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HP Goes on a UDRP Bender

Elliot Silver
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7

I was browsing the recently filed UDRP cases at the National Arbitration Foundation, and I noticed quite a few separate UDRP filings containing the Hewlett Packard HP brand in them. It looks like HP decided to go after quite a few “generic” HP-related domain names in the past month or so.

Some of the recent HP UDRP filings at NAF include:

  • HPDrivers.com
  • HPDownloads.com
  • HPUpdates.com
  • HPServices.com
  • HPPrintersSoftware.com
  • HPStorage.com
  • HPShop.com
  • HPInkJet.com
  • HPServer.com
  • HPLaptop.com
  • HPCalculator.com
  • HPInk.com
  • HPDriver.com
  • HPDrivers.org
  • HPMobile.com
  • HPNotebookComputer.com
  • HPNotebook.com

The domain names appear to be owned by many different individuals and companies, and most of them appear to be parked. Not including these recently filed UDRPs, Hewlett-Packard has filed 57 UDRP complaints at NAF. I could not find any filings at the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Nice Marketing by Florida Church

Elliot Silver
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5

I was driving on 95 in south Florida tonight when I passed a church on the side of the highway. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have noticed the, but it had a huge banner on the side of the building facing 95 with a giant URL: ChurchOn95.com. Palm Beach Lakes Church of Christ might not be an easy church name to remember while cruising at 80 mph, but they make sure you remember how to find them online.

The domain name redirects to the churchs’ website, PBLOC.org. Whoever decided to buy the easy to remember domain name made a smart marketing decision. Instead of fighting their assumed moniker, they embrace it so people can easily visit them online. Kudos to the Church!

BTW – Merry Christmas… I thought this was a neat Christmas coincidence!

Merry Christmas and Thank You!

Elliot Silver
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3

I hope you are either celebrating Christmas with your families and friends or enjoying a nice day off today. As the year winds down, I want to say thank you to a the readers who visit my blog, and especially those who contribute to it with comments and feedback. The dialog is what keeps me actively blogging to share and learn.

I would also like to give a special thank you to the advertisers who helped support my blog this past year. I appreciate their business, and I sincerely thank them for advertising on my blog. Here’s to a successful 2010.

National A-1 Advertising – NA-1 owns some of the best possible domain names, and they are always willing to pay for the great generic domain names.

Rick Latona – Rick was one of the most active members of the domain industry in 2009. His company will be running the TRAFFIC shows and auctions all over the world in 2010. Also a great big THANK YOU for the wine from Vino.com!

LuxuryNames.com – The company introduced a high end domain sales newsletter this year and held a successful domain auction. I am looking forward to seeing what they do in 2010.

Escrow.com – I almost exclusively use Escrow.com for my domain sales and purchases that require an escrow service. I’ve had great luck working with them and especially like their customer service.

WhyPark.com – I’ve been doing quite a bit of testing with my domain names that are targeted but don’t get a lot of type in traffic. I’ve seen an increase in traffic to many of these names, and I am looking forward to sharing results in the new year.

Domain Capital – If you are in need of financing for your high value domain names, these are the guys to see. They are trustworthy and fair, which are the most important things you need to know.

DomainStryker.com – Save time finding expiring and dropping domain names on Snapnames, Namejet, and Godaddy, with their recently introduced service.

NameDrive – They’ve brokered close to $16 million in domain names since 2006! They are looking to help sell revenue generating domain names.

MiniSites.com – This company burst onto the scene in 2009, and they’ve made some great looking mini-sites for quite a large number of clients.

Domainvestors.tv – Morgan Linton has been all over the place this past year. He recently started a domain-specific television show and has actively been building his company, while teaching about his business.

DomainTools – I use Domaintools’ Whois lookup several times a day, and I use their other tools very frequently as well. The industry wouldn’t be the same without them.

Traffic Vault – Andrew is a SEO and marketing expert who was featured in Long Island Business news this year. He has given me quite a bit of SEO and marketing advice, which has been helpful to my sites.

Inforum.in – This is the place you go to learn and discuss business if you are a .IN ccTLD investor. There’s a lot to learn in this great domain forum.

NoParking.com – If you are tired of parking your domain names, get in touch with these guys whose personalized touch can help your domain names make money.

Domaining.com – Francois isn’t an advertiser on my blog, but he is a big supporter of my company and the entire domain industry. His site has given many people added exposure, and he is always doing what he can to balance domain investors’ needs with those of the bloggers – despite not speaking English as his first language.

Special Thanks:

I also want to thank the following companies and people for their support with my blog this year:

Kevin Leto – Big Ticket Domains

Moniker – Bary Meyerson, Monte Cahn, and Victor Pitts

Mike McAlister – Six One Five Design

Michael Sumner – DN Media

Snapnames – Jonathan Stanfill, Theresa Armington, Michele Van Tilborg

Oversee.net

Mike St. John

NameBee.com

Photo Credit:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenmanning/ / CC BY 2.0

Top 10: Reasons I Like Working for Me (and Why it Sucks)

Elliot Silver
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11

I’ve been working for myself full time for a little over two years. Below are the top ten reasons why I enjoy working for myself. To add a twist, I am also adding a reason for each about why each thing sucks!

