It’s been common knowledge for awhile that when you’re buying a domain name, the best way to ensure that you’ll get it before someone else registers that domain is to buy it as quickly as possible. In the past, the timeline was a few hours between your initial search and the time that it was swept out from under you. But now there are reports surfacing that the timeline is down to MINUTES.

I’ll say it again – if you’re searching for new domain names, be prepared to buy.

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Search engine optimization or SEO is the practice of trying to get your Web site to appear higher in a search engine’s organic search results for the keywords for which you want to be listed. The idea is that if someone is searching for a term that is related to your business, you want to be listed at the top of the search results page because that person will be more likely to click on your listing and come to your Web site. Organic search results are the “natural” search results, or the listings that are free. More about organic vs. paid listings below.

There are many factors that contribute to where sites are listed in organic search results – the combination of these factors is called the “algorithm.” Only some of these factors can be impacted with SEO tactics:

• Domain name - If your keywords are listed in your URL, you’ll have a better chance of being ranked higher in the search results for those terms.
• Duration - The longer your site has existed, the higher you’ll be ranked.
• Content – If you have high-quality content on your Web site, and the content matches the keywords for which you’re trying to rank, you’ll have better luck getting listed. It’s also beneficial if your site has frequently updated content.
• Metadata – This is data that allows you to describe your Web site with a title, description and keywords. Metadata sits behind the scenes on your Web page and plays a factor in organic search results.
• Incoming links – If your site has a number of other sites pointing to it, the search algorithms will determine that it’s of higher value and will list it higher in the search results. You will get an even bigger benefit from incoming links if the text that links to you contains the keywords for which you’re trying to rank.

SEO may sound like a relatively simple concept, but there are SEO experts who execute these tactics full-time and trust me – it’s more complex and difficult than it sounds. This post is just meant to be a starting definition of the term, and not a how-to or training guide in any way. For that info, follow the resources links below.

One quick comment about organic vs. paid search listings: All the various search engines display both free and paid listings on their search results pages. For example, if you type the term “SEO” into Google, the results that you get back will be a combination of organic (or natural) search results and paid search results. The screenshot below has the paid search results areas circled in red.

Let me say again that SEO can be fairly complicated and I am just scratching the surface with this definition. I definitely recommend checking out some of these additional SEO resources:

• Wikipedia’s SEO definition
• SEO Chat – articles and insight into SEO
• Search Engine Strategies – Conference series that covers SEO in great depth
• Search Engine Watch

Popularity: unranked [?]

I happened to catch a story on CNN’s The Situation Room a couple of days ago about some Joe Biden-related domain names. Turns out that the domains www.biden08.com and www.joebiden2008.com are owned by Fallon O’Brien from Indiana. Apparently, O’Brien tried to sell the domain names to the Biden campaign, but they didn’t want to pay. From a campaign spokesman:

“We we not going to overpay for a domain. We already have one we’re quite happy with. That’s JoeBiden.com, and people find us just fine.”

What is O’Brien doing with these domains? He isn’t using them for any kind of negative ads about Biden, nor is he monetizing those pages. Instead, he’s simply redirecting them to his candidate of choice. Currently, that’s Mit Romney. (He used to send the traffic to the Barack Obama Web site, but he changed his mind on who he is supporting.)

The story ended and Wolf Blitzer sent the newscast back to Jack Cafferty who remarked:

“No shortage of whack jobs out there on cyberspace.”

I don’t disagree with the sentiment, there are a lot of whack jobs out there, but I really don’t think that a domain speculator who is supporting a presidential candidate qualifies.

Full transcript here

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A recent domain name auction at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference in Miami featured a number of high price-tag domain name sales, including one million dollar domain name - computer.com sold for $2.2 million. Three .mobi domains sold for six-figure prices at the auction:

Poker.mobi  - $150,000

Ringtones.mobi-  $145,000

News.mobi -$110,000

This is suprising, because, as a TechCrunch post pointed out, this is a “domain many people might not have heard of, let alone used.”

Popularity: unranked [?]

This story about Facebook.fr on TechCrunch gets to the heart of why you need to start preparing for globalization immediately. Registering the top-level domains in all of your relevant countries is essential or else someone may swoop in behind you and register them instead. You’ll likely eventually be able to win the dispute that arises, but you don’t want the aggravation – or the legal bills.

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This is not a comprehensive list of the things that you’ll need to do to prepare your Internet business for globalization, but you need to start somewhere. And if you haven’t started yet, now is the time. This quote in a recent press release from comScore says it all: “Internet users outside the U.S. now account for 80% of the world’s online population, with rapidly developing countries experiencing double-digit growth rates year-over-year.”

Let me repeat that – 80% of the world’s online population is made up of Internet users outside the U.S. Internet users are multinational. It’s time to get started on this. Here’s how.

1)      Make sure your tech people at every level of the organization know the strategic plan for globalization. You may or may not have a CIO or CTO who typically sits at the table for strategic technology planning, but do not leave even the lower-level tech folks out of the discussion on this issue. For globalization to even have a chance at working, the technology behind your site needs to support globalization. And that technology is fairly complicated. My (incredibly) simplified understanding of the issue is that you need to use Unicode. But trust me, there’s way more to it. Just take a look at Microsoft’s “Globalization Step-by-Step.” You need your tech people on this one.

