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Snapnames Job & Career Domain Auction

Elliot Silver
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Snapnames is currently running their September Showcase Auction, and this month’s theme is job and career domain names. Many of the domain names up for auction have no reserves, and others have very low reserve prices. Below are my favorite domain names in auction with the current price. The auction ends on Friday.

BreakfastBar.com – Reserve: $1,001 – $2,500

HorrorStories.com – Reserve: $5,001 – $10,000

HuntingKnife.com – Reserve: $2,501 – $5,000

LawyerListings.com – Reserve: None

MontrealVacations.com – Bid: $840

TemporaryWorkers.com – Reserve: $2,501 – $5,000

WineSale.com – Reserve: $1,001 – $2,500

WordPress & .ME Partner on WP.me

Elliot Silver
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I don’t own a single .ME ccTLD domain name, and I have no plans to buy one any time in the near future, but I thought the following press release issued by the .ME Registry was interesting. They are partnering with WordPress to offer a URL shortener on the WP.me domain name.

In my opinion, this is a great marketing idea for the registry, because a domain extension’s usage in the market place is what makes consumers aware of its existence, leading consumers to purchase these domain names, which in turn adds value to owners of premium domain names. The more value they have, the more investors and consumers will want to purchase them – making it a win/win for all parties.

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More than 225,000 bloggers will now be directing readers to their latest posts using a .Me domain extension, thanks to a newly announced partnership between the .ME Registry and popular blog creation site, WordPress.com. The agreement led to the creation of WP.Me – the world`s first two-letter .ME domain. WordPress is now offering the domain as a URL shortener…allowing its hosted bloggers to provide abbreviated links to their posts, and making it much easier to promote those links on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

“These short links are about 70 percent smaller than the permalinks for a given post,” says Matt Mullenweg, a co-founder of WordPress. “Thanks to our friends at the dot-ME Registry, WordPress is able to offer one of the shortest and most
effective URLs available today.”

According to Mullenweg, WP.Me is different from other URL shorteners in a variety of ways:

* Every blog and post on WordPress.com will now have a WP.Me URL.
* They only work with WordPress.com-hosted URLs.
* The links are permanent and will work as long as WordPress.com is around.
* WP.Me is spam-free because WordPress constantly monitors and removes spam from WP.com.

“Dot-ME embraces and celebrates this kind of innovation,” says Predrag Lesic, Executive Director of the .ME Registry. “In the short time dot-ME has existed, our domain extension has broken many barriers to become so much more than just another ccTLD. WordPress saw the potential of dot-ME and we applaud them for it.”

Visit WordPress.com to learn more about how to get your very own WP.Me URL.

Domain Spam Making the Rounds

Elliot Silver
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I received two emails like this in the past couple of days for geodomain names, and a friend also forwarded me the same email for a completely different domain name. Because the emails were nearly identical, and because the domain names in question were very different, I believe this is a domain spam email making the rounds.

While I don’t think it’s any type of scam, I have heard that people will send out thousands of automated emails based on certain domain attributes, and when someone responds, the emailer will then decide whether he is interested in replying or not based on the domain name.

Here’s the email in the event you receive the exact same one.

Hello there,

I am contacting you to offer you some cold, hard cash. Unfortunately in this case you have not won the lottery, nor do I need you to help me wire a ridiculous amount of money.

I am contacting you in relation to the domain name XXXXXXX.com which I am aware that you own.

I was just curious as to whether you would be prepared to sell the rights of ownership to this name to me? If so, I how much would you want?

Payment would happily be rendered through any medium you feel safe utilizing.

I would greatly appreciate a response in a timely manner.

Yours

James Watson

Why I Like Supplies.com Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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I like Supplies.com domain names because nearly every business or industry has supplies, and where there are supplies, there are usually companies that sell supplies online. Likewise, people search for different types of supplies online, and as we all know, a developed website on a keyword domain name can rank well in Google and Bing.

