This session is moderated by Anne Kennedy.
Jake Baillie was up first to give his Practical URL Rewriting presentation which I covered several times, but the other session I covered as well. Err, I am just going to link to the past coverage of this one. He said its the same slides. May 2005 - Language & Domain Name Issues or December 2004 - Redirects and Rewriting.
Jeff Libert was next up. Doh!Mains Homeric analysis: All the good domains are taken. Why bother? Non-Homeric Thought: Trend analysis might hold some promise and who knows who will be the first mover into that domain turf.
Homeric analysis: I need a big honkin world class generic domain for this to be worth my time and effort. Non-Homeric Thought: What do I pay per click? Hmm...Domain cost???
Homeric analysis: This domain registration stuff is easy! The registrars are all the same. Non-Homeric Thought: Do a little research Ask for discounts, go to domain forums (domainstate.com and dnforum.com) and set up accounts for free, start to register a domain, and look out for things (see forums).
When it comes to domains, watch out for trademark issues. He said soon they will just sue you and really go out and put a hurt on you for registering typos of people's trademarks. They want and will send a message.
Don't let your domain names site idle and see what money makes. Do something with them, AdSense, etc.
He said long domains are bad. Dot Coms are best, but he loves the .orgs as well. He said registering nameblogs.com are good. Misspellings are good too (not trademarks). He said the trick of buying a domain name is to pick up the phone and call them. Domain forum valuations +/-, paid domain appraisals, the offer and the non-acceptance, automatic domain renewals, to lock or not to lock, set the DNS, domain addiction, hyphens are bad, make a concrete offer, not everyone wants to sell - move on, bidding wars, you mean club drop caught it.
Monte Cahn, CEO Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com
Industry Growth - Domain registrations have increased on average of 10% each of the last 2 years - There are now 70M domain names registered - 66% of all domains are renewed today versus 45% in 2000-2001 - There are 450+ ICANN Accredited Registrars today - Most if not all good previously registered names are re-registered when they expire/drop - 67% of web sites are found through direct navigation
New Trends - .com is not the only option...and it cant be - sTLD's - .travel . jobs, . mobi, .xxx - Length of domains & terms are increasing - IDN's and Country Codes - ccTLD's - Most names are going to landing pages or Web sites - not to dead pages
Compliance and Regulatory Issues -Changes in ICANN Policies - Transfer Policy - UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy) & WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) - Its Purpose - WhoIS Accuracy - Why all the fuss?
Security & Privacy - Domain theft prevention - lock your domains, protect and change PW, don't use commercial emails, registrar oversight - Traffic Theft Prevention - Register all variations, extensions, misspellings, set ip and DNS properly. - WhoIS Privacy - why is it used? What are the pros and cons.
Domain Sales and Values - Upswing in Domain Sales and Prices - UltimateSearch sale to Marchex for $164M - BuyDomains sells 70% to Highland Capital - Appraisal values increasing 20% - Real Metrics on comparable sales and new evaluation factors - PPC, LInk Popularity, Alex, Page Rank, Zone file look ups, etc.
Domain Traffic Monetization - Domains going to PPC Landing pages and earning registrants and PPC Companies money - Advertisers are Happy. - Domain Traffic is also going direct to advertisers - Overture and Google - MSN Coming along with others - Compare PPC Solutions on a domain by domain basis - do not put all your eggs in one basket
Resources & Forums - DnJournal.com - News, articles, and recent sales - DnForum.com & DomainState.com - domain specific forums - TargetedTrafficForum - domain and traffic monetization - WhoIs.SC - Historical WhoIS information - WayBackMachine - Historical Website Info - WebmasterRadio.FM - 8 shows each week
Ten Tips to Generate & Convert Traffic 1. Purchase industry generic & descriptive keyword domains 2. Create keyword domain sites 3. Think International 4. Cover your basics of SEO 5. Protect Your Domain Names (misspellings, TLDs) 6. Test, Test, Test 7. Create UVP (Unique Value Proposition) 8. A home page is not a landing page 9. Learn How to Monetize Your Domain name 10. Revenue Opportunities (PPC, CPA, CPM)
