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Buy Potential Typos of Your Domains

Elliot Silver
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6

Stanley SteemerWhen a company advertises in media that requires the viewer to visit the company’s website subsequent to seeing the advertisement (like television, radio, newspaper, billboards…etc), it’s important that the company own potential typo domain names. People have a short memory, especially when they are doing other things, and there is strong potential for them to type-in the wrong domain name.

In the middle of writing an article, I happened to hear a commercial for Stanley Steemer, a carpet cleaning company. Because I have been thinking about getting a 8×10 rug cleaned, I visited the website a few minutes after the commercial. When I typed in StanleySteamer.com (assuming it was “steamer” for steam cleaning), I was redirected to StanleySteemer.com, the correct domain name.

It goes without saying, but it’s smart to forward the typo to the proper address.   I have seen a few companies not do this (or own the generic name and not forward that to their brand), and I have also seen companies who don’t forward the non-www to their correct address. It’s even a smarter move by Stanley Steemer to own this obvious typo, because Google’s Keyword Tool shows a significant amount of searches. Many companies don’t think about buying the typo until it’s too late, and the company was smart to do it (although I would have recommended to spend a few dollars extra on StanlySteamer.com and StanlySteemer.com despite just a few searches for those terms).

When a visitor intends to visit a particular company and types in the domain name, this is high value traffic because the visitor knows what he wants and where to get it. Should the company not own the typo and a cybersquatter has it (in the case of a trademark typo), the company will have to pay to get this traffic forwarded via PPC link. The company will usually end up paying much more in PPC advertising than they would for the domain name.

Dolphins.com UDRP Update

Elliot Silver
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10

Miami DolphinsAs reported last week, the Miami Dolphins filed a UDRP for the domain name, Dolphins.com. According to domain registrar and brand protection company, Mark Monitor, Dolphins.com is now owned by the National Football League (see screenshot below), although the DNS has not been changed nor the domain forwarded to the Miami Dolphins website.

A few days ago, I noticed that the status of the UDRP filing was listed as Suspended, and now the domain name has been transferred, despite the current PPC links. A Suspended proceeding generally means that the two sides either reached some sort of agreement about the UDRP proceeding or a lawsuit was filed to prevent a ruling.

Although I don’t have any details about what was worked out in private, perhaps it will be reported in a future public corporate filing.

Dolphins.com Whois

Awesome New Website Events Calendar

Elliot Silver
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For a while, I wasn’t happy with the event calendars on Burbank.com, Lowell.com, and Newburyport.com. Because of the way the default calendar was used, I couldn’t index event listings, and there were also duplicate page issues due to the functionality. The calendar featured pop-up events, and when a visitor clicked anywhere on the calendar, he was taken to a main calendar page that listed all events. As soon as the event passed, the event was removed from the site.

As a result of this set up, events were prevented from being indexed in Google. Organizations were still happy to be listed because it provided good coverage for a few days before the event, but it was far from optimal. With these issues in mind, I wrote a post on the private domain forum Domain Boardroom, and I posted a request on the blog as well. Mike St. John, a programmer and domain investor responded, and he was able to change my calendar from average to fantastic using his tremendous programming skills.

Not only am I able to index each event separately (allowing me to email links to people and post them on social networking sites like Twitter), my events are now indexed in Google. Literally a half hour after launching the new calendar, I received my first Google Alert with a calendar event listed.

When you have a chance, check out Newburyport.com for the “before” calendar, and then check out Lowell.com or Burbank.com for the “after.” If you happen to see something funky, please let me know as there may be a couple of hiccups here and there.

I know this change is going to drive more traffic to the site, and it’s going to make a whole lot of organizations and businesses appreciate the extra event exposure.   I really appreciate Mike St. John’s help for all of his hard programming work because the “what you see is what you get” calendar that I had was turned into an awesome traffic generating device. If you have any programming needs, I would use him again in a second.

Give Them What They Want

Elliot Silver
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9

Do you own some good domain names but you aren’t sure how to develop them? Maybe they’re either “too generic” or too broad, and you can’t determine what would be best for the website. If this is the case, why not put up a simple one page website for a month or two with a blank form asking visitors what they expect to see and/or what they’d like to see on your site.

