'Net Features : domainers

Monetize and Manage Your Domain Name Portfolios

Linc Wonham — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:54:00 GMT

Domainer Income is a new resource designed to help domain name investors find, analyze and buy domain names while also trying to monetize and manage their growing portfolios. The new site boasts what is arguably the largest central repository of domain names and websites for sale, domain auctions, “dropping” domains and expired domain names, and it also provides domainers with comprehensive metrics and portfolio management tools.

Domainer Income assists domainers — Web professionals in the business of buying and selling domain names — with the latest information in domain name registrations, refunds, expired domains, sales and "parking" industry trends, as well as providing financial tracking and other management tools. Investors or other businesses looking to buy or sell domains can sign up for a free trial membership.

Weekend Warrior: Buying Websites vs Building Links

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:30:00 GMT

How much time did you spend over the past year building links to your website? If you are serious about SEO, then chances are high that it was quite a few hours. For some, link building is the sole focus of their business life. But is there a better way? Instead of spending hours, could you spend dollars for the same effect?

Building links is no doubt time consuming, and there are no guarantees that your efforts will pay off in the long run - “paying off” in this sense meaning a positive influence on your website's position on search results pages for competitive terms. There are simply too many variables to consider. For example, what if the site(s) linking to you receives a penalty?

The constant content development (and don't forget to couple that with all the creative horsepower you will need for the link bait), the time spent on email exchanges and the promises you must keep with other websites that for many will be perceived as competition for the same user. You might even be paying for links directly to sites. Is there an alternative? A better way? Yep.

This "better way" for many is not actually to build links at all, but rather to buy established websites. That might seem like a daunting process, and it most certainly can be if you don’t understand the process and don’t know where to go to buy established websites. Let’s change that. Weekend Warriors with some practical guidance on buying websites.

The Process of Buying Websites

If buying websites seems like a reasonable undertaking, you will need to ask some very important questions and take precautions so that you will not get burned.

Lawyer Up? While the absolute safest course of action would be to hire an attorney and force all parties to sign a purchase contract to protect your interests, you can get away without one (although it is not recommended). Oftentimes, there are so many potential buyers for the best domains that the speed at which you must act can be hindered by the back and forth associated with legal wrangling. While performing some due diligence is not a replacement for the protection a contract can provide, understanding that much about buying websites is managing risk will serve you well.

How Many Drops and Transfers? Having details about the chain of ownership over time will also provide insights regarding the overall quality of the domain. If it has changed hands ten times in the past year, consider that a good sign to avoid the seller and the domain. It’s not easy to determine how often it has changed hands, which is why we identified lawyer-ing up as the first step in the process of buying websites.

Domain valuation is of paramount importance. There are of course many things you should also consider in the process of buying a website. Remember, you are not just buying a domain name but an entire website. This means you will want to assess the sites’ ability to attract and retain an audience on its existing merit, analyze the quality of the content (and make sure you get the content too), check the number and quality (big emphasis there) of back-links to ensure they are thematic and relevant to the audience. Finally, the site you acquire should have some stream of existing revenue/income – but perhaps even more importantly an opportunity to generate more revenue with all of your marketing savvy or though cross promotion with your other sites.

Where to Buy Websites

Inquiring about sites you are currently competing with is perhaps the first place to look when considering buying an existing website. Of course, there are plenty of established services on the Web that help facilitate the sale of entire websites. Here are a few of our favorites and some of the domains being sold in auction now that are seemingly pretty hot and would make a good addition to your burgeoning Web empire.

DealASite: There are currently around 2,000 websites for sale at dealasite.com and some would be great acquisitions. For sellers it is interesting to note that there is no charge (for a limited time) to list and sell websites and domain names. The site gives sellers the ability to set an asking price, but buyers are instructed that offers can be above or below that value. Sellers simply choose the best offer or none at all at the conclusion of the auction.

One of the sites that stood out to me that was currently in auction at DealASite was kavoir.com (a weblog about web applications and website development). The current price at the time of writing was just over $900 dollars. Considering that the DoubleClick Ad Planner reports that the site has 22,000 unique visitors (Compete.com reported 34,000) the site is a prime target for acquisition (bidding ends on June 10, 2010).

Flippa: This online website buying/selling service (profiled in the February 2010 edition of Website Magazine) is new on the scene but is quite active. Flippa does a great job of sorting domains based on those most active, high-end sites/domains and even through the use of tags. Flippa makes a serious effort to get sellers to post details on the property for sale, include number of unique visitors, pages views, gross revenue and net profit and even the monetization methods used. I’ve found that most of the sites listed are priced pretty high but this could be attributed to the cost of actually listing the domain coupled with the “success” fee for those domains that are sold.

There are of course hundreds of other locations on the Web where full on websites are bought and sold. Popular destinations such as WebsiteAcquire.com, Bido, Sedo, SitePoint’s Marketplace, WebsiteTraders.com, eBay, and one of my personal favorites in WebsiteBroker.com are all exceptional locations.

So should you buy an established website?
Are you a weekend website warrior?

eNom Resellers - GoDaddy Reseller Killer?

