Saturday 12 October 2013

TYPO DOMAINS- DOES IT HAVE A VALUE??

Misspelt domains or Domain Typosquatting as it is usually referred to, is the acquiring of a domain name which has typographical error when compared to the generic name or the parent name from which it may have been taken. The parent name may be any generic name or a name taken from the names of popular websites.
The sole purpose of such a domain is to divert traffic going to the parent website and make them visit their website in order to generate a financial profit.

WHY WOULD USERS VISIT A SITE WITH TYPO DOMAINS??

Most of the Internet users are terrible typists. In typing the web address of a website in the URL address bar, they make typographical error. As a result, they are taken to a totally different website which may have nothing to do with the parent website.
Hence, these web addresses with TYPOS may receive a huge amount of traffic. The more common the typo, the more the traffic and more valuable it is. And where there is traffic, there is business. Therefore, some of these domains may be highly valuable in the domain industry.
For example, I want to go to Facebook.com but instead I type Facebookcom.com ,i.e., I missed the dot in between. Therefore, I am taken to a different website which adds to the traffic of the website.

IS IT ILLEGAL TO HAVE A TYPO DOMAIN??

Possessing a typo domain may or may not be illegal depending on whether it infringes the trademark of a company. If it does so, then the domain is definitely illegal. And the possession of such a domain may lead to extremely difficult circumstances to the owner.
When there is no trademark infringement with the parent domain and it do gets a lot of visitors daily, I would say the domain is highly valuable if used properly. It may lead to a good business advertising on those domains and generating a substancial amount of money. You may get many potential customers who may be converted to sales if the website is designed properly.

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A TYPO DOMAIN??

The value of any domain name is always the amount of money a buyer is ready to spend on that domain. Be it any domain, if there are people ready to buy that domain, it is valuable and if there are no buyers for the domain, there is no value to it. And that is how domaining industry works. A 3-letter domain is valuable. How valuable?? There is no answer to that. While one 3-letter domain may fetch $5000 on selling, another similar 3-letter domain which may be valuable to a particular company or organization may be valued over $20,000 depending on how much is the buyer willing to spend and the negotiation skills of the seller. In case of auctions, it is the market which decides the value of a domain but you can always set the 'Reserve Price' for those domains in auctions.
Again, in case of typo domains, trend is not different. The value of one typo domain may be less or more than other typo domains. Even some of the typo domains may have zero value.
For selling a typo domain, I would always recommend approaching the end user, who in this case, is the owner of the parent domain from which the typo domain derives its name. In case the owner of the primary domain approaches you to buy the domain, the ball is in your court. Negotiate a deal and profit from the domain.

To conclude, any typo domain has a value at which a buyer is ready to buy the domain. In case of generating revenue, if the domain receives a lot of traffic, or is a name that is predicted to become popular in the near future, there are bright chances of the domain being high valued and ending up in a purchase worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sunday 6 October 2013

ACQUIRING THE NEW gTLD - IS IT RISKY??

According to recent meetings by the WHOs WHO of the domain industry, over the subject of introducing new generic Top Level Domains, some very big news have come up.
The Internet's governing body ICANN has accepted about 2000 applications regarding the introduction of new domain extensions which may include product related names like .Shoes and brand related extensions such as .Nike etc. 

With the announcement of this news, the future of the domain industry is highly unpredictable. While one may easily predict that .COM is going to be the unchallenged leader in the near future, long term perspective is still unpredictable. No one can predict if any of these new TLDs are going to be more popular than the older ones. Will they overcome .COM or not is a big question mark!! But for sure,with the advent of the new extensions, the vendors are finally going to have a hand on some of the domains which will stick to the minds of their customers, or lets say, perspective customers.

The introduction of new TLDs may mark a significant and massive change in the domain industry. The marketing industry is going to be affected at a great level. So, Internet Marketers better be prepared with this. Having a hand on some of the top domains with different extensions is anyways going to contribute to the online business.

If a particular classified extension becomes popular, chances are that others too may take off. Lets say, if .shoes becomes popular, there would be no shoe company without an online presence with a .shoes extension. The same applies to other extensions as well. Definitely, the domains are going to attain high value in such cases.

