namemon - Domain Name predictions and opinions

News - Opinions

What do we see when we look into the future of domains? What examples can history provide to guide us? What pressures do we face now that will alter our course?

This is a document in progress, aimed at discovering our possible futures in the domain space as both corporate entities and private individuals and entrepreneurs. We welcome all input on this subject.

A few considerations that should probably be treated as true for the purpose of this discussion:

• ICANN goes Global - US regulates only as oversight in existing TLD space.
• New TLD process is approved - possibly in 2010
• Financial Markets are stable - lower average volatility than 4Q 2008
• Domain Sales continue - the right to buy and sell domains, and their meaning in search & branding remains strong

News - Opinions

This post is a follow up to Elliot's "Why I Didn't Bid on .CM Domains" and Chad Kettner's DomainNameNews editorial "What are these domains really worth?"

When .CM was announced, I grabbed my resources and started looking for something that could be an earner. I decided to forgo the normal process of buying a domain - evaluation based on keyword + traffic, and instead turned to raw dynamics: traffic only.

To me, it appeared that .CM had no real value as a WORD+Extension purchase. The starting price was too high and the players were too big. With Namejet as Enom's bidding platform I couldn't see costs staying below a cool several grand for even the most innocuous names. So what's a guy like me with a short budget to do?

First I pulled up the Alexa 100 and shuffled through it for domains that might convert well into clicks if traffic was misdirected. Generic names like Gmail (Google was unable to secure this term in other ccTLDs), Amazon, MSN, etc., are all frequently typed into browsers and can easily support very generic ad space. So I applied for top domains in this list that I felt were worth a shot.

What was the result of this application?

amazon.cm       Enom          Rejected 
gmail.cm          Enom          Rejected  

So I tried another route.

I own a few typos myself of generic terms that do well - and some are odd enough that they would escape any scrutiny from a simple advisory panel and I felt they were also worth a shot, despite the high price.

I sent in my application for these terms. Result? Rejected again (I won't post those because they are my personal private stash)

At this point it's a week to go, so I decided to try a final route: Alexa's list for .CM domains (yes, Alexa is able to track even typos with bad extensions). At the top were three unregisterables: Ringo.CM (Cameroon ISP), Gmail.CM (I was already rejected), and Google.CM (That is TM territory where I won't tread). Further down the list was the CM Government and CM Registrar, along with a few other terms, including Weather.CM. Well, I thought Weather must surely be worth a shot?

weather.cm          Enom          Rejected  

So what does this tell us about the .CM process?

• You didn't have a chance to begin with
• What is being sold was already proven by Kevin Ham to be worthless
• What remains is worth Keyword value only, and can only be resold for keyword value
• The domains that you should really want are still making someone else money

In the old con man's game we call this the bait and switch. Hold out a gold watch and give them a rotten apple before they can trade it in or ask for a refund. Then run away. Hide in some far away region where no one would ever look for you.

Like for instance, Cameroon.

News - Opinions

As Rick posted on his blog titled The Coming Fall Boom, he believes that this season will bring two things: A stock market dip and an explosion of internet marketing prices. While I can't comment on the first I would like to make some observations on the latter.

I have accounts at Commission Junction, Linkshare, Clickbank, Connect Commerce, Google Adsense and many others. Over the past two months I have been seeing more aggressive rate changes in advertising through some of the vendors. Each company you sign up to be an affiliate for sends updates on new commission rates, program changes, new programs available, etc. Lately these have been coming in steadily as advertisers bump up their rates. My CD Storage website has gone from $.40 per click to $.70 per click. Another site, Latex Mattress Reviews jumped from $.60 per click to $1 per click - and those are just my payouts per click. Clearly those advertisers are paying at least double those rates to get listed on my site. Search volume on all fronts seems to be rising, and everyone from mom and pop to major marketing firms are competing for the same customers again, driving up rates. I believe that this will be a period of very solid statistics for most who use affiliate or high-quality click programs. Not to mention the potential for Ebay's channel switch from per sale to per click which I am already testing on a few sites.

Ultimately if you look at the trail of commissions they all have to do the same thing. For each click that is converted to a sale, you get a small piece but all your traffic is likely lost. You have probably not created something for the visitor to return to, just a search engine ranked series of pages destined to earn you some cash. This works fine for the domainer and is in fact, a great way to supplement income that comes in spurts through sales.

However, more often I am leaning towards creating sites with real marketing deals for actual product, where I am the reseller with the order form - not just another ranked page for content without product. If this season is really going to see growth in leaps and bounds, the true beneficiaries will be the ones selling the actual item which is being marketed.