Higher PPC revenues with Dotzup

Owning domain names is one thing. Lots of individuals and corporations do it. Intelligently generating pay-per-click (PPC) revenue through them, however, is a whole different story.

Some more advanced web developers prefer to create valuable web destinations to encourage repeat visits which are more often exposed to their advertising (PPC or otherwise).

Now, lots of domainers don’t have the time or resources to create this much value associated with every single one of the domain names in their portfolio so they purchase outside help.

Dotzup offers such “domain name portfolio management” landing page services, setting-up for you a highly relevant landing page that direct type-in visitors will likely appreciate � and click through.

More “pay-per-click revenue” generated through well-thought landing page design is obviously very be good news for any domain name owner so Dotzup’s continued partnership with Yahoo’s popular (and lucrative) PPC advertising network makes for an enviable sustained revenue stream.

Established in 1997, in Spokane, WA Dotzup is a leading Direct Navigation Technology Development and High Profile Domain Name Asset Management Corporation.

One of their goals, probably the most important one dor domainers, is to both produce higher PPC revenues -and- grow the domain names’ value (even in a “landing page” context). This is quite important for domainers looking to maintain the high “desirability factor” associated with their domain names.

If you want to see what some Dotzup “niche optimized” landing pages look like, you can check out MiamiJob.com, DetroitJob.com or DenverJob.com.

If your domains have to do with American or Canadian web visitors (naturally typing-in the names), Dotzup’s Yahoo Advertising Network back-end might yield surprisingly high revenues.

If you’re serious about growning your landing page pay-per-click revenues, make sure to give Dotzup a spin and see for yourself how high your monthly revenues can go.

Tags: dotzup, ypn, yahoo, domain names, ppc, pay-per-click, landing pages

Turcotte’s CIRA answer to ICANN

Bernard Turcotte - President - CIRA Those who know Bernard Turcotte, President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), can fully appreciate his undeniable wit, intelligence and integrity.

The ICANN, on the other hand, isn’t so reliable.

Accountability, transparency and a general inability to properly conduct consultations continue to be documented weak spots, among others.

It so happens that the ICANN invited the CIRA to answer its Request for Public Comments regading the ICANN’s performance. That was on May 8th, 2007. Three days later, Turcotte answered that… he wasn’t going to answer!

Turcotte hits all the nails on the head, in his carefully crafted answer to the ICANN. On every account, Turcotte is right on the money. The ICANN needs to clean up their act before bothering every domain name authority into providing them with valuable feedback they’re likely to entirely disregard.

Here’s part of Turcotte’s letter to the ICANN:

“In the past we have raised concerns over the transparency and accountability of governance at ICANN including how it conducts its public consultations. More recently, we have been encouraged by the steps ICANN has undertaken to increase transparency, and have stated this opinion publicly at the ICANN Lisbon meeting.

Although improvements have been made, ICANN��s recent Request for Public Comments represents a clear step backwards in ICANN��s journey towards becoming a truly transparent and accountable organization.

That’s exactly how many Canadian domain name owners feel about the way the ICANN is currently handling its business. Furthermore, Turcotte adds:

“Due to the poor design and implementation of this Request for Public Comments we, as most serious stakeholders should, see few – if any – advantages to contributing to this effort which cannot produce any usable results while potentially further alienating constituents.”

Everybody wants the ICANN to improve but the way things are going nowadays, it’s better for the CIRA and other country-level domain name authorities to focus on helping the ICANN get back on track than sending out recommendations that aren’t likely to be properly handled.

The domain name business, worldwide, needs more professional administrators like Bernard Turcotte to bring back absolute accountability and transparency to the way domain name matters are dealt with.

Tags: domain names, cira, icann, bernard turcotte, accountability, public comments

WhyPark adds value

You’ve already seen the semi-generic domain name landing pages showing a relatively standard mix of category links leading to a second page featuring the related pay-per-click links.

Guess what? Some web visitors are getting smarter and they close the page when they see these pages. Why? Because they fail to see any value in them. Of course, to be fair, there is value because the sponsored links usually lead to excellent content but for your average visitor, that may not cut it.

Aware of this “value hunting” trend gaining ground, a company called WhyPark is going one step further by adding relevant -and valuable- content articles to keep the landing visitor interested. Having a “lander” feature standard Google AdSense ads alongside interesting articles can help build some level of “brand loyalty”, something which “traditional” landing pages hardly can.

The revenue model for WhyPark is different because they charge about 100$ to store up to 100 domain names and then leave 100% of the advertising revenue to the publisher. Furthermore, every new publisher referred (and signed-up) lands a sizeable commission in the domain owner’s pockets. This alone should quickly cover the initial registration fee!

