Another gigantic acquisition from lead generation group QuinStreet, whom last year purchased Insure.com for $16 million.  Their most recent purchase of Insurance.com including the website and domain name still has an undisclosed pricetag.  Lots of speculation on dnw’s post suggests the total sale value was worth anywhere from $25-$100+ million range.  QuinStreet, a publicly traded company also bought Internet.com last year for $18 million.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens with the two domains since they are both currently standalone sites. I can’t really see Insure.com just being shut down and redirected to Insurance.com next week, although that may be ultimately what happens.  Sounds like a logistical nightmare for the folks at QuinStreet, I’m sure they’ll get it figured out.  We’ll be waiting to see how they utilize both of the best names in one of the biggest industries in the world.

It’s too bad I am not writing this post to report Insurance.com has been sold to a huge Insurance company ie.. Geico, Farmers, Progressive, etc… It would feel like more of a moral victory for the domaining industry if the top of the line domains start landing with top companies in their niche.  Or, Are the biggest companies better off leaving the best domains alone to leave it to the lead gen, CPA and affiliate companies streamline the traffic they pay for?

The industry holds excellent rewards for smart investors, I couldn’t resist the appeal of purchasing a domain name one day for $10 and selling it a week later for $850!  For those new to domain investing I suggest an initial consultation with me so that I can give you an overview on how to price your domain, selling venues, drop catching, domain monetization and much more.

Domain monetization is a great way to earn passive revenue while keeping your domain name assets as they age like fine wine.  PPC parking was the traditional method of cashing in on your domains traffic.  Recent search technology and user awareness has really killed the PPC industry and is forcing domain investors to adapt in able to keep that revenue stream alive.  So, now domain investors are really moving towards minisites, WordPress sites, lead generation and commission to earn passive income.. it’s not as easy as the good old days!

From Enom:

It has been a most bizarre last few days for the .TV extension.  Earlier this week, news broke about the .TV auction that will be going on at the beginning of April featuring premium .TV domain names that are offered at standard renewal rate.  We’re still trying to figure out what kind of reserves to expect.

Today, MUCH stranger things occurred:

11am:  I stumbled across a thread at NP titled “Premium .tv domains seem available on other registrars than enom”.  I subscribed to the thread quickly and headed out to a work on a car I had to get running today.

1pm: Curious, I checked back and realized several members were actively registering premium .tv domains from the 50k or so premium .tv’s that had not been yet been registered at their $xxx and above annual fees.  Premium .tv domains were actively being registered at standard registration fee across several registrars and registrants were accessing the dns almost immediately.  I found the premium list and quickly registered a few that appealed to me via Dynadot.  I was also seeing the same premiums available at godaddy and namecheap. Let the premium .tv rush begin! Back to the car. grrrr.

3pm: Did some more hunting around for news and domains and found another incredible thread at NP “Hot Offer at Enom”.  Here, members revealed that they were informed by Enom of some premium .TV domains becoming available for registration for a short time period today, Mar 18th.  Later on I browse the thread and learn that Enom.tv has absolutely no mention of premium.tv pricing.

6:30pm: I verify that the domains I registered are showing my whois information.  Feeling hopeful I try to look up a few more premiums to see if I can find another former premium .tv to register, I realize .tv registry is on lockdown.  From what I understand some investors were picking up ‘boatloads’ of them.

10 pm: Enom unveils New Premium Pricing (see announcement above in blue)

Certainly an interesting day!  It seems that those who were tuned into .TV today scored some really awesome domains in some kind of promo or maybe a ‘thank you’ to the .tv domainers that really keep this extension in the public eye.  Stunned, that is the feeling of many .tv domainers that cannot believe the opportunity they *may have just been handed.  I say maybecause I know nothing is ever 100% and registrars are protected by a 30 day window to reclaim any registered domain.  I actually thought premium pricing was gone but Enom proved just minutes ago with their announcement that they have just re-launched it with more affordable premiums.

Gustavo Volcan, from Brazil has recently sold the domain name imoveis.com.br for $300,000. The word “imoveis” is Portuguese for “real estate”. I am not 100% sure but this has to be the largest recorded .com.br (Brazil) sale?? I originally saw this news reported on ccTLDs.com forum and just now see that DNJournal just reported the sale as well. Nice job Gustavo!

