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Legal Eagle “Gets” Domain Names

I’ve been hearing quite a bit on the news lately about the Chinese drywall situation, which is impacting many American homeowners. The short story is that many home builders used Chinese-manufactured dry wall in homes (cheaper and was more readily available), and now this drywall may be causing major problems. Some homeowners are complaining of various illnesses and there have been issues with electronics and appliances as a result of the drywall.

I haven’t done much research on the topic, so I don’t know if the reported issues have conclusively been related to the drywall, but these issues have been attributed by many to the Chinese drywall. Of course, because of all of these issues that have been reported, litigation is very likely.

One website that has a considerable amount of information about the situation is the category defining generic domain name ChineseDrywall.com, which appears to be owned by an attorney. The Whois is private, but the first Domain History archive in December 2008 shows an attorney as the Admin, and the copyright notice on the bottom of the page is that person, as is the information on the Legal page of the site.

I often see companies buy trademarked terms for pharmaceuticals that might face litigation, and I don’t know if that falls under the scope of Anti-Cybersquatting laws. However, owning the generic term should not be a problem, and having a developed website on that domain name will help in Google – currently ranked #1 after Google News entries, for the term.

This attorney “gets” domain names, and she got the best one for this legal issue.

Thanks to Gordon for sending this over!

My Mini Site Experience

I have gained some first hand knowledge about mini site development, and I would like to share some of it in case it can be helpfu. Some of this knowledge has been gained from buying mini sites and putting those up, buying mini sites and adding content, and creating my own mini sites; while other information is somewhat obvious.

Domain names that I either own or sold, where I used mini sites include UniqueInk.com, BullRidingHelmet.com, Secaucus.com, FuelAssistance.com, WeddingEntertainment.com, Oenophiles.com, and DebtAssistanceClinic.com – all of which had/have different mini site set-ups.

I found that I had the most success when I purchased mini sites rather than having built them on my own. I was able to enhance the pre-fab sites by adding pages of content based on keyword research within the paramaters of the nice looking design. Not having to fuss with templates and pictures and the initial content saved me a few hours worth of time, and it gave me a great foundation to build out the sites even more.

I’ve discussed strategy to building out mini sites in previous posts, but basically I used the Google keyword tool (and others) to find out what people are looking for related to the topic, and I created pages based on this information.   The pages had limited but adequate information about the topic, and it included Adsense and/or links to the source of the topic. For example, on the page about an outlet mall, I linked to the outlet mall within the text. I also populated the pages with photos from iStockphoto.com, which are cheap and help enhance the appearance of a mini site.

The objective of a mini site is to make money from Adsense or advertising, but it’s also to provide a nice website that is liked/accepted by Google and by visitors. If a visitor leaves the site after 2 seconds, Google may give it a poor quality score, lowering its rankings on the SERPs. Ideally, traffic will grow on a mini site because of the Google rankings, so the lower CTR is hopefully offset by higher traffic. This is important to consider when building pages.

The only time I recommend that inexperienced developers (who have jobs and other family commitments) build their own sites is when they really want a mini site but the quality of the domain name is lacking, and they want to learn about development by practicing. It doesn’t usually make sense to pay $100-1,000 for a mini site on a domain name that isn’t worth that amount, but it has been a great learning experience for me.

Some might argue that UniqueInk.com is more of a brandable name that might not be worth building, however, due to it’s initial launch before I owned it, the site already received enough traffic to justify. Building out a mini site from scratch takes time, but it is a good leaning experience. I will do it again for sure, but I am lucky to be a full time domain investor, so it’s a nice break from my daily routine.

I urge people to only develop mini sites on domain names that are category defining (the exact keyword string) for a term/phrase that is well-searched – especially if it doesn’t already get type in traffic. The point of a mini site is to provide content for people looking for whatever the domain name would imply by getting listed in the search engines. A 3 word long-tail keyword might not get typed in frequently, but when someone types it in to Google, if there’s a site with good information, it will probably rank well and get traffic in that way.

If you build a mini site on a brandable domain name, chances are good that it will have trouble ranking for the exact term you want – especially if there’s any competition, so you will end up spending a lot of time and effort that probably won’t pay off in the end.

There are plenty of mini site options available, and testing is key. Just like you can’t expect to get rich with a newly registered domain name, the same can be said about mini sites. They may enhance the value of a domain name, but execution is key, and you can’t expect a mini site will be a magical solution.

