Sweetmantra: Domain Name Strategy

The Seven Deadly Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Domain Name from Someone Else

For over two decades I’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of business professionals acquire domain names that are of strategic importance to them. As part of the client onboarding process at my domain buyer brokerage company Name Ninja, we always ask the client if they’ve made any previous attempts to acquire the domain. Most clients are shrewd enough to not try to acquire the target domain on their own – they leave that up to us – but we’ve also seen several overly enthusiastic clients make some innocent domain buying mistakes that have hurt their (and our) chances of getting the desired domain for a reasonable price.

Because we keep seeing people make the same damaging mistakes over and over again, I’ve compiled the following list of the seven most important things people need to be aware of if they hope to buy a domain name that’s owned by someone else.

1. Never try to contact the domain owner directly. This is the single worst move you can make because it risks revealing your identity as the buyer to the domain owner. Think about it from the perspective of a domain speculator (a person who specializes in re-selling desirable domains): if someone from a Fortune 500 company is contacting you asking about buying a domain name, wouldn’t you demand a higher price? On a related note, please don’t try to outsmart a domain speculator. If you think using a free email service like Gmail or Hotmail and a fake name is going to hide your identity from a seasoned domain speculator, you’re dead wrong. These guys and gals specialize in uncovering who a potential buyer is, and you are probably giving them all sorts of clues about your identity without realizing it.
   
   
2. Don’t keep re-visiting the landing page or Website associated with your target domain name. Not only are you increasing the traffic to the domain, which most domain speculators use as a metric to help them determine which of their domains are more popular and therefore warrant a higher asking price, but you risk revealing your identity as the buyer. If a savvy domain speculator notices that one of her domain names is suddenly getting a lot of traffic via the IP address of a major bank, she’s going to assume that the next purchase inquiry coming in (even if it’s anonymous) is from someone representing that bank.
   
   
3. Don’t submit an inquiry or offer for the domain name via your domain registrar or the domain’s landing page. By doing so you not only risk revealing your identity as the buyer (yes, even if you use an alias) but you are also expressing unnecessary additional interest in the domain name. Worse, you may also inadvertently be contractually obligating yourself to pay a brokerage fee to the registrar regardless of whether or not you end up buying the domain through them.
   
   
4. This one seems obvious but you’d be amazed how many times I’ve seen people screw this up: Don’t publicly announce the name of your new venture until you’ve gotten your target domain name. I remember one client who prematurely issued a press release about the name of their new spin-off venture and within 24 hours the list price of the target domain they wanted tripled. The owner of the domain, a very savvy domain speculator, had seen their press release and immediately cranked up the price of his domain name, and who could blame him? I still refer to that incident as “the $10,000 press release” because that’s how much extra it caused the client to fork out for the domain.
   
   
5. Don’t register a bunch of alternative TLD versions of your target domain immediately prior to you attempting to acquire the target domain. If you do, you are telegraphing to a savvy domain speculator that you are really, really interested in their domain name because why else would you have registered the .net, .org, and .info versions at the same time. Already registered some other versions of the domain? Please make sure they are hidden behind a Whois privacy shield … and for heaven’s sake don’t forward these domains to your corporate Website, which blows your cover. Once again, a seasoned domain speculator is going to investigate what other versions of the domain may already be registered and will use that data to try to figure out who the buyer is.
   
   
6. Hold off on filing a trademark until you’ve gotten the matching domain name. You probably didn’t realize this, but trademark applications are posted online in several searchable databases. Some unscrupulous domain hustlers monitor the trademark databases for new trademark applications and then immediately go and register the matching .com domain name in the hopes of re-selling the domain for profit. Even legitimate domain speculators (as opposed to the ‘black hat’ hustlers) will check trademark databases to see if someone has recently filed a trademark that matches their domain name. This is all part of their standard procedure for trying to figure out who the potential buyer might be.
   
