Stay tuned for an announcement on Thursday afternoon… I am very excited about it and can’t wait to break it…
Domain for Sale: All Proceeds Benefit ICA
Extracurriculars.com is for sale with all proceeds going to the ICA. A Buy it Now price has not been set, so please make offers in the comment section of this thread or send me an email. The highest offer received by 8pm EST today will get the name.
The term “extracurriculars” has 343,000 references in Google.
The domain name is registered at Moniker.
Saga of Nissan.com
The saga of the domain name Nissan.com is fascinating. For years, Uzi Nissan and the automaker Nissan have fought several court battles for Nissan.com. In December of 2002, a court ruled that Uzi keeps the name but he cannot use the domain name for the following purposes:
“1. Posting Commercial content at nissan.com and nissan.net;
2. Posting advertising or permitting advertising to be posted by third parties at
nissan.com and nissan.net;
3. Posting disparaging remarks or negative commentary regarding Nissan Motor
Co., Ltd. or Nissan North America, Inc. at nissan.com and nissan.net;
4. Placing, on nissan.com or nissan.net, links to other websites containing
commercial content, including advertising; and
5. Placing, on nissan.com or nissan.net, links to other websites containing
disparaging remarks or negative commentary regarding Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
or Nissan North America.” — Source: Nissan.com website
These restrictions essentially prevent Uzi from generating revenue from Nissan.com, causing him to solicit financial support to fend of Nissan in future legal battles. Basically for Uzi, owning Nissan.com is like owning a giant piece of land right next to an active diamond mine, but not being permitted to mine for diamonds. If he would want to sell this piece of real estate, he could potentially open himself up to a UDRP case.
The end goal of most domain investors is to sell their domain names to end users. I can’t think of a better end user for Nissan.com than the automaker. In my opinion, instead of Uzi’s public fight where he is forced to ask for donations to continue to stave off the far wealthier automaker, Uzi should have someone reach out to Nissan on his behalf and sell the name for a hefty sum. He might give up the rights to his domain name, but at this point, the name is worth FAR more to the automaker. This has become a battle of principles, and I believe Uzi might be smart to sell the domain name.
Instead of having to ask for donations, he will be able to give tzedekah and represent his family name and heritage in other ways.
Missed Opportunity: Subdirectory Direct Navigation
Owners of generic domain names know the value of direct navigation traffic, but a quick review of some popular websites leads me to believe they aren’t considering subdirectory direct navigation on their websites. Briefly, a subdirectory is the word or phrase that follows a backslash after the extension on a domain name. In the following example, Boston.com/RedSox, “RedSox” would be the subdirectory.
I frequently navigate to a subdirectory hoping to avoid the front page. In my Red Sox example, I often directly navigate to the Boston Globe’s Red Sox page to save time. If I do this on the Globe’s website, I am sure there are other people who do the same thing on other websites. Oftentimes, a 404 Error page is displayed when directly navigating to subdirectories, proving that many website owners aren’t considering this type-in traffic. Below are a few examples of websites that take subdirectory traffic into consideration:
CNN.com/Sports (forwards to Sports Illustrated)
ESPN.com/Soccer (forwards to ESPNsoccernet.com)
Google.com/Mail (forwards to Gmail)
Yahoo.com/Finance (forwards to Yahoo Finance)
However, there are plenty of ecommerce websites that don’t take this into consideration, possibly to their detriment.
BestBuy.com/Speakers (404 Error)
CircuitCity.com/Speakers (The page requested was not found)
Ebay.com/Speakers (Page Not Found)
Just as some people directly navigate to specific domain names, I believe there are some people who directly navigate to the subdirectories. Although these browsers may not leave the website if they encounter a 404 error page, I think it would be an easy fix to give browsers what they are looking for if they do directly navigate to a subdirectory. It seems that many news websites anticipate this direct navigation, so I think ecommerce websites should consider this traffic as well.
NFLatino.com – The NFL es Muy Inteligente
I just saw a neat advertisement from the National Football League targeting Latino football fans celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The advertisement is in Spanish with English subtitles, and it directs viewers to NFLatino.com. Knowing that some people may accidentally navigate to NFLLatino.com, the NFL owns the typo of their domain name, and it forwards to the correct website. Its’ a small thing like this that ensures there is no leakage in direct navigation traffic.