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Bob Parsons Video: “Alligator Nipping at Your Ass?…” (No Alligator Hunting!)

Elliot Silver
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I know many people were disturbed by  Bob Parsons’ appearance in a video in which he killed an elephant in Zimbabwe, but here’s a new video with some good business tips from the Go Daddy CEO. The video is entitled, “Alligators nipping at your ass? How to hang in there & enjoy the ride.”

Parsons has become known for his videos which often provide business advice and are found on his blog, BobParsons.me. Regardless of what you think of Parsons’ hunting, he has a proven track record for building successful businesses, and his videos should be watched if you have your own business or are thinking about starting one.

Internet Entrpreneur Jason Calacanis: .CO Contest to Win a MacBook

Elliot Silver
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Jason Calacanis, a noted Internet entrepreneur and venture capital investor, recently launched a .CO domain name contest and the winner will receive a MacBook Air.

The contest premise is pretty simple. Register a .CO domain name and tell Calacanis your idea for a website on the domain name, and the best idea (as judged by the team at ThisWeekIn.com) will win. He even said the idea could be just one or two sentences, so nothing too in depth is necessary. Keep in mind that Calacanis may read your idea on the air, so if it’s something that can be replicated easily on another domain name, you may want to think twice about sharing it.

To enter the contest, send an email to contest@thisweekin.com. The email must include the .CO domain name and a receipt showing the purchase of the domain name, along with your website idea. All entries must be received by April 1, 2011, so get cracking on it if you’re interested.

Domaining.com Adds Domain Directory

Elliot Silver
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DomainingFrancois Carrillo has added a domain industry business directory to the left sidebar and top right tab of Domaining.com, a smart move considering all of the targeted traffic the site receives. The directory has categories for domain brokers, registrars, parking, tools, escrow companies, and a number of other categories related to domain investing.

I had previously noticed the directory when it first started and was fairly empty, but in the past few weeks, it has become heavily populated. The cost for a directory listing is $700 a year for the top section of each category and $300 a year for the lower section of each category. It appears that all categories have at least two listings, and some several far more than the minimum.

I think it’s a smart move by Francois as it will certainly generate additional revenue for his company, and it will also keep people on the Domaining.com website for longer, adding value to the other advertisers. Of course, it’s also beneficial to visitors looking to find a domain related company.

ABC’s Secret Millionaire with John Ferber: Watch the Full Episode

Elliot Silver
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If you couldn’t watch last night’s episode of Secret Millionaire on ABC featuring Domain Holdings’ John Ferber, it’s embedded above. As you might imagine, it’s quite a moving show, and I think I can speak for most people who know John to say were all proud of what he did.

I posted an interview with John Ferber last week in case you haven’t read it yet. It will give you additional insight into how John earned his fortune and what he’s been doing since becoming wealthy.

Watch the entire video to see how John helped many people in the notorious Skid Row neighborhood in Los Angeles, California.

Notice of Infringement Sent to Domain Registrant But Not Domain Owner

Elliot Silver
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A few weeks back, I wrote an article stressing the importance of keeping your email addresses updated for Whois records. Not having an updated Whois record can cause problems for your domain assets and can potentially allow someone to steal them.

Today I learned that there can be other problems associated with having inaccurate Whois information. I received a “Notice of Infringement” email from the General Counsel for a company I didn’t recognize, and when I read through the entire email, I realized it was related to a domain name I had never heard of before.

A quick Whois search showed that it was registered to my email address but had fictitious Whois information. Strangely, the information matches the Whois information for the domain names I had previously mentioned in the referenced article, many of which seem to be legit websites, so something is funky.

Ordinarily, I would just delete the email and forget about it, but my big concern is that not responding will get the company to dig deeper, and of course if they do a Google search for my email address, they will easily find my business information and name. If they just go on that and nothing else, they could easily attempt to tie my company with the allegedly  infringing  domain name.

I would defend myself and prove that I don’t have anything to do with the domain name, but if it goes the legal route, it will cost me money to have my lawyer respond.  Of course, I would then likely counter sue for my legal fees since any legal action would mean their lawsuit was simply based on a Google search of my email address, which in my opinion, would be pretty shoddy research (instead of contacting the registrar to get the real data).

Anyhow, keep your Whois information accurate, for good or for bad. The domain owner might have a legitimate defense, but depending on how the company with the trademark pursues things, the owner might not even get an opportunity to defend the name.

Get The Long Tail Names for Your Website

Elliot Silver
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I know there are a lot of domain investors who have developed one or more websites, and many have seen success in terms of traffic and advertisers for one or more website. I want to make a suggestion to those of you who may have local directory sites for national services or products, and I will use DogWalker.com as my example.

If possible, you should consider hand registering long tail domain names to help drive traffic to your site. You can either build mini sites (which I do not do) to drive traffic to the main site, or you can do a 301 redirect, which won’t give you much SEO value, but they could drive traffic to your site.

I own domain names like PhiladelphiaDogWalking.com, LasVegasDogWalker.com, CharlotteDogWalkers.com, and many other large city names that are related (all hand registered). These names are all forwarded to the main page on DogWalker.com for each city, allowing type in traffic to find the page they want.

Here’s my rationale. I pay under $10 for a hand registered domain name. I also pay Adwords somewhere between $.75 and $1.75 or so per click, depending on the keyword. Assuming I get 8-12 visits a year, the names pay for themselves. It’s great because when someone types in LasVegasDogWalker.com, it’s very targeted traffic.

In addition, these names also have intrinsic value to others as well, since they’re descriptive domain names. In other words, I could sell any of these names if that will be beneficial to my business. Perhaps I could sell a name like BrooklynDogWalking.com to a company in Brooklyn for $1,500 and an annual listing on DogWalker.com + a link back. I haven’t done this yet, but it’s a possibility.

To be totally truthful, I don’t have a way to track the traffic from these domain names since they are 301 redirects. However, when I had them on WhyPark, most did receive a few visits a month, so I can assume that traffic has continued.

I recommend you look into doing this. I know some of my competitors are doing the exact same thing, and I am sure yours are as well.

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