   
7. Don’t get ‘married’ to your target domain until you know for sure you can get it. Far too many times I see clients fall head-over-heels in love with a domain that they will never be able to get. Avoid painting yourself into a corner by assuming you’re going to get a specific domain name. Make sure you have multiple options (or at least a Plan B) and give yourself (and your domain buyer broker if you’re working with one) enough time to find you a suitable domain name that can be acquired.

If you’ve read this far you might have gotten the impression that buying a domain name from someone else can be a complicated and risky affair. You would be right. If you go about things in the wrong way you could end up delaying your important launch, overpaying for the domain name, or ruining your chances of getting the domain at all. I’m not saying you have to hire a domain buyer broker to help you (although that would make my day), but I’d strongly encourage you to avoid making any of the seven innocent mistakes I’ve described above.

Good luck and happy domain buying!

A Domain Buyer Broker’s POV on which Domains are Most Wanted

As you may know, I spend the majority of my time working as a domain Buyer Broker helping clients acquire domain names that are owned by various third-parties.

My clients are typically “end-user” buyers of domains versus domain speculators. Most of my clients are startup founders, serial entrepreneurs, or marketing executives and when they approach me (via my company, Name Ninja) they usually have a specific domain name – or type of domain name – already in mind. That target domain will usually be put to use for a new or upcoming business, product, or service.

Because I was curious and had the data on hand in our CRM, I recently did an analysis of 500 of the most recent domains we have been asked to help clients acquire. I had a hunch as to what the results might be, but I figured I would let the data speak for itself. While I cannot reveal the individual domains due to confidentiality clauses, I am pleased to be able to share the high-level results of my analysis.



Before we get to the summary results, keep in mind that this data set consists of domains that are already owned by a third-party. Not only are these domains already ‘spoken for’, but our clients want these domains badly enough that they sought the help of a professional domain Buyer Broker. It's also safe to assume that the buyers of these domains are willing to pay a premium for these domains. In other words, these are domains that are seen as valuable assets by the buyers.

Now on to the results…

Type of Domain

What type of domains do my clients want to get? Generic domain names are by far and away the most sought-after domains by my clients. I suspect this is because my clients want a domain that positions them and their business as the category leader, which is one of the benefits of a generic domain name.

68% - generic (e.g., robots.com or robotparts.com)
15% - invented (e.g., botzilla.com or fluffyrobot.com)
6% - phrases (e.g., herecometherobots.com)
6% - abbreviations/acronyms (e.g., HCTR.com)
5% - surnames (e.g., asimov.com)

Number of Words

Apparently size does matter, and in the domain space what matters is brevity. Half of my clients want a one-word domain and most of the rest want a maximum of two-words. This is not surprising because the shorter the domain the easier it is to type and remember.

50% - 1 word
44% - 2 words
6% - 3 words
<1% - 4 words or more

Domain Extension (TLD)

Despite the introduction of hundreds of new domain extensions like .xyz, .club., and .site in the last few years, my clients clearly believe that .com is still king. Eighty-four percent of the domains I get asked to help acquire are .com domains (94% of the 89% that are gTLDs) with country code domains (ccTLDs) being the second most popular at nine-percent. I rarely get asked to help a client acquire a new TLD domain, although part of the reason for that may be that the new TLD domains are relatively easy and affordable to acquire (compared to a .com) and therefore don’t require the assistance of a Buyer Broker.

89% - gTLDs (global top level domains)
- 94% .com
- 2% .co*
- 2% .net
- 2% .io*
- <1% other gTLDs (.org/.tv/.me)
9% - ccTLD (country code top level domains)
2% - new TLDs (new top level domains)

* Although .co and .io originated as country code domains, they are now commonly used as global top level domains, especially via startups.

Bottom Line

In summary, based on the most recent inquiries I’ve seen, the most sought-after domains are generic, one-word .com’s (like robots.com) and generic, two-word .com’s (like robotparts.com). Invented, one- and two-word .com domains (like botzilla.com and fluffyrobot.com) are a distant second in popularity, followed by one-word ccTLD domains like robots.ca or robots.de.

