Do some search engine research before making offers

[David G]

All the recent talk about the pros and cons of search engine indexing of threads reminds me of how I likely way over-payed for a dot-info name because I simply forgot to do a little SE research.

Just before (4 days earlier) the sale to me of this $1000 dot-info last year, there was an active thread at NP (not dnf) indexed in Google re that name. The seller (who I will not mention here but is a well known seller at the forums) asked for appraisals on his financial markets info name getting it ready to offer for sale at different boards, DNF and DS it appears.

Several reseller/wholesale appraisals were made in the range of $200 to $500., with about $350 being the average. A few days later I ended-up buying it for his full asking price of about $1000 which he claimed was in fact a reseller/wholesale good deal, but not really.

If not for my negligence in not researching the name thru G I am sure I could have got it for about 1/2 (or less) of what I paid, as reading the appraisal thread indicates to me who would have taken $500 or les due to the low appriasals, instead I paid double that amount due to my negligence.

To potentially save you lots of money, buyers (especially if a name is more than say $100 or so) should do a SE search for the name. The way to do that is to put the name and extension in quote marks to find search hits. If you do not use quotes it will not work and simply try to resolve to the name so be sure to use quotes.

As an interesting aside, my dot-info not only has dubious value at $1000 but also a questionable buy at half that amount as it gets zilch traffic, 1 hit/week on average. This is actually the fault of the info ext as the .com name is easily worth at least $100,000 or more.

The main problem is info's simply do not get type-in traffic, period. They are mostly good only as brandable names, for speculator hoarding, or a developed web-site, where you can spend tons of time and money marketing the name and its info (or biz) extension to get some traffic and business.

Simply searching at DNF is not good enough as you may have returns at other forum boards, as in my case where it was at NP and I was not active at NP so could not have seen it except for Google.

 

[bidawinner]

Realnames ,You have been at this domain game for what.. 5 years now ?

Why would you EVER think a .info would get ANY type-ins ?
That aside, it does NOT take a ton of money to develop a name..it does take some effort though.

I dont know what name you are even talking about but I can tell you this.. if your name represents a service or product and has good keyword searchs.. and if you arent making any money with the name it's your own fault.

The reason the domain gets no traffic is not the extensions faults ..that's lame.. 99% of all .coms get NO type-in traffic..is that the extensions fault ?


I have .Bz , .Us , .Info ,.Biz and .Ws all that get type-in traffic.. I dont sit around and wait for everyone else to develop in any extension...



I dont get peopelthat think everyone else is suppose to do the work for them..

If you want high type-in value in ANY extension ..then bid onnames that HAVE type-in trafic.. and open your wallet up with a lot more than 1k. I have .ws names without any type-ins..names I wont sell for less than1K ... ..keyword keyword keyword..screw the "type-in" get top keywords..add alittle elbow grease and boom ..you have type-ins..

the forumla really isnt that difficult..put a little effort in your names OR open your wallet and buy the dang traffic .


You need to quit straddling sides..either build your domains , play the drop game or pay up for traffic domains .

 

[David G]

......The reason the domain gets no traffic is not the extensions faults ..that's lame.. 99% of all .coms get NO type-in traffic..is that the extensions fault ? I have .Bz , .Us , .Info , .Biz and .Ws all that get type-in traffic..

You seem to be not understanding the issues. If the name is a popular keyword, phrase, term, people in general are much more likely to type-in the com, next in order of typein potential is org, followed by .us, next is net, with info & biz far behind, having almost no typein potential, IMO.

There is lots of confusion on how you define a natural typein. It appears some here think because a domain gets traffic that it has typeins but I am referring to natural typeins where someone types in the name to see if there is a site there, and not because they already know of the site or are following a link, or SE return.

P.S. I seriously doubt .BZ and .WS get typein traffic!

