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Steve Morsa Guest Post: When City.orgs Make Perfect Sense

Elliot Silver
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While the debate over whether building city/community sites (at least in the US) should only ever be built on .coms might continue for some years to come, let me share one particular situation–though very rare it be—where doing so on an extension other than .com (and more particularly, on a .org) makes perfect sense:
Earlier this year, I picked up a city.org (San Marcos; just north of San Diego) for a 75,000 population city in California with excellent demographics, an extensive and broad-based commercial/ business community; and not one, but two top-rated colleges; including one of the highly desired Cal-State campus’.
In my pre-purchase analysis, I discovered via search on the city name that there were not one, but in fact no fewer than two of these identically-names cities in the US (plus a number in other countries); and that the .com version was already an operating city site for the Texas city with this same name.
What I realized is that it would be not just O.K. to build out such a .org, but actually smart to do so; for no less than these four reasons:
#1: Anyone visiting the .com Texas city site looking for information concerning the CA city; regardless of how they got there (type in or search engine); would quickly realize that the .com was clearly not the place they were looking for; leading them to click away and keep looking (this is where good SEO comes in) for the correct city (once I begin build-out; probably in 2009; I’ll request reciprocal homepage button/ links; me to the Texas version; Texas version to me; to further insure that any confused visitors will quickly find their way to the city they were looking for; whether CA or Texas).
#2: Relatedly; since this is not a big-name “touristy/vacation-type” city, most of the site visitors (who will be seeing the local/ area businesses’ ads) will be the actual residents of this California city, and not vacationers from outside the area. Because this is so, remembering that the “official” (it’s official if you make it so) city site is located at city.org and not city.com will not be anywhere near the problem it is/ would be with well-known, high-visibility cities like Palm Springs, Chicago, and San Diego.
#3: As others have pointed out as well, the .org is well-known (at least in the US) as the extension where you can expect to find usually useful, valuable, unbiased facts, information, and other content from government and (non-profit) organizations.
Additionally, many 100’s (1000’s?) of city/ town/ county governments throughout the US already use .org as their official “city hall” address.
These two deeply ingrained perceptions of .org sites fits right in with what you may/ likely want your city site to “feel” like to Internet visitors anyway; they already come with built-in trust and authority.
#4: While “experts” debate on whether this is true or not; and/or how much difference it makes in the search engine positions if it is; the .org sites may be receiving a greater weight than .com due to their “unbiased/ government” reality/ perception.
And while the .com version of this city could have cost perhaps as much as $30,000-50,000 or more even if they’d sell it to me (no; I didn’t ask), I was able to negotiate the .org down to less than $1,600 due to its–mistaken in this rare case—perceived great inferiority to the .com.
This approach can also work for popularly-named communities/ “area designators” like Apple Valley, Happy Valley, and Sun Valley (it’s a real eye opener how many valleys there are in the US with the same name); each of which valley (name) are readily able to support multiple extension city/ community sites, since each are in different states.
So; while in the overwhelming majority of cases the .com is clearly the way to go assuming one can afford it (though I agree that those that say that a successful, “can make a very nice living from it” city/ community site can be created on probably most any extension [ though I’d personally only use a .com or .org in the US ] ); a .org can still be a great, more affordable way to create something worth having…and someday selling.
Bottom line? If you can’t afford the cost of a city.com (or even if you can but want to buy cheap/ risk less), see if you can find yourself a nice (I’d recommend 25,000+ population; especially if it’s not a resort-type city) city.org where the city.com is a built out, in-use site…in some other state/ area/ community.
So; while they certainly remain the first choice if money is no object; expensive city.com sites are not the only path to successful city/ community website businesses.
Happy hunting.

