Domain-Guides

The Roundtable is coming up in just a few weeks and we are busy reviewing domains for the auction. We have already selected over 150 premium domains and we are VERY excited about the list of several thousand domains that have been submitted to us to pick through. The reserves are set to attract Domain buyers both big and small. We are very selective of what gets in the auction this year.

We have something on the list for just about every buyer. Here is a sneak preview of some of the domains going to auction. There will be a total of 250 domains in the auction and every single one is hand selected.

FamilyPlanning.com	CollegePlacement.com	Medically.com
60.com	DrugAbuseTreatment.com	Tuscan.com
Invites.com	WirelessMouse.com	AppetiteControl.com
AmsterdamVacations.com	HousingProject.com	YW.com
AmericanLiberty.com	Motorbiking.com	HollywoodPremiere.com
Holiday.com	HospitalClothing.com	BusinessManagements.com
Iraq.com	VarsityAthletics.com	SanFranciscoBasketball.com
MintConditionStamps.com	FG.com	WartRemoval.com
CalciumSupplements.com	SendCards.com	XmasToys.com

This is just a sneak preview of what we have coming. The final list is going to be fantastic. We are more excited about this auction than any other auction we have held, and that includes last year’s Domain Roundtable event where almost $4 million dollars in domain names sold in just a few hours.

If you would like to submit a domain, you will need to do it soon. The list is filling up fast. You will not see an auction this big for another year – there will be hundreds of people viewing online and hundreds of people at the conference this year. If you have a domain that you think beats one of the domains above, your time is running out to submit it.

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With only a month to go, the team at Domain Roundtable is getting ready to host our most exciting line-up to date!

First, let’s talk money – and ways to save!

Save on your conference passes! DomainTools Silver and Gold members receive a discount. Just log into your account and get your discount code. Or, take advantage of our Domain Roundtable survey! Your vote counts in our Name Intelligence Awards. Be heard as we span the industry, looking to see who is the best of the best. Cast your ballot for your favorites, including Best Registrar, Best Forum, Best Industry Media Coverage, Best Blog Community, and Best Parking Company. The best part, though, is receiving $50 off your DRT conference pass as a thank you for your input.

Save on your hotel! We also have discount rates still available for rooms at our host location, The Palace Hotel. However, they are going quickly. The rate is guaranteed until April 1, on a first come first serve basis. Visit our web site for your to reserve your space TODAY! www.domainroundtable.com/2008/venue

Save on your airfare! We’ve had many attendees let us know that they are getting great airfares right now to San Francisco. Check out your favorite airfare shopping site!

Now, updates on what is happening at the conference.

As mentioned in previous posts, we’re shining a spotlight into the future of the industry with a host of speakers offering real expert advice on building manageable and profitable domain portfolios. We at DRT are glad to bring so many great panelists into the Roundtable this year. Here are some highlights:

• We are also happy to announce the return of our CEO Roundtable! Building on the foundation of the panel’s previous success, our team of CEOs will highlight recent trends in American and global economics. Hear the heads in the industry discuss how these trends affect us and get a first-hand prognosis from industry-leading companies on what you can do to increase during economic challenges.
• Matt Cutts, our Google insider, is still accepting your most challenging questions about SEO and Google. Take part in this intimate discussion by submitting your questions to our guest webmaster at: mattcutts [at] domainroundtable.com.
• Get information on alternative monetization opportunities brought to you by DomainStrategies, EVOLanding, Mpire and more!
• Sunday, April 20, see the .ME induction into the ccTLD space. .ME, however, is all about you, and so GoDaddy, the .ME initiator, and DRT invite everyone to take part in this exclusive lunch-time launch. Be there to get all the details and celebrate the sunrise of .ME. Get an insider head start.
• Our array of top domainers, parking experts, and SEO moguls, who bring years of experience and insider tips will discuss all avenues of industry.

Don’t forget the Gamble for Good party for Grassroots.org sponsored by TrafficZ. This casino night fundraiser is bound to be a success — after all, it is a TrafficZ party! There are great prizes being awarded throughout the evening. Plus, music by DJ Matteo, go-go dancers, food and cocktails! Play for a good cause, prizes and bragging rights! Check it all out and register early at the gambleforgood.org.

Plus, the DomainTools Live Auction is on! The team is working daily to put together the list of domains to auction. Stay tuned on that. But, remember that, as an attendee, you get one guaranteed admission into our Live Auction. You can find more information here in the auction section at www.domainroundtable.com/2008/auction.