Personally, I am very open-minded and can see the merits of all types of domains regardless of the domain extension or length. I’m therefore always happy to help a client acquire their dream domain name, no matter what that dream domain is. I do find it interesting that my data reveals a strong preference by our clients for a certain type of domain, which also explains why I’ve even been asked by different clients to help them acquire the same one-word .com domain. That always cracks me up when it happens, because many clients are surprised to learn that someone else wants or wanted the same domain.

My data set is only 500 domains so I would caution you about drawing any major conclusions from my numbers. The insights I’ve gleaned are from the perspective of my boutique domain buyer brokerage and may not accurately reflect what other people are seeing or experiencing. In other words, I hope you found the results of my analysis interesting, but please remember that your mileage may vary. ;+)

I’m Heading to Collision to Discuss Startup Domain Name Challenges

I will be attending the Collision startup conference in Las Vegas May 4-7. According to conference organizers, over 10,000 people from around the world are expected to attend this downtown Las Vegas event devoted to the fusion of entrepreneurialism and technology.

To stimulate dialog about the many domain name challenges facing startups, my domain name consulting firm Name Ninja analyzed the domain names of 491 startups attending the upcoming conference.

Our analysis revealed that 79% of the startups at the Collision conference may be using a “risky” domain name that could play havoc with their marketing efforts. Choosing a hard-to-spell name that fails the “Radio Test” was the number one problem we uncovered, followed by not having the exact match .com domain.

Here’s a link to the official press release about the results of our analysis. We also published a handy infographic that summarizes the results and includes some startup domain name best practices, common mistakes to avoid, and other useful information.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I sympathize with the challenges that startup founders and other entrepreneurs face when it comes to acquiring the optimal domain name. For those on a tight budget, free tools like LeanDomainSearch.com and NameBot.com can help an entrepreneur come up with a name and matching .com domain name for their new venture.

Since I will be in Vegas attending the Collision conference, I am going to make myself available to any startup founder that wishes to discuss their domain name challenges. Startup founders that would like to book a complimentary in-person meeting with me can do so by emailing collision [at] nameninja.com.

See you in Vegas.

 

Domain Names Are the Stars of Tinseltown Conference

Last week I was in Hollywood, California attending and speaking at DOMAINfest 2008, one of the domain industry's two big conferences. Attendance was up this year with nearly 700 people attending from more than 25 countries. Many of the attendees were domainers (domain name investors) looking to buy, sell, and network.

I attended a number of sessions over the course of the event and thought I'd share a few highlights:

"Domain Names and the Law"

Domain name legal expert John Berryhill cautioned domain owners to be wary of vaguely worded purchase inquiries that don't explicitly offer to buy the domain; they could be lawyers representing trademark holders who are trolling with a different agenda (e.g. gathering info for a future legal claim against the unsuspecting domain owner).

Berryhill says, "The best trademark search tool is Google," as opposed to relying on official trademark databases.

"Domainers Town Hall with Frank Schilling"

This session was a Q&A with Frank Schilling, one the most famous and successful domainers in the world. Here are some choice quotes from Frank:

• "Domain names ARE the Internet."
• "There's no shelf life on domain names...domains are like Cognac" - on domain names as assets.
• Owners of even just ten domains will be the media companies of the future."

When asked, Frank said he owns about 370,000 domain names that are managed as a business by a small team of five, including himself and his wife.

"Understanding the Big Picture"

Monty Cahn from Moniker provided some insights into the overall strength of the domain industry. Cahn says 70% of Internet users are using direct navigation (typing a domain into the browser address window) to get to a site. He also predicts that aftermarket (previously-owned) domain name sales will be a $1 billion business in 2010. Cahn estimates that also by 2010, 240 million domain names will have been registered. For reference, that's about double the amount that are registered today.

(My Tucows colleague James Koole helped with this report.)

2007 Digital Marketing Conference

The death of Princess Diana. The Bre-X scandal. James Cameron's Titanic.

Where were you in 1997? And what were you doing?