So how do you know what type of Supplies.com domain name to buy? I generally do two types of searches before making an acquisition – a Google keyword search and a general Google search. With the former, you are able to see a very rough estimate of how many people are searching for that particular keyword/phrase per month (I do an exact match search). With the later, you are able to see the number of results and get an idea of the amount of advertisers. Obviously the more advertisers, the greater the potential to earn with Adsense/PPC, as well as seeing who your potential buyer could be if you opt to sell.

If you plan to develop a Supplies.com domain name, there is one important thing to keep in mind. People who visit aren’t generally looking for information – they are looking to buy supplies. Most of my developed domain names are informational websites, and I don’t need to have a product. With a Supplies.com domain name, it would behoove you to sell supplies.

One way to sell supplies without having to worry about inventory management and fulfillment is to work with a company that does drop shipping. Many companies offer this option regardless of who you are (as long as you open an account and possibly subject to a minimum opening order). Additionally, if you own the category-defining Supplies.com domain name, other companies who don’t regularly offer drop shipping might offer it to you, because they recognize your brand, even though it might not be developed. It’s one of the benefits of a great domain name.

I don’t own any Supplies.com domain names, but I would buy a good one to develop in the future.

Ensure Your Site is Indexed in Google

Elliot Silver
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Yesterday, I blogged about the smart thinking of Melanie Oudin’s family, which registered MelanieOudin.com a couple of years ago. With Melanie competing in the quarter finals of the US Open tennis tournament, she is winning over new fans and becoming a highly searched topic. Her website is operational and is run on WordPress, which Google and other search engines generally love – as blogs typically lead to fresh content.

I was surprised to see that MelanieOudin.com did not rank in the top 100 Google results on a “Melanie Oudin” search. Almost without fail, Google will rank the developed keyword .com domain name fairly well on a search for the exact keyword phrase. I then checked to see if the website was even listed in Google at all by searching for MelanieOudin.com directly. It was then that I found the culprit for its omission from the top 100 results – the site isn’t indexed in Google.

Whether the site isn’t ranking because it’s new (not sure) or whether Google penalized it for some reason, now would be the best time for it to be listed among the results, as “Melanie Oudin” is one of the top searches right now on Google, Yahoo, Twitter…etc. If the site was indexed, it would almost certainly receive more traffic, which could lead to bigger things such as endorsement deals and sponsorships.

There is something Melanie Oudin’s family can do to ensure the website is indexed in Google. In fact, I recommend that all website owners do an exact search for their domain name, and if it’s not listed among the results, they should think about filing a Google Reconsideration Request (requires a free Google account). This will tell Google that you have a legitimate website, and that Google should reconsider listing it. Since Google generally lists all websites they can find (based on links to it which do exist), they frequently have a reason for omitting a website.

Requesting reconsideration can get your website indexed in Google quickly, and it’s a smart thing to do, especially when there are a lot of people searching for you or your keywords.

Melanie Oudin .com: Protecting a Brand

Elliot Silver
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I frequently see cybersquatters quickly grab the .com domain names of up and coming athletes, musicians, and entertainers. Oftentimes, it happens when sports magazines announce a new class of top recruits or after a great public performance when people buy these names like lotto tickets hoping the athlete/celebrity hits it big and the name presumably becomes valuable.

Melanie Oudin is a 17 year old woman from Marietta, Georgia currently competing in the US Open tennis tournament in Flushing Queens, New York. This afternoon, Oudin won over the pro-American crowd by defeating 13th ranked Nadia Petrova from Russing in three sets, and is now one of the final 8 women competing in the tournament.

I wanted to see when someone tried to capitalize on Oudin’s success by registering the MelanieOudin.com, and I found that her father had registered it back in 2007 – a very smart move! A professional athlete is a brand, and it’s important to protect the brand as early as possible.

With Melanie Oudin’s great performance in the US Open so far, now might be a smart time to add privacy guard to prevent unwanted emails, although DomainTools has already archived the email address by now.

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