Domain name owners enjoy a high level of control over the keywords, advertising codes, the meta description and even the statistics tracker code which means a publisher could choose to use Google Analytics to follow the visitor trend for a given domain.

Newbies will be happy to hear there is no HTML, FTP or programming knowledge required to use WhyPark‘s service. Furthermore, there’s nothing to download or install. The fresh articles, related to your domains, are supplied at no extra charge.

Their newest feature might also be their most popular. It’s now possible for publishers to create their own custom layout using simple placeholders to give each of their landing pages a unique look. Alternatively, publishers are still free to use the pre-built stock templates.

Tags: whypark, landing pages, domain parking, domain names, web

How much to ask for your names

The Right Domain Name Price Many domain name owners, especially those that have been around for the last decade or so, regularly receive offers for their best names, wether they’re advertised for sale or not.

In most cases, a short message comes in the domain owner’s e-mailbox asking if the domain is for sale and if so, how much is asked for it. The first answer is usually along the lines of “No, this domain isn’t for sale but just out of curiosity, how much are you willing to offer to get it?” and the prospective buyer usually plays it safe but asking for the domain owner to actually name a price.

This kind of situation is somewhat frustrating because if the right price came to be offered, many domain owners could decide to sell even their best names but since negotiations are so tough, using e-mail messages, more often than not, nothing happens and whatever was discussed is quickly forgotten.

Experienced domain name owners know very well that serious buyers usually identify themselves clearly and this is mainly to make sure they won’t be sued, after they purchase a domain, for misrepresenting themselves. Imagine if your competitor anonymously came in and offered you money for one of your valuable domain names and you let it go only to find out, later on, that you’ve been conned. This would be enough to sue your competitor for misrepresentation so the serious buyers, even if they happen to be your competitor, will be smart enough to identify themselves.

In the event you’re comfortable with the other party you’re negotiating with, it’s probably smarter to discuss money matters over the phone, unless you’re really uncomfortable doing things this way. The obvious “double advantage” is that you can quickly decipher all the non-verbal information that’s nowhere to be found in e-mail messages -and- you can openly negotiate at the speed of speech. Numbers can fly a lot faster, this way. Of course, before agreeing to anything, you always say that you’ll think it over and call back to confirm.

Now, let’s think about that “perfect selling price” for your valuable domain name. You could rent it or install an ad for the potential buyer on it but in most cases, it’s a buyer and seller context so we’ll explore this common scenario.

Asking a million dollars for a domain name can be fine, in certain cases, if you consider the following:

The value of the domain name renewals, since it was purchased – if it’s 10$ per year times 10 years, well, that’s 100$ right there;
The domain-related value of whatever was made available through the domain name – for instance, if you operated a 500k$ a year toy store, you may value your name at a percentage of that amount, maybe even 100%;
The vanity value of the domain name – keep in mind that anything that’s bound to be considered popular is a candidate for a vanity value premium, which can add up pretty quickly;
The technical value of the domain name – if it’s short, generic (found in the dictionary), commonly used, widely known or easy to type, your domain name can be considered technically superior to other and may therefore carry a higher price tag;
The multiples potential uses for the domain name – it’s amazing how some domains can be used in relation to a variety of themes so if it’s the case for your domain, you need to factor that into the price;
The online popularity of the domain name – refers to all the places that link to the domain name and that have, through their own system, ranked it favorably. This needs to be considered in the selling price.

Over and above that, you can add as much “profit money” as you want, when selling your name and frankly, as long as the buyer is ready to pay, you can freely upgrade your pricing to fit his lofty means.

Once the conditions satisfy both parties comes the payment part. Escrow services usually work well for large amounts of money but they can be quite costly. If the buyer seems respectable, you can always go with a direct bank deposit followed by a transfer of your domain name as soon as the money has been secured. You can throw in a friendly lawyer’s letter explaining this, for good measure. Smaller transactions can be orchestrated through a payment processor like PayPal.

Serious buyers usually ask to be kept in the loop if you’re not interested in selling quickly. It’s always nice to know one of your names holds that much value for them.

Last but not least, respect your gut feeling. If you feel selling a given name, even for a hefty price, might turn out to be a bad idea, especially if it’s expected to rise in value in the coming years, perhaps you should play it safe and listen more closely to your inner-voice. Inversely, if you feel good about a deal, go for it!

Tags: domain names, selling domains, domain prices, price for domain names, web

List of generic TLDs

Do you have a dot com There’s a lot of business happening in the .com namespace and it’s only natural since this particular domain name suffix is the most popular, on Earth.

The .com domain name suffix is one in a short list of generic top-level domains which are intended for particular classes of organizations. These gTLDs are three (3) or more letters long and are named to identify the type of organizations they represent.