The SEO industry is going to change as a whole. Instead of competing on a particular keyword with a .COM extension, they will have the classified categories to compete in.

To conclude, I would say that the new upcoming domains have a huge potential in making your online presence felt. They may contribute significantly in shaping your online business, acquiring new markets, getting massive online consumers and ultimately, ruling a niche as a whole.

For those in the domaining industry, it is time for you to invest in this high-risk high-return venture. Acquire some of the top domains, sit on them for some 2-3 years and then cash out with extensive profits!!

WARNING- The venture may be risky and may lead to loss if the market does not get good response from the consumers as otherwise predicted!! 

Sunday 29 September 2013

.NET NEWS -- THE YEAR'S BIGGEST .NET SALE!!

PIZZA.NET is the year's greatest .NET deal done so far. The domain was sold for $150,000 and the deal was handled by PremiumURLs.net

The deal is the second largest non .COM deal done so far this year after Mobile.xxx which was sold for $160,000.
Sedo.com has been carrying out maximum number of deals in the top 20 deals done so far.
Though .COM still emerges as the leader in the domain industry, it seems that good domain names with extensions other than .COMs (.NET , .ORG , .CO , .CO.UK) are not lagging behind. Any good generic name with extensions such as these may have bright chances of selling at a very significant price!!


Monday 23 September 2013

ALL ABOUT DOMAIN BACKORDERING

Domain Backordering is a service provided by domain registrars in which a person can attempt to acquire an already registered domain name when it becomes available for registration by pre-ordering it.
It increases your chances of acquiring that particular domain name but in no way, guarantees success.

As a matter of fact, over 750,000 domains expire every single month and over thousands of domain every single day. Since an already existing domain has a set of traffic associated with it, they are highly valuable in the market.


DOMAIN EXPIRATION


Whenever you register a domain, there is a specific period of time for which you register it. The time period may vary from 1-year to 10-years. Now before the time period lapses, you need to renew your ownership for the domain, failing which, your domain is said to be expired. And that is when domain backorder comes into play.

Once a domain expires, there may be thousands of people up for grabbing a particular name and within no time, you may find that your domain is already registered for the next span of time by someone else. Now you are left with 2 options-

1- Wait for the domain to expire again which may take years of time.

2- Pay excessive amount of money to the owner for acquiring the domain.

While one leads to excessive loss of time, the other may lead to excessive loss of money. To avoid both of these problems, the best way is to backorder the domain.



ADVANTAGES OF DOMAIN BACKORDERING



1- It is an extremely fast process. When compared to doing it manually, it is always better to backorder.

2- It saves a lot of time. You can place multiple backorders and simply wait for the results without having to monitor it manually on a daily basis.

3- The process is highly reliable and secure if carried out with the correct domain registrars. With some registrars, you may never get the domains that you pre-ordered. They set it up for auctions as soon as it becomes available without having considered the backorders.

4- The process is similar to buying a domain. So, it is extremely easy.

5- You only pay when your backorder is executed, i.e., only when the company acquires the domain for you should you pay for it. This may differ from registrar to registrar.

6- Some of the registrars only accept one backorder for each domain. Hence if you backorder a domain with them, chances are bright for you to acquire it. This is not the case with all the domain registrars.


WHAT IF MORE THAN ONE BACKORDERS ARE PLACED FOR A DOMAIN??


If a domain registrar facilitates more than one backorder for the same domain, then it may be possible that more than one person has backordered the same domain. In case the registrar acquires the domain, it is listed for auction among those who backordered it.

For example, if a domain name, say ExtremeTechie.com, has been backordered by 3 persons, say X, Y and Z with the same registrar.
If the registrar acquires the domain on its expiration, the domain is put to auction where only these 3 members who backordered the domain, may participate in the auction. The person who places the maximum bid in the auction for that domain is declared as the winner and he pays the bid price to the registrar to acquire it.

Now that you know what backordering is, why wait?? You may start to backorder the domain which you want to acquire, either for personal use like hosting website, or simply flip it for a more profitable venture.



WARNING: Not all domains can be backordered; may be due to the HOLD status on the domain as a result of trademark infringement issues, or due to the fact that the registrant might renew the domain before they are removed from the owners right.