Domain names and SEO is a marriage made in heaven. domainers and SEO’ers though, a little tough, but can work. This interview is a good education to SEO folks about the domain industry, as well as good education for domain folks about SEO.Via Search Engine Guide:
1) Please give us your background and tell us how you became a Domainer?
I have to admit that after an associate of mine, Darryl Brooks, the husband of the author of “The Domain Tax Guide” Sandy Brooks ( http://www.domaintaxguide.com - she´ll be speaking at Domainfest in 2008 - she´s brilliant), sold a domain for $150,000, I freaked and said “here´s where the money really is.”? At the time, I was a live event producer in the fashion industry. However, I left that behind and started buying domains for a college web portal company I started with a few other investors in 1999. The bubble was about to burst in the internet, but not for domains (if you were smart.). We had an email service that utilized catchy domains, more slang style that “defined”? the user, and the user could “rent”? an email address for a year using a domain that defined them. An example would be “motocrossers.com “? or “snurf.com”?. I ended up buying about 1500 domains, all descriptive of people´s interest, hobbies and attitudes, and most were used as email addresses for our customers. So, I immediately saw the value of domain names in 1999. That value was in their “use”? as opposed to “resale”? or “aftermarket”? value. Then in early 2005, Bulkregister.com hired me to redesign their domain management system and to monetize their domain “access”? and “control”?. My team evaluated over 2 million domains, purchased 15,000 domains and appraised over 30,000. We knew we had done a pretty good job when Enom bought Bulkregister in June 2006, including all the domains we had purchased and appraised. I then was hired by Snapnames to set up their appraisal system and at the same time was hired by Name Intelligence, Inc ( DomainTools.com) to be the Executive Producer of the Domain Roundtable Conference 2007.
2) What traits make a particular domain name valuable?
I always go with the generic descriptive quality of a domain first. Does it describe a niche product/service in under 15 characters? Great! Grab it! Someday soon, all companies will be scrambling to match their catalog products with domain names in the .com variety. If they can´t get them, they´ll go down the TLD´s in this manner if they´re smart: .com, .org, .info, .net (careful there), .mobi, .us. I´m leaving out the ccTLD´s because I´m not an expert in that area, other than saying, get a one word, less-than-7-character domain name that appears more than 2million times on google, could be good buy in any TLD.
The next thing I look for is short, goofy domains that you can pronounce but don´t really mean anything. I have a few, such as “klood.com”?and “trickies.com”?. Who knows what new toy or game will arrive wanting that name? Think ahead if you are a “gambler”? (the real word for “investor”?) and try to anticipate trends, moods, needs, and ideas for products and services and match the domains to those areas.
And a little about the Cowboys.com deal..
9) Can you briefly describe the Cowboys.com controversy & explain why this was a watershed event for the Domaining industry?
LOL - Todd, you would hit me with that one. A close associate of mine was involved in “resolving”? the “Cowboys.com”? domain issue - he and his pals bought the domains after the Dallas Cowboys… hahahaha… bid on the domain… *snicker*… for about $275,000… muuuhahahaha…*wipes tear from eye*… in a live domain auction held by Moniker at a TRAFFIC conference early this year. Looked like a done deal. But then the Dallas Cowboys representative… *giggle*… actually… oh dear god… thought that… and this is straight from the word of the Domainer Coffee Break Gossip Crew, the domain he bid on, Cowboys.com, was for sale for … wait, I have to hold my breath to get rid of the hiccups. Okay.. .whew… this guy from the Dallas Cowboys thought the bid was “275.00″? as in “two hundred and seventy five dollars”?. Rumor allegedly has it that when the organization found out that the amount was really in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for ONE DOMAIN THAT DESCRIBED THEIR TEAM PERFECTLY, they begged to bow out of the DEAL!!! This is rumor only, don’t know if it’s true .
What I do know is true is that Eric Rice formed a “posse”? and saved the domain by combining cash forces to buy it after the “truly cowheaded”? thinking of the Dallas Cowboys backed out of a great deal on an excellent domain.
Good read overall, enjoy.
Sahar
Good points Stephen. I enjoyed reading your article. Sounds like you are having a lot of fun in this business.
I then was hired by Snapnames to set up their appraisal system
All Stephen did was write one document outlining how he thought to value a domain, that is hardly setting up an appraisal system…
Thanks for the nice comments, Michael. I know you’re having fun in this business!
RE: Bill’s comment about what I submitted as a consultant for Snapnames in five months time is erroneous. However, I’ve been asked by Snapnames to refrain from elaborating further as my work was confidential.
Stephen,
I think your a gifted writer, with a no-nonsense approach on how to value domains. You’ve clearly done well for yourself in the domain name industry, and your clearly don’t advocate doing what I call, bad domain behavior ( typo’s on trade marked names etc )
My point is: that for Snapnames.com you didn’t write any specifications on how to write the software to valuate a domain, and you didn’t lead a team to work on valuating domains, you didn’t author any code to valuate a domain.