closed Solar-Energy.com

[brian1234]

Maybe you could help myself and others out by explaining how you do it so successfully!

You are someone that believes a domain name
can only be appraised on its SEO value!

and...

"Much easier said than done?"

Why would you measure his skills and mindset
against yours, and doubt that he knows what
he's talking about?!

You then go on to ask for his help, in doing what
you doubted he could do!

I really hope he doesn't help you out..

 

[David G]

You are someone that only believes a domain name can be appraised on its SEO value!..

Completely incorrect. You are totally wrong in assuming that.

I rarely if ever consider SEO potential and seo value when buying names and look almost exclusively at keywords and typein value. That may be why you are reading me wrong in that I know hyphen names have no typein value at all.

 

[brian1234]

Completely incorrect. You are totally wrong in assuming that.

Ok then, how about explaining what your earlier
response (to WhoDatDumb) in this thread means
then.

Your response to him is reproduced below, and is
in bold.


Originally Posted by WhoDatDog

At some point you are going to have to explain to me why someone would spend thousands on
Solar-Energy.com when they could just add another hyphen and get the name for 8 dollars.
That's a very good point and something I never thought about before. It makes sense since the SEO value would likely be similar regardless of the number of hyphens.

 

[David G]

I said that in agreeing with whodatdog's post and said only for the benefit of those members who think SEO potential is more important than direct navigation value. For myself it makes no difference since I would not spend 2k or even 1k on a hyphenated name anyway.


P.S. I reg'd a few nice hyphen names years ago with better paying keywords than solar energy and can report they get basically ZERO traffic and in addition some providers such as Yahoo and Bing ban them from their feed on quality issues.

 

[brian1234]

I said that in agreeing with whodatdog's post and said only for the benefit of those members who think SEO potential is more important than direct navigation value. For myself it makes no difference since I would not spend 2k or even 1k on a hyphenated name anyway.


P.S. I reg'd a few nice hyphen names years ago with better paying keywords than solar energy and can report they get basically ZERO traffic and in addition some providers such as Yahoo and Bing ban them from their feed on quality issues.

hehe.

 

[Gerry]

Much easier said than done, unfortunately.

I have no idea what your names are.

This name, as I explained, defines an entire energy sector along with several additional specialties within that sector - Solar Panel Manufacturers, Solar Panel Installers, Solar Energy collection systems, Solar Energy converters, Solar Energy Electrical products, Solar Energy water systems...the list goes on and on. This is not a regional nor a country specific name. It is global. It appeals to global products, services, manufacturers.

With good SEO, I could possibly get this site highly ranked within a few of weeks. I would spend time doing more research into this industry. I would look at who the big players are (on a global, regional, and local level, the makers, the installers) and contact them directly once I had the site ranking high. This name is that good to spend time on direct contacting (email and phone) to sell some ad space on the site.

I have a medical site that is used as a portal that typically knocks down 400-500 bucks per month.

Properly done, I have no doubt that a proper site with proper SEO on Solar-Energy .com would easily do that amount and eclipse it in short time.

---------- Post added at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Completely incorrect. You are totally wrong in assuming that.

I rarely if ever consider SEO potential and seo value when buying names and look almost exclusively at keywords and typein value. That may be why you are reading me wrong in that I know hyphen names have no typein value at all.

Domainers need to adapt and adopt as the market changes. Seriously, a true 100% type in generic is a rare animal and perhaps does not exist.

Parking sucks.

For the most part, your parked names are depending on direct type in traffic when the majority would come from search engine and referrals.

Parked sites are being pushed further down the ladder because the are a parked name (site). Google and others now recognize this and devalue its hierarchy. So in the sense of search engine, this traffic dwindles.

No one is going to really make a referral to a parked page so you miss out on referrals with direct links.

The site of mine I referred to earlier gets traffic from Search Engines (70.40%), Referring Sites (20.50%) and Direct Traffic (9.10%). Typically with a parked name, as I mention, you are going to lose the referring site traffic and NOW a huge drop in search engine traffic. The name of my site is not a generic medical term but it has kicked some butt in getting ranked and optimized search keywords, etc.

