I wanted to see what companies own other popular food .com domain names and whether each domain name is developed.

For this article, I chose food items that can be shipped / delivered since there are millions of food domain names out there. If you know of other food names that I missed, especially if they are owned by a

  • Brownies.com – Fairytale Brownies (developed)
  • Cake.com – Private (landing page)
  • Candy.com – Melville Candy Company (developed)
  • Chicken.com – DigiMedia (parked)
  • Chocolate.com – Chocolate.com, LLC (developed)
  • Cookies.com – Cookies.com, LLC (developed)
  • Cupcakes.com – Name Administration (parked)
  • Fish.com – Tabcom (developed)
  • Fruit.com – Fruit of the Loom (not resolving)
  • Fudge.com – Sabre Corporation (developed)
  • Grapefruit.com – PA Gordon (parked)
  • Hamburgers.com – Vertical Axis (parked)
  • HotSauce.com – Private – (developed)
  • IceCream.com – Dreyers (developed)
  • Jelly.com –  Fischer and Wieser Specialty Foods (developed)
  • Lobster.com – Lobster.com Interactive (developed)
  • Oranges.com – National A-1 Advertising (parked)
  • Pasta.com –  Ingis & Company – (developed)
  • PeanutButter.com – Unilever (developed)
  • Popcorn.com – Popcorn.com (does not resolve)
  • Pudding.com – Reflex Publishing (parked)
  • Sauce.com – Unilever (developed)
  • Shrimp.com – Scott Holdings (developed)
  • Steak.com – Web Development, LLC (developed)
  • Vegetables.com – Nunes Vegetables, Inc (forwarded)

EMDs Aren’t Everything: Ask Rick Santorum

Elliot Silver
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12

Despite owning the exact match domain, Rick Santorum not #1 in Google

As much as I’d like to believe that exact match domain names (EMDs) can be very important for a company to own because of their search engine advantages, they certainly aren’t the be all end all. Case in point, US presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

Smartly, Mr. Santorum owns the exact match domain name, RickSantorum.com. His campaign operates the website, and it does pretty well in Google. Unfortunately for Mr. Santorum, it seems that even the exact match domain name won’t get him the #1 result, as Politico has pointed out today.

Do a search on Google for “Rick Santorum” or simply “Santorum,” and you’ll see a site SpreadingSantorum.com as the #1 result. The meta description pretty much tells you that someone is working hard to get the top result ahead of Mr. Santorum’s website: “Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum.”

This is an example of why some companies, especially those that are proficient with SEO, aren’t all that interested in descriptive / exact match domain names. I still believe exact match domain names are great for branding and help convey authority, but they aren’t everything and can still be beaten by SEO.

Nokta Updates & Upgrades Platform

Elliot Silver
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3

If you search for descriptive domain names, you’ve more than likely seen Nokta Domains listed as the registrant on many domain names. The privately held company has a significant portfolio of domain names and has become more intent on selling its domain names over the last couple of years.

I want to share some information from Nokta about its domain sales platform:

  • We have launched our new search algorithm so that the buyers can find what they are looking for more easily among more than 3 million domains.
  • Moreover, we have categorized each domain for better search results. Please see the category page: http://www.noktadomains.com/category.
  • Right now, NoktaDomains.com team is working on the promotion page on which there will be bulk deals with discounted prices and also daily domain deals just like other shopping websites. This feature will be the first for its own category. We believe that feature will bring new opportunities to our customers and domain business.
  • Moreover, we add some domain details (Domain’s tld count, word order, word count, google search volume, reg date and more) for every single domain name’s site, please see one of them by clicking these links:  https://www.noktadomains.com/buydomain/touchscreen.com  and  https://www.noktadomains.com/buydomain/creditscores.com
  • We are planning to launch “domain submit system” for other domainers at the beginning of 2012.
  • We also add new feature to our membership system. Customers can sign up with their Facebook, Google and Twitter accounts.

If you’ve seen a domain name owned by Nokta, it may behove you to reach out and try to buy it. It looks like the company is ready to make fair deals.