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:11:00 GMT

Wholesale domain registrar eNom launched a new online storefront solution, dubbed Instant Reseller, which enables users to create their own private-label reseller business.

Resellers receive a hosted website and storefront (shopping cart feature, order fulfillment and credit card processing abilities) and have the ability to reseller 70-plus domain extensions and other services like email, hosting, SSL certificates, and marketing tools.

It it those eNom reseller marketing tools (RichContent and Business Listing) that might differentiate this program from competing offerings from Godaddy (see more below). RichContent provides eNom resellers with the ability to package contextually relevant content in their offerings which will expand their customers' websites and engage their audiences. Business Listing is a service eNom resellers can offer to their customers that allows them to customize and advertise their individual sites through WHOIS information.

"We are launching Instant Reseller to get new resellers up and running successfully without the frustrating wait between starting a business and reaping the rewards," said Chris Sheridan, vice president of platform for Demand Media, the parent company of eNom. "We want to remove the burden of web site development and e-commerce systems management so that resellers can focus on what they enjoy most - developing their own brand, their own customers and their own revenue stream. In short, we want to enable our resellers to focus their energy on sales and marketing, while eNom handles the heavy lifting of supporting the technical aspects of their storefront."

In related news, GoDaddy launched its own affiliate program last week (Editors Note: GoDaddy has had a reseller program for about as long as I can remember). Most affiliates have been using CJ (Commission Junction) to promote GoDaddy offerings but there are some benefits to GoDaddy offering the program directly to affiliate marketers - namely that they won't have to share any of the profits with CJ. GoDaddy will track affiliate link referrals for 45 days after the initial click and commissions will be paid monthly.

Domain Market Study

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:05:00 GMT

Sedo announced yesterday the results of its annual Secondary Domain Market Study (PDF). In 2008, top selling domains yielded $77 million in revenue - an 8% sales increase over the $72 million total from 2007.

Sedo's list of highest selling domains in 2008 includes Kredit.de for $1,176,672, Invest.com for $1,015,000, Printer.com for $650,000, Villas.com for $478,149, Tell.com for $400,000, Lowfare.com for $365,000, Banners.com for $360,000, 770.com for $350,000, SC.com for $300,000 and Triplecreditreport.com for $260,000.

The study showed that .com remained the most wanted extension, drawing in 76 percent of all sales. In second place was .net at 9%, and .info secured third place with 7% of sales. These results remained consistent with the generic top-level domain shares in 2007. Overall, every worldwide TLD except .biz saw an increase in the number of domains sold in 2008.

The .Tel Landrush Opens

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:08:00 GMT

ICANN accredited domain name registrar DomainPeople is urging people to preregister their .tel domain names. I can figure out virtually no circumstances where buying a .tel domain would be a reasonable investment, other than for the purpose of securing your brand. That will not stop some, however, from buying into the concept.

The .tel gTLD is unique in that it (and here's the general marketing idea) comes with a hosted website. Unlike traditional domains, though, .tel stores contact information directly in the domain name system (DNS), so contact information can be provided much faster than a traditional website. One single management and publishing point for "internet communication" services and the establishment of providing a global contacts directory service by housing all types of contact information make for a strangely compelling idea. Let's see if it works. Below you can see a screen shot of what a .tel would actually look like.

Registration for trademark owners officially opened on December 3, 2008 and ends February 2, 2009. This sunrise period gives trademark owners first rights to register the exact name of their trademark, protecting their identity and brand from the competition. The landrush phase opens February 3, 2009 to the general public, but registrations carry a premium price, as the domain names registered during this phase are likely to be highly valuable. General, ongoing registration for .tel begins March 24, 2009.

AdSense for Domains Open to All

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:07:00 GMT

Google has formally announced the expansion of AdSense for domains, a program which allows publishers to earn advertising revenue from undeveloped (read parked) domains. As you might imagine, the many domain parking companies are not so pleased.

Google by all accounts is going to be turning the world of domain parking on its head. Presenting not just advertising, but links, search results and according to the post "other useful information" which will provide a much better experience for both users and, most importantly, advertisers. Google apparently believes in the opportunity for advertisers so much, they are touting a case study with SEM solution provider Efficient Frontier.

Publishers and domainers will need to abide by the policies outlined by Google in relation to site and ad behavior, trademark issues, etc. Adsense for Domains will be rolled out in phases to English-language publishers located in North America. Current publishers can check to see if their account has been enabled via the AdSense Setup tab.

This One's For the .CA Domainers

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Over 100 dot ca (.ca) domains are being auctioned off at MyID.ca. The list of domains is actually quite impressive which is what sparked this post. Many are quite rare (their .com counterparts would most likely sell in the millions) and were registered as far back as 2000.

Some of the domain names include Gamble.ca, VP.ca, Diplomas.ca, bond.ca, and several that will probably generate some serious attention for the ISP industry including WebsiteHosting.ca, Dialup.ca, Providers.ca and InternetAccess.ca.

Another dot ca auction event that ended on May 29 enjoyed many high winning bids including CV.ca ($53,000), Income.ca ($25,299), Diploma.ca ($17,352), Pharmacies.ca ($15,100), Eyeglasses.ca ($10,999) and many others.