2)      Get psyched up about hiring someone who lives and works outside of the country in which you operate. In order to effectively localize your site so that it really works for people in the country that you’re trying to reach, you’re going to need to hire someone who actually lives in that country. This is the only way that you’ll be able to avoid creating a site that – for the lack of a better way to describe it – feels weird to the local users.  

3)      Pick your short list of target countries. Just because you’re starting to look into globalization, that doesn’t mean that you should tackle every country at once. One suggestion is to take a look at the international traffic that is already coming to your Web site by examining your site analytics or log files. Chances are that the countries that are sending you a lot of traffic before you’ve done anything to your site are going to continue to provide a good market for your products and services.

4)      Register your domain name with the appropriate country-code top-level domains. There are rules that apply to the registering of these domains – some countries require citizenship, for example – but it is always worth trying to get the country-appropriate domain name to support your site.

5)      Practice patience. Just like your original business wasn’t built in a day, neither will your international extensions. It will take time for the local versions of your site to take off and for your site to become established in the markets that you’re trying to penetrate. Stick with it.

~ Today’s view:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1439224573/

Popularity: unranked [?]

I compiled this list from a variety of sources. I tried to double-check them all, but I want to throw out a disclaimer that some may not be reliable. The information that’s available about domain name sales can be sketchy because many times the people who are doing the buying and selling don’t want to reveal information about their transactions because it can hurt them in future bargaining. So to the best of my knowledge, this is the most up-to-date list of domain names that have sold for millions of dollars.

poker.com – $20+ million – (I can’t find a reliable source for this – the domain was for sale by moniker.com at a silent auction in Amsterdam in May, but I can’t find a confirmation of who bought the domain or how much it went for. Rumors are more than $20 million)
sex.com  - $12 million
porn.com – $9.5 million
business.com – $7.5 million
diamond.com – $7.5 million
beer.com – $7 million
casino.com – $5.5 million
korea.com – $5 million
asseenontv.com – $5.1 million
seo.com – $5 million
shop.com – $3.5 million
altavista.com -  $3.3 million
loans.com – $3 million
vodka.com – $3 million
creditcheck.com – $3 million
wine.com – $2.9 million
creditcards.com – $2.75 million
autos.com – $2.2 million
express.com – $1.8 million
seniors.com – $1.5 million
tandberg.com – $1.5 million
cameras.com  - $1.5 million
vip.com – $1.4 million
scores.com – $1.18 million
chinese.com – $1.12 million
topix.com – $1 million
wallstreet.com – $1 million
rock.com – $1 million
poker.de – $957,937 – (This was the most expensive non-.com domain that I came across, so I thought I would include it)

Do you know of any others?

UPDATE:

computer.com - $2.2 million

guy.com – $1 million

invest.com – $1.015 million

Pizza.com – $2.6 million

~ Today’s view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1418435698/

I used the following sources in compiling this blog post:

Pacdesco.net Internet Marketing
Gagetopia.com
Royal Pingdom
Unhandled Perception
Wikipedia
Most-Expensive.net
Active-Domain.com 
DomainRich.com

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There will be a point when domain name speculation as we know it will end. In its wake will remain a number of big guys – the folks like Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling who today own multi-million dollar domain portfolios and are growing their inventory daily. These guys and those like them have the money, development resources, years of experience and flexibility to adapt and change and bend with the changes of the search market and the Internet, so they will be the survivors.

Right now, much of the money with domain name speculation is made by hosting a “parked” page on every domain in the inventory – the speculators then make money on all the traffic that goes to those pages through pay-per click (PPC) advertising. Some of that traffic is accidental, some of it because people utilized “direct navigation,” typing URLs directly into the search bar. But what happens down the road when the search engines get even smarter? What happens when Google and Yahoo are able to correct misspellings on the fly? Or when consumers get savvier and learn to not click on the ads that clutter the parked pages? What happens if Google discontinues its AdSense for domains program ?  Or if a new search engine emerges that completely changes the way that search happens?

What will the new world look like? New business models are already emerging, but most of what is “new” is based on the tried-and-true media/publishing model. Richard Rosenblatt is taking his vast network of domains and turning each of them into a Web 2.0 site with user-generated “how to” content. Ham’s company, Reinvent Technology, has a mission “to transform our direct navigation business into a cutting edge media company by leveraging new technology, innovative ideas, and intellectual capital.” In 2005, venture company Highland Capital Partners bought YesDirect, a holding company with 600,000 domain names. It has since launched turned that company into NameMedia, which features a product called Direct Search that turns domain names such as www.photography.com into an online community, employing an “editorial model” to create a “compelling user experience.” They also hired Kelly Conlin, former president and CEO of IDG – a media company.

As John Andrews put it in his blog, “The next wave of the competitive Internet has arrrived, and it’s driven by the Domainers. No, not parked pages, and no, not typo squatters. Domainers as publishers.”