Although it seems hard to believe, this year marks the - gasp! - 10th anniversary of the Canadian Marketing Association's Digital Marketing Conference.

I'm on the organizing committee for this conference and we've really tried to pull out all the stops in honour of this year's first decade mark.

Some of the featured speakers we've lined up include Mike Murphy from Facebook, Chuck Porter from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and Simon Assaad from Heavy.com.

Ipsos Reid returns for a second year with the results of The Canadian Digital Marketing Pulse survey and we've just added a very special surprise session for Thursday afternoon featuring four Canadians you won't want to miss.

The enormously popular roundtables, "The Experience Exchange," are back by popular demand, and yes, yours truly will be moderating one of the roundtables on podcasting.

If you're serious about Internet marketing, please join me and a few hundred other Internet marketing enthusiasts at the 10th annual Digital Marketing Conference in Toronto, Canada on Thursday, October 25 and Friday, October 26.

For more information and to register, visit the 2007 Digital Marketing Conference Website.

15 Cool Things I Learned at the 2007 CMA Annual Convention

I had the privilege of attending, and speaking at, the 2007 Canadian Marketing Association Annual Convention in Ottawa earlier this month. Here are a few fascinating tidbits I gleaned from the many excellent talks and presentations I attended:

• Marketers need to learn how to 'outsource' the marketing to the consumers.
• Marketers need to develop mechanisms to detect and nurture the brand ambassadors (i.e., those consumers who will willingly act as promoters).
• Mass advertising for the iPod didn't happen until 9 months after the product launched; until then it was all 'word of mouth' marketing by brand ambassadors.
  (Source: Dr. Joe Plummer, Advertising Research Foundation)

• "Don't fear theft of your ideas; fear obscurity."
• To today's 'Net Generation,' "choice is like oxygen."
• Google is the world's fourth largest computer hardware manufacturer (of data servers).
  (Source: Don Tapscott, New Paradigm)

• People want more of what they can get less of.
• 90% of people look for less risk (try to avoid risk) when it comes to making a decision.
• You are four times more likely to be a CEO in North America if you are over six feet tall.
  (Source: Heath Slawner, Hart Resource Development)

• 50% of complex search queries (in search engines) go unanswered.
• 40% of the Web is not searchable...yet.
  (Source: Owen Sagness, Microsoft Canada)

• WestJet receives 1,000+ unsolicited resumes a week.
• The airline has a Department of Culture that is responsible for "creating a remarkable (workplace) environment."
• WestJet holds retirement parties for the planes it takes out of service. At the last retirement party for a plane, over 600 employees showed up.
  (Source: Richard Bartrem, WestJet)

• 74% of bloggers say they are open to receiving product or service information from companies, but only 9% actually do.
  (Source: David Jones, Fleishman-Hillard)

Next year's CMA Annual Convention will be held in Toronto in May, 2008.

iSummit Diary: "Wife Crack" and "Branded Entertainment"

I attended, and was a speaker at, iSummit 2006, March 29-31, 2006 in Toronto, Canada. This entry is the second of two featuring my notes from the sessions I attended.

Xbox 360 Live Arcade

John David, the Lead Program Manager for Xbox Live Arcade, gave attendees a tour of this next generation videogame console's Arcade service and revealed some other interesting factoids about the 360:

• Arcade gives Xbox 360 owners who connect to the Xbox Live service the opportunity to download and sample 'simple' arcade games. All are free to sample, but in most cases a small fee is required to play the full game.
• 50% of Xbox owners so far have connected to the Xbox Live online service.
• According to John, Arcade is a way for Microsoft to get the game console "back into the family room" where it will be used by all members of the family, not just the hardcore gamers.
• 3 million arcade games have been downloaded through Arcade.
• Microsoft had expected an average 8.5% conversion rate of Arcade game trials to purchase, but have been getting a remarkable 20% conversion rate instead.
• I learned a new term; John referred to a few of the Arcade games as "wife crack," meaning a game, usually puzzle based, that is highly addictive to the female spouse of a male gamer. (Of course, lots of women play videogames, but "wife crack" refers to games that appeal to spouses who normally never play videogames.) Microsoft is very interested in these "secondary" gamers (the spouse) because that's where the growth in the videogame market lies. See also "gamer widow."
• While Microsoft's focus is still on making the 360 "an awesome games box" the Xbox 360 console has other capabilities that make it directly competitive with current and future offerings from other major players, including cable and satellite companies.
• Microsoft will soon be adding music videos and song downloads to the Xbox Live Marketplace, some free, some paid. Hello, iTunes? It will be interesting to see what will happen when (not if) Microsoft adds TV shows and movies to the menu. Background downloading of large media files is apparently in the works.
• Xbox Live is also a communications platform: 600,000 text messages a day are exchanged on Xbox Live between its members.

Branded Entertainment: R U 4 Real?

This session provided an overview and examples of "branded entertainment," long-form content that is partially or fully funded by advertisers as an alternative to conventional advertising tactics such as TV commercials. Examples featured during this session included:

• The Ringing: Created by GJP Advertising in Toronto, this three-minute online horror movie spoof is actually an ad for Covad Communications, a VOIP start-up. The movie features staff at a small business being terrorized by their phone system, before being saved by a Covad employee.
• The Swarm: On behalf of M&M Minis, BBDO Worldwide created a custom comic book with Marvel as well as an online "CyberComic." The objective of this campaign was to drive engagement with the brand by tweens. Shawn Zupp, BBDO's Director of New Content, told the audience that branded entertainment was chosen because it was deemed a "less passive and less predictable" media experience for the target market.
• The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman: These short movies, dating back to 2004 and no longer online, featured comedian Jerry Seinfeld kibitzing with an animated Superman on behalf of American Express. Dave Sylvestre, Group Creative Director at Organic, described these as "opt-in entertainment" and said the goal was to be 95% entertainment, 5% advertising. For the record, I still consider the whole Seinfeld & Superman affair a PR stunt more than anything else.
• Nike Full Ride: Jeff Spriet, President of Chokolat (the "branded entertainment" arm of Taxi Advertising & Design) suggested that "associated entertainment" is a better name for the strategy as its goal is to create brand associations. To address what he called "TV commercial wear-out," Chokolat produced "Full Ride," a series of four 30-minute shows for Nike about up and coming college football players. Broadcast on ESPN last August and also available 24/7 on the Web at www.nikegridiron.com (although not any more, it seems), these 'TV shows' cost less to produce than a typical 30-second television ad and received a 0.2 share of the 18-49 year-old TV audience.

Finally, and as luck would have it, at one point during iSummit I found myself sitting next to Salim Ismail, Co-Founder of PubSub. If you're a blogger, or interested in staying on top of what bloggers are writing about, then you must check out PubSub. It's described as "a matching service that instantly notifies you when new content is created that matches your subscription." Fair enough, but you really have to try it to see its power. If you're familiar with the Google Alerts service, then you will have some idea of the usefulness of PubSub, which 'reads' over 23 million blogs. While not a new service (it's been around since 2004), PubSub isn't that well known among the bloggers and marketing practitioners I have spoken to. I'm on a mission to rectify that! ;+)

For more about iSummit I encourage you to check out the iSummit blog and the iSummit Website.

Domain Name Research Tools

As someone with more than a fleeting interest in domain names, I thought I'd share a few of my favourite domain name research tools with you.

DomainSurfer - DomainSurfer is a super-speedy domain name search engine that allows you to quickly conduct wild-card searches of domain names. You can quickly find out how many other domain names feature or begin with a word (or word combination) that is of interest to you. For instance, did you know there are 45,583 .com domain names featuring the word "Canada"? Take off, eh!

NameBoy - This is a very useful tool to turn to when you're stuck in the process of coming up with a new (and available) domain name. NameBoy's greatest strength is its ability to suggest alternative domain names for you to consider and indicate their availability. This is an invaluable resource when you've hit a mental roadblock.