 

[bidawinner]

You seem to be not understanding the issues. If the name is a popular keyword, phrase, term, people in general are much more likely to type-in the com, next in order of typein potential is org, followed by .us, next is net, with info & biz far behind, having almost no typein potential, IMO.

There is lots of confusion on how you define a natural typein. It appears some here think because a domain gets traffic that it has typeins but I am referring to natural typeins where someone types in the name to see if there is a site there, and not because they already know of the site or are following a link, or SE return.

P.S. I seriously doubt .BZ and .WS get typein traffic!

I'm not misunderstanding anything..you are the confused one ,you are the ones buying names for 1K thinking that they should magically have traffic.

 

[bidawinner]

My advise is to quit this fixation with typ-in names and develop a few of your top keyword names.. I know you have a few .. I know one name you have had set up for over a year with just one page ..it's maybe making 1$ a day..it could be making $50 a day with very very little work ..($1500 a month)

If your 1K .info name really is a power keyword ..then that means tens of thosands are looking for that word every day and COMBINATIONS for that word ...

and THAT is what makes your name valuable.. now if you dont know how to monetize that value ..then that is a problem that you need to address..dont blame it on the domain because it isnt doing all the work for you.

How many daily "natural" type-ins do you think you can buy for 1K ?.. 10 ? 20?so what..

Gee'z for 1K you can build a very very nice website .. For 1K you hire out someone to optimise your site for the SE's ,for 1K you buy a ton of crucial links .

ANd anyone of those will bring you far more revenues then any "natural typein "domain bring in a lousy 20 uniques a day.. with few exceptions.

 

[StockDoctor]

Realnames The name you were talking about was a good financial name as you know. In fact it is one of the top names in one of the top financial product categories. It was an info and hence the .commies were very strong at the time in slamming anything not com. If members here or DS (where most all infos at the time were appraised pretty low if I remember right) ranked it lower than your cost so what? And no, you couldn't have gotten it for cheaper by checking out those appraisals. I remember getting a panel appraisal at DS of an average of $750 for Motorcycles.info as well. Yet that name was in the top requested list of names in the original info landrush and had bids of $3500+ even at that time. It was sought after more than England.info with more bids for the slot AND higher priced bids, yet England.info sold a few months back at $10k+. Heck, some people recently appraised NYC.biz at $xx.

What you have there in that name is an instantly recognizable tier 1 info in the financial industry. You can't argue that. The value would be to an end user financial company that handles those products. They would want it for the quality of the name, not for the traffic. Infos don't usually get any type-in traffic no matter what the name. Same for the other alternative extensions. The value is in the development. If you plug on a 1 page site it's not gonna work. My experience is that Google requires at least 20 pages of content to give any meaningful consideration. Also, you can't just count on that 1 keyword in that site plan, you need to build pages with related keywords. The big main keyword you have is like the showpiece. When you are competing against 3,650,000 Google pages for that popular keyword (as in this case), you can't expect to compete and get search bar type-ins either unless you do some SEO and use a few tricks that I believe I've suggested before. It can be done. Take a look by searching Google on the keyword Attorney. Wow huh? Over 30,000,000 competing pages and yet there on the first page is Ernie the Attorney, a 1 man shop competing for that first page with the behemoth law firms spending who knows how much to get there. Another example is by searching Google for the keyword Boston. Oh my God, over 34,000,000 competing pages, and yet on that first page of results is Boston-Online.com. A hyphen no less. Now a lot of members here and DS shun hyphens like the plague and wouldn't even pay you $xx for a hyphen name. So it's in the development.

When you take the route above as I advised, you can make that keyword work. It does have a good amount of bidders at Overture and at rates of around $3.79 per click. I'm sure Google pays a respectable rate as well. You can't just sit back on these infos and expect them to get some url bar type-ins and then be all frustrated when they don't.

Build a decent site with that name and get close to that first page on Google and I'm sure you won't have to contact some of the firms handling that product. They'll be coming to you and making offers.
Doc

 

[David G]

My advise is to quit this fixation with typ-in names......

