Domainvestors - Domain Name Investing Blog - Latest Comments

Re: Do you know your visitors? Why Analytics is the key to Monetization

domainvestors — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:23:38 -0000

Thanks Chris - excellent point! I really like the analogy you use too!

I'll be doing video blog entries once a week for now. Given the amount of time it takes to setup and film my videos I just don't have enough time to do it more frequently now. I do really enjoy doing the videos and appreciate the positive feedback!

Best,

Morgan

Re: Do you know your visitors? Why Analytics is the key to Monetization

Chris Stephenson — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:21:56 -0000

As a domain newb I have recently been able to play around with analytics. Now I'm a devoted acolyte. Even with just 30 days of analysis, a sites traffic can be completely broken down, remonetized and long term plans can be made. It's like having an X-Ray,MRI and brain scan of every visitor, turning them inside out and seeing where they come from, what they want and how long they are willing to stay.

The most useful free program on the web - by a country mile.

Hope you do some more video blog/tutorials Morgan.

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

domainvestors — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:57:10 -0000

Costa,

I think you may be confused here. I do not offer mini-site development. This is a simply a review I did for this service. I run a blog where I teach new and experienced domain name investors how I make money with domain names.

Thanks for your comments and keep them coming!

Best,

Morgan

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Costa — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:51:57 -0000

So let me get this straight. You are going into business to serve customers. Some of these customers have bought " too many domains" and because they can not develop them at current "market rates " they simply "made a mistake ".

Since you decided to join forces with another experienced mature professional, may I suggest a more mature response to potential client needs because your statement above could imply that if you have a large portfolio and if you do not have 75-100k we can’t help you. And… that you should have known better than to invest in those names because there is no value to them unless they are developed and that to think that you could do so for less than a particular number that 2 guys picked, is a "fault" of the investor.

Morgan, welcome to the business world..

Re: Top 5 Ways To Prevent Domain Theft

domainvestors — Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:17 -0000

Thanks for the question - this is one that comes-up a lot so I am happy to clarify.

While it is a federal offense to hack a Gmail or Yahoo email account nonetheless many of these accounts are compromised every month. The #1 way I have seen domains stolen through DomainTheft is by people hacking-into an existing GMail or Yahoo mail account so this is definitely a problem. Just think - it is considered felony grand-theft to steal a car, but this doesn't stop thieves from stealing a car.

Now onto the security differences. GMail and Yahoo mail and other free email programs have known security holes and hackers/social engineers can find their way into these account without too much of a fuss. Here is a link to a video actually showing how people hack GMail with known encryption algorithm security flaws: http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Using your own private email account hosted through your hosting provider is usually more secure because hackers spend less time trying to find vulnerabilities in lesser-known systems. GMail and Yahoo mail are big targets and one's that hackers enjoy getting more credit for gaining access to and sharing online. Try doing a quick Google search for "hacking gmail" and you'll find plenty of people explaining exactly how this is done.

Oftentimes a major technique you can use with your own account as well is to forward your email address to a different address at a completely different domain. This means even if the email address is compromised they won't actually have access to your mail as it is just a pass-through address.

Many computer security experts (I went to Carnegie Mellon and had some friends that worked at CERT) suggest staying as far-away from services like GMail and Yahoo mail when dealing with sensitive data due to the fact that they have been proven time and time again to be less secure than an email account you setup through your hosting provider.

To keep your email safe most security-experts suggest using a hosted email account and for sensitive information encrypting your email by only sending over a secure connection. At the end of the day I always feel you are better safe than sorry.

Thanks again for the question!

Re: Weekly Video - Domain Development: Building Translate.co.in

domainvestors — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:48:39 -0000

Thanks for the question Alex. Yes - I do all of my own web design, content writing, PHP scripting, etc. The only thing I do contract out from time-to-time is Logo design as I'm not much of an artist!

Re: Top 5 Ways To Prevent Domain Theft

theoretical — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:20:59 -0000

I'm not sure what using a non-free email service has to do with this. If someone hacks into your gmail account, then that's a federal offense and one that google will be there to back you up with IP logs and such. If you run your own mail server on your VPS, or worse, shared host... how are you less vulnerable to someone hacking your email account? How are you better protected? If anything you should ensure that you follow good security practices regarding frequently changed, unique and hard to crack passwords. I'm sure there's something I'm missing but I don't see it.

Re: Weekly Video - Domain Development: Building Translate.co.in

Alex — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:06:36 -0000

Do you do the website design yourself?

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Mark — Sat, 30 May 2009 06:38:32 -0000

Mike,

Five years ago that might have made sense, but not today. Just look at www.devhub.com or www.squidoo.com. Websites from each capture first page Google search result listings in plenty of different categories. However, the business model is revenue sharing based. I’m looking for something else.

