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City Advertising Ranked #189 in Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies

Elliot Silver
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Inc. 500Darren Cleveland is one of the first people I met when I started selling domain names. He’s always given me good advice and been a resource to me when I’ve sought his opinion on business related matters.

You may know Darren from his domain industry related partnerships with Sahar Sarid and Jeff Bhavnanie. Darren currently serves as President of FuneralHomes.com, and he is also President of Boynton Beach-based City Advertising, an advertising agency for small businesses.

Congratulations are due for Darren’s company, as it was named one of the fastest growing businesses in the country, according to a press release this morning. Inc. magazine ranked City Advertising #189 in its annual list of the 500 fastest growing companies. City Advertising was ranked as the 7th fastest growing company in South Florida.

According to the Inc. magazine report, City Advertising experienced a growth rate of 1,595% and recorded $2.2 million in revenue. The company employs 16 people.

Having One Primary Source of Traffic is Not a Good Situation

Elliot Silver
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Many people have websites that rely on Google as the primary source of traffic, and consequently, revenue. Some of my own websites fall into that category, with 80%+ of the traffic coming from Google searches. If there’s an issue with Google’s rankings, the traffic and revenue vanish like my morning cup of coffee.

Similarly, there are a number of domain industry blogs and websites that rely on Domaining.com as the primary source of traffic. Domaining.com helps drive hundreds of targeted visitors a day, but when there’s a problem with that website, there is no traffic as a result.

Unfortunately, Francois is dealing with some sort of malicious sql injection at Domaining.com. He is aware that Google Chrome and other web browsers are showing a warning message to people trying to visit Domaining.com, and he is working on fixing the issue.

Luckily for me, traffic is only affected minimally, but I know there are a few sites that are seeing considerably less traffic this morning.

I am sure Francois will have this fixed ASAP, but it’s a good lesson for people who rely on a single source of traffic. Any type of change in algorithm or other type of problem with that traffic source may cause significant problems down the line. Spend time cultivating other traffic sources and become less reliant on a single source, whether that’s Google, Yahoo, or even Domaining.com.

Domaining.com Alert from Chrome

Elliot Silver
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I already sent Francois an email about this, but I want to let you know about an error message I just received from Google Chrome when I visited Domaining.com, and you should be cautious this evening.

According to the message, Google may have detected some sort of malware, so proceed with caution tonight if you visit Domaining.com. I visit Domaining.com several times a day, and I have never seen an error message like this on the site.

I know Francois works as much as I do, so I am sure it’s temporary.. However, if you use a web browser that doesn’t provide alerts like Chrome, you should be cautious when visiting tonight.

A screenshot of the error message I received is posted above. Let me know if you see the same thing.

Free Columbia B-School Webinar: “Who Should Invest in a dotBRAND?”

Elliot Silver
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Columbia University Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership will be holding a webinar on October 19th, and it might be of interest to you. The free webinar is entitled, Who Should Invest in a dotBRAND? Evaluating the Business Case for a Top-Level Domain Name, and it will be held from 10am to noon.

The webinar will bring together experts in the fields of marketing, Internet governance, and general business, including Paul Twomey (former ICANN CEO), William Barrett (Global Brand & Communications at Deloitte), Karl Isaac (Executive Director for Digital Branding at Landor), and Roland LaPlante (Chief Marketing Officer at Afilias).

Here are a list of the topics that are expected to be discussed:

  • What types of brands and organizations will most benefit from investing in a gTLD?
  • If I am a .BRAND owner what are some of the use cases to best leverage my .BRAND for marketing and brand building purposes?
  • How are consumers likely to react to these new gTLDs? Will they provide clarity or confusion to their internet experience?
  • How will search engines, social media sites, and other internet properties respond to new .BRANDs?
  • What options are there for defensive action to protect my trademarks?
  • What are the full costs and processes behind applying for and owning a gTLD?

Personally, I think gTLD domain names are going to impact the domain investment market in a pretty big way. Companies and individuals will be talking about gTLD domain names, and while I won’t predict the impact on current domain values, I do expect there will be an impact.

If you make money from domain investing or online marketing, I recommend listening in on this webinar. It doesn’t cost anything and it’s just a couple of hours.  From my perspective, the smart money is already making moves, some behind the scenes and others with more public endeavors.

Thanks to Name.com for letting me know about this.

Domain Hole Featured on Shoemoney.com

Elliot Silver
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I still don’t like the name of the company, but I have to give props to DomainHole.com for some smart marketing that I saw a few days ago.

Jeremy Shoemaker runs a popular blog at Shoemoney.com. I am sure many of you who read this from within the domain industry have heard of Shoemaker and Shoemoney.com, but for those who haven’t, it’s a great site that discusses ways to make money online.

Every Friday, Shoemaker has a promotion called “Free Shirt Friday,” where he wears a t-shirt from a company and briefly discusses what the company does. For no cost (aside from the t-shirt), Shoemaker will blog about different companies each week. It seems like a very good way for companies to get information about themselves to an Internet savvy audience.

This past Friday, Domain Hole was the featured  Free Shirt Friday  company, and Shoemaker wrote a post about what the company does. I’ve never seen a domain investment company featured on Free Shirt Friday (granted, I don’t visit all that often), and it was a smart marketing move. There’s very little cost involved, and it’s a great chance to introduce the company.

If you have a company that you’d like Internet marketers to know about, you might think about sending Shoemaker a company t-shirt. It would be interesting to know how long ago Domain Hole submitted its shirt.

Report: Canadian Starts Company After AppleiMac.com Settlement

Elliot Silver
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There was a report in today’s Calgary Herald that I found interesting and somewhat surprising, and I want to share it with you.

According to the article, a 17 year old Canadian high school student named  Abdul Traya registered the AppleiMac.com domain name in 1998. It was just before Apple launched its new computer line, and apparently the company wanted the domain name but didn’t register it.

After a legal letter from Apple, Traya was able to settle with the company for a significant amount of money.  Traya reported that he received an “undisclosed sum – an amount, he admitted, that was almost enough to retire on.”

Perhaps Traya’s age worked in his favor, and Apple didn’t want to spend time filing legal papers, especially since Traya was a minor. Also, perhaps the company felt it was important to use the domain name ASAP and thought it was worth the money to settle immediately rather than using the court system. The quicker UDRP system didn’t come into existence until December of 1999.

Whatever the case, I think Traya got somewhat lucky because there are hefty penalties in the US for cybersquatting (up to $100,000 per domain name), and the UDRP system isn’t expensive and doesn’t take very long. It was nice to see that he used the settlement to help start his company though.

Aside from this interesting information, I take issue with one part of the article:

“Still, there are those who do set out to make money from domains, said University of Calgary professor Tom Keenan.

“It’s called ‘cybersquatting,’ ” said Keenan.”

Of course that is only true when you consider trademark infringing domain names. There is a multi-billion dollar, completely legal, domain investment business built on descriptive/generic domain names that cannot be trademarked.

There aren’t a whole lot of people and companies that legally make money from domain names, but I believe publicly traded companies like Marchex, Tucows, and Demand Media (to name a few) would disagree with the definition of cybersquatting as making money from domains.

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