Why, typein names are really the only way to go for small domainers? Most of us here do not have the big money and extensive time needed to properly market a non-type-in name. Brandable names are not the way to go for most of us, except perhaps for small local businesses and major nationwide firms.

For a small amount of money (often a few hundred $ or even much less) you can set up a small website and start getting natural typein traffic right away, with little work, time, money and effort, and without even being ranked in Google! I have purchased names at the forums for prices like $15, $25, $49, $69 etc and put a page online the next day and instantly got some traffic.

IMO, getting say 5, 10, 15, 30 visits/day and spending little money is better than spending thousands of dollars for a bigger website, SEO work, etc and getting perhaps not that much more traffic, and a lot less reliable, steady, and non ongoing.

It depends greatly on the extension. Most any name which is a common term/phrase or there are other websites with similar names and is a COM will get instant typein traffic. The same is so to a degree with org's. This is not so for other extensions, especially biz, info and .bz (what is .bz anyway - no one would type that in?). Those extensions all get basically zero true typeins.

 

[StockDoctor]

Why, typein names are really the only way to go for small domainers? Most of us here do not have the big money and extensive time needed to properly market a non-type-in name. Brandable names are not the way to go for most of us, except perhaps for small local businesses and major nationwide firms.

For a small amount of money (often a few hundred $ or even much less) you can set up a small website and start getting natural typein traffic right away, with little work, time, money and effort, and without even being ranked in Google! I have purchased names at the forums for prices like $15, $25, $49, $69 etc and put a page online the next day and instantly got some traffic.

IMO, getting say 5, 10, 15, 30 visits/day and spending little money is better than spending thousands of dollars for a bigger website, SEO work, etc and getting perhaps not that much more traffic, and a lot less reliable, steady, and non ongoing.

It depends greatly on the extension. Most any name which is a common term/phrase or there are other websites with similar names and is a COM will get instant typein traffic. The same is so to a degree with org's. This is not so for other extensions, especially biz, info and .bz (what is .bz anyway - no one would type that in?). Those extensions all get basically zero true typeins.

Sounds like you've convinced yourself there realnames. Good argument for your choice of small type-in traffic .coms. But I don't think a fully developed info would take more than a few hundred bucks to compete and kick the heck out of those small site coms.

 

[David G]

....I don't think a fully developed info would take more than a few hundred bucks to compete and kick the heck out of those small site coms.

Hopefully you are right. If you have the time, would appreciate telling me how for only a few hundred bucks (by PM if you need to mention the name, or Post if you do not) how to do it with this info name I got from you.

Earlier in a PM you suggested doing a Blog to get content and traffic for it but the problem was simply buying the blog software you recommended cost $899 just for that, without even considering all the learning curve and related work involved.

Thanks for the feedback in both your posts above.

 

[izopod]

the forumla really isnt that difficult..put a little effort in your names OR open your wallet and buy the dang traffic .

I think this advice could apply to most of us here, me included. Spot on Bid!

 

[izopod]

One more thing: Business.info has to be "poster domain" for underperforming dot .info's.

Business.info is THE best financial name out there (bar none), however from the stats, it's only getting (6) uniques a day.

http://extremetracking.com/open;unique?login=busine12


Here are a couple of reasons why the best name in .info is just getting only a few hits a day:

1) Afilias. They haven't delivered on their promise to ICANN to spend money on advertising. I think they were going to spend $25 Million. I just don't see it. I could be wrong, but here in the states, there is ZIPPO for advertising. At least with .biz, you are seeing small businesses advertise there names in the paper.

2) I think Business.info is the perfect example why the Sunrise period for "generic" names was a bad idea. This person apparently got "Business.info" for a client who had a Design TM on "Business". Neither here nor there, he got the name and as far as I'm concerned is to blame (mostly) why this name isn't getting at least a few thousand uniques a month.

