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Why Don’t Some Startups Use Their Domain Name to Brand Their Company?

Elliot Silver
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10

I don’t get it. I was reading another article on TechCrunch yesterday about a startup company whose brand name is different than the domain name that is being used by the company. I understand that many “cool” domain names aren’t available in the .com, but in my opinion, the company should use another domain name that matches their brand, even if that means coming up with a unique name.

Take the payment company known as Square for example. Square.com has been registered for many years, so they had to use SquareUp.com.   Why not just brand themselves as Square Up instead of causing consumer confusion. Should the company grow extensively, they can afford to spend the money to buy Square.com and then rebrand as Square. This way, there’s no confusion and they’ll control both domain names. Sure, customers who go to Square.com will realize they’re in the wrong place, but why would any company want to take a chance that they would lose a customer.

Yesterday I read about a startup called Lookout, and I visited Lookout.com to check them out. As you can probably tell by the title of the article, they aren’t using Lookout.com, which was registered many years ago. Instead, they are using MyLookout.com, which isn’t a bad domain name. I would think they could match it up and use My Lookout as their brand.

Assuming 15-30% of a start-up’s traffic is type-in traffic, it doesn’t make sense to add confusion to the market while increasing the value of the other .com that is parked and will earn more ppc revenue. As a result of this, the domain owner would be less likely to negotiate to sell the domain name, fearing that the company would try to entrap them by negotiating. Further, there is little reason to sell a domain name whose traffic and revenue consistently grows.

Many people will argue that the domain name isn’t as important as the product or service being offered, and I agree wholeheartedly. However, I think it’s silly to be known as one name but have a different domain name. Square and Lookout are just two of many start-up examples.

Learn About Epik & Rob Monster in Today’s Webcast

Elliot Silver
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32

Rob Monster is one of the most approachable people in the domain space, and I think his company has a good business model that may work for some domain investors. Epik just launched BumperProtectors.com this morning for my company, and as I promised, I will keep you apprised of the results in a future post.

For now though, I would like to remind you that Rob will be taking part in a free webcast this afternoon at 2pm EST (approximately 2 hours from now). The purpose is to learn more about Epik and Rob, and to learn how their services may be able to help you develop your domain names, as I did with BumperProtectors.com.

You need to sign up prior to the webcast to participate, so you might want to do that ASAP. I am sure this webcast will be available at a later point if you can’t make it or have other things going on, but you’ll want to check it out, especially if you’ve never connected with Rob before.

Buying .CO Domains for Typo Traffic

Elliot Silver
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56

As one would expect, there are many people who are buying .CO domain names with the hopes of capitalizing on typo traffic. These people are looking through Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, and other various traffic estimation tools in the hopes of purchasing .CO domain names that will get traffic intended for the .COM.

One thing people need to be cognizant of (aside from trademark issues which I am not going to discuss) is that many high traffic websites get significant search engine traffic, and there isn’t going to be leakage from that. If someone visits a website via search engine or other referral, there will be no leakage to the .CO unless the referrer makes the typo.

Yesterday evening, I was asked if I had an interest in Burbank.CO. A reader of my blog offered his position in the auction because I didn’t back order it, and I wasn’t interested. I’ve been very fortunate with SEO and referral traffic for that site, and at the present time, only about 14% of the traffic is from type-in.   Assuming 20,000 visitors per month total, that means under 3,000 are typing it in to their browser.   If .3% of this traffic typos it, that’s about 9 visitors a month that I am losing.   It just doesn’t make that much sense to pay more than $500, which is where this name ended I believe.