NameProtect Free Trademark Search - Curious to know if that great name you've come up with has already been trademarked? This is a quick way to do a preliminary (and free) search for US and Canadian trademarks - and help keep the lawyers at bay. Did I mention it's free? ;+)

Enjoy!

You Must Become a Search Voyeur

As far as I'm concerned, you can't call yourself an Internet marketer unless you've spent at least 15 minutes contemplating the output of a "search voyeur" tool like Dogpile.com's SearchSpy.

While there are dozens of more statistically accurate tools out there, such as Wordtracker, that count and rank the millions of searches conducted on the Internet every day, there is no better (or more eye-opening) way to get a sense of how Joe or Jane Public actually conducts searches than a search voyeur tool.

SearchSpy, like most search voyeur tools, provides a real-time, 'behind-the-scenes' view of current searches by showing the actual search terms people are typing in. Although it's not for the faint of heart, the "unfiltered" version of this tool provides the most accurate view of how people search.

As I'm writing this, each and every one of the real-time searches scrolling by on SearchSpy reveals a wealth of insights for the discerning marketer:

food – This one-word, generic search suggests a rather naive search(er)? Remember, not everybody on the Internet is a rocket scientist.

"shock proof laptop" – Here's a three-word key phrase enclosed in quotation marks, very specific, from a sophisticated researcher looking for product information? Smart retailers of this type of product will have optimized for this specific phrase.

bikini waxing tips – It's a three-word key phrase, very specific, from someone looking for free advice. If you're the owner of a spa, does your Website feature tips?

phantom of the opera lyrics – A five-word key phrase, very specific, using a well-known brand, maybe from a fan looking to add to their collection? Are you taking advantage of the well-known brands you sell?

www.temeculawine.com – You'd be amazed how often people type URLs into search engines, either because they typed into the wrong box on their screen, or they are not clear about how to do a proper search! Is your domain name on your search engine marketing keyword short list?

cabin rentals in estes park, colorado – A vacation planner who knows exactly what he/she wants, perhaps? Let's hope the marketers of vacation properties in Estes Park have optimized for this phrase.

human reporduction – Here's a two-word phrase with a misspelling, another all-too common occurrence. Are you taking spelling mistakes into account when you plan your search engine marketing?

You owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes with a search voyeur tool like SearchSpy. Learning about the mind of the common searcher has never been so entertaining, and think of the fun you can have building a drinking game around this!

AdWords Espionage With GoogSpy

If you're a fan of AdWords, Google's popular paid search system, you'd probably love to get a behind-the-scenes view of how your competitors (or your clients' competitors) are using it. Before you hire a rogue operative to infiltrate the competition's headquarters, spend some time surfing GoogSpy. But be warned, it can be addictive!

GoogSpy is one of my favourite (albeit arcane) research tools, and I still can't believe it is both legal and free. GoogSpy has analyzed (and archived) millions of Google search results and allows you to do research into how other companies are using the AdWords system.

You can browse by company or browse by search term or just type in a company name, URL, or search term you are interested in researching.

If you type in a search term, for instance, you will see the URL of the different Websites that the AdWords ads link to for that term.

Click on one of the advertisers' URLs and you will be presented with the various search terms this advertiser is ranked in the top 10 for, the ad display ranking, and the text of their Google ads. You can also find out if this advertiser pays for any other Google search terms, what those search terms are, and get a list of their competitors (defined in this case as other advertisers competing for the same search term).

Back on the main results page, click on the search term and it will show you the advertisers that pay for that search term on Google, along with the copy of their ad and URL the ad links to. You will also see a list of other search terms that companies using that keyword use as keywords in AdWords.

One of the most valuable aspects of GoogSpy for Canadian Internet marketers is that it reveals what advertisers are buying even if you aren't located in the geographical region that their ads will be displayed in.

The best way to understand the power of GoogSpy is to spend some time experimenting with it. I find that the more I use it, the more I appreciate its value.

Next to conducting corporate espionage, GoogSpy is one of the best ways to do competitive AdWords research.