 

[bidawinner]

Why, typein names are really the only way to go for small domainers? Most of us here do not have the big money and extensive time needed to properly market a non-type-in name. Brandable names are not the way to go for most of us, except perhaps for small local businesses and major nationwide firms.

.

Dave trust us on this ..we have been on both sides of the track... a domain with just a few daily type-ins dosent stand a chance against a 50 page website YOU can make yourself for less than $ 20 if you do all your own writing more of course if you have others write content for you.. I do a bit of both these days after always doing it all myself for the past few years.

Lets start with a site you already have up..the Posters one..you have one dang page ..you will never ever rank #1 on any major se for "posters" ..and guess what ..you dont have to ..the strong keyword is Posters...play off of that with a thosand other combinations ( posters. ./baseball / music / basketball/ sports /art/animals/ space on and on and on..add some content= text about each topic ; pick up a few links for ranking and there is all the traffic you will ever need to make your Posters site profitable..

I know ..remember I use to run a ton of small poster sites ..

That same strategy will work wonders on all your top keyword domains..

No funnyu stuff.no link share programs ,no quickschemestothe top..just plain olds good work ethics a few months and you'l be amazed and what you get accomplished and you'll start seeing money slowly but surely coming in ..You are creating traffic revenues and value far beyond your initial investment

Your strategy is to wait until the year 2010 when .US ,.Info , .Biz etc starts "naturally" bring traffic so you can sell the name for a few grand ;in fact you dont even want to wait. you want the traffic today.

We are not jumping on you ..just trying to show you the bottom line..you want your domains to be profitable then you need to put them to work..You want a 100% guarantee they will increase in value ..the put them to work

 

[David G]

....We are not jumping on you..just trying to show you the bottom line..you want your domains to be profitable then you need to put them to work..You want a 100% guarantee they will increase in value ..the put them to work

I know you guys are not, just a friendly discussion is all. Thanks for all your feedback. BTW, have already put lots of domains to work, but need to make the sites bigger and better! Always have difficulty getting content as I need so much of it.

 

[StockDoctor]

Hopefully you are right. If you have the time, would appreciate telling me how for only a few hundred bucks (by PM if you need to mention the name, or Post if you do not) how to do it with this info name I got from you.

Earlier in a PM you suggested doing a Blog to get content and traffic for it but the problem was simply buying the blog software you recommended cost $899 just for that, without even considering all the learning curve and related work involved.

Thanks for the feedback in both your posts above.

You don't have to buy that one blog program, they are just the best. There are a number of free blog progs out there. Google likes blogs and gives them higher placement because of the changing content. There is tons of content under that term that you can add for free.

Bid has touched on some of the other good ideas. With that showcase name as a header and the related backup names that I think I told you about previously, you can not just have a site for low money that performs, you can have a small portal. As Bid mentioned about the poster thing, you have to do a little more research on related traffic to the main term or theme. Then you buy the highest traffic names (cheap) as both sub areas and as stand alone topic sites that can each be submitted to the dmoz. The lower traffic terms related to your main theme are used as headers on seperate pages. You're building a mini net to catch traffic and push it to your site.

That's why I suggested your acquisition of some of those higher OV keyword strings. The extension doesn't matter, you're working on the search engines. Don't worry about url bar type-ins at all. Small potatoes. You're after LARGE traffic numbers with HIGH click-thru percentages in a high bid per click area. You have the right word to start with. The toughest thing to acquire you already bot from me.
Doc

 

[mole]

The main problem is info's simply do not get type-in traffic, period.

I don't believe in type-in traffic. Because I don't get any. :-D

Adwords does the trick for me though, so I'm a happy puppy. Perhaps your keyword is too competitive or highly priced for Adwords?

 

[David G]

....Perhaps your keyword is too competitive or highly priced for Adwords?

Not really...Mole, It's the same .info financial trading domain I sent you via PM a few weeks ago when you asked me for the url.