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NameJet General Manager Steve Brown Departs

Elliot Silver
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8

I recently heard from a few different industry sources that Steve Brown, General Manager of Demand Media’s auction platform, NameJet, was no longer with the company. Late this evening, the news of Brown’s departure was confirmed to some clients in an email.

Taking over Brown’s former GM position will be Matt Overman. Prior to this promotion, Overman served in the position of Director of Domain Sales at Demand Media. According to his LinkedIn page, Overman was previously Business Development Manager at HotKeys, which was acquired by Demand Media in 2006.

I sent emails to two company officials asking for comment, and I will post those when and if I hear back (Demand Media is currently in its quiet period after filing for an IPO).

Successful Website Launched by Domain Investor Receives Lots of Press

Elliot Silver
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8

I was reading a news aggregation website this morning, and it linked to an article in the BBC about a friend rental website (yes, you can rent “friends.” It looked like an interesting lead-in, so I checked out the article about RentAFriend.com, and I recognized the name of the founder.

A few years back, I had sold a number of domain names to Scott Rosenbaum. I don’t think we did a great deal of business, but it was enough that I recognized his name when I read it, and I confirmed that it’s his website by comparing the Whois on my previously owned domain names to his company name in the website’s T&C.

RentAFriend.com has received quite a bit of good publicity recently. In addition to today’s BBC article, other articles and news stories have been written on or appeared in MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, CNN, USA Today, CW, and other media outlets.

It’s an interesting concept that’s getting some great press. Congrats to Scott and his marketing/PR team.

Risks in Buying ccTLD Domains: Example of .LY Domain Name Taken by Registry

Elliot Silver
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15

ccTLD investing is probably most interesting to me because of my travels, not because I am a ccTLD investor, or because I use ccTLD domain names regularly. Businesses in many countries outside of the USA favor local ccTLD domain names over .com, although there are still a number of countries whose citizens prefer non-ccTLD domain names.

One of my biggest fears with ccTLD domain names is that the country in charge of the registry can set rules and regulations that wouldn’t be expected in the US. It’s one thing if you live there and are accustomed to those local laws, but it’s another thing if you’re a US citizen and you use a ccTLD in the US, but your domain name is governed by a foreign entity.

Internet consultant, Ben Metcalfe, reported about a situation his company is facing with regards to VB.LY, an important .LY domain name his company owns – well owned.   According to a post on Ben’s blog,

The domain was seized by the Libyan domain registry for reasons which seemed to be kept obscure until we escalated the issue. We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.

It seems odd that a domain registrar is taking over a domain name based on its content, since the content is hosted on servers that reside outside of Libya. When I reported an instance of copy theft to Godaddy, they told me it was out of their scope since the domain name is only registered at their company, and the actual website is hosted elsewhere.

This is something every ccTLD investor and web developer MUST consider when buying ccTLD domain names. I wrote an article about how domain hacks can lead to confusion in the market place, but I think this is a far more important consideration. A company like Bitly, whose primary domain name operates on Bit.LY, needs to be mindful, especially when Bitly has very little (or no) control over the content to which they are linking.

Great to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer

Elliot Silver
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11

I’ve always been reluctant to work with a search engine optimization expert. I’ve basically stuck with the free SEO analysis tools found throughout the web, which has been helpful to a degree, but it’s certainly not the best way to have the best possible SEO on my websites.

The primary reason I’ve been hesitant is because I am concerned that the advice and recommendations that are given would be too complex for me to understand, or they would be far too expensive to implement, especially when considering the potential reward for doing them. It doesn’t make sense to pay for a professional SEO review if you can’t do what’s needed to help your website.

I’ve known that Bill Hartzer has been a SEO expert for quite some time, and I’ve even used his help on a small project in the past. However, I recently worked with him on one of my websites, and I was very happy when he gave me some good recommendations and SEO tips that were understandable and actionable. He was thorough and thoughtful in his replies to me, and I knew he wasn’t simply cutting and pasting advice given over and over. I really felt that he took the time to look through my site and see where it was lacking.

Bill is also a domain investor, and he knows how domain investors tend to think and act. His help has been very appreciated, and if you need to consult with an expert SEO guru, Bill’s your guy.

PS: This is NOT a paid post. From time to time, I like to write articles about people who have been helpful to me and may be helpful to you.

Bid.com Up For Auction

Elliot Silver
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22

I just received an email from Oversee.net, and it looks like their already strong domain auction scheduled for Wednesday just got stronger. Bid.com will be up for auction at the Moniker Premium Live Auction at DOMAINfest Europe in Prague, although the reserve price wasn’t revealed.

The Moniker and SnapNames Live Auction will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Prague on Wednesday, October 6, from 10am – 1 pm Eastern time.     Including some of the names I previously mentioned here’s a list of some of the top domain names that will be up for sale in auction (full list and more information can be found on the Moniker website)

DayTrading.com
Digital.com
DVDrental.com
HouseInsurance.com
Journey.com
LawFirm.com
MX.com
Physicians.com
Plan.com
Restaurants.com
ShortSale.com
SlotMachine.com
Tools.com
Zip.com

Social Networking is Key Element of Building Your Website

Elliot Silver
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6

For my blog, I am somewhat active on Twitter, although I generally use it as a means to communicate outwardly rather than having a discussion with others. I’d say that about 60% of my posts are “Tweeted” by me shortly after posting, and I get a bit of traffic as a result. With so many balls in the air, I don’t really have enough time to check in with Twitter very often.

A while back, I set up Twitter accounts for Lowell.com, Newburyport.com, and Burbank.com, and I still update them occasionally using CoTweet. I didn’t bother to set them up for other websites of mine, figuring it wasn’t necessary. Well, that assumption was pretty wrong.

Today, I decided to open a Twitter account for DogWalker.com, and within an hour or so of setting it up, I had two new registrations and one paid listing. I don’t have a lot of followers yet, but I am now following quite a few people. It seems that when you start out, you end up following a lot more people than people who follow you, but with a bunch of people automatically following their followers, you can build up quite a number of followers.

Instead of having to laboriously search through Twitter to find related businesses to follow (dog walkers and pet sitters), I noticed that one company had a list of hundreds of pet care companies, so I just followed all of them. I don’t expect to “Tweet” much, but I might give special offers on Twitter – like donating $10 to local non profits of a new advertiser’s choice.

The total time it took to set up was under an hour, and I expect this to help generate business. Sometimes the most obvious things are missed, and I certainly missed it with some of my newer websites.

Yes, this idea is pretty obvious right now, but even smart people who know this sh*t need to be reminded every once in a while.

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