UltSearch: The $82 million/ year man?

[hollayo]

gregr what were some of these names you dropped and you picked up?

 

[lgolding]

If you get 10k uniques a day............

The big variable is the click through rate, depends on how good and key-word-like the domain is (good relevant search results). Say 2% click through (you’d be surprised at how low it will be), at the average of 18 cents per click; is 13,000 dollars a year. Don’t know how many domains you need to get that traffic, but subtract the renewals and hosting, and you ain’t quitting your day job any time soon! And ult is not rich yet either.

 

[lgolding]

No way the system makes as much as the articles claim, no way. More like ½ mil max. You have to be able to smell the promotional slant in both articles.

I've watched him and the ppc system for years, it converts like sh*t. For most of his domains, the ppc returns poor results of low relevance and sharper surfers do not click through, more like 2% of the raw traffic at best, not 5%.

I believe his best one word clear domains get more relevant results and have a higher click through, and because of their natural higher direct type in traffic therefore make the bulk of the money. But the majority of the domains drain the business model due to renewals and low click through. I’d be surprised if he owns over 50k plus domains, but if so, that’s almost 1/2 a million bucks a year in renewals. Unless you have high type in domains that are simple keywords, your click through will be low and you won’t cover the renewals.

The reason I believe most of the names are poor is that I, like one poster in the thread, have let many of my losers go to him. I enjoyed watching them drop over the years and seeing him grab them automatically. (I actually saw more go to anything.com than ult, don’t know why there is no buzz about ‘anything’, their portfolio blows away ult in quantity and quality). My dropped domains had 0-2 type ins per week, all had ZERO links, zero popularity, and if he was using popularity checking of any sort, I have no idea why he grabbed them. Some of the domains were strange words, and those results pages have scatter brained subject matter, meaning an accidental surfer will likely click on nothing, seeing it as a highly irrelevant annoyance. I think that is one of the main problems with ppc, is deciding the appropriate category of keywords for certain domains. The better domains that are clear keywords that get high type ins should not even be hooked up to ppc, they should be developed into a portal or using any other sort of affiliate program. However, since he has a large number of good domains, he has no time to build such for them, so the ppc passive use of them is pretty smart and is automatic after he links some keywords to a new acquisition.

I admit I /we can’t do the math without knowing stats on his top 10% domains. But I have always had doubts about, and bad experiences with ppc. I ask any forum members to let me know how to get real stats on ppc payouts. I have spent lots of time with reps from the top 2 companies, and they wont answer the question with real numbers. I have spoken with friends that run hosting companies and use it for all of their parking pages (pretty big volume), and they say it returns them almost nothing. Any links to stats or any people with stats? I’d like to find that ppc does better that I think.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by lgolding
No way the system makes as much as the articles claim, no way. More like ½ mil max. You have to be able to smell the promotional slant in both articles.

I've watched him and the ppc system for years, it converts like sh*t. For most of his domains, the ppc returns poor results of low relevance and sharper surfers do not click through, more like 2% of the raw traffic at best, not 5%.

I believe his best one word clear domains get more relevant results and have a higher click through, and because of their natural higher direct type in traffic therefore make the bulk of the money. But the majority of the domains drain the business model due to renewals and low click through. I’d be surprised if he owns over 50k plus domains, but if so, that’s almost 1/2 a million bucks a year in renewals. Unless you have high type in domains that are simple keywords, your click through will be low and you won’t cover the renewals.

The reason I believe most of the names are poor is that I, like one poster in the thread, have let many of my losers go to him. I enjoyed watching them drop over the years and seeing him grab them automatically. (I actually saw more go to anything.com than ult, don’t know why there is no buzz about ‘anything’, their portfolio blows away ult in quantity and quality). My dropped domains had 0-2 type ins per week, all had ZERO links, zero popularity, and if he was using popularity checking of any sort, I have no idea why he grabbed them. Some of the domains were strange words, and those results pages have scatter brained subject matter, meaning an accidental surfer will likely click on nothing, seeing it as a highly irrelevant annoyance. I think that is one of the main problems with ppc, is deciding the appropriate category of keywords for certain domains. The better domains that are clear keywords that get high type ins should not even be hooked up to ppc, they should be developed into a portal or using any other sort of affiliate program. However, since he has a large number of good domains, he has no time to build such for them, so the ppc passive use of them is pretty smart and is automatic after he links some keywords to a new acquisition.

I admit I /we can’t do the math without knowing stats on his top 10% domains. But I have always had doubts about, and bad experiences with ppc. I ask any forum members to let me know how to get real stats on ppc payouts. I have spent lots of time with reps from the top 2 companies, and they wont answer the question with real numbers. I have spoken with friends that run hosting companies and use it for all of their parking pages (pretty big volume), and they say it returns them almost nothing. Any links to stats or any people with stats? I’d like to find that ppc does better that I think.

Very insightful observations, gold. I've always believed that Yun Yee's business model was flawed. A fossil of the past .com era. Thanks for the brain tickler.

 

[lgolding]

more Q & A came up about utl search in this thread as well.
http://dnforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18787

 

[draqon]

Originally posted by mole


Very insightful observations, gold. I've always believed that Yun Yee's business model was flawed. A fossil of the past .com era. Thanks for the brain tickler.