If this was a parked name, the search engine referral is going to be dismal.

 

[David G]

Good points.

I have no idea what your names are.

This name, as I explained, defines an entire energy sector along with several additional specialties within that sector - Solar Panel Manufacturers, Solar Panel Installers, Solar Energy collection systems, Solar Energy converters, Solar Energy Electrical products, Solar Energy water systems...the list goes on and on. This is not a regional nor a country specific name. It is global. It appeals to global products, services, manufacturers.

With good SEO, I could possibly get this site highly ranked within a few of weeks. I would spend time doing more research into this industry. I would look at who the big players are (on a global, regional, and local level, the makers, the installers) and contact them directly once I had the site ranking high. This name is that good to spend time on direct contacting (email and phone) to sell some ad space on the site.

I have a medical site that is used as a portal that typically knocks down 400-500 bucks per month.

Properly done, I have no doubt that a proper site with proper SEO on Solar-Energy .com would easily do that amount and eclipse it in short time.

---------- Post added at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Domainers need to adapt and adopt as the market changes. Seriously, a true 100% type in generic is a rare animal and perhaps does not exist.

Parking sucks.

For the most part, your parked names are depending on direct type in traffic when the majority would come from search engine and referrals.

Parked sites are being pushed further down the ladder because the are a parked name (site). Google and others now recognize this and devalue its hierarchy. So in the sense of search engine, this traffic dwindles.

No one is going to really make a referral to a parked page so you miss out on referrals with direct links.

The site of mine I referred to earlier gets traffic from Search Engines (70.40%), Referring Sites (20.50%) and Direct Traffic (9.10%). Typically with a parked name, as I mention, you are going to lose the referring site traffic and NOW a huge drop in search engine traffic. The name of my site is not a generic medical term but it has kicked some butt in getting ranked and optimized search keywords, etc.

If this was a parked name, the search engine referral is going to be dismal.

 

[Gerry]

P.S. I reg'd a few nice hyphen names years ago with better paying keywords than solar energy and can report they get basically ZERO traffic and in addition some providers such as Yahoo and Bing ban them from their feed on quality issues.

Did you park them and depend solely on parked income?

Go back and look at the examples given. There are hyphenated sites outranking and outperforming generic words, terms, phrases because those generic words, terms, phrases are parked. Now, you (the owner of the hyphenated version) are depending on getting a share of the existing traffic that might or might not come. Your dependence is the same as all the other parked names.

Take a look at that study I posted whereas the top 3 sites in the referral capture 35% of the traffic. Dog wants to say then the bottom 7 get 65% which is better than the 35%. But, as I point out and you agree with, that is not how things work. When a search has 62 million results, you are fighting for a glimpse of traffic with 61,999,997 other sites and parked pages.

 

[staffjam]

Thankyou for all the comments, ideas and opinions you have listed regarding this name.
Now i'm no expert on building sites but i do have one of the most popular energy related sites online and although the domain name does help and is easy to remember - the keywords have massively helped me gain traction in google. I'm talking a week after the site went up we were getting good traffic.

The domainer's obsession with type in traffic is utter nonesense - i couldn't care less about 100/200 people a day typing in something other than my site - they will soon return and if they don't we get over 8,000+ new visitors every day.
How do people find us then: Article syndication, Interviews, Search Engines, people linking to our articles, bookmarks - we do get a lot of type in now - but that is purely because people recognize us as a good resource. Traffic comes from hard work and marketing – not a domain name (but a good one does help.)

I must admit i chuckled at WhoDatDogs comments as they really are not in line with the real world and he must have been hiding under some hard core domainers rock - and i doubt has any experience in building out a "proper" website.

The domain is important - but not that important and as for hyphenated names not being used for major sites - NONESENSE. My main competitor has a hyphen and he receives over 60,000 visitors a day in a very valuable niche - he is doing very nicely!