The countdown is on! We’ll see you there!

For more details on the agenda, our sponsors and location, please visit: www.DomainRoundtable.com/.

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1. Keyword Search Volume – Simply put, keyword search volume is the amount of search queries for a given search term over a specified amount of time. Currently, the most widely used tools to determine search volume are Wordtracker, Overture, Keyword Discovery, and the Google Adwords Tool. The search volume for the exact keyword phrase “herbal capsules” will give you a rough idea on the likelihood of receiving direct type-in traffic at herbalcapsules.com. The figures are not directly correlated, meaning 1,735 monthly Overture searches will not translate into 1,735 direct type-ins at herbalcapsules.com. In fact, it’ll probably be a very small percentage of that. There really isn’t a reliable formula to determine that “X” amount of search volume will equal “X” number of type in visitors. Just know that the higher the search volume, the more potential traffic either through direct type-ins or SEO development based on the “herbal capsules” keyword phrase.

If no search volume exists for a particular phrase than you might want to reconsider registering that domain, especially if it’s for the sole purpose of earning PPC revenue from type-in traffic. Lack of search volume doesn’t mean that particular keyword domain is worthless. It does however require that traffic be generated from an additional source, such as development and link building. A keyword domain with low search volume can actually perform quite well once developed, especially if it has good advertising potential and keyword frequency.

2. Monetization Potential – Are advertisers bidding on the keywords that make up your domain? Once you’ve identified a market in step 1, you need to determine if there are products and services to help you monetize that traffic. Probably the quickest way to do this by performing a keyword search at Google.com (“herbal capsules”) and observing the quantity and quality of ads that appear through the Google Adwords program. Quality is determined by the focus of the ads. Are they tight and on topic, containing the keywords that make up your domain? Try to disregard the “catch-all” ads often served up by advertisers like Ebay, BizRate and Local.com as they will not provide the targeted ads that your visitors are looking for.

If your keyword domain shows strong results amongst Adwords advertisers, it’s very likely you’ll find a number of other monetization opportunities through various affiliate marketplaces and PPC programs. Adsense is not the only game in town when it comes to website monetization. It does however provide a quick checkup for monetization potential.

3. Keyword frequency – Keyword frequency represents the number of times a keyword phrase appears in a search engine’s index. The “results” appear in the upper right corner at Google.com after a search query has been performed. In my opinion, it’s more a function of how common a phrase is, not how popular it is. Still, it can provide valuable feedback when it comes to making a domain registration decision. Do not register a domain based solely on the fact that it has a high keyword frequency. As a general rule, the higher the keyword frequency, the better as this signals that the keyword phrase is commonly used. However, exceptions to this would be phrases such as “more than” (morethan.com) and other common connectors which will return millions of Google results but really have no clear use as a keyword domain for monetization purposes. You’ll also want to scan the results to make sure your keyword phrase is being used in the context that you expected it to be. Many times various punctuation marks may be present in the results which will dramatically skew the results (See “small medium” as an example).

On the other hand, a domain such as PergolaKit.com (“pergola kit”) which returns less than 10,000 Google results may seem too obscure to register when in fact, it’s a great keyword domain. In this case, you’ve come across a small, focused niche that will actually perform very well. If you run “pergola kit” through steps 1 and 2 it will become obvious why.

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Good Evening Folks,

A year ago I decided to
write a book. 75 posts later, that book is done. It resides right here. 75
posts (Chapters) most of which are aimed at the corporate and investment world
along with the domain industry as well as other trailblazers. Free for the reading. I hope someday it is read by folks on Main
Street to Wall Street who can TRANSFORM their businesses if they can figure out just how EASY
it is to harness the power of the Internet. The posts are aimed at folks at
every level. As I have said for many years, there are countless ways to
climb this mountain, this was my path and this is my vision based on my
path. A 20 year plan. A plan based on timing. That success or failure has
a lot to do with timing. Sometimes timing is everything. So with that in mind,
it is TIME to do other things. Whatever I can say has been said. It is here. It
is on eRealEstate.com and it is on TargetedTraffic.com. Now the time that I
have always shared has to be devoted to other challenges and other projects.
The first of which opens today at Property.com. Others will soon follow. Time
to allocate my time in a new way. The industry is maturing and splintering and
becoming more serious and becoming more desperate. So the dynamics of the
cottage industry that gave birth to what we do is no more. The orbit has gone
to higher levels. Those in other orbits have to work hard to escape the gravity
of whatever orbit they are currently in to move to the next level. The safety
of mediocrity has to be overcome by the challenge of what the future promises.

