Rick Schwartz has provided evidence that you can still hand register type-in domains that get traffic. See this post at RicksBlog. Aside from the moral issues of profiting from a natural disaster, and the TM issues of using the BP trademark in a domain, what lessons can be learned here? People use the Internet to search for information about natural disasters. A few people, presumably those who are not internet-savvy, will add a “.com” to the end of terms that describe a natural disaster. When presented with a page full of paid links, some of these people will click on a link. Will this click lead to a sale? Not very likely in my mind.
If you do take advantage of this strategy of buying domains based on news stories, you will want to quickly park them the way that Rick did. If you find one or two getting especially large amounts of traffic, then you may want to quasi-develop those at somewhere like WhyPark.
According to Rick
Out of 16 domains I registered on April 29, 11 already are making $$ and the others are just a bit premature. So for the know nothings…..you still know nothing! But go right ahead and make a fool of yourself.
bpspill.com 255 visitors $12.55 earnings
oilspillingulf.com 132 visitors $11.80 earnings
gulfspill.com 165 and $14.95
bpoilspill.org 76 and $1.17
gulfoilleak.com 70 and $2.08
bpspill.com 244 and $12.55
bpspill.org 17 and .48
bpoilslick.com 1035 and $14.39
gulfcoastoilcleanup.com 15 and $3.99
gulfoilcleanup.com 40 and $6.33
gulfoilleak.com 72 and 2.08
NameMonetizer 
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