Would people forget the hyphen - sure it's possible, so instead of putting Not-Intelligent.com - you put NotIntelligent.com, i'm sure you will recognize your error pretty quickly. I very much doubt these people will think "what an interesting site - let me click on all of the adverts here and never return to the destination i originally intended to go to." Won't happen! People will find what they wanted and then get it right the next time.
Domainers greatly underestimate the Intelligence of the average web user - if you go to a website you're not looking for or a parked page - you leave immediately.

I am somewhat biased as Solar-Energy.com is my name - but it could be built into something rather nice - i wouldn't waste time with Affiliates or PPC - instead do interviews and PR for solar related companies - who eat this type of thing up. With just a few hundred visitors a day it wouldn't be a difficult sell - then you could syndicate these to get greater exposure (my original plan - which i haven't got the time to execute.)

So thanks again everyone this has been a very interesting discussion so far.

 

[eeedc]

The domain is important - but not that important and as for hyphenated names not being used for major sites - NONESENSE. My main competitor has a hyphen and he receives over 60,000 visitors a day in a very valuable niche - he is doing very nicely!

Would people forget the hyphen - sure it's possible, so instead of putting Not-Intelligent.com - you put NotIntelligent.com, i'm sure you will recognize your error pretty quickly. I very much doubt these people will think "what an interesting site - let me click on all of the adverts here and never return to the destination i originally intended to go to." Won't happen! People will find what they wanted and then get it right the next time.

There are always some exceptions, major sites with hyhens, that prove the rule: hypens are bad. What are the hyphenated exeptions, one of a thousand if that? I think someone named Green-e.com but any others?

It's not a good business strategey to assume that your readers will not make mistakes or to blame stupid people (not-intelligent) for your less-than-optimal name.

 

[Gerry]

Would people forget the hyphen - sure it's possible, so instead of putting Not-Intelligent.com - you put NotIntelligent.com, i'm sure you will recognize your error pretty quickly.

Honestly, it is a total non factor. Why? Because it does not matter to the consumer. Let me say that again, it does not matter to the consumer.

The consumer starts by doing a search. Then starts clicking on the links that appears. If they find a site they like, they may try to remember the site name. Most likely, they will not. They will bookmark it.

Consumers do not have the capacity to remember the sites they visit because there is no requirement that they must remember. The internet and computers make their life easier and takes that workload off the computer user.

I have hundreds, perhaps close to a thousand sites bookmarked. Why? Because I like what I saw when I did an initial search and I wanted to mark the site. I have a bookmark with the description (supplied by the site scripts) entitled, Great Smokey Mountains National Park Camping Page. Why? Because that descriptive text is exactly and precisely what I want to see vs. having to remember the URL (have not visited it in at least a year). I do not need to remember that the URL is http://www.great.smoky.mountains.national-park.com/camping.htm.

That is precisely how myself and the overwhelming majority of computer users (who are all consumers) interact and use the computer. All we need is a descriptive line to view and jog our memory, then click...you're there.

If I need an English Chinese Medical Dictionary I click on that description and I end up at http://www.drdict.com.

The hyphen is a non-factor, a non-consideration, not a deal-breaker, not even an afterthought in consumerism and computer usage.

Domainers reject this notion because they do not want the consumer or business sector to even know that their are alternatives. Domainers don't want consumers to know there is anything else but dot com.

Now, more than ever...with the release of even more tlds, are we (as business people) going to insist that the consumer remember the URL of the site they visit? Consumers already do not do this because they don't have to. But consumers will increasingly grow dependent on those little helpers (bookmarks or a graphic icon) to visit sites.

I guess more than anything, I am shocked to see the same comments repeated in this thread that I was reading over 10 years ago. No hyphens. Again, domainer rules set by domainers for domainers.

I would have thought that domainers, as business people (but most importantly as consumers) would have kept up with news and technological advances over that same period of time. It is almost like there is this pocket of domainers who are in denial.

Surely with the advent of the iPad and other tablet computers, people would recognize the lesser importance given to a domain name or url with all the icons on the home page.

Folks, I have news for you. Domainers do not run the business world. Domainers do not control computer usage. Domainers do not control consumer habits.