1.) I can make my own hours and work whenever I want. I can also take vacations whenever I want. I can go to the gym in the middle of the day, eat lunch whenever, take time off to visit friends…etc. I can pick and choose which domain conferences I attend, and I don’t need to get permission to attend a business conference.

  • I tend to work 12-14 hours a day, and it’s not straight through the day, so I can work until midnight or later on some days. If I am in the middle of a big project, I can forget to return phone calls, and this tends to hurt friendships (sorry, Adam). I have become a workaholic and don’t stop working until something is finished or I am forced away from my computer. I love what I do, but it’s still consuming.

2.) There is no need to get anyone else’s approval when I make acquisitions, sales, or have expenses. I can rapidly make deals on the fly and be creative with terms if necessary.

  • Great… spending thousands of dollars without a second opinion that has a vested interest in my business. Nice. I am also in charge of my accounting… too bad I took Financial Accounting during college the semester I pledged my fraternity. That 1.92 GPA for the semester haunts me sometimes.

3.) Every month, the pressure all falls on me, and I tend to work better when there is more pressure.

  • I work longer hours, become ornery, and don’t have time to do the things I enjoy when I am under pressure and facing a deadline.

4.) When something is successful, I can take credit for making it happen and it feels good to accomplish something on my own. Of course, I thank the people that assisted, but a successful project for my company doesn’t necessarily mean much to others.

  • It’s great to have personal successes and to celebrate them with my family and friends, but I think it was much more fun when I was working on a team in the corporate world. I miss that camaraderie.

5.) I don’t have to share the profits with business partners or investors.

  • Since everything is self-funded, there’s more pressure to make things happen.

6.) If there’s something I want to test or explore, I don’t need to make a business decision to justify it.

  • It can be better to learn from someone else’s previous experience, and people tend to be more willing to share their unbiased opinion when they have a vested interest.

7.) I have the chance to meet with others who are in the same business as I. There is a lot of networking and open discussion among domain investors who work for themselves.

  • At the end of the day, just about all of us are competitors in some way. Those who consistently buy and sell domain names are usually competing for the same domains in auctions, drops, and private acquisitions. There’s a fine line between sharing and keeping the cards close to vest.

8.) Having a blog has allowed me to connect with many of the most successful domain investors via email, phone, personal meetings, and business meetings. I have received great advice – everything from domain investing to general business advice to personal advice.   I doubt my company would be in its current position without the blog.

  • The blog has also exposed me to unconstructive comments (mostly anonymous cowards).   I appreciate all comments that are constructive – especially if someone disagrees with me so I can see a different point of view, but it’s irritating when people leave comments that are meant to be hurtful to me or to other commenters when they don’t add value. I guess the bad economy has left some people pretty bitter about things.

9.) I can work from wherever I want. In fact, right now I am writing this on an airplane.

  • I tend to work wherever I go – even when I am on vacation.

10.) Over the past 6 years, I’ve learned quite a bit about the domain industry and even the politics within the industry. I have built a good gut feel for things and believe I have good instincts when it comes to making business decisions.

  • If my instincts are wrong, there isn’t anyone with a vested interest to help – especially on confidential deals.

Using All in One SEO Plugin

Elliot Silver
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0

I have the All in One SEO plugin installed on all of my WordPress websites. It’s a free plugin from Semper Fi Web Design that makes the process of SEO much easier and automated. However, up until today, I wasn’t really harnessing the power of the plugin on my websites.

For most of my sites, I was basically using the default settings that come with the plugin. Each post/page title would be listed as the article title, and I didn’t add a meta description sentence for individual posts. I figured Google and Yahoo would be smart enough to pick up the content and rank it accordingly.

Although it’s worked fairly well, it’s silly not to use this plugin to its fullest. From here out, I plan to add a different page title and description instead of the default, which was the post title and the first 160 or so characters of the post. Usually that would be a lead in, but not really the meat of the post.

Over the next few months, I will monitor the percentage of my traffic that comes from search to see if it increases as a result of my efforts. With many people using WordPress for various websites, blogs, and mini sites, it doesn’t really make sense not to install the All in One SEO plugin – and once it’s installed, it’s silly not to use it.

2010 Domain Industry Predictions

Elliot Silver
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20

I was asked by the editor of Website Magazine to give some domain industry predictions for 2010 for their Web Trends for 2010 article. My quote from the article is below, but I am also interested in hearing what your predictions are for the upcoming year.

“As reported in the December issue of Website Magazine, businesses have increasing opportunities in the domains industry. Elliot Silver, president of Top Notch Domains and Silver Internet Ventures agrees. “High-value keyword names like toys.com and candy.com, which sold this past year, will continue to command high prices. Companies will continue to invest in their own businesses and will acquire high-value keyword domains names for growth and for competitive reasons,” Silver says. “With PPC revenue down and not looking like it will increase in the near future, some domain owners will make top domains available for acquisitions that haven’t been available in many years.”

In addition, the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal will affect the domain industry, according to Silver. “The Microsoft and Yahoo! deal is going to be impactful on domain name values because Microsoft’s Bing tends to rank developed keyword domain names higher than Google and Yahoo!,” he says. “Right now, impact is minimal because of Bing’s relatively low market share. With the deal, Bing will manage search results for Yahoo!, bringing the market share to 30 percent of search from around 8 percent. This is significant.”

What are your predictions for the domain business in 2010?

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