The only bigger ccTLD sale this year was the sale of Credit.fr which closed for just over $850k.

Well, it looks like International companies are shelling out some real money for some of the best ccTLD’s in the extension that they wish to own. I believe we will see multiple million dollar + ccTLD sales before the end of the year.. bold prediction yes, impossible no.

Erog.com $25,000 – A nice LLLL.com sale, appears to have been purchased by owners of erog.fr, a developed adult site.

Plenty.at €17,850 – New registrant citizen of Denmark, domain forwards to speednames landing page. Certainly a great sale for an Austrian ccTLD.

Giappone.it €8,700 – Means ‘Japan’ in Italian. Another great foreign country ccTLD sale!

Kobo.org $10,000 – Lot’s of huge end users could have bought this name, it’s in sedo escrow now, we’ll see soon who scored it. Nice sale .org sale.

Glueckskekse.de €6,000 – Can somebody tell me what this word means in English? Strong ccTLD sale.. .info remains unregistered..

Spanien.org €4,322 – Reg’d since 1999, currently a minisite. Strong .org sale IMO

Juegostopia.com €3,600 – Looks like a hand registration last year, now it’s a gaming site. Juegos means games in Spanish btw.. nice sale

WallTattoo.com $4,500 – Cool name, end user purchase. Domain now the new home for K&L Wall Art. I think their former domains now point to WallTattoo.com.

Sedo reported quite a few other .com sales below $5k:
Rembi.com $4,888
Gjv.com $4,050
EasyPoll.com $3,100
MenMD.com $3,000
FraudSafe.com $2,750
CityPartner.com $2,750
Adix.com $2,200
DigitalHost.com $2,272
Wettfreunde.com €1,500
EuroAffiliates.com $1,500

A few more ccTLD names I would like to note:
Reptilienzentrum.de €2,500
EuroTire.eu $2,500
Archiv.eu €2,000
Slippers.eu €1,900
TouchScreen.us $1,560
Internet-sex.de €1,200
MenShop.de €1,000
Lol.mx $1,000

And I have to mention a couple 3D sales I saw too
3dDVDs.com $2,200
3dTVs.info $1,500

This is a very stable plugin and it worked fine with all three themes that I tested it out with. Once you install and activate the WordPress Auction Plugin, you will see the auction plug-in control panel in the left sidebar of your WP dashboard. From the control panel you can manage and add auctions, customize your auction inputs and create/distribute credits. Be sure that your auction widget is activated within the widget control panel in your WP dashboard as well or your auctions will not appear on your site.

I am very impressed with how easy it is to add/modify auctions and distribute credits using this plugin. The actual auctions look very sleek and professional as you can add pictures and a BIN price to your auctions if you choose. This tool works perfectly for selling domain names on your own site! Only registered users are allowed to bid on or add auctions, you can create and distribute credits easily to your members once they register (subscribe) to your WP blog. As of now the script does not handle the paypal payments between users for products, so once an auction is closed (or purchased at BIN) you have to arrange payment, transfer (shipping), etc.. via information you collect when bidders register. Andrei just released version 1.1 this morning with some extra features, same low price!

-= WordPress Auction Plugin 1.1 Official Homepage =-

If you purchase this plugin, be sure to mention you found it here As well, find your way to DotComFarm.com and register for the dcf Available Domain Names Newsletter and receive your first 50 free credits! You’ll be able to bid/list auctions and even advertise your names in our newsletter with your credits.

>> Extension selection is very important.  Most businesses (especially in the US) prefer to have a .com.  Whether you are able to secure the .com of your choice or not it is wise to try and register your country code TLD like .ca, .de, .fr, .us, .co.uk.  Personally, I don’t recommend establishing a business on a generic top level domain (gTLD) like .info, .biz or .pro.  Although I have invested in and made decent returns from some gTLDs, I feel they are harder to establish a business front on.

