Home Blog Page 1315

Barack Obama on Twitter: Using Libya ccTLD for URL Shortener

Elliot Silver
-
8

Barack Obama on Twitter

I am not someone who is interested in politics or discussing politics. In fact, I strongly dislike political conversations with polarizing topics – it’s just not my thing. That being said, I came across President Obama’s Twitter page this afternoon and saw something that I think is pretty ironic.

Just about all of the URLs that are linked to from the President’s page use Bitly to shorten the URL. Although Bitly owns Bitly.com, it primarily uses Bit.LY for its shortened URLs, and .LY is the ccTLD for the country of Libya. For instance, http://bit.ly/bROnKn, http://www.bit.ly/9-l, and http://bit.ly/a-r were all recently used on President Obama’s Twitter page.

As you are may be aware, the country of Libya, along with Cuba and Syria was described by John Bolton as “Beyond the Axis of Evil.”   The government of Libya isn’t exactly on the friendliest of terms with the US government, so it’s somewhat humorous in an ironic way that the President’s Twitter staff would choose to use Bitly to shorten URLs.

From what I understand, it’s fairly simple to create a URL shortener on any domain name. There are plenty of short .US domain names that would make the perfect URL shortener for our President. Just some food for thought.

What Domain Names Have You Sold Recently?

Elliot Silver
-
55

I wrote a popular post a couple of days ago asking people what recent domain acquisitions they made, and that post has received 71 comments as of this afternoon. Steve Morsa followed it up with an email suggesting another post asking readers to post some of their recent sales.

At first, I was a bit hesitant to post this because I keep just about all of my sales and sales prices private. However, I don’t mind revealing some of my recent sales, albeit without sales prices.

  • Danvers.com
  • GolfBooks.com
  • BoroughPark.com
  • ParkSlope.com
  • GunCollection.com
  • RittenhouseSquare.com
  • UniqueInk.com
  • iCookbook.com
  • DeepWrinkleTreatments.com
  • ChristmasLawnOrnaments.com

If you’d like to post some of your recent sales with or without sales prices, feel free to do so. It’s an interesting look at what the aftermarket is doing.

Vegas.com Backed by County for .Vegas gTLD While City Backs Other Entity

Elliot Silver
-
1

Vegas.comAccording to an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the operators of the famous Vegas.com website won a key endorsement from Nevada’s Clark County board of commissioners to run the .Vegas gTLD if and when ICANN approves the introduction of these domain name.

The county vote was unanimous, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that Vegas.com’s operators will actually be able to manage the .Vegas suffix. The city of Las Vegas previously endorsed Dot Vegas, Inc., another organization that would like to run the .Vegas gTLD. I personally find it a bit odd that another entity won considering the strength of the Vegas.com brand outside of Las Vegas… but what do I know.

Of course, the big winner in this will be ICANN. I presume both entities are going to have to pay ICANN a LOT of money to apply for the gTLD, and then ICANN can decide whether Clark County or the City of Las Vegas has the greater right to select an organization to manage the registry. This is another big issue that ICANN will need to sort through before they make their decision.

With millions of dollars at stake, all of the minor issues will certainly become major. Since the Clark County commissioners have been told the .Vegas gTLD “eventually could generate millions of dollars in fees for the county,” they probably won’t take a rejection lightly and litigation could follow. I guess it’s a good thing that ICANN is charging so much for applications – the legal fees could become enormous (imagine if the State of New York wants a .NewYork while New York City wants .NYC).

No matter whether Vegas.com gets awarded the .Vegas suffix or not (if/when ICANN approves their introduction), they will still be the winners when people type in things like hotels.Vegas.com and vacation.Vegas.com

SEO Play Using WhyPark

Elliot Silver
-
9

I’m not sure if others are doing this, although I am sure there are plenty of people who are. I registered several long tail keyword domain names related to one of my websites. In lieu of spending time building a mini site, I used WhyPark to rapidly deploy several websites.

On each of the websites, I added a couple of links – one to the main page on my website and another to a sub-page that the visitor to the site would be interested in finding. The longer tail keywords aren’t all that competitive, and my hope is that I will essentially have two websites in the top of the results page.

I will do a bit of link building for each of these mini websites, and I will not link to them from my blog or other related website, where the cross-linking could possibly be tracked and a relationship detected.

I don’t know if it’s going to add “link juice” to my primary site, but the long tail domain names would be valuable in an of themselves, and it’s much easier for me than building individual sites.

Also similarly related, I am close to selling a domain name that I put to sale using WhyPark just a few weeks ago. A real estate agent from California contacted me and we are working out a deal.

What Domains Have You Bought Recently?

Elliot Silver
-
186

It’s always fun to share new acquisitions and new registrations. Below are some newly acquired domain names I have made in the last couple of weeks, both in the aftermarket and newly registered names. Feel free to share yours in the comment section.

  • MovieCollectibles.com
  • Grandmom.com
  • ActingCoach.com
  • StrayAnimals.com
  • BoroughPark.com (sold)
  • GolfBooks.com (sold)
  • RittenhouseSquare.com (sold)
  • BulldogBlog.com (sold)
  • CatFuneral.com (newly registered)
  • DogFuneral.com (newly registered)
  • LugeSleds.com (newly registered)
  • WashingtonDogWalker.com (newly registered)
  • TableTennisSets.com (newly registered)

Valentine’s Day, Olympics, and All Star Sunday Update

Elliot Silver
-
4

Hoping you are enjoying this nice Valentine’s Day Sunday today. I can’t believe how many big events are happening today (other than the fact it’s Valentine’s Day. The Olympics continue, the NBA is holding its All Star Game in Dallas, and the Daytona 500 are all happening today. Meanwhile, here are a few thoughts and updates from me:

  • Thank you to everyone who came out for the Domainer Get Together in New York City this week. Somewhere between 25-30 people showed up for the last minute event, which had David and Michael Castello as honored guests. After we finished the cocktail party, a group of us went to dinner and the Castello Brothers treated us to dinner. Not only are they generous with their expert knowledge, but they are also very generous in general. It’s always fun hanging out with these guys.
  • I’ve been watching the Olympics and keep seeing commercials for World25.org, Quincy Jones’ website where you can download the 25th anniversary remake of Michael Jackson’s and Lionel Richie’s We Are the World, with proceeds benefiting Haiti’s earthquake victims. Kudos for registering World25.com and World25.org and forwarding both to WeAreTheWorldFoundation.org. How in the world did someone register WeAreTheWorldFoundation.com before Quincy Jones got the .org? If you come up with an idea for a website, grab the domain name ASAP. The walls have ears.
  • After you launch a website and start ranking for the primary keyword phrase, don’t rest on your laurels. Start making an effort to rank for related terms and phrases. DogWalker.com is #1 in Google for “dog walker,” but I have been making strides on other terms. According to SEO Book’s Rank Checker, the site has improved to #8 for dog walkers and #22 for dog walking in Google. These will become important sources of traffic assuming they continue to rank higher.
  • I want to wish a good and prosperous new year to all of my friends who are celebrating the Chinese New Year.
  • Back to the Olympics and domain names for a second. I have been using the Olympics as an opportunity to learn about new sports and try to register some domain names related to them. One example is LugeSleds.com, which I was able to buy yesterday. Don’t know if it will be worth anything, but it’s worth a shot I suppose.
  • Congrats to Donna at Domain Boardroom on the strong results in Andrew’s survey. Aside from selling domain names in various places, DBR is really the only domain chat forum where I participate. The results are strong considering the limited number of members vs. the huge communities that exist elsewhere.
1...1,3141,3151,316...1,558Page 1,315 of 1,558