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My Picks for Today’s Traffic Auction in Miami

Elliot Silver
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Rick Latona will be holding the live Traffic conference auction in South Beach / Miami this afternoon at 4pm EST.  The entire list as well as more information about bidding online, is available at Proxibid (you can follow along there, too).

As I mentioned on Sunday, FruitBaskets.com is my top pick for the auction, but below are a number of other domain names I like.

  • DUL.com
  • SNS.com
  • GG.net
  • Shock.com
  • KeyLimePies.com
  • FloridaOranges.com
  • FruitBaskets.com
  • SEM.com
  • IHP.com
  • WeddingCoordinator.com
  • Internet.CO
  • Gambling.CO
  • LasVegas.CO
  • ForeignAuto.com
  • MadridJobs.com
  • CigarBlog.com

What Kind of Business Entity Do You Operate?

Elliot Silver
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I read Sully’s Blog’s interview of Deborah Sweeney of MyCorporation Business Services, and it made me wonder what percentage of people in the domain industry have incorporated their domain business, be it LLC, S Corp, Inc…etc.

For tax and liability purposes, I operate two different LLCs for my businesses. Each business is its completely separate entity, and I don’t intermingle finances, expenses, or domain names. I maintain  separate  sets of books and bank accounts for each business. I also keep all personal expenses separate from my businesses for obvious reasons.

I am wondering whether domain investors who read my blog have taken steps to legally separate their personal and business accounts/finances. Please use the poll below to answer, and feel free to let others know what type of entity you operate.


Rob Sequin Acquires Cambridge.com on Behalf of Client

Elliot Silver
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Domain broker, Rob Sequin, just announced his company  helped acquire Cambridge.com on behalf of a client who intends to develop a local portal with information about Cambridge, Massachusetts. The domain name, which was originally registered in 1992, was purchased for an undisclosed sum.

In addition to the acquisition of Cambridge.com, Sequin also helped acquire a second Massachusetts geodomain name, which was not disclosed in the news release.

The purchaser of these two geodomain names is Doug Tanger, a noted real estate developer from Massachusetts who previously operated a number of radio stations. Additionally, Tanger is said to have experience with startups, and as I’ve learned with my own geodomain development, each project is just like a startup that requires quite a bit of research and funding.

Congratulations to Rob Sequin (who is on my list of recommended domain consultants), and I wish all the best to Tanger on his new geodomain startups.

Traffic Sunday Updates

Elliot Silver
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3

I am driving down to Miami tomorrow for the Traffic conference. Based on what I am hearing, it sounds like its going to be a pretty big conference. Here are a few things I am looking forward to at the show (on an iPad so my apologies for any typos):

– I hear that somewhere in the ballpark of 300-400 people will be in attendance. This is a great turnout compared to some recent Traffic shows. It will be a good chance to meet with people I don’t see very often. The last big conference I attended was DomainFest in January. Rick and Howard have put a lot into making this a big conference.

– I think the auction is going to see some good results. There are quite a few good names that seem to have reasonable reserves. With some recent underwhelming auctions, I think Rick Latona and his team have been working harder than ever to ensure a successful auction.

– One of my favorite domain names at Rick’s auction is FruitBaskets.com, and it’s not because I received a fruit basket advertising the name. Aside from a company like Harry and David’s and Baskets.com, I don’t know many brands of fruit basket companies. Without a  dominant leader, a company that operates on the generic domain name can become the perceived leading brand. I think 1800-Baskets, which operates Baskets.com (owned by 1800-Flowers) would be a good candidate to buy this name. They should probably make a business case to buy it, so at the very least, they don’t give another company a chance to compete immediately.

– There are quite a few premium .CO domain names like Pizza.co up for auction. This will be a big test for .CO since their closed auctions have been doing great, but there haven’t been many big sales happening outside of these (from my perspective). It will also be interesting to see what companies bid.

– Aftermarket.com has been preparing for a re-launch for a while and has been collecting email addresses on its website. Perhaps some new details about the relaunch will be released during the course of the conference. Thought Convergence is a dynamic company, and it will be exciting to see what the brand will offer its customers and clients.  

Annoyed with Google Results Lately

Elliot Silver
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I am an avid Google-user. In fact, I use a ton of Google searches daily. I also can’t remember ever using another search engine for a search that wasn’t SEO related for my websites. I am hardly let down by Google.

I don’t know about you, but I have been getting annoyed with Google lately. Since they started permitting websites to have multiple results on search pages, it seems that searches get more frustrating.

Take a search from today for example. I am looking for a company that does fulfillment inserts, aka blow-ins. Basically I want to insert some of my DogWalker.com magnets into boxes shipped from pet companies to dog owners. When they open their box, voilla, a magnet is inside that they can add to their fridge You’ve probably seen similar things, like samples, coupons, and/or other inserts on your shipped purchases.

From the sponsored advertising links on my search, I know Google recognizes what I am looking for, but the top organic results are way off. Perhaps Amazon links would be appropriate if Google was directing me to Amazon’s fulfillment department, but they aren’t. I’ve seen results like this a number of times, and it’s frustrating when Google seems to understand my search but not produce the organic results that are even close to what I want.

I don’t know about you, but this type of thing is happening to me more and more. As a webmaster, I do like the fact that my website might have 3-4 links in Google for some searches. However, as a searcher, I am finding this to be annoying, especially when the results are way off.

I’ve turned of Google Instant already, and I hope Google is going through growing pains and it’s not a sign of things to come.

Idea to Get Back Links, Traffic, and Good Will

Elliot Silver
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This might be somewhat obvious to many, but here’s a technique that I’ve been using to get some backlinks and traffic to a couple of my websites (not my blog). These are things you might consider to help your sites while helping others as well.

On Twitter and Facebook, I’ve noticed many companies and organizations discussing competitions or contests they are involved with that need votes from the general public for them to win.  They seem to focus a lot of energy publicizing their involvement and asking for support for them to win/make money. Additionally, many organizations hold annual events and need as much publicity as possible for them.

I’ve contacted some of these groups at various times and offered to post articles on my sites to help promote their cause, at no cost to them.  They send me articles, and I simply publish them, Tweet them, Digg them, and post them on Facebook.  Since the articles have somewhat of a relation to my sites’ content, the readers who visit can see why it’s posted so it’s not annoying to them, and they help the organizations and companies. I let them know I prefer recaps of press releases (rather than the duplicate release).

Additionally, and most importantly to the sites the articles are on, the organizations help promote the articles and drive traffic back to the sites. They are happy to share links to leading websites (on the category killer names) that are promoting their events and work. As you can imagine, doing something beneficial like this generates good will for my websites, traffic, and back links.

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