Have a GREAT spring and
hope to see everyone in Orlando at the next TRAFFIC this May and in New York City in September. For any further thoughts, just read my previous post..

Rick Schwartz.

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The new Senator Snowe Bill titled, “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act” is loved by a few companies that have famous brands however it is being protested loudly by some domain name investors and privacy groups. If I had to judge the bill just by the name I would be all for it. Who doesn’t want to take out a phisher trying to steal bank account information! However there is more to the bill then just the name.

The legislation is very effective at allowing government agencies to act quickly. The ability to act quickly is the most important feature to take down a phishing group. A government agency can quickly find out who the owner of a domain name is even if it is behind a proxy service. However when talking with a lot of domain owners they feel the bill may be over reaching and impact them adversely. Not only that, they say the bill is redundant because criminal activity like phishing are already illegal. But in an interview with Computer World an aide for the Senator had this to say, “This is not a regulatory bill but an enforcement bill,” the aide said. “It clearly defines phishing and domain abuses as deceptive practices.” As a result, he added, the FTC wouldn’t “have to waste time in court” proving that phishing qualifies as a deceptive practice from a legal standpoint. So the bill is not completely redundant. The bill could have a lot more features and provisions that would make it more fair. In the DMCA for example it requires a sworn statement made “under penalty of perjury” before a hosting service needs to do anything about a copyright complaint. There is nothing to this effect in this bill. Which means that anyone that files a federal case could get a private whois record. However once again anyone that files a federal case already gets the private whois record because registrars that don’t turn it over are held liable instead.

Those domain investors value their privacy and think one of the key features of the bill is unbalanced, they feel that the speed which a government agency can act to remove whois privacy on a domain is undue process. Some domain investors feel the Consumer Protection bill may be an over aggressive Trademark bill in disguise. ISPs and Businesses can also file Federal cases using the legislation if they feel their trademark or business name is being used in a phishing attack. If they are phishing sure, I am all for it, but if they are doing normal business with a generic domain then I would be against it. Generic phrases and words should never qualify as phishing. I am not sure this bill allows Generic dictionary words and GEO-Domains to be subject this anti-phishing legislation…. well unless they are pretending to be some other company and phishing their customers. I am trying to figure out why so many domain investors fear this bill. I think the best thing to do would be setup a debate between Phil Corwin (ICA) and Paul Martino (CADNA). It would be interesting and informational to hear from both sides at the same time. If you guys are listening, let’s setup the debate. Setting the facts straight will allow us all to focus on what needs to be fixed in this legislation.

The honest domainers feel like they are getting caught in the fishing net like dolphins on a bad tuna hunt. I looked around for people that wrote blog posts about the bill and here are a few that I found; Jaikumar Vijayan of Computer World, John Levine, Michael Berkens, Andrew Allemann, Declan McCullagh of CNET, Elliot Silver, Sahar Sarid, Jothan Frakes, Internet Commerce Association, Amy Graham of CADNA, and Mark Fulton

There are a few misconceptions on both sides of the bill. Some of the people that opposed to the bill are not reading all the details sometimes, I found one domain investor saying, “no more parking, no more revenue, it’s all going to end if this thing goes through”. Which indicates there seems to be a bit of an over reactions by a few people. All the more reason for a debate with rational arguments on both sides. As far as I read the bill there is no way to seize a domain name using this legislation, it only allows for fines of $250 per incident during a violation if someone is found guilty of violating the act.

As the bill currently stands I think there are a number of things that could be introduced to improve it. I don’t think the House has a counter-part bill yet, so if a bill was introduced over there that had those new provisions the bills would need to be merged before going to the president for a vote. I suggest those people that oppose the bill support a new version of the bill in the House. I would definitely add sworn statement made “under penalty of perjury” to the bill.

I will post a transcript of the debate as soon as I arrange it.

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When staking out a good domain name strategy in brand management, there are a lot of things that need to happen, to lay the groundwork for years of success, both offline and online. The new internet reality has made it essential to develop brands with the internet in mind; failure to do so is a recipe for failure. The wisdom to embrace the internet as a tool to advance your brand, however, can be a recipe for sensational success and mind-blowing domination.

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