October 2010 – Issue #63
October 2010
Staying Afloat in 2011
As domain income gets tighter and tighter people are looking for creative ways to fund their domain portfolio expenses. There were a couple of really good articles in the past month that gave people tips on how to do this.
Rick Schwarz posted an excellent article on his blog giving newbie domain investors advice on how to start in this business. This was one of the meatier articles I’ve read from “the king” and I recommend it to both beginners and seasoned domain investors. Rick provides 36 tips, starting with
1. You are planting a SEED not buying a domain name.
2. You are staking a claim not buying a domain name.
3. Seeds take time to germinate, mature and bear fruit
4. You are planting trees not grass.
5. This is a 5 year plan
Read the rest of his tips here.
Rob Monster of Epik gave us examples of six people using his service and their strategy for developing domains. These models can be applied to platforms such as WhyPark and SmartName in addition to Epik. Monster tells the story of the following people:
The Empire Builder – Kenny Hartog
The Merchant – Oliver Hoger
The Stager – Morgan Schwartz
The Gardener – Todd Johnson
The Prospector – Aaron Wilkenson
The Bandit – Braden Pollock
Read more of what he has to say on his blog.
Using DNS for Parking Companies
Last month I reported on some issues that Google had raised about using different types of redirects to park domains. It seems that the best way to park domains is to change the nameservers (such as ns1.sedoparking.com or ns1.parked.com) for the domain. Micheal Gilmour had a on his blog. He puts this move by Google in the context of their recent moves to cut payouts to domain owners. He also reported that his ParkLogic solution for large portfolio owners does allow dns switching – so his model still works.
We also get some hints that Yahoo may be blocking some domain redirects. (This from the members only section of the Parked forum, so no quotes.) The best advice for both Yahoo-based services (such as Parked, WhyPark, and SmartName) and Google-based services (such as DomainSponsor, Sedo, and NameDrive) is to set the appropriate nameservers at your registrar. If you use a service such as ParkLogic to send traffic to domains – be sure that this service is actually using the dns to send the traffic rather than some other approach.
Development to be Showcased at T.R.A.F.F.I.C
I’m getting tired of just writing more about how parking income is flat and development is too difficult to do on a large scale. I’m still bullish on WhyPark, Epik, and SmartName as companies who offer scalable development options that are almost as simple as parking. If you are attending T.R.A.F.F.I.C. in Miami Beach later in October you can hear a panel discussion of the issues involved in developing for today’s markets. The agenda lists the program as:
Where the Hell are our Developing Partners?
Isn’t time to think a little bigger?
A little more long term?
An all out informal and frank discussion of what we have done right, what we have done wrong and where to in the future as folks diversify into other avenues and parts of the Internet.– Ted Olson Manager Smartname.com
– Rob Monster Epic.com [sic]
– Craig Rowe WhyPark.com
– David Castello
– Michael Castello
– Dan Warner DomainAdvertising.com
The price is pretty steep though, almost $2000 just for registration. The rooms are steep too – but Owen Frager can get you a room for $60, so no excuses there. (I’m skipping it, though.)
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