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New Domain Aftermarket Sites

Elliot Silver
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29

In the last couple of months, I have learned about several new domain aftermarket sales websites. Most of the new sites haven’t been started by amateurs, but rather by professional domain investors who make their living in the domain space. Here are a few of the newer aftermarket websites:

DomainMarket.com – This site was founded by Mike Mann, the successful domain investor who founded BuyDomains and Grassroots.org. The company features domain names such as Angola.com, Cameroon.com, Fleece.com, Dusseldorf.com, Females.com, and many other great names. In addition, there are thousands of less expensive keyword domain names costing $500 or less.

SimpleDomains.com – This domain aftermarket was founded by the founders of several websites and businesses on domain names that include Beer.com, Diamond.com, CreditCards.com, Shop.com, and Luggage.com. The company features domain names such as BusinessTravelers.com, TableWines.com, ForeignAuto.com, and GreenInvestments.com. There are also a variety of other domain names in several categories at pretty good prices.

OneOfAKind.com – This website was started by members of the Domain Consultant team, who have over $15 million in domain purchases and sales to date. Some of the site’s showcase domain names include Ring.com, HappyBirthday.com, LifeVests.com and DiamondRings.com. There is a wide variety of names for sale on the site, although most are listed as “make offer” rather than having a sales price.

BestDomainsWebsite.com – This website was started by one of the co-founders of the Targeted Traffic conference, Howard Neu. In addition to regularly priced domain names, they have a list of specials that include TeleconferencePhones.com, FrankensteinMasks.com, and AnimalRightsAdvocates.com.

Could .Jobs Get a Boost and Help Future gTLDs?

Elliot Silver
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10

I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today about the former President of Monster.com, Bill Warren, who is now working as the Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association, an organization that intends to utilize a network of domain names across the .Jobs domain extension. The effort could give a boost to the .Jobs domain extension, which has been around for a while but hasn’t made inroads in consumer awareness.

According to its website, DirectEmployers Association is a nonprofit HR consortium of leading global employers formed to improve labor market efficiency through the sharing of best practices, research and the development of technology. In total, over 500 large companies such as AT&T, IBM, American Express, and Johnson & Johnson are involved with this organization.

DirectEmployers Association plans to combine its software with regional and career-related .jobs domain names. The article used Atlanta.jobs as an example, and that domain name was registered on February 4, 2010. The domain name currently resides on WowEmployers.com name servers, which are registered to DirectEmployers  Association. A reverse IP search of the Atlanta.jobs IP range shows other names such as Florida.jobs, Health.jobs, Europe.jobs, and many others.

According to the SMH article, this is how the organization will work:

Companies that belong to the association pay a $15,000 annual membership fee and will receive prominent placement on the “.jobs” Web sites. Smaller companies can purchase a “.jobs” domain name for about $125 a year and then post jobs for free. They can also work through their state employment agencies, which post jobs online at no charge.

At those prices, the new “.jobs” system could be another online innovation that undercuts what currently exists _ much as the invention of job boards themselves undermined newspaper help-wanted ads.

If this becomes a popular job search tool, it could provide a boost to future gTLDs. .Jobs is a relatively unknown extension, but it has much more actual meaning that extensions like .com, .net, .mobi…etc. It could train people to use actual words such as .Jobs when they are browsing the web.

Of course there will also be major obstacles to this. It will require human resource departments to ensure their listings are placed on the appropriate .jobs websites in addition to their own corporate sites. I am sure they will also use proven websites like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com, in addition to other sites like TheLadders.com. Likewise, they will also have to get web browsers to visit .Jobs websites, which is something to which most people are unaccustomed.

This is going to be a very interesting project to observe, and it could provide a glimpse into the future if and when gTLD domain names are approved by ICANN.

Don’t Buy Brandable Domains Just Because a Company is Buying Similar Names

Elliot Silver
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8

I wanted to share an email I received without identifying the person who sent it or the names mentioned in the email. The reason I’d like to share it is because I know more people think like this, and I would like to offer my advice.

Elliot,

I just registered the following super-domain names: SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com, SuperXYZKeyword.com.   Do you think Supermedia/Idearc would want to buy these domain names from me? I think they are valuable.