And in case you don’t believe him, Schilling points to this post and agrees. But instead of considering this a commentary on how the domain name industry is changing, he calls the trend the “potential/catalyst to change publishing.”

~ Today’s view:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1412989830/

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·         Every two- and three-character .com domain has been registered – There are more than 50,000 possible combinations of 2- and 3-letter .com domains if you include the alphabet, numbers and symbols. And every single one of them has already been registered. You could buy a three-letter domain at auction – but prepare to pay top dollar. With luck, maybe you’ll find your company’s acronym. Bid on three-letter .com domains at Zestydomains.com, where they remind you, “Minimum offers of $x,xxx please.” 

·         Every domain with all a’s from a.com to 63 a’s .com has been registered – This fact comes from Edwin Hayward from the Internet Goldrush domain name guide, who says, “I have no idea who would want them, but every .com domain from 1 to 63 characters long, consisting entirely of the letter ‘a,’ has been registered.” Edwin, I agree. By the way, this interesting fact means that aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.com is no longer available. Sorry.

·         The oldest .com domains are probably not what you would have guessed they would be – A full list of the 100 oldest .com domains reveals some surprises. For instance, I would not have expected vortex.com (no. 30), octopus.com (no. 42), tandy.com (no. 50), datacube.com (no. 68) or toad.com (no. 84) to break 100. Sex.com did not make the list. The first domain was registered on March 15, 1985. And it took 2 years, 8 months and 15 days for the first 100 domain names to be registered. The first 10 registered domains are listed here:

1. March 15, 1985 - SYMBOLICS.COM
2. April 24, 1985 – BBN.COM
3. May 24, 1985 – THINK.COM
4. July 11, 1985 – MCC.COM
5. September 30, 1985 – DEC.COM
6. November 7, 1985 - NORTHROP.COM
7. January 9, 1986 – XEROX.COM
8. January 17, 1986 – SRI.COM
9. March 3, 1986 – HP.COM
10. March 5, 1986 – BELLCORE.COM

·         The most common letter to begin a domain name is “s” – The letter “s” is far and away the most popular starting letter for a domain name. Relatively few domains start with Q, X, Y or Z. Dennis Forbes includes a number of other interesting statistics on domain names in his Interesting Facts About Domain Name article, including information on the length of domain names and suffixed domain names. 

·         Most frequently misspelled domain names – I didn’t actually find this fact. But I did come across Yahoo’s list of the most commonly misspelled search terms.  

~ Today’s view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1407210597/

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The basics of domain name registration are relatively straightforward. You contact a domain name registrar (my favorite is GoDaddy.com) and you do a search to see if your domain name is available. If it is, you pay a small fee (anywhere from $8-$25, depending on the registrar), fill out a form and it’s done, you own the domain.

But things rarely go that simply. First of all, it’s difficult to find the domain that you want. There are currently millions of domain names that have already been registered, and there is a vibrant community of domain name speculators who are also bidding on domain names, so the pool of available names is shrinking. But there are some strategies that you can use to give yourself a better chance of getting the domain name you’re after.

If the domain name is available, buy it immediately
About a year ago, I found  a really good domain name in one of my searches, made a note about going back the next day to buy it, but when I went to make the purchase, I found out that it had already been registered and was now unavailable. This experience is not uncommon and it is happening because someone is monitoring domain name searches. The way to avoid it is to do your brainstorming ahead of time and be prepared to buy when you find a name that is available. If you’re not sure if you want a domain name but you find out it is available, buy it anyway unless you are OK with losing it completely.

Set up an account with SnapNames so that you can bid on the domain name when it becomes available
SnapNames is a service that lets you “back order” a currently registered domain name. The idea behind this service is that when a domain name expires the expired domain name goes back on the market for anyone who wants it to buy. But, without a service like SnapNames, it would be difficult to monitor the domains that you want, and depending on the demand for that domain, very difficult to get the domain at all. According to the SnapNames Web site, “about 25% of currently registered domain names–now an installed base of more than 100 million names worldwide–expire and delete each year.” This is a big pool of names that you will have access to by using this service or one like it.

Buy a domain name from a speculator or the current owner
Buying a high-price domain might not seem like an attractive option when you can buy a domain name for $8 from a registrar, but sometimes paying a little (or even a lot) more is worth the investment. There are many Web sites that offer domain names for sale at inflated prices – theoretically the price climbs the more valuable the domain. These sites include GreatDomains or Afternic, where, for example, today you could purchase cancerfree.com for $20,000 and where figurine.com just sold for $10,100. These prices may seem high, but even one of the most notoriously expensive domain names – Business.com – which sold in late 1999 for $7.5 million, was bought in July 2007 by R.H. Donnelley Corp. for between $340 million and $360 million. The current purchase price includes the fully developed Business.com directory business, of course, but it does underscore the ability to build a huge business around a simple multi-million-dollar domain name.

Another option if you want to find out who owns a domain name is to do a WHOIS look up. Typically if there is any chance that you’ll be able to buy the domain from the owner, their contact information will be included in the record, and you can contact them directly and try to work out a deal.

~Today’s view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1403041697/

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