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A Domain Name Doesn’t Matter

Elliot Silver
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24

If you have a unique business plan or web development idea that can’t easily or quickly be replicated, the domain name you choose for your website hardly matters. You can be   CrazyCrazyCrazy.us or some other funky domain name, and you will still have success if there’s a strong market for your product or service. The domain name matters much less than the idea and execution.

If your idea isn’t completely unique or you are entering a market where there is considerable competition, the domain name can be critical to your company’s success or failure.

In just about every market, a new industry leader can emerge (or   a new company can instantly be competitive) if he has the category killer domain name for the industry, as long as his product is at least competitive with the industry leaders. The company doesn’t necessarily need to be innovative to gain market share – just competitive.

New companies need to be innovative to take market share away from the leaders, or they need to spend considerable sums of money on marketing to get consumers to think its products are better or to give them a reason to buy them over its competitors products. A domain name doesn’t necessarily do all of this, but the category killer domain name does convey trust and is instantly recognizable.

Torah.com may not be the best looking website yet, as it’s a work in progress. However, I receive many Jewish-related questions every week from people who think Torah.com is the expert. I may not be from Lowell or have the most comprehensive site about Lowell (it’s debatable), but hundreds of people still visit Lowell.com each day, and many people book their hotel reservations right on the site.

A new company can spend a lot of money on marketing to convey trust. A category defining domain name can be expensive, but it can give instant credibility to a new or rebranded company.

Twitter Down: Facing DOS Attack

Elliot Silver
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6

twitterTwitter has been down for the past few hours, the result of a denial of service attack, according to an article on CNET. Although this must be frustrating to avid Twitter users and Twitter employees, this outage could end up being a very good thing for the company.

I haven’t dug in to my Google Analytics account this morning, but I would bet my traffic is down (on my blog and on my geodomain names). Generally after I post an article on my blog, I post an update on Twitter to let my followers know that there’s a new article. Within a few minutes, people begin to post comments, and I can tell that many of them saw the link via Twitter and visited my blog as a result. This hasn’t happened yet.

Needless to say, with a Twitter outage, I am sure that a lot of websites are seeing a significant impact to their traffic. Some sites may even see a loss of revenue as a result of the Twitter outage. All of this will make companies realize how important Twitter is to their bottom line, and may shed some light on ways to generate revenue for the yet to be profitable venture.

Microsoft Acquires Office.com Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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7

In a private move, Microsoft has acquired the domain name Office.com for a yet to be disclosed sum. Perhaps this figure will be disclosed in a future SEC filing.

Sometime between May 19 and May 23, 2009, a company called Marksmen, a Microsoft contractor according to ComputerWorld, took possession of the domain name. On August 4th, the domain name was transferred to Microsoft’s account, according to Whois information.

There is a note on the Office.com website advising customers that the company formerly operating on Office.com will no longer be operating on that domain name:

As you know from the recent email we sent you, we will be transitioning the operation of your Virtual Office account to ContactOffice.com during the next 30 days.

As part of this transition, on Monday, June 29, 2009, we changed email addresses in the office.com domain to ones in the contactoffice.com domain.

That said, it looks like Microsoft made a smart strategic move and will begin to use Office.com for it’s Microsoft Office suite of products in lieu of its current office.microsoft.com url. It will be interesting to see if there will be any significant changes to the operation of the website and interactivity on it, or if its simply a branding decision to enhance the company’s online presence.

Note to Politicians: Pay for Your Domains

Elliot Silver
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4

Because I get many Google Alerts each day, I am on top of just about every news article mentioning domain names. An article theme that is especially common has a title that goes something like this: “Cybersquatter buys domain name of XXXXXX candidate.” Instead of focusing on the fact that the politician forgot to renew his/her domain name, these articles almost always focus on the domain buyer.

On generic domain names, I have very little sympathy. I don’t think I own any common last name domain names, but I believe those are pretty much fair game since nobody has the rights to claim them as their own with many others sharing the same name. Other types of names can be more of a gray area depending on how common the phrase is, but regardless of my opinion and feelings about cybersquatting is the need to protect domain names from others who might want them for a variety of reasons. The onus should be on the politician for choosing not to renew his domain name.

Here are a few suggestions for political candidates when it comes to domain names:

1) Make sure the domain name is registered in the politican’s name, with privacy if he doesn’t want to give out an email address of an assistant. Campaign managers and workers come and go, and if they are getting the notices, the domain name may not be renewed.

2) Register domain names for several years and check on the registration every now and again. Set Blackberry/iPhone calendar alerts for a few years from now, and assuming the calendar is imported when a new mobile device is purchased, the alert will still be active.

3) Keep an active credit card on file

4) Don’t dump campaign domain names – even if they are time sensitive (Silver2008.org for example). They may not be useful in 2012, but they will have inlinks and perhaps some traffic. Maybe the domain names aren’t valuable to the campaign, but they could be valuable to a competitor or a cybersquatter who will monetize it. For $8, it should be a no brainer.

Just like the family who can’t afford to pay the bank for it’s home loan, a domain name will become available for someone else much like a home becomes the property of the bank if there’s a default. Most registrars give plenty of notice and time to renew, so there shouldn’t be a reason not to do it.

No matter what, a previously used campaign domain name has value to someone, and the politician should do whatever it takes to make sure he/she hangs on to associated domain names.

Find Domain Names for Sale in Google

Elliot Silver
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2

Google LogoMost of my domain purchases have come from either direct inquiries to domain owners after Whois searches or by finding domain names for sale listed by companies such as BuyDomains and Sedo. I have also purchased domain names via drop auction, new registration and a variety of other places commonly known by domain investors.

I have also bought domain names that I found were for sale through Google searches. Domain owners sometimes believe that the best way to find a buyer for a domain name is to create a landing page that shows the domain name is for sale. When someone lands on the site, possibly to see if anything is there, they will find that the domain name is available to purchase.

I haven’t heard of many people using this method to find domain names for sale, so I wanted to share a few search queries that might help you find good domain names that are currently for sale by their owners, many of which are not listed on domain sales websites.

Some searches I have used to find domain names for sale include:

  • “This domain name is for sale”
  • “This url is for sale”
  • “Buy this domain name”
  • “Make an offer for this domain name”
  • “To purchase this domain, click here”

In addition to the above search terms, there are dozens of similar terms that can be searched depending on the domain owner’s verbiage preference. Oftentimes, these domain names are not listed for sale on the big brokerage websites. Further, many times the Whois information may be private, although the owner’s email address is actually listed on the website, making it easier to contact the owner.

There are a lot of crappy domain names for sale that you will have to wade through to find good names, but the search could be worth the effort. It may be especially beneficial if you find a different phrase that hasn’t been searched by people like myself, as you may come across even more hidden gems for sale.

A Domain Investor Doesn’t Rest…Unless

Elliot Silver
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30

A domain investor and developer doesn’t rest unless… it’s his anniversary. I’m taking the day off today to spend time with my completely understanding wife as we celebrate our first anniversary. Looking forward to many more happy anniversaries!

We ran a 5k race in the rain this morning as the first part of our anniversary celebration, and my wife kicked some serious you know what! She was the 6th woman overall and won first place in her age group… this coming after an eleven mile run yesterday (she’s training for a triathalon).

Tonight we’re headed to a special restaurant for dinner. It’s the restaurant I took her on our   first date and it’s also where we celebrated our engagement.

Hope you enjoy your weekend! I will be slow in responding to emails today – sorry in advance!

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