The alternative to the “mistake” I made would have been paying hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars today for many of the domains I began purchasing at reg. fee more than five years ago. As my inventory grew, I knew I was creating an operational nightmare for myself. But had I passed on the opportunity to grab sufficient inventory to launch more than 1,000 websites, I’d be kicking myself today for not having gotten busy when I saw the handwriting on the wall. I take full responsibility for my purchases. I’m just not content believing the major players in our industry are unable to advance the domain business in a way that allows everybody to profit. With the economy in free fall, the domain industry currently has the chance of a lifetime to bring real end users on-board.

While tens of thousands of unemployed workers from the ranks of middle management ponder the possibility of taking what’s left of their retirement nest egg to launch a $150,000+/- fast food franchise, where are the print, radio and TV ads, infomercials and weekend seminars explaining how for the price of a conveyor pizza oven and hood exhaust system, each one of them could purchase a shot at independence in the form of a turnkey website with a high traffic domain name to boot(!)? What would it mean for these temporarily sidelined wage earners to begin the next chapter in their respective business lives virtually debt free with the lion’s share of their savings still intact?

So please don’t tell me what can and can’t be done. IMHO, your efforts might be better spent lobbying the domain industry to educate the public on the potential rewards wrapped-up in a domain name. Would you agree that end user interest on a massive scale couldn’t come at a better time?

As for me, I have no doubt that what I'm looking for can be successfully designed and deployed. It's just a shame that a dozen separate portfolio owners may spend upwards of 1.2 million dollars reinventing the wheel when those same resources could be used to create a custom CMS that could benefit our entire industry. A CMS that would be good for the registrars, domain owners, advertisers and above all else, for the site visitors. It’s not about turning a cheap, quick buck. It’s about using innovation to take our industry to the next level. It’s about showing concern for where we’ll be in a quarter century instead of next quarter.

40-mpg automobiles were said to be an impossibility until it was time to make it happen.

Well it’s time.

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Mike — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:43:00 -0000

Mark,

If you bought so many domains that you can't afford to develop them all, then that is your mistake. Saying that $100 for a developed site with unique content is too expensive is absurd. If you have full-scale development, just the design alone can cost $x,xxx to $xx,xxx. Good luck even getting a logo for $100.

There are no shortcuts to development. The first page of Google is reserved for the best sites with those keywords. You can't expect to be considered the BEST with a crappy design and scraped content. That is why a good, automated mass development service will never exist. You have to put in the time or money if you want to be the best, you can't just expect to change your name servers, enter your domain into a control panel, and hit the first page. If you think that you are delusional.

Once people realize that, there will be some true advances in this industry.

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Morgan Linton — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:15:57 -0000

Thank you for the comments Mark - I appreciate you putting the time and energy into writing such a thorough reply!

I do have to say that having a CMS tool to develop these sites would be an incredibly lucrative venture. The only problem is where does the content come from? WhyPark has a great CMS system that auto-generates nice-looking sites that monetize well however they get their content from content-networks.

How do you get fresh original content on your site that nobody else has for a good price?

I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts as I can see you put a lot of time and good thought into this comment! Thank you and look forward to continuing the conversation!

Best,

Morgan

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Mike — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:30:59 -0000

You're going to be doing the video blog posts for Mike's "new" site, you probably should have mentioned that (and that it was a paid review) in your post. Full disclosure is the way to go...

It's not about his "personal views", it's about how he acts and carries himself. If he goes around slandering people who are already very successful in this business, what makes potential customers think he will respect them?

I don't care how good a product is, if the people behind the company are immature punks, I'm not going to buy their product.

So Morgan, can you link us to a few sites that Mike has done for you? I'd be really curious to see the finished product. Thanks...

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Mark — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:06:45 -0000

I wish you developers would listen when we tell you that even at a hundred bucks per site, it's not feasible when we have thousands of domains to develop.

I'm going to repeat what I just said for the “domain efficiency challenged” mass development companies:

EVEN AT $1OO PER SITE, THE COST IS NOT FEASIBLE WHEN A DOMAINER WANTS TO DEVELOP A PORTFOLIO CONSISTING OF THOUSANDS OF DOMAIN NAMES.

$100,000 for 1,000 domains? That ain’t gonna happen!

I know of dozens of domainers who are in this same position. Are the companies offering mass development services unable to understand that for the kind of money we're talking about, they could develop a custom, template based Content Management System specifically for domainers?

For a cost far below $100/site, these template could be created in multiple configurations to include content, banners, Adsense, affiliate product sales, rss and reader comments spread over four or five pages. Wer'e talking cookie cutter CMS that draws from similar concepts of squidoo.com and devhub.com, but without the revenue sharing and restrictions.

Produce an open source modular based component CMS with global editing capabilities made for domainers, and we're off to the races! You'd think Rick Schwartz would have come up with this years ago. NOTE TO RICK: Domain King is a nice title, but deliver us a workable, manageable domainer CMS and you will forever be remembered as the Domain Messiah!