The IANA confirms that the following gTLDs currently exist:

.aero – for the air transport industry;
.biz – for business use;
.cat – for Catalan language and culture;
.com – for commercial organizations but unrestricted;
.coop – for cooperatives;
.edu – for post-secondary educational establishments;
.gov – for governments and their agencies in the United States;
.info – for informational sites but unrestricted;
.int – for international organizations established by treaty;
.jobs – for employment-related sites;
.mil – for the US military;
.mobi – for sites catering to mobile devices;
.museum – for museums;
.name – for families and individuals;
.net – originally for network infrastructures but now unrestricted;
.org – originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs but now unrestricted;
.pro – for certain professions;
.tel – for services involving connections between the telephone network and the Internet (added March 2nd, 2007);
.travel – for travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.

The .arpa suffix is sometimes considered to be a gTLD, it depends on who you ask.

The following gTLDs are in the process of being approved and may be added to the root nameservers in the near future:

.asia – for the Asian community;
.post – for postal services;
.geo – for geographically related sites.

As you can see, .com is just one of the domain names, albeit a dominant one, that you can promote your organization with. Major companies nowadays own almost every “dot” for their names because so many people tend to naturally type them in.

Experts argue that adding too many domain name suffixes in this coveted gTLD list will dilute the tremendous power of .com and balkanize organizations switching to .museum, for instance.

To this day, however, most organizations that own and operate a lesser known gTLD domain name usually have their own .com, mainly as a precautionary meaure because that’s what visitors tend to use the most.

Tags: gtld, generic domains, domain names, web, .com, dot com

Formula 1 domain names

F1 Domain Names Do you like fast cars?

Hundreds of millions of F1 fans, from around the world, gather yearly to root for their favorite racing team and this year happens to be the 58th FIA Formula One World Championship.

This major event began on the 18th of March and will end on the 21st of October, 2007 after seventeen Grands Prix.

If you’re planning to publish your very own coverage of this racing event, perhaps you should attempt to secure a highly relevant domain name. To help you score the best available names, here’s a list of the ones you can register right now:

If you like the races, the teams or just the heated racing party atmosphere, you too can launch a blog to cover the events, in your own unique way.

Everybody with a little knowledge of how things work online can own a blog. It’s a wonderful way to explore a given theme (in this case, F1 racing), make new friends and even cash in a little advertising money.

Just keep in mind that owning a relevant F1 racing domain name will help you establish a stronger and more convincing brand that your visitors will surely want to bookmark and share with their friends.

Tags: f1, formula one, grand prix, fia, racing, domain names

Landing your domains at Parked

Parked.com Anyone owning many domain names knows the importance of intelligently monetizing them. Landing your domains with the right domain monetizer can greatly influence the monthly payout.

Parked.com, based in Tampa, FL helps domain name owners land their valuable monikers on pages which lead to lucrative pay-per-click links. These paid links are continuously optimized to both properly answer the visitors’ requests and deliver significant payouts to the publisher (in this case, the domain name owner).

Facing stiff competition from market leaders like DomainSponsor and DotzUp, Parked.com makes extensive use of contextual images to convince the visitors that they’re on their way to relevant content. It’s still unclear if adding such images really improves the click-through rate, though.

Parked.com‘s proprietary statistics program is updated hourly and provides the publishers with a detailed view of how each domain name is performing, namely based on the following statistics: (1) number of visitors, (2) total clicks, (3) revenue per thousand visits, (4) click through rate, (5) revenue per click and (6) total revenue.

Publishers can view their own statistics online within their account. They can also be conveniently downloaded as reports in either .csv, .xml or RSS formats.

Moneywise, Parked.com claims to be offering the highest commissions possible and publishers will surely appreciate the fact that accrued revenues are paid every two weeks instead of only once a month.

Overall, there’s nothing complicated about Parked.com. The publisher interface is kept clean and simple so newbies and pros alike can get going quickly.

Click here to see an example of an optimized landing page!

Tags: parked domain names, parked.com, domains, landing pages

Traffic 2007 in Las Vegas

Traffic 2007 in Las vegas Savvy domainers already know their domain names need to be continuously optimized to yield the highest possible revenues, especially when they’re configured to display a pay-per-click lander.

The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2007 domain conference and exposition, held from March 5th to the 8th, at The Venitian Hotel, in Las Vegas, intends to shed even more light on how to fully monetize domain names. If you can’t attend this conference, two more are scheduled, in Miami and in New York. Indeed, it’s a busy conferencing year for domainers!

Conferencewise, Traffic 2007 has quite a lineup, featuring Adam Dicker from High Impact Sites, Ammar Kubba from TrafficZ.com, Dan Warner from Fabulous, Jordan Rohan from RBC Capital Markets, Mathew Bentley from SEDO, Monte Cahn from Moniker, Ron Jackson from DNJournal and Robert Hoult from InterSearch, to name just a few.