If development isn’t your forte, one of the developers listed on my sidebar can help you create a very simple site with a form, allowing visitors to tell you exactly what they think your website should be. Instead of guessing what people want when they visit, why not ask them and give them what they want. You can also add a poll with pre-selected options to make it easier for them in case they don’t want to spend time writing.

Based on what your visitors tell you in your questionnaire/poll, you can build a great website with the desired content, and then you can figure out how to monetize it after. If you give visitors what they want, they will probably return – and they may even have more of a vested interest in your site when you launch.

Additionally, if you already have a website, you might want to add a user feedback form to make sure you are giving them what they want. Ask if they are satisfied with your current site, and make changes as necessary. If a visitor is passionate enough to share his opinion, it’s probably an important change to make.

Microsoft / Yahoo Deal Increases Value of Generic Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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12

MicroHooThe Yahoo and Microsoft on-again off-again partnership/buyout discussions have been all over the financial and Internet news for a while, so I don’t need to chronicle those here. Yesterday afternoon, news broke that Yahoo and Microsoft were not only talking once again, but a deal was imminent. This morning it was announced that a deal between the two companies had been completed – finally.

According to Reuters, the upshot of the deal is that Microsoft’s Bing search engine will handle search duties on all Yahoo-owned websites, and Yahoo will be responsible for selling the premium search ads. This means that Bing will now be the search engine for nearly 30% of all searches, up from 8% in June according to a report from Comscore. This is big news for owners of generic domain names.

A few weeks ago, I posted an article stating that Microsoft’s Bing search engine seems to love developed generic domain names. I listed a small sample of search results for generic domain names on Google and on Bing, and they clearly ranked much better on Bing. While I was doing my small sample, noted domain investor Edwin Hayward was doing the same comparison with similar results, and the white paper he wrote shares his results.I didn’t report Yahoo’s search results, but they were somewhere between Bing and Google for the most part.

This is very good news for domain investors, because it means if a company has a generic domain name, it should rank higher for almost 30% of web searches rather than just 8%, making these domain names more desired and valuable. I won’t speculate about what will happen with PPC payouts because domain parking is a very small % of 1% of my total revenue, so I will let other experts provide commentary on that side of things.

I believe this is good news for owners of generic domain names.

Web Developer RFP Price Quote

Elliot Silver
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8

CabIn lieu of posting this on eLance or other developer forum, I am going to ask for a web design and programming price quote. Please quote your price in the comment section of this thread. After I select a winning company, I will share the company name and price of the project. I will also share the timeline given by the developer.

Once the website is developed and launched, I will follow up with a post for you to see how the project turned out. I think this could be a good opportunity for a developer to show off his/her skills.

Project Scope for CabCompanies.com:

I want a clean but themed design for the site – obviously a checkered/yellow cab theme. I am happy to send comps of sites I like, but I want it to be fairly simple and minimalist, but with an updated look. I don’t want something that looks like it was done 10 years ago… I like TreatmentCenters.com (which I blogged about a while back) but with less info – and no need to scroll down.

On the home page, there will be a search box for people to enter their city and a drop down box to select the state, with a yellow checkered search button – or something thematic.

When the person enters the city and state combo, they will be taken to a results page which will list cab companies as well as the address and phone number for each. There will be Adsense on each of these pages as well – with the developer choosing the layout. There will also be a button where cab companies can email me to submit their info.

If there are no companies, there will be a box that says there aren’t companies, but it will also have Adsense as well.

This will all be database driven, and I will add the cab companies by hand, so there should be a very simple back-end where I can enter the cab company, address and phone number, and it will automatically be entered into the database.

The developer will provide a sitemap with all possible pages.

URLs will all be SEO friendly – like CabCompanies.com/california/burbank.html

If inexpensive, I would like this to be able to detect a mobile browser, which will provide a pared down version of the website.

Please let me know if you can do all or parts of it, and at what cost. I would like to have all bids in by Friday at the end of the work day – 5pm EDT. If your forte is not design, I can pay for the logo from a great graphic designer.

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