As much as I tip my hat to the “old school” domainers for the unprecedented success they have achieved in this industry, today’s domain market bears little resemblance to the domain gold rush days between 1995 and 2003 when the vault doors were often swung wide open and a vision of the future gained admittance to a treasure trove of domain riches.

Today, domains with meaningful type-in traffic are largely unavailable and when available, largely unaffordable. Has anybody performed an analysis to determine exactly who is enjoying the benefits of the domain reveniews being generated? I wouldn’t be surprised if 99% of the total domain sales/income dollars are generated by 1% of domainers.

What about the rest of us?

If my revenue speculation is anywhere near accurate, why do the guys on top talk as if we all have all the same opportunity. We don’t. How about offering a little assistance for the domainer who is much more likely to own a portfolio containing hundreds or thousands of domain names with comparatively low traffic counts. If they’re fortunate, at all, perhaps two or three domains display exact Google search counts approaching 10,000 per month.

From my vantage point, it’s no longer about TRAFFIC, instead it’s about TRAFFIC CONSOLIDATION. Acquiring multiple domains is a necessity, but generally, still not enough without more. The type-in traffic is non-existent and parked pages aren’t much better. There are all these major “old school” domain registrars, and the best they seem to offer is a fancier form of revenue based on what? More parking! Doesn’t anyone realize that the success of the “late comer” domainer is also the success of the existing major players?

It’s time for the major players and companies in this industry to lead the way and transform this industry by creating first rate, enterprise CMS web development tools that will empower the other 99% of domainers to successfully participate in this business.

Thank you.
Mark

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Morgan Linton — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:53:59 -0000

Thanks for your comment Reece. While I do agree that there are plenty of developers that can design a site for $99 - getting quality content is the hard part. I've tried 15+ developers on DNForum all for between $100-$150 a site and for every one of them while the site design was usually fine the content was never good enough. I found myself re-writing the content. Chef Patrick has commented on this issue as well.

As the the bad reputation of Mike (not mentioned in your comment but in a previous comment) I'm not sure where this is coming from. Mike runs a very reliable and lucrative business - as for his personal views - this is a different topic that I don't think has anything to do with whether or not his business creates a good product for a fair price.

I think most people think that Clinton was the best President we have had in a long time - I doubt that means we all think people should cheat on their wives, but at the end of the day if you do a good job - isn't credit due?

Thanks again for your comment Reese!

Best,

Morgan

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Reece Berg — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:28:28 -0000

Nothing against Mike Cohen when I say this -- I've never tried his services, however there are plenty of good mini-site developers on domain and webmaster forums who will do it for $100 per as well. AEIOU.com is more expensive but has a very good reputation with domainers as well.

Re: Why .tel?

Morgan Linton — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:22:25 -0000

You are welcome to - just make sure to provide a link to my site and give proper credit.

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Morgan Linton — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:21:50 -0000

Thanks for the comment Mike. This was a paid review however I have used the service and found it to be very professional. I am not as familiar with WannaDevelop.com so cannot comment here. I am sorry to hear you have had a bad experience and hope you will give this service a chance - I know there are a lot of people that have benefited greatly from these sites and at the price available I can't find anyone that can do the same for even double the price!

As always I appreciate comments from my readers and welcome further discussion!

Re: New Domain Mass Development Service Review

Mike — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:38:43 -0000

How is this new? It's just putting a different name on WannaDevelop.com because Mike has made a fool of himself and they need to re-brand. You don't mention your experience with them, have you used them before or was this a paid review?

Re: Installing Wordpress on GoDaddy

ApplyCreditCards — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:27:56 -0000

Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.

Re: Why .tel?

ApplyCreditCards — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:01:03 -0000

I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.

Re: Domaining Power Course: Lesson #3 - Domain Name Appraisals

ApplyCreditCards — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:28:57 -0000

Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.

Re: Anatomy of a Flip: Kayaking(dot)org

Morgan Linton — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:29:15 -0000

Both are great tools. Twitter is definitely easier to build-up followers and oftentimes you would not want to share the kind of information you do on Facebook with just anyone. Twitter works best as an open community so better to keep your personal details out of it.

Re: Creating a Domain Investment: Development, SEO, and Monetization

Morgan Linton — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:27:43 -0000

Thanks Alex - I appreciate the kind words. Very good point as well! It is absolutely essential that investors continue to update these domains in order to stay relevant and improve their search engine rankings over time.

Re: Creating a Domain Investment: Development, SEO, and Monetization

Alex — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:02:43 -0000

Great article Morgan! It's really all there is to it, but in addition, it's also important not to forget these domains after monetizing them. It's key to keep working and building up these domains so they keep on bringing in revenue. For the longest time, I would develop sites, then forget about them (due to clients, and other things) and in the end, there really was no significant ROI.

Re: Anatomy of a Flip: Kayaking(dot)org

Macmullen — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:35:57 -0000

Is Twitter or Facebook better? I say both are great together. I have my blog, and my twitter account, and my facebook account all intergrated. Then I use tweetdeck. Its great.