They just wish they did.

 

[eeedc]

Just when I think discovered a rare organization using a hyphenated name
http://www.kennedy-center.org/ which was returned by Google, maybe because it was their first (bad) domain name, but it looks like The Kennedy Center also has the unhypenated dot com.
http://www.kennedycenter.com/
but according to DOC COM and others above, they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name.

 

[Gerry]

but according to DOC COM and others above, they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name.

Quite nice to assume that. A very wrong assumption.

Which came first? Which came second? Did they get both at the same time as a defensive reg?

Do go back and show me where I state, "they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name".

Because from what I see, the first time this has been posted in this thread and right now, by you.

I have spent quite a bit of time posting in this thread. Perhaps I missed that. So do go back and show me where I say, "they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name".

 

[eeedc]

If you take the extreme version of the argument that, "hyphens don't matter since people will find the site," then no domain name matters since people will find your site regardless of how bad or long the name is (via bookmarks, Google or trial and error) and all your names are worthless.

 

[Gerry]

I really want to see where I posted or inferred, "they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name".

 

[eeedc]

I really want to see where I posted or inferred, "they have wasted their time getting the unhyphenated name".

Two or three posts above you said:

"The hyphen is a non-factor, a non-consideration, not a deal-breaker, not even an afterthought in consumerism and computer usage. "

Since the hyphen is a "non-factor" and "non-consideration..." I inferred that anyone getting the nonhyphneated would be wasting their time according to you?

 

[staffjam]

If you take the extreme version of the argument that, "hyphens don't matter since people will find the site," then no domain name matters since people will find your site regardless of how bad or long the name is (via bookmarks, Google or trial and error) and all your names are worthless.​

You have said some good things here - but your final statement that your domains are worthless clearly hasn't been thought out. Domains are not worthless - if they were - why are you here? Because you know the answer to that. In these last 3 weeks i have sold 7 names - all of them to end users - in the last 2 years i haven't sold one domain to a domainer - the domainer to domainer market appears to be dead - doesn't mean the domains are worthless though.
we're all going through tough times and like all markets the domain industry after having flown high for a few years is now down in the dumps - but it won't stay there forever.

I do have to agree partly with what you said about no domain matters as people will find your site eventually as now i never build out on Premiums (okay one more) - But just the other day i was thinking about paying $$ $$$ for an insurance related name and (i'm ashamed to say this) - whilst watching Sex in the City with my wife they said something which made me think of name i could register which would be perfect. 10 minutes and $8 later i had a name i thought was much more brandable than the keyword name i was going to buy - BUT this does not make the keyword name worthless - i'm just cheap and pretty good on the marketing/SEO side of things so it made sense to me.

 

[H2FC]

SolarEnergy.com sold for 1,650,000 USD in 2008. I believe its the highest price ever paid for a green/alternative energy domain name...so far. However, as I recall, I think some of the business interest was included with the sale.

 

[David G]

We are still waiting for doc com or anyone else to explain why solar-energy.com can be valued at $x,xxx but solar--energy.com is reg fee since neither version would get natural or typein traffic and the SEO value would seem to be very similar (unless I am missing something here)?

 

[staffjam]

David – sadly you are missing something.
The search engines have evolved – i was actually fortunate enough to read a guide yesterday that google gives to their employees that manually appraise sites and they have many signals now built into their algo and also spam signals they look for.
A double hyphen is definitely a Span signal.

Please let me know of any double hyphenated names you see on the first page of google.

Also i realise this conversation is getting a little out of hand but you can’t seriously be asking what is the difference between a single and double hyphen can you?

Las-Vegas.com vs Las--Vegas.com
Credit-Cards.com vs Credit--Cards.com

One looks professional and the other is rather ridiculous.
I’m not sure what else you are looking for as i think just looking at the examples is enough – it should be.

I'm not trying to talk up my own book here as i already have some very good offers on the name xx xxx - i was merely interested in getting some opinions of domainers and apparently they don't value the name as greatly as solar energy companies do.