.Mobi Forum Owner’s Call to Action

Elliot Silver
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16

A few years ago, I signed up for Mobility.mobi, the leading .Mobi domain name discussion forum. Yesterday afternoon, Andres Kello, the forum founder and owner, issued a call to action to forum members and premium .Mobi domain owners.

Kello is looking to create a private Roundtable to discuss ways to accomplish one of two goals “: 1) getting this extension back on track, or 2) getting our investment back.” .Mobi domain owners are invited to participate and can show their interest in a thread Kello started on his forum.

With his permission, the entire email is posted below. (update, Kello asked me to post the contents of the thread instead). For full disclosure, I do not own any .mobi domain names.

Dear .mobi domain owners,

For over 5 years, the .mobi community has given mTLD / dotMobi the benefit of the doubt, watching in awkward silence as the company tore off — one-by-one — everything that made this extension unique, different, and exciting.

While the Mobility.mobi community was volunteering both its time and money to run an  Anti-Cybersquatting Initiative, launch the  Why.mobi Awareness Campaign, join the  mTLD Policy Advisory Board, and share  our views  and  concerns  about .mobi at the company’s request (among many other things), mTLD were busyeliminating the Trustmark  that made .mobi special, presenting one-way Webinars with  empty words  to appease the masses, telling us  one story about their finances  when their  balance sheet told another, providing  false statements regarding .mobi  on their site,  fabricating outright false forward-looking statements to its investor base, and getting  side-tracked with conflicting interests, among other things, all of which have negatively impacted our investment decisions.

(I strongly recommend everyone carefully read through all the Sticky threads in the  mTLD Registry / dotMobi Company, the  Private Discussion, and the  .mobi News and Discussion  section for more information, as a lot of this has already been discussed in great detail.)

mTLD have increasingly shown an apathy and callous indifference towards the extension that so many of us spent so much time and money trying to build, that it is time we — the .mobi community — took matters into our own hands.

If we don’t save .mobi, no one else will. And if the company isn’t going to make any efforts to commit to their promises — both implied and specific — then we all deserve to get our investments back.

As a result, we are creating a new Roundtable for all disenfranchised .mobi domain owners dedicated to either of those goals: 1) getting this extension back on track, or 2) getting our investment back.  Which of those it will ultimately be will depend solely on mTLD.

We’ve waited far too long. We’ve pardoned far too much. mTLD have taken advantage of both to become complacent and apathetic. What they fail to realize is that we’ve got nothing left to lose.

One way or another, things are going to change.

So if you are a .mobi domain owner and feel mTLD / dotMobi are leading this extension irresponsibly down a path to obscurity and want to change things, then please post here. There will be no discussions here, the purpose of this thread is simply to request membership to the Roundtable. Also, no PM’s please, this is not the time to be private about your disapproval, discontentment, and dissatisfaction. This is time to speak up.

One week from now, I will invite everyone who has requested membership in this thread to the private Roundtable on Mobility to discuss our next step.

Please spread the word.

Sincerely,

Andres Kello
Mobility.mobi, Owner

Should Comment Trolls Be Banned?

Elliot Silver
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65

I am not saying that I am going to move forward with banning anyone based on the results of this poll, but I am curious to know your opinion on the topic.

There are a number of people that try to spam every single article I write, and I know other bloggers face the same issue. Sometimes the spam is in the form of embedded links commenters add instead of posting their real name, while other times people try to drive attention to their own domain names and/or websites.

By far, the most annoying type of comment for me is when someone with a polarizing opinion attempts to change the topic of a discussion. I call these people “comment trolls” because they seem to troll around domain blogs looking for a place to post their commentary in an effort to change the direction of the discussion. If it’s frustrating for me, I can only imagine it’s frustrating for others.

Aside from being annoying, I am sure it’s alienating some people from commenting, and I would hate for that to happen on an ongoing basis.

Generally speaking, I don’t let link spammers post comments, unless the comment clearly is not just an attempt to get link (although every comment link is “nofollow.”). However, I have been reluctant to ban people who aren’t abusive, as I want people to feel free to express their opinions and I want readers to know that I am posting all comments, whether they agree with me or not.

I want to be fair to all, and I want to know if you think that people who seem to abuse the comment section should be banned from commenting. Please vote below and share your opinion.


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