There are a number of .CO websites that are live, where the .COM website is also live. Sex.com/Sex.co, Porn.com/Porn.co, Porno.com/Porno.co, Hotels.com/Hotels.co, and Weather.com/Weather.co are five such comparisons you can do, as I would imagine these sites rely on significant type-in traffic, which is where the leakage would take place. Since I don’t know how long each .CO has been live, I can’t say whether it’s 100% accurate, but here are the Compete numbers and % of traffic:

  • Sex.com – 135,793 | Sex.co – 393 – .CO % of .COM traffic: .23%
  • Porn.com – 1,807,569 | Porn.co – 1,015 – .CO % of .COM traffic: .056%
  • Porno.com – 233,909 | Porno.co – 656 – .CO % of .COM traffic: .28%
  • Hotels.com – 4,822,172 | Hotels.co – 1,698 – .CO % of .COM traffic: .035%
  • Weather.com – 31,992,990 | Weather.co – 29,893 – .CO % of .COM traffic: .093%

As you can see, there isn’t much leakage to the .CO, so investing a lot of money with the intent only to capitalize on typo traffic isn’t smart. Of course .CO domain owners can (and many will) develop their .CO domain names like I am doing, however, relying on revenue from typo traffic here might not be a smart play.

AOL Senior Vice President David Mason Will Keynote DOMAINfest NYC

Elliot Silver
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10

I just received a note from Oversee.net announcing that the keynote speaker for the one day DomainFest conference in New York City on August 18th will be David Mason, an AOL Senior Vice President. David Mason works with the AOL Content Platform, and he joined the company when AOL acquired StudioNow, which he co-founded in 2007 and developed into the world’s largest web-based video creation platform. In addition, Mason started the company that turned into Buy.com. You can read Mason’s Linkedin profile for more information.

There are going to be somewhere around 150 people (give or take) at the conference next month, which will be held at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan. The event is scheduled to run from 10:30am to 10:30pm.

To register for the event, visit DomainFest.com, where you can also see the full agenda and list of speakers and sessions. The cost of registration is just $175, and it includes a full lunch and a dinner networking party. If you live in the New York City area, you should consider attending this conference.

Names I’ve Recently Purchased

Elliot Silver
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43

As I’ve done in the past, I want to share several of my recent domain purchases. The intent isn’t to show-off or sell these domain names, but rather to give you an idea of what types of names I have been buying. As you can see, I am still buying city/town .com domain names and product/service names, too.

Although I am sure some people will reply with comments to post their domain names (fine with me), I do recommend that some people who are here to learn about the business take the time to figure out why I buy certain names rather than use this as an opportunity to try and sell their names.

If you post names, keep in mind that others have the opportunity to offer comments and/or criticism.

Plainview.com – private acquisition (already sold)
EastLongmeadow.com – private acquisition (already sold)
Douglaston.com – private acquisition (already sold)
EastMeadow.com – private acquisition
DraperyHardware.com – Namejet (already sold)
DetoxCleanser.com – Snapnames (already sold)
TattooStarterKits.com – Namejet
ChandlerLandscaper.com – hand registration
Sextionary.com – forum acquisition
CloudConsultant.com – Snapnames
RingtoneSites.com – Snapnames
BumperProtectors.com – Snapnames
BikeAmsterdam.com – Snapnames
BikeSydney.com – hand registration
CollegeDormRoom.com – Namejet
SonomaValleyTour.com – hand registration

Moniker Auction at Epik Conference

Elliot Silver
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1

Epik Domain Conference and Auction

Rob Monster and his Epik team will be holding its first Developer Conference in Seattle September 15-17, 2010. You can learn more about the conference on the Epik website. I haven’t decided if I am going to attend, but it looks like it will be a good conference for people who have been developing, and it certainly promises to bring something different to the domain conference scene.

In conjunction with this conference, Moniker will be running a live auction presumably using the Snapnames platform. Epik is now accepting auction submissions, but domain names must meet at least one of the following requirements to be considered:

  • Is a com with an appraised value of $25,000 or more on Appraise.Epik.com
  • Is a .net with an appraised value of $5,000 or more on Appraise.Epik.com
  • Is .co, .co.uk, .tv., info, or ,org with at least 5,000 exact matches
  • Is currently getting at least 100 monthly unique visitors.
  • Is currently earning at least $50 in monthly revenue
  • Is in the top 5 positions on Google for the exact match term.

There will be 100 domain names listed for sale in the live auction, and the silent auction will consist of 200 additional domain names. Adult and trademark domain names will not be considered for inclusion in this auction.

Visit Epik.com for more information about the conference and auction.

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