You can also browse the event’s full list of sponsors and participants (which includes the rapidly growing Parked.com landing pages provider) to get an idea of who will move and shake when the show floor opens up!

After all, this event is about bringing the most active and serious domainers to meet, discuss and do some domaining business, in a comfortable setting.

Tags: traffic, domain name conference, domain expo, domainers, domaining, las vegas

DomainFest Global kicks off in Hollywood

Set in the glitzy entertainment capital of the world, the much awaited DomainFest Global gathering brings together domainers who look to network among themselves but also and, probably most importantly, monetize their valuable online properties.

It’s no secret, the domain name landing page industry has helped “liquidate” clicks from the major search engines’ pay-per-click business for the last few years and it seems that relationship is only going to get better as those landing pages get upgraded, over time, to content visitors will want to bookmark and hopefully come back for.

More quality clicks is good for everyone. Domain name owners, domain name landing page operators (if relevant) and pay-per-click advertising services all get their share of the booming domaining business.

For instance, DomainSponsor which is presenting this event at the Renaissance Hotel, offers a domain name landing page service to anybody looking to monetize their domain portfolio, may it be one quality name or more. Their service includes access to their smart landing page technology which continuously updates the content shown to visitors based, in part, on the historical preferences. More targeted links usually lead to higher conversion into valid clicks, by visitors. Overall, a typical domainer can point hundreds of domain names to DomainSponsor and have them manage the content which is presented to the type-in visitors, which usually turns out to be quite profitable for both parties.

The event sponsor list reads like the who’s who of the domain name business, such as Bank of America (who financed Oversee.net, DomainSponsor’s parent company, to the tune of 60M$, a few weeks back), Casale Media, Sedo, Klickerz, .mobi, Ask, LookSmart, Studley, Marchex, Name.com, eurodns, iMonetize, WebMoney, CPX Interactive, Miva, SnapNames, Jeffries, .asia, Domain Capital, Domainer’s Magazine, Circle ID, Skenzo, Logic Boxes and Afilias.

Contentwise, DomainFest Global addresses both the broader industry concerns and in-depth training for individual domainers, which makes it interesting for everyone. The concept of “portfolio productivity” is also on the menu as more advanced monetization approaches require more work to “make the clicking magic happen”, so to speak.

For those who look to update their contact rolodex, the event’s speakers listing page might come in handy. There aren’t any e-mails or phone numbers in the page but there’s a nice bio and that usually enough to locate (read: to “google”) the contact data.

Lawrence Ng - Oversee.net - DomainFest Global I can’t attend the event by I sure would’ve liked to meet with Lawrence Ng, CEO and co-founder of Oversee.net who is a USC graduate with both a knack for business administration and domaining.

Industry trends, pertaining to the domain business, include big name mergers, more useful content libraries on landing pages, more sophisticated monetization schemes such as sign-ups, e-stores, contests, news and full-blown web destinations.

If the past years saw lots of generic landing pages with more or less relevant links shown to visitors, expect the future “landers” to be a lot more bookmarkable because the new name of the landing page game is “repeat business” or, in this case, quality visitors shopping for their ideal solutions, from lists of providers who pay to be seen.

With events like DomainSponsor’s DomainFest Global, the domain name monetization industry is gaining serious momentum.

Tags: domainfest, domainsponsor, domaining, domainers, domain festival, hollywood

New designs for DomainSponsor landing pages

If you own a few (or a few thousand) domain names, you may be wondering how to make money off them, every day, from the “natural visitors” directly “typing them in” their browser.

Well, you’re not alone and DomainSponsor offers all domainers the opportunity to rake in impressive daily revenues from most (if not all) of their domain names by simply pointing them to DomainSponsor’s specially designed landing pages which morph to reflect the most popular (and profitable) keywords that “landers” might be searching for (also referred to as “auto-optimizing”).

As of October 23rd, 2006, DomainSponsor is offering four new lander designs that rotate dynamically within the whole portfolio of domains you’ve pointed their way. For existing publishers (that is, the domain name owners), the change is automatic.

That’s right, DomainSponsor takes the pain out of monetizing your domain names and now provides you with even more attractive landing pages in which visitors may feel even more compelled to “click” for the information they (most probably) need.

If you’re not a publisher yet, now’s the time to get registered (for free) and test a few domains with DomainSponsor’s new designs which were hand-picked among hundreds, mainly because the payout they “produce” is above all others.

If you own domain names and you need a stable revenue stream, DomainSponsor might just have an offer you can’t overlook.

Tags: domainsponsor, landing pages, domain monetization, pay-per-click, ppc, web publishers

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