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There Will be Less Domain Development

Elliot Silver
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16

When I was on WebmasterRadio.fm, I was asked to make domain industry predictions for 2009.   I hate making predictions, but one of my off the cuff answers was that I thought there would be less development by domain investors by the end of 2009 than there is now.   Although this contradicts what has been going on throughout the past several months, I’d like to explain my thinking.

With PPC revenue down and UDRP complaints against generics/acronyms seemingly at an all time high, domain investors at all levels have been moving towards developing their domain names.   Some people are using mini site services like aeiou.com or SiteGraduate.com, other people are using companies like WhyPark to build a continually updated site, others are hiring great developers to build websites, and others have been working on their own to build out their sites.   Development has been the main theme or at least a big talking point at all the domain conferences since late 2007 and early 2008.

The one big problem/obstacle is that development is hard work.   Sure, a 5 page mini site will get indexed vs a parked page which typically won’t, driving organic search traffic to the site.   However, to really make good money and a solid ROI, I think more than 5 pages are needed to capitalize on the long tail in addition to the lower hanging fruit.   Since most competitive keywords and key phrases have considerable competition from fully developed and deeply rich sites, a great domain name usually needs more than just a mini site to see strong results. My mini-sites that do well started off as mini sites, but I also took time to add content.

This being said, the people who have been spending time and money developing are realizing just how difficult it is to make a good return on investment, and some will throw the towel in and either stop developing and building their sites or slow the pace at which they were going. I think we will see this happen towards the end of 2009. People will still be developing their best domain names, but I don’t think it will happen at the same rate that it has happened the last few months.

Again, I repeat, development is hard work. A great domain name doesn’t need to be developed to make money, but development will usually bring in more money and traffic.   The domain owner needs to determine whether it’s worth the money and time to do this.   Ultimately, I believe people who have been spending money developing “brandable” domain names will realize that they aren’t bringing anything special to the table, so they aren’t generating a positive return on their investment, while owners of great generics slowly realize that development is more effort than they initially thought.

There are great options out there to develop good domain names.   However, it takes time and effort to grow websites into revenue generating websites, and I don’t think all domain investors will have the desire to do this.

What do you think?

Elliot’s Blog on Facebook; Twitter Next

Elliot Silver
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6

I just created a page on Facebook for Elliot’s Blog, and I am going to begin using Twitter as well.   It’s about time I catch up!   Feel free to sign up or follow.

If you have any tips or advice on using Facebook or Twitter, please drop me a comment or a note.

Using Traffic Data to Register Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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6

A few years ago, I bought a couple of domain names for my dad’s business – one of which is the exact name of the store and the other is the shortened version, as it is commonly known. My dad had a website built, and about two years ago, he had Verizon re-design and manage the site, as part of his advertising with Super Pages.

Because it’s a local business, my never really focused on building a highly interactive website.   IMO, the main point was to have a website to inform people of the business who use the search engines or SuperPages.com. I figured that as long as there was information about the business, the brands carried, the store hours, and contact information, all would be good.   I never paid much attention after the site was launched.

Last week, out of curiosity, I installed a tracking code on the website, and I began to see how people were finding his website.   There wasn’t a lot of traffic (under 20 UV/day), but a good enough amount that it might be important to re-design the site. I was able to see that most people were finding the site via Google searching for the name of the store, and most had IP addresses that were local to the store. I also saw that some people are searching Google for industry keywords plus the city or region. Finally, I noticed several Google searches for a couple of long tail keywords that are important to the industry.

Interestingly, my dad’s small business is ranked in the top 10 for these two long tail industry keywords, and I also saw that the keywords in .com were deleted.   I decided to register the names and am now going to see how I can leverage the domain names to help improve this ranking. I am not an expert in this area, but even if owning the keywords don’t help the store, at least someone else can’t register and develop them, which would hurt the store’s ranking for these keywords.

I think website analytics is a neat way to locate solid keyword domain names, and I plan to do some searching through my websites to see if I can find any unregistered keyword terms.

How would you leverage a keyword domain name to help boost the traffic to a developed website?

Who Will Be Going to DomainFest Global?

Elliot Silver
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10

My plans have been firmed up, and I will be in LA for DomainFest Global.   I am spending a few days in Burbank prior to the show, but I will be checking in to the Renaissance hotel on Tuesday night.

Flights are pretty cheap (especially to Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport), the hotel rate isn’t   bad, and the conference pass rate is great.   It’s a good opportunity to hear some of the industry’s leaders speak, meet new companies that can help you make the most of your domain names, and connect with other domain investors from around the world. Also, if you need a rental car in Burbank, Midway is the way to go.