Registrars Should Help Prevent Cybersquatting

Elliot Silver
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In the United States, smoking is perfectly legal for people who are 18 years of age or older. Likewise, it is perfectly legal to consume alcohol if you are 21 years of age or older. Corner stores and supermarkets are required to check the identification of anyone trying to buy one of these products if they look younger than a certain age. There are also notices on the packaging explaining the health risks of consuming these products. Of course people still do consume the products after reading the warning labels, but the government lets them know the risk and gives them something to think about.
As it stands right now, knowingly profiting off of the trademark and goodwill of a company via domain name is against the Lanham Act and can lead to penalties of up to $100,000 per domain name. Also as it stands right now, this fact may not be known by thousands of domain registrants who knowingly register infringing domain names each day, but unknowingly break the law.
When I first entered the domain business, I frequently heard stories about the Internet pioneers who registered domain names of major brands before those brands thought to register them on their own. They were frequently rewarded with large sums of money from the brand owner, as Internet law was still fuzzy, and owning a generic domain name like Apple.com, Bud.com or McDonalds.com wasn’t against any laws. If a person does not know that they aren’t permitted to sell a domain name that includes the word Microsoft to the company named Microsoft, they may register the domain name with that intent. While seasoned domain investors know the law, unseasoned buyers may think what they are doing is legitimate.
I will be the first to admit that I registered a few domain names that may have infringed on brands while I was in graduate school when I first started out investing in domain names. Little did I know, there were laws against doing this – and this was in 2003! I am very fortunate that I never faced any penalties for doing this, and since learning about the Lanham Act, I haven’t knowingly registered an infringing domain name because I don’t have the stomach to worry about potential legal issues. No, I am not better than anyone else, but the knowledge of the law and knowledge of the stiff penalties encouraged me to stick to very defensible generic domain names.
With cybersquatting continuing to grow and be reported in the mainstream press, I think we need to begin to hold the registrars somewhat accountable. Sure it would be impossible to completely prohibit people from registering infringing domain names because who is to say what is infringing or not. However, I think the registrars should provide a notice at the checkout stage of domain registration if a person is about to buy a domain name that probably contains a famous mark. I said this same thing back in July, but as cybersquatting continues to grow, now is the time to reiterate it.
I don’t think registrars should disallow someone from registering a domain name with a famous mark as that would be utterly subjective. But I do think they should put a notice about the Lanham Act, in case a person is unaware of the ramifications of owning an infringing domain name. It is scary to think that a $7.00 domain registration can cause a $100,000 lawsuit.
Registrars should at least give notice to their customers. At a time when the domain industry is facing tumult from outsiders, domain registrars should at least do something to help protect and inform their registrants, rather than simply take their money and not care what happens after. I know this is a stretch, as we have seen some registrars automatically offer up advertising on domain names that are simply parked on their servers, and they don’t seem to pay attention to whether they are monetizing a trademarked domain name or not. It’s a stretch, but it’s time domain registrars become more accountable.

When Buying .org Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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I am going through a huge list of .org domain names, and I happen to be sitting here with my fiancee (well, she just left when I started blogging). The list of names I am looking at consists of a couple thousand .org names in every vertical, language, tense…etc. My fiancee saw a few good names that I would have bought in a second if they were .com, but I explained to her why I wouldn’t buy them in the .org extension. I am happy to blog about my thoughts as I have been asked before.
I believe .org is a good extension if the name makes sense to be in the .org. Since .org stands for organization, I believe the name should either make sense as an association of the term or as a group of that specific term. While .org doesn’t get as much play with commercial domain names, you can still make a commercial venture out of an organization.
Soccer.org would be a great domain name for a soccerl-related organization. If I owned it, I would build a directory of soccer clubs throughout the country. You could offer teaching tools, organizational tools or other enticements to sign up for the organization. I don’t think a name like Grapes.org would make sense as a .org, because it just doesn’t make sense as an organization.
As far as I know, almost anyone can own or develop any type of domain name, with the exception of .gov, .edu, and some country codes. However, we need to keep in mind that consumers expect certain things from certain extensions. If a consumer navigates to a .gov website, they expect to see something related to and managed by the government. If they navigate to a .edu website, they expect and educational website owned by a school or teaching institution. Likewise, they would expect the .org to be managed by an organization or association related to the actual term in the domain name. This can be a big advantage.

DotWeekly: Snapnames Makes it Easy

Elliot Silver
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According to DotWeekly, Snapnames is allowing customers who use their Seller Program to auction their names without transferring them to Snapnames’ registrar. They will now allow Moniker-residing domain names to be auctioned on their platform. Previously, if you wanted to auction your names using the private program, you had to transfer them to Snap first. With no guarantee of sale, it was doubling the registration fee, so it wasn’t always optimal.
I am kicking myself a bit right now, having recently sold 45 decent names for $1,000. My names were at Moniker, and I thought they would be great to sell via Snapnames, but I didn’t want to pay the $7+/- transfer fee. Three of the names on the list were similar to a name I sold via Snapnames in October for $750. Tough break, but my buyer got a great deal!
This is a great idea, and I applaud the folks at Oversee.net and Moniker for making this happen. Frequently when companies are acquired, the biggest hassle is when they try to work together. It seems that there is some good synergy between these two companies, and it’s working to benefit their customers.

3 Letter .US Names Fetch Thousands?

Elliot Silver
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According to the lead in to a paid subscription article in Boston Business Journal, a Massachusetts domain investor sold 800 three letter .us domain names to NameMedia for an undisclosed sum. The article states that “web experts” value some three letter .us names at between $1,000 to $2,000 per name. The article speculates that “his take from the deal was likely in the range of $500,000 to $1.5 million.”
I am not disputing this because his names may have been exceptional, but it’s interesting to note because according to a three letter .us price guide I found (3Character.com), they say the average value of a three letter .us name is just $45. According to that site, .com names are the only three letter domain extension worth more than $1,000 each on average.
It would be interesting to see which names were sold to NameMedia and if this will have any impact on the value of three letter .us names, of which I do not own any, nor plan to buy any time soon.

Conceptualist: How DNZoom was Built

Elliot Silver
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On Sahar’s Blog today, Sean Stafford writes about how DNZoom came about and how the company is helping domain owners manage their portfolios. Sean discusses how his desire to build a management system for his own domain names led to the creation of an application that can now be used by other professionals in the industry.
DNZoom is now a part of the Bido portfolio, and Sean is at the forefront of the domain industry. Read the full article on Sahar’s Blog.

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