Its hilarious to me that a man earning millions of dollars in profit would be labelled as having a poor business model.

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

Yun Ye recently sold his portfolio for approximately $160 million.

The buyer, Marchex, said they paid 8X revenue.

So for the record, Yun was making approximately $20 million a year. Hope this clarifies.

 

[Kase]

Yeah, I would think a multi-million dollar business would be good, not labled as bad...

 

[peekaboo]

Hope this clarifies.

been a long wait. :cheeky:

 

[Focus]

I am so jealous....that could have been ANY of us.....I remember..... (I always tell this story before i kick my own a$$) I checked the network solutions site way way way way way back and 3 number .coms were available, 3 letter .coms where like only half gone and fishing.com was available....I was like 13 and more focused on aol chatrooms and Im punters and no credit card to reg domains that were like $40/yr or something like that at the time..that would be worth maybe millions now..where is my gun (loads clip) might be better off though because MOST people that reg'd alot of names back then eventually let them drop...if that happened I would really lose it.

Chris

why didnt I just grab like just 10 good 3 letter .coms in the late 90's either? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I remember when I worked at Verio in boca raton, fl and we were getting sued by register .com for marketing to their customers and selling them web design and other stuff like seo and at one point (register) went ahead and amazingly reg'd all the remaining 3 letter .com domains in one shot....:OOF:: and then they were gone. A little history for the newcomers....someone had their thinking cap on, should have been us!

Anyone else have any tales of near fortune....Love to hear them...

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

There are still plenty of opportunities now. You just need to look a little into the future, and you need BALLS.

A big fat wallet doesn't hurt, either!

Alot can be learned from Yun Ye.

 

[Harry]

I read it a month ago, in a different (private) forum.

OOPS :wink:

 

[reclad]

> why didnt I just grab like just 10 good 3 letter .coms
> in the late 90's either?


> Anyone else have any tales of near fortune....Love to hear them...




What if time ...

I registered my first .COM in July '93 (still got it) but
then put my brain into hibernation for about 5-6 years
whilst 'getting on with business' / paying the bills etc.

What if ? ... in 7/93 there were only about 5000 or so .COMs
taken ... the dictionary was AVAILABLE.

It wasn't so obvious in those days ... that's why I've got
the utmost respect for the few who saw what was coming and
pegged the prime real-estate.

When NetSol came along, their security was so god-awful that
it was REALLY EASY to have your domain(s) stolen by someone
masquerading as the owner. Holding a larger portfolio
was a nightmare ... so I tell myself, so as to not have
to also 'kick my own a$$'.

Ah well ....

 

[Bart]

Stockmarket is the Temple of Eternal Regret, guess the same goes for the domain-market...

 

[DomainSalesAgent]

.

 

[reclad]

> Others that may have picked up a few gems saw it
> as a hobby and later let them all drop...


For those relatively new to this game, it's probably also worth
mentioning that NetSol's taking over of .COM/NET/ORG registrar duties
(2nd half of '90s) introduced the concepts of 'reg. fees' & 'drops'.

Prior to that, no reg. fees, no expiry dates, no drops.

Many of the 'hobby drops' mentioned above occurred because
the owners suddenly had to pay $35/yr to maintain each of their
earlier 'whim' registrations. How many of those early owners
still get nightmares over their 'folly-drops' ?

By the time of NetSol's masterstroke coup/takeover, all the
major single-word dictionary generics had been taken.

NetSol inherited that registry list.

That's why they STILL have many of the top domain real-estate
(plus all those juicy drops for SnapNames).

 

[DomainSalesAgent]

.

 

[peekaboo]

Anyone else have any tales of near fortune....Love to hear them...

yea, everybody's got that type of a story now. it's so easy being smart in retrospective.

i am stunned that sex.com was regged in may of 1994?? wooow... what were those silicon valley geeks thinking??? magic dotcom was registered in 1991. hey, 1991 - three years before sex.com? how incredibly stoopid was that?

anyway, my story was that i was too young to grasp it all. too busy looking for girls to care about some 'techie' things. besides, even if i had sense to reg a few great names, i would have sold them for peanuts at first offers that came my way. being young and clueless is not fabulous, i'll tell ya.

i'm with daddy here, to make a truly epic money in western societies today (with so much instant competition) u really need to be ahead of the pack, and ahead of the times.

 

[Focus]

blank

 

[Rubber Duck]

yea, everybody's got that type of a story now. it's so easy being smart in retrospective.

i'm with daddy here, to make a truly epic money in western societies today (with so much instant competition) u really need to be ahead of the pack, and ahead of the times.

Yes, I wasn't too young for the original gold rush, but I certainly did realise what was going down!

Yes, you have to stay ahead of the pack alright, which is why there is little future following the crowd registering more and more obscure .coms.

The problem is what is the next big thing?

Personally, I believe that the new land grab is the IDN domain space, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, I don't want to be looking back in two to three years time with nothing but a bunch of if onlys!

Things should change big time when the new IE with IDN support comes on stream this year and Sedo provide traffic earnings from parking these babies.
It time to get the shovel and the sieve out of the shed once again.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon