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Guest Post: Could Revised Google Adsense Policy be a Game Changer for Alcohol Related Domains?

Elliot Silver
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Here is a guest post from Pat Quinn of Big Iron Design, LLC.

Will Google’s New Adsense Policy for Alcohol Ads Increase Manufacturer Spending Online?

Last week Google changed their advertising policy on alcohol to allow ads that promote the sale of hard alcohol and liquor.

Will this new policy encourage the adult beverage industry to spend more of their 2-3 billion dollar annual budgets online? They’re not spending much of it online right now, that’s for sure. According to this 2008 report, the top 12 advertisers in this sector spend less than 2% of their advertising dollars online. More than half of that amount probably goes to their own web sites judging by this chart which breaks down the spending by venue. That amounts to roughly 2 million dollars a month for internet advertising aside from the manufacturer’s own sites. By contrast, they’re spending almost 69 million a month for TV, 50 million a month for Point-of-Sale, and 29 million a month for Sports, Sports Teams and Athletes.

In 2008 Google changed their policy to allow ads that promote the sale of beer, but I’m not seeing a lot of beer ads in my daily surfing, are you? I wonder why. It may be because there are myriad local and state laws regulating this advertising, and the manufacturers are just afraid to go there (yet). But, I don’t really get why there would be regulation differences between running ads online and running them on TV. Certainly the football fans among us are bombarded by them, even on the earliest games (Go Steelers!). Are they afraid kids will see the ads online? Give me a break.

What’s this have to do with domaining? There are hundreds of cocktail names and dozens of generic liquor names, with new drinks being created all the time. Obviously, popular drinks will generate searches because people want to try new things. The CPC and Competition on even many highly searched ones are pretty much rock-bottom, though. I think it goes without saying that most domainers are always on the lookout for any product-related terms with high search numbers. But if the potential advertisers can’t advertise because of restrictions that certainly kills any potential value of these domain names.

So, the question is – will this policy change be enough to drive a few more of those huge advertising dollars to Google, and by extension the owners of these types of domains. I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you have real-world experience in the alcohol names domain (and I don’t mean drunk dialing your ex).

Disclaimer: I own a number of cocktail related names. That’s why this policy change sparked my interest.

Jess Bookstaff Doppelt Adds Sausalito.com to GeoDomain Portfolio

Elliot Silver
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I just received word that geodomain owner, Jess Bookstaff Doppelt, has added Sausalito.com to her portfolio, which already includes PigeonForge.com, Durango.com, and TheVirginIslands.com.

The domain name was purchased from Fred Mercaldo and of Scottsdale.com and Red Apple Domains of Scottsdale, Arizona. Although the purchase price was not disclosed, it had been previously on the market for $150,000 in 2008, prior to the site’s launch on Mercaldo’s City in the Box platform.

According to Jess, “2010 has been an incredible year for me. Acquiring Sausalito.com is the perfect ending. I’m looking forward to what 2011 has to bring.”

This certainly has been a great year for Jess. As you can tell from the addition in her name, Jess was married earlier in the year to a dermatologist from Knoxville, where they currently reside with their two children.

Congratulations to Jess on these big acquisitions!

Press Release Below:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. –December 9, 2010 –Knoxville, Tennessee based PigeonForge.com, Durango.com and TheVirginIslands.com, leading online advertising websites for premier vacation destinations, added Sausalito.com to their portfolio.

“I’m thrilled to bring Sausalito.com our expertise in promoting this unique and popular vacation destination online,” says Jessica Bookstaff Doppelt, president. “Our success with PigeonForge.com, Durango.com and TheVirginIslands.com again shows an overwhelming and resounding interest in Geo Domains as superior online resources for vacation planning as well as a valuable domain asset. Sausalito.com has the name recognition that is a natural choice for information about Sausalito, CA and the surrounding bay area.”

Doppelt purchased the domain from Fred Mercaldo of Scottsdale.com and Red Apple Domains of Scottsdale, Arizona. “Our CitiesPlanet project of developing 65 City.com brands has taken all of my time and attention, not allowing me to properly focus on one of my favorite cities in the country, Sausalito. Since Jessica has been both a friend and business associate of mine for years, knowing that it is now under her control and ownership makes me happy. Her expertise in developing these boutique destination geo portals is proven, and Sausalito.com fits into her network perfectly. I tend to get emotionally attached to our City.com projects, but knowing that I can still stay somewhat involved with Sausalito.com through working with Jessica makes it much easier.

Doppelt plans to build on the strengths of Sausalito.com by adding the features most popular with other destination domains. The focus will be on providing original and updated content to bring new visitors to the site and keep them coming back for more. “Blogs, social media, eNewsletters, and local events are the most popular features in addition to the directory of local businesses that help visitors plan their vacation.” Doppelt says.

Doppelt, owner of PigeonForge.com, Durango.com and TheVirginIslands.com, has been active in the Internet industry since 1998, managing marketing and public relations initiatives. She is an early leader in promoting vacation destinations through effective site design, social media and content management with the goal to increase overall revenue, visitor retention and satisfaction. Sausalito.com is her fourth Geo Domain acquisition. She is actively involved as a board member of CASA of East Tennessee (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a mentor with knoxAchieves and an instructor with Operation Boot Camp. She resides in Knoxville, TN with her husband and two children.