Memorial Day Weekend

I’m heading out of town for the long weekend in a few minutes (Memorial Day holiday in the US on Monday). I am going to spend a relaxing weekend on the beach, and I hope that you are able to find some time to relax with friends and family. It’s a 3 hour ride, and if I leave late this afternoon, it will turn into a 5 hour ride with all the city traffic vying to leave Manhattan!

I started to write an article about my experience with mini sites, as I have owned a number of them during the last 6 months. Several of them have been sold, and I still own a few others, so I wanted to give an update and some advice about developing or buying mini-sites based on my experience. During the ride to the beach, I will finish up the article and hopefully post it tomorrow. I will be able to approve comments and respond to feedback intermittently.

Hope you have a safe weekend.

Snapnames Live Auctions

As a buyer, I love the fact that Snapnames allows people to search for current auctions by price and number of bidders. I went through some of the top Snapnames auctions that are closing soon and listed a few I like:

SurveillanceVideo.com – Would be a cool site for videos of convenience store botched robberies. It could also be a remote security company site to monitor home surveillance video cameras. (Auction ends May 23)

LosAngelesRentalCar.com – LA has a huge airport and there are a ton of autos rented every day. Create some content about the airport and sign an affiliate deal (Auction ends May 22)

GuitarEnthusiast.com – Would be a great blog for a guitar lover (Auction ends May 23)

*Disclaimers:
1) I might bid
2) It’s my affiliate code, so if I lose, at least I might earn some revenue 🙂

Demand for gTLDs Appears Strong

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While the data can be skewed because there is no cost to reserve a gTLD domian name using Pool.com and Quintaris’ system   to reserve gTLD domain names before their registries are even created, the companies are indicating that the market for gTLDs is strong. According to the companies, 10,000 gTLD domain names were reserved every day during the first month in operation.

An interesting observation that was noted is “Early results show a stronger market for generic-named registries, like .sport than for those being pursued by a specific city or region. Farrow noted that “no city gTLD has cracked the top ten on the pre-order list.” This doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a market for geo names in extensions like .nyc, but it shows that generic categories like .sport or .sucks are popular.

If you have any interest in reserving a gTLD, I think this is the place to do it. There’s no risk – although there’s no guarantee either. I haven’t reserved any gTLD domain names yet, but I might – just in case.

Government Bailout of Newspapers is BS

I really enjoyed the Fool.com’s article that is critical of the potential government bailout of newspapers. Because of my geodomain holdings, I’ve been keeping tabs on the state of the newspaper industry by reading as much as I can, and the article really sums up my feelings on any type of government assistance to newspaper companies.

In my opinion (and many others), the newspaper printing and delivery model for news consumption DEAD, and the companies need to reorganize and change their strategies, without help from the government. Media and news delivery isn’t dead – just the way newspaper media companies deliver the news via print. By the time the “news” is printed, it’s old news that nobody wants to read unless they are stuck on a train or in a waiting room somewhere and their Ipod, Blackberry, or other device doesn’t have reception. (**Edit** or don’t have modern devices.)

Entrepreneurial journalists such as Ron Jackson and Andrew Allemann (in the domain industry) are proving that the interactive model of news delivery is where it’s at, and if you look around their site (and mine, too), you will see that advertisers are still paying for placement, showing that there is a way to make money online, as papers like the NY Times hasn’t figured out. I suppose when you have HUGE overhead expenses, it can be difficult to make it viable, but that’s their problem, not our government’s problem (and my problem since I pay lots of taxes).

People aren’t sacrificing knowledge simply because they don’t receive a print edition of a newspaper – they are getting the news from many sources online, instantly – as the news actually unfolds, and they don’t need the NY Times or another newspaper to tell them about breaking news.

Just because a particular business model is outdated does not justify the government’s involvement in a handout. There are plenty of ways to make money in the journalism space, and the newspaper companies are either not smart enough to figure it out, or they have too much overhead to make it work, or maybe there is a reason I missed. With any of these options, I don’t see how a bailout is going to help in the long run, other than giving people working in obsolete jobs a few months of pay before the government handout is gone.

I am very sorry for all the people who are responsible for printing the papers, delivering the papers, monitoring the staff of printers…etc. Unfortunately for them, their business model is no longer viable. I would be significantly annoyed that the government might try and help my competitors who are using a business model that doesn’t work any longer.

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