If you are planning to attend the show, drop me a note.

My Take on ICANN Issues

Elliot Silver
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3

I have largely been quiet on ICANN related issues on my blog and in personal conversations I’ve had with other domain investors. Truth be told, I know about how ICANN works and what their role is as it relates to domain names, but I have very limited knowledge about the internal politics at ICANN and the history of the organization.

Whenever I see photos of ICANN events, I see a group of people who look much different than typical domain investors, and that is because they are much different. This is neither here nor there, but I feel very disconnected with ICANN, much like I am disconnected with my local politicians. Sure, Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Schumer, Governor Patterson and countless other local politicians work to draft and approve legislation that will impact me, but I am not going to spend thousands of dollars lobbying and hundreds of hours becoming active in the community when the threat of any legislation will probably be minimal.

I am 100% in agreement with Mike Bekens that domain investors either don’t know or don’t care enough about ICANN. Sure, some of their policies may impact my bottom line, but honestly, whether I pay $7.60 or $10.00 for a domain registration, it won’t be impactful enough for me to spend a whole lot of time or money thinking about it. For my business, I work 15 hours a day developing my websites, negotiating to buy and sell domains, and contacting small businesses to sell advertising. With my 200+/- domain names, even a 50% increase in registration fee will cost under $1,000 per year. Even if they approve a pricing structure like .tv, it will be impactful, but the 10-15 names of mine that would be impacted aren’t worth the time and effort for me (at least in my opionion).

I also understand the potential impact of the vanity TLDs that may be approved by ICANN. However, I think companies like Verizon and Microsoft have much more to lose if/when this happens. I just don’t see a reason to spend time on this when they are fighting on the same team as me on this battle (and they are fighting). I also don’t think other extensions will have much of an impact on my holdings. If .xyz becomes the prominent extension, I will adapt my business model to make sure I am not falling behind.

Sure, this line of thinking could bite me in the ass, but I have to manage the day to day operations of my business more than outside factors. I think the Internet Commerce Association and its activities are very helpful to the domain investment community, and I will continue to support them.   I happen to think my risk exposure to some current ICANN initiatives are less important than managing my business at this point.

I will continue to listen to people like Mike (who I have the utmost respect for), and when he discusses an issue I will listen and take the time to think about the impact.   Mike is dead-on about most domain-related issues, and I support him 100% of the time.   With ICANN, I feel like the current issues will have minimal impact on my business.   Now I think the potential issue of ICANN changing jurisdiction will be impactful, but again, I think other huge corporations and the US Government will end up locking horns on that issue.

I do urge people to read up on ICANN and determine the impact it will have on their domain investments and on their business.

Meg Whitman, Former eBay CEO, Loses UDRP

Elliot Silver
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5

Meg Whitman filed a UDRP for several domain names, including megwhitmanforgovernor.com, megwhitman2010.com, meg2010.com, whitmanforgovernor.com, and whitman2010.com. The respondent did not file a response in this case, yet the panel ruled in favor of the respondent and denied Whitman’s complaint.

Whitman and her attorneys argued that Whitman has established common law rights to her name due to her many professional activities and success. She built eBay into a huge company, currently sits on its board of directors, and she speaks internationally.   They also argued that the domain names were registered right around the time there was speculation about her running for governor.

In denying the complaint, the panelist stated several things that, in my opinion, seem a bit inconsistent with what I perceived as the rule regarding owning names related to a famous/well-known person.   Previously I thought that it wasn’t permissible to make money on a domain name that is or contains the name of a famous person, when the revenue being generated is due to that person’s fame or notoriety.   IMO, anyone who would navigate to those sites is looking for the Meg Whitman.   Anyway, it’s interesting to note.

Some of the interesting notes from the panelist include:

“Merely having a “famous” name is not sufficient to establish common law trademark or service mark rights in the name. “

“fame alone is not sufficient to establish common law trademark or service mark rights in a personal name. Rather, the Complainant’s personal name must be used such that a relevant segment of the public comes to recognize her name as a symbol that distinguishes her services from those of similarly situated service providers. “

“Unlike the complainants in Monty and Pat Roberts, Inc., and Steven Rattner, supra, the Complainant here has presented no evidence of the actual use of her name as a source indicator in connection with the services she is claiming.”

I suppose if they claimed that the PPC links that were on the sites were related to Meg Whitman or eBay, they might have been better off.   I guess we won’t know unless she files a federal lawsuit.

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