Comparing A&E’s Storage Wars TV Show to the Domain Industry

Elliot Silver
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Have you seen the new TV show on A&E called Storage Wars? It’s a show that follows several people who are active bidders on storage units that have not been paid for by their owners and are auctioned to the highest bidder.

When a storage unit defaults after a certain non-payment period, a small auction is held outside the unit. A small but active group of people have 5 minutes to look into the unit without touching anything or opening any boxes. They need to evaluate the unit based on what they see and decide how much to bid. Units must be paid for in cash at the conclusion of the day’s auctions.

Sound like something with which you’re familiar?

This is almost like the expiring domain industry (almost). People get lists of expiring domain names, which they analyze using a number of tools. They also have the ability to look within their own portfolio and past experience to guess what traffic and revenue might be like. The almost part is because unlike storage units, parking companies and maybe registrars are able to see what the traffic is like, while the contents inside the storage units should be unknown by all until they are unlocked and opened.

There’s another strong comparison between the people who bid on storage units that is similar to domain investors, and equally annoying to me. At the end of the show, they go over their finds from the auctions that were covered. They meet with experts to discuss the “value” of what they bought.

I always find it amusing when people talk about their $5,000 domain names that they bought for $500, when they should know very well getting $5,000 could take years or a considerable effort – if that ever happens. Similarly, the storage unit buyers talk about how their XYZ is worth $X,XXX, although it’s very likely it will sit in their consignment shop for a number of years. People have the tendency to value their property much more than reality should dictate.

All in all, Storage Wars is a very neat show, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some domain investors (ahem, Rick Latona) get in that business, too 🙂

It actually looks pretty fun… until you realize that you’re bidding on other people’s crap and then actually have to do something with it if you win. I think I will stick to domain names.

Ringtones.com Changes Hands for $750k

Elliot Silver
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SedoIt was just announced that the domain name Ringtones.com has been sold for $750,000. Dave Evanson from Sedo was the domain broker for this transaction.

Prior to the sale, Ringtones.com was owned by Mobile Streams Ltd, a company trading publicly on the London Stock Exchange. Currently (now and prior to the sale), the domain name has been used as what appears to be an affiliate portal, allowing visitors to download ringtones to their mobile phones.

According to a news release on  Stock Market Wire, Mobile Streams’ CEO  Simon  Buckingham  commented that the company chose to sell Ringtones.com to use the proceeds for another line of business.  “We want to ensure that the company has the appropriate financial resources necessary to take full advantage of the rapidly growing apps market,” said Buckingham.

An old news release from Mobile Streams noted that  Ringtones.com was originally launched by the company in 1999.

The domain name is still in the Sedo escrow account, and the name of the buyer is not yet public.

Many Trademark Holders Don’t Protect Their Brand in Today’s TLDs

Elliot Silver
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There have been a whole lot of complaints from trademark owners that new TLDs could potentially cause massive amounts of cybersquatting.

Similarly, it could cost them tens of thousands of dollars or maybe much more to protect their brands in a variety of new TLDs when ICANN releases them. This whole debate sounds pretty interesting and the trademark owner contingent makes a good point about this.

Well, it would be a better point if they actually owned all of their brand names in existing TLDs, or if the ones they didn’t own were being cybersquatted in different TLDs.

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some leading brands to see if their brand names were sitting unregistered, which I believe is what will happen for many new gTLD domain names. For instance, Xerox.sport hardly seems to be a domain name that would be coveted by cybersquatters.

Here are some unregistered brand names in various ccTLD and TLD extensions:

  • HewlettPackard.tv
  • NewYorkTimes.travel
  • McDonalds.aero
  • Intel.ac
  • MercedesBenz.sc
  • Gucci.jobs
  • MorganStanley.im
  • Xerox.fm
  • Danone.la
  • Motorola.name
  • Disney.mn
  • Budweiser.vc
  • Accenture.bz
  • Hyatt.ac

TextBroker.com: My Secret Weapon

Elliot Silver
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The biggest problem with owning a number of websites is writing content for them. Content is what drives traffic, and traffic is generally the key driver for advertising, and you need to have fresh content for SEO and to continue to drive additional traffic to your website.

I’ve used Elance for copy writers before, and I’ve also hired them in private from posts on Craigslist and on forums, but I have been MUCH more satisfied with the work from TextBroker.com. They are fast, they aren’t too expensive, and most importantly, they are proficient. You also don’t have to worry about hearing excuses from copywriters about why their work won’t be on time.

I’ve probably had about 300 articles written by TextBroker writers for my websites, and I’ve only needed to have two re-written. One of those articles was because I had a fairly lengthy article request on a topic that was pretty small, and the writer rambled…  I can’t say that I really blame him for that though.

The only time I won’t use TextBroker.com is on my blog. It would be difficult for a copywriter to have expertise on something specific like domain names, and I think if I posted an article that was written by someone else, the grammar and tone might give it away. I suppose that’s because my blog is more personal than my other sites, and it has readers know me personally.

TextBroker.com charges somewhere between $5.00 – $10.00 for average size articles of about 200-350 words that are written proficiently. It’s a privately funded, venture-backed company that TechCrunch recently covered.

If you need website articles written, I would recommend TextBroker.com. In fact, I had 10 articles written for SlipperyElm.com in less time than it’s taken for the domain name to be transferred to Moniker.

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