I’ve said it many times, but I want to reiterate it. Just because one company is buying a particular type of domain names, does not mean similar domain names have any added value – especially when they are “brandable” domain names. It’s more than likely that the company went out to acquire the names they were interested in buying, and they opted to not buy others.

I personally do not believe “Super” keyword domain names have any value aside from the value added by SuperMedia when they choose to develop them. Likewise, similar brandable names bought by other companies might not have value if the company doesn’t want to buy them.

Before you go out and register names like these, you should ask yourself why the particular company didn’t think of these domain names before, when they were buying their other names. It’s likely they just weren’t interested and/or had a specific plan in mind for specific domain names.

If you do feel the “need” to take a chance and buy them, don’t buy more than just a couple. Before you know it, you will own dozens or hundreds of names with similar backgrounds, and it’s likely that you won’t sell them.

Privacy After Domain Sales Isn’t a Given, Nor is it Free

Elliot Silver
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44

A few years ago, I used Sedo’s escrow service for a private domain sale. I had closed the deal in private, but I wanted to have a safe transaction so both the buyer and I chose Sedo to facilitate the payment and transfer. The following week, I saw that my sale was reported to DNJournal by Sedo, listing Sedo as the “Where Sold.”

This same thing happened when I used Moniker to handle the escrow for a transaction several months later. The company didn’t facilitate the sale, and it only handled the escrow for the transaction. This upset me because I didn’t know they reported all sales, and had there been a confidentiality agreement, it would have been violated.

In both cases, Ron Jackson quickly took down the sales reports for me, as I did not want the previous seller to see the prices at which they sold.

I was chatting with a friend today who let me know about a Sedo policy I find disappointing. Sedo charges an additional 2.5% to their sales commission to keep a sale private. I thought this was funky, but it was confirmed by a Sedo employee. I know it’s only 2.5% more from your gross sale, but it seems like highway robbery to me. I hope Sedo reconsiders this additional fee, and I encourage people to simply avoid the fee by asking Ron not to post the sale.

Whenever you buy a domain name from any domain venue, you should proactively request privacy before finalizing your transaction. If the company won’t honor your request (or charges you to keep it private), you should consider your other options.

Pasta ‘N More Direct Marketers Understand Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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0

Since my background is in the direct marketing business, I pay attention to infomercials and other marketing efforts specifically to analyze the execution. Some of these commercials (maybe most) are cheesy, but everything from dialog, domains, actors, and product placement has a purpose. The domain name is also important, and in many cases, it’s used for testing purposes.

I saw a commercial today for the “Pasta ‘N More” pasta maker, which seems to be a plastic container used to help cook various types of pasta. The product was being offered by one of the top direct marketers – Telebrands. This product isn’t something of interest to me, but the domain name they used was FreePastaNMore.com.

The url seemed a bit confusing and certainly didn’t pass the radio test, which was surprising to me because most call to action direct marketing efforts (especially radio and tv) do their best to make their phone numbers and urls easy to remember.

I decided to check to see if they registered the potential typos, and it looks like they did.   Here are some of their domain names for this product:

  • FreePastaNMore.com
  • FreePastaAndMore.com
  • PastaAndMore.com
  • PastaNMore.com
  • PastandMore.com

It’s good to see marketers protect their brand, as many companies neglect to do so and are forced to pay for this traffic on a continual basis, rather than the one time registration fee.

Monitor Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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5

For quite some time, when you did a Whois lookup using DomainTools, you had the ability to click a little flag icon to monitor the domain name you were looking up. You could monitor for Whois changes, Nameserver changes, Registration changes, and maybe a few other things. Recently, I tried to monitor a domain name, and I couldn’t find the flag icon.

After a bit of searching this morning, I was able to find the URL to monitor domain names on DomainTools. You do need to have an account to monitor domain names, but it’s part of the package for Silver members.

I have been monitoring a wide variety of domain names, although my list hadn’t been updated in a while. I also keep an eye on domain names I own in addition to names I would like to own.

This is a handy tool that I am happy to learn has not been removed from DomainTools.   I just wish they would move it back to the standard Whois lookup console to make it easier – allowing me to monitor domain names on the fly rather than having to go to a separate URL.

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