>> ‘SESSR Rule’ – Short, Easy to Say, Spell and Remember.  It is tough getting that .com that you want these days.  It may even be beneficial to open negotiation with the owner of the .com phrase you really want just to see their price point.  If you are going to register try to keep it three words MAX and I never use words like ‘and’ or ‘in’ within domain names.  Always try to get a domain that can easily be remembered and spelled.. Will it pass the radio test?  If someone heard your domain on the radio, can they successfully find your site on their first try when typing the domain?

>> Register in advance! Company names, potential trademarks, your kids first + last name .com.  Ok,  maybe the last example is extreme but I would love to have registered mine.  When forming a company, absolutely register the .com before you do anything else!  If you find that there is another company in a different locale that already has the .com I think that adding the ‘inc’ or your state abbreviation to company name .com works well, I recommend pairing these with an exact name of your business in a gTLD that re-directs to your home site.  (ie. your business domain is AceMetalworksInc.com .. try to grab AceMetalworks .net, .org or .biz).

>> Auto-renew or register for several years.  Many business owners are too busy to remember that their .com has an annual fee that needs to be paid.  Entire online businesses have been devastated because the e-mail notification reminding the domain owner about the renewal went to spambox or was deleted by a secretary.  I recommend renewing your domain name for 5 years at a time for business owners.  This will be a $50 investment that you will never regret making when you hear of others who’s names have been caught or re-registered by domain investors that are happy to capitalize off the traffic your site used to receive.

>> Research the history of any domain name you intend to launch a business on.  Some domains that you register or purchase may have been used with mal-intent in the past causing that domain to be blacklisted in search engines or directories.  Also, check http://archive.org to see what kind of content, if any was on a domain name in the last few years.

>> Common sense!  Avoid trademarked words and phrases.  If you want to spend your time and money registering and developing trademark infringing domain names just keep in mind that you are a wide open target for lawsuit.  Your domains and sites will probably be confiscated… work and money down the drain.

>> Keywords and household phrases are good domains to own.  More and more people have google, yahoo or bing as their homepage and instead of typing a url into the url bar users will type keywords of what they are looking for in search engines.  Try to compete with some of the top keywords in your niche by getting a one word keyword .net or .biz.

>> Avoid hyphens and run together letters.  Hyphenated domains are not likely to have any traffic and will be tough to brand online since the un hyphenated version will capture alot of your traffic.  Run together letters in domains with more than one word bother me, but they seem to be a better option than the hyphen.  Here is one from my own portfolio pokerrentals.com .. the double ‘rr’ just doesn’t look appealing.  However, when you capitalize the words it’s not so bad, PokerRentals.com.  Anyway, I try to avoid them if possible.

>> Choosing a registrar is important.  Godaddy has come to the forefront of the industry by advertising to the masses via television marketing.  They are a reliable registrar and offer good 24/7 support with competetive pricing.  Other registrars I recommend are Dynadot.com, Name.com and Moniker.com.  I have been going with Moniker lately because I enjoy the fast DNS access on new registrations.

–

Michael Law

NameTalent.com

As I delve deeper into web development this year I am starting to research and understand search engines more and more every day. This week I’ve come across several SEO related posts and articles that have helped  me understand ways to improve rankings on my own sites.

Tip #1 – Get high PR and high credibility links

Earlier this week I came across this post.  ‘xdomainer’ was ecstatic because a site of his just beat out Wikipedia for #1 spot in Google for a highly searched phrase.  He was previously #2.  He felt that getting anchor text links from relevant sites with higher page rank (pr4/5) really gave him a boost to the top.  Being nice enough to share the full story with me, I was able to look at what other kinds of links were coming into his site.  Sure enough he has two .edu links and one .gov link coming in.

Tip #2 – Think outside the box

When I say box, I am talking about your computer screen.  Tuesday, Bruce Marler wrote a post called ‘Creative Link Building And A Pleasant Surprise’.  In the post he mentions that he was recently rewarded with a couple .gov backlinks to his sites.  It may have been partly because he networked with local officials after one of the several local seminars he conducted (not to mention his sites are worthy of these links).   This is not the first time I have heard of this type of indirect SEO coming from a public speech or seminar, you never know who may be in attendance!  Another offline or indirect SEO method could come from doing a radio or tv interview about your site/niche, maybe you’ll score a valuable backlink from the station website or someone who heard/saw the interview.