Adept Marketing Concepts

For those of you who haven’t heard Google was recently caught paying for sponsored blog posts in Japan to promote their services. These marketing tactics came as quite a surprise as Google dropped a swath of sites to PR 0 for selling sponsored posts with links on Pay Per Post back in late 2007.

Today Google.co.jp has had its page rank go from a PR 9 to a PR 5. Apparently being Google doesn’t do anything for you when Matt Cutts is on the job.

Check out my coverage of the fireside chat with Steve Wozniak at DOMAINfest on lalawag.com.

After some great opening remarks by Peter Celeste the first session of DOMAINfest has started.

(Jeff Kupietzky, President Oversee.net)

Panel Details:

Moderator: Peter Celeste (Oversee.net)

Speakers:
Gregg McNair (Strata Services Limited)
Nico Zeifang (Zeifang.com)
Michael Berkens (Worldwide Media, Inc.)
Ofer Ronen (Sendori)
Steve Hisey (Oversee.net)

(Peter Celeste, Oversee.net)

This panel brings out some serious domain knowledge. From the beginning I’m feeling very reassured in this business. The general consensus was that even though we’re facing tough times we’ll be looking back at this period in 5 years and see it as a time full of great investment opportunity, much like the period immediately following the dot com bubble bust.

At the same time Nico Zeifang was adamant that he’s, “a very hesitant buyer right now,” noting that we’ve barely seen the tip of the iceberg and that there will be a lot better deals available in the recession motivated fire sales to come.

This panel is very interesting to me as I’ve been buying domains like a mad man for the last year or two.

Panel Details:

Moderator: Chris Sivertsen (Oversee.net)
Speakers:
Anthos Chrysanthou (Lease Domains, Inc.)
Lance Wolak (.ORG, The Public Interest Registry)
Ron Jackson (DNJournal)
Monte Cahn (Moniker.com/SnapNames.com)
Kathy Nielson (Sedo)

This panel digs right into looking at the big financial numbers behind the domain industry. While the total sales and the median domain price stayed relatively the same it turns out in 2008 there were many more domain sales in the mid tier category whereas in 2007 there were a large number of million dollar plus sales that significantly drove up the median price.

One interesting question brought to the panel is how the loss of PPC revenue will bring portfolio owners to pay a lot more attention to which domain names they need to keep and which ones they can let go. As this trend continues the expired domain market will see many more quality domain names hitting the drop.

Another trend noted is that even though these domains hitting the expired market are of a higher quality then what’s been seen in the past the prices their bringing in is still falling. Even 3 and 4 letter domains are taking a hit as traffic and business models change and the market evolves as a whole.

Great quote from Ron Jackson, “I’ve never marketed a domain in my life.” This, from the guy who runs DNJournal? Following up he adds that all his parking pages state that this domain may be for sale and that virtually all the domains he’s sold came through a business owner doing direct navigation while searching for a domain for his business.

Another great quote from Anthos Chrysanthou, “if you were drinking when you bought the domain then let it expire.” This was in reference to deciding which domains to keep in your portfolio and which to let go.

This is one of the panels I was really looking forward to. Starting a business largely focused on owning and developing names learning how to avoid getting sued is valuable info.

Here are the details:

Moderator: Todd Greene (Oversee.net)
Speakers:
William Delgado (Willenken Wilson Loh & Lieb LLP)
Paul Keating (Renova, Ltd.)
John Berryhill
Derek Newman (Newman & Newman)

First and foremost it seems the Cease and Desist letter in domain disputes are quickly becoming a thing of the past. It seems that in the legal arena surrounding domain names the first warning you’re going to have that you’re in trouble is either having papers served in a lawsuit or a Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Complaint (UDRP).

Another good tip for avoiding legal trouble is to actually be based in the US. Offshore companies are not getting a fair shake in the US legal system as Judges have largely decided that you are an offshore company because you’re trying to get over in some way, whether it’s avoiding the legal or tax system. Whether there’s any basis for that assumption is for you to decide but don’t bother telling it to the judge.

One of the complaints that goes across the board is the UDRP honoring complaints of almost any Trademark owner in cases that wouldn’t stand a chance in Federal Court. The big debate here is where do domain owners stand the best likelihood of winning their cases and also which venue offers the best overall outcome factoring in success in court, total cost, and the amount of time it steals from growing your business.

Unfortunately there isn’t any clear answer, I guess you should talk to your lawyer

Ok, so session two was pretty basic. Lots of talk all the usual suspects in monetizing traffic.

Panel details:

Moderator: Rob McClinton (Oversee.net)
Speakers: Howard Hoffman (PPC Income, Inc.)
Leonard Holmes (ParkQuick)
Donny Simonton (Parked)
Randy Charach (Synergy Domains Inc.)
Sam Tseng (DomainSponsor)

One interesting topic that came up was the advances in semantic optimization of parked pages. In summary parking companies are using algorithms to better understand not only the meaning of the words in the domain name but also analyzing the incoming traffic profile and including referrer info and behavioral targeting data into the their learning system to deliver the best ads and content to the user.

Ok, the lawyers are on for Bootcamp Session 3: Legal Issues to Consider as You Build Your Business, definitely something I need to pay attention to.

So my friend Ben Padnos talked me into coming out for DOMAINfest this week and here I sit at the first bootcamp session, Domain Industry Trends – What’s Your Action Plan?

Here are the panelists:

Moderator: Chris Welton (Oversee.net)
Speakers:
Andrew Allemann (DomainNameWire.com)
Michael Gilmour (WhizzBangsBlog.com)
Adam Strong (DomainNameNews.com)

Not surprisingly economic issues were at the top of the discussion with Chris noting that the domain industry is being forced adapt to a major drop in PPC revenue and traffic overall.

One of the major trends being covered is the shift from parking monetized by PPC advertisers to domain sales and portfolio trimming. One thing that is different about this jump in sales is the focus on domainer to end user sales, with those end users mostly being small businesses buying domains in the $1,000-$5,000 price range.

Another trend gaining traction is domain development. While a lot of the panelists suggest that this will quickly become a black hole I’d say that really depends on strategy and your underlying technology.

Michael Gilmour did make an interesting point saying that, “Developing a domain name is like building a business, if you have 10,000 domain names you’re really building 10,000 businesses.” I guess that’s true if you want to build 10,000 unique sites that are not interrelated at all. However, I believe when your goal is to dominate niches or emerging markets then the long term value in developing a large network of sites becomes much more evident.

On micro sites Andrew Allemann said that it’s definitely a first step. Not only do you get to see if you like the niche through building 4-5 pages of content and designing a site you’ll also be able to learn if there’s a demand for information on that topic.

Michael again points out that the time involved and the intricacies involved in scaling up to tracking and managing the network of sites quickly outweighs the potential for profit.

Andrew and Adam both agreed there is a huge potential market for companies to service owners of large domain portfolios. From tracking portfolios to micro site platforms (especially with the trend towards development) services will definitely be sold, whether or not these service bring ROI is yet to be seen.

Michael comes back pointing out the loss in CTR associated with building sites, noting the strategy of building a site out and getting enough traffic to offset that loss in CTR can be an exercise in futility.