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Monitor Your Adsense Ads

When developing a website, I really like to use Google’s Adsense. Not only can I customize the ad units to integrate into my website, but I can also use graphical banner advertising, which not only generates revenue, but it helps give the appearance that advertisers want to be advertising on a particular site. Technically, they may not know they are advertising on certain websites at the time, but they are able to block them if they don’t wish to advertise there any longer.

One drawback though is that certain advertisers, who may have opposite beliefs than your website, can still advertise on it. For example, on a religious website, a website that is owned by a group who has conflicting beliefs can still place advertisements depending on the keyword match they are choosing. These links can take visitors of your website to another site, potentially angering the visitors, especially because people don’t always realize how Adsense works.

A website owner is able to block certain urls from appearing, however, there may be hundreds of different website urls with the same message that want to advertise, so it can be a never ending battle. That said, it’s very important to monitor your websites to make sure objectionable advertising isn’t being displayed. While the ads don’t violate Google’s TOS, it could violtate your own site’s standards.

Make a 1,000% Profit

The title of this post isn’t what you generally expect to see on my blog, but I found a way to make 10x my investment in a short period of time, and I want to share this because I don’t think it’s a limited opportunity. What I am going to share probably won’t work for everyone, and it won’t work all the time, but I can tell you that I did this before, and I did very well.

Snapnames and Moniker have made it very easy to list domain names for sale on Snapnames. The problem many people have is registering domain names that other people want to buy. Sure, I can go ahead and register 1,000 new domain names and put them up for auction right away, but if nobody wants them, I’m basically out $8,000.

With Snapnames’ new interface, I can see what people are bidding on or buying in real time, and frequently, I can spot patterns that can help me buy domain names that someone else is looking to buy (and is willing to pay a premium). Using this information, I can register domain names that are essentially part of the same pattern, and offer them for auction. Assuming the buyer has a special alert set for that particular pattern, I can auction it for a $79 minimum bid, just like many other auctions.

If I paid $7.50 for the name, and I sell it for $79, I’ve made 10x my money (minus the 20% commission). If I do this with 100 domain names, I can make some decent money relatively easily.   If I do this with 1,000 domain names, I can make some very good money.

Of course there is a risk to this – in that the buyer may not be buying anymore or may have only been searching for a particular type of name on a random day, and I’ll get stuck with the names. However, I personally believe it’s worth the risk, as I basically only need to sell 1 in 10 names to break even, and my leftovers can be sold in bulk or at a loss – either way I’ve already broken even.

You may be asking yourself if I’ve done this, and I have and I’ve had pretty good success.

Again, there is no guarantee with this whatsoever, and you obviously need to know what to buy and what not to buy based on perceived needs of buyers. Sometimes patterns may look obvious, but they aren’t, and you can get stuck with the names. However, with the chance of making 1,000% profit, it may be worth the risk, and when I did it before, I did very well.

“Million Dollar” Auction Doesn’t Happen

The auction of 2,600 real estate domain names that was suppose to take place on Thursday didn’t happen, and as you can imagine, I am not surprised. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle,

“Interest in Thursday’s auction was high, according to both Harrison and King. In the days leading up to the auction, the Web site got 5,000 hits, and J.P. King had e-mails and calls from interested buyers. But the event fizzled.

Perhaps the names weren’t as valuable as they seemed. “Had we had premium names, like toys.com, there would have been an auction,” King said as waiters in the Fairmont cleared trays piled with sandwiches from the empty room.”

I do find it interesting that they quoted the Toys.com auction, as I mentioned in the comment section here a couple of days ago. It’s just too bad the parties didn’t realize this before thousands of dollars were spent on publicity and other expenses related to the auction. They could have asked a professional domain investor who could have told them this straight up.

I am still interested in the traffic and revenue numbers that Victor Lund, partner at WAV Group mentioned in the comment section of my blog. “As simple link sites they provide an abundance of income that far exceeds the cost. Harrison can sit on them as a cash cow for as long as he likes.” I followed up asking for revenue and traffic numbers, but there was no reply.

I would have liked to see a portfolio of domain names sell for millions of dollars, but clearly these aren’t as valuable as a few people might have wished.

Mayor Koch Endorses DotNYC LLC for .NYC

Not only was Mayor Ed Koch one of the best mayors New York City has had, but he is also a philanthropist and has a great sense of humor. Today, Mayor Koch announced his support of DotNYC.net and DotNYC LLC for the .NYC gTLD. In addition to a press release, the team from DotNYC LLC, which includes CEO Antony Van Couvering, released a video of Mayor Koch, which can be viewed below.

The Domain Name Matters for SEO

I read Rick’s Blog this morning about search engine optimization specialists and spammers, and I agree that there is a lot of crap out there. I also know there are a lot of smart people who do this for a profession or a hobby, and a number of people helped me out when requested (THANKS!!).

One thing I took away from Rick’s article is that a company’s domain name is very important for SEO. Rick said, “Want the best SEO guy? Do a damn Google search!” He proceeded to search for the best SEO guy, and guess what returned #1? A listing for Mic Tienken, whose website resides on www.bestseoguyintheworld.com – a domain name with the keywords Rick searched.

Personally, I am less colloquial when I search, and I wanted to find the best SEO company. Guess who came back with the number one result… SEO Image, with a website not residing on SEOImage.com, but a website on www.bestseocompany.com, the exact search phrase I used.

If you want to improve your SEO rankings and do good SEO, it’s as easy as analyzing the obvious things on the professionals’ websites, and clearly the domain name matters for search engine optimization.

Featured on CNN and New York Times!

We’ve all seen infomercials, product marketing campaigns, and other websites that proudly boast “featured on CNN,” New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or some other popular journal or trade publication. The usual objective is to convey trust to the visitor, essentially saying that if a trusted source like NBC featured the product, service, or author, then it or he must be legit!

In some cases, I believe this is simply a marketing ploy and can be misleading. Some of the leading press release companies offer great placement on leading websites and trusted resources, assuming you can afford to pay for their services. This is great for companies who want to distribute information to a wide audience, but I think it’s misleading to say they were “featured” in the specific publication, when the company paid to have its news posted.

While the definition of the term “featured” can vary and may semantically be accurate to boast, I think it can be misleading and it bothers me when companies undeservedly boast.

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