A general list of why domaining sucks. Maybe by exploring these issues we can all do a little better, and possibly suck a little less.
1. We are Dependant on two main upstream providers
Those of course are Google and Yahoo. Yahoo of course are in an extremely weak position, may have to kill the channel or possibly sell the company to someone who would not care about it, and kill it as well. If any of those two channels drop we’re at the mercy of one and you can all imagine how bad that can be.
2. We’re lone wolves.
The less we help one another the less power we all have. Each group within this space is doing its own thing, not thinking about the collective reach we all have together. Can we get better rates if we unite? Can we push a message further together? Hack, if we tried I truly believe our traffic has enough reach to affect an election by few points.
3. We lack influence within ICANN
When ICANN has listen to our concerns lately? While as a group we own more domains than any other we have little to no say within ICANN.
4. Corporations in the space are constantly taking of for a ride.
I don’t need to name anyone here, just read The Domains by Michael Berkens or Domain Name Wire. These two cover some of those very well.
5. We hardly share data with one another.
There are only a handful of message boards in the space, most contributors are regulars while majority stay out of them.
6. We fail each other
Rick’s board was a unique place that has shut down due to one pushing the other a little too far. Couldn’t it all be avoided? The hostility in the space is just killing the space. Not too smart for a group who individually consider themselves “visionaries”.
7. We ask, but not demand.
We ask parking companies for improvements all the time but do not demand enough. We have to set the boundaries correctly, that is, find alternatives to them and walk away if not enough is being done. Do not fear to walk on one parking company or another if not enough is being done to work on your portfolio. They do need you as much, if not more, then you need them. On that note, a shameless sell promotion: If you need help with your portfolio, visit Bido’s PortfolioHelp.com.
8. We’re constantly falling into TM traps
trademark owners want our valuable intellectual properties for free or as little as possible. Why are we accepting arbitration rules as they are? Why are we not challenging the system? Have you ever stopped to question this? What I mean by that, if you lose a case you have to give up the domain, usually, a valuable domain. Why not just fix the content which is in question? Like in the case of ChilliBeans.com, wouldn’t removing certain links fix the problem? Why the reward should be the transfer of the domain name? Don’t we all know very well many are abusing the system here? Have we not seen enough of that by now?
9. We do not solicit advertisers on our sites.
Simple as that, increasing advertisers on a given site will increase your bottom line and the value of the domain channel altogether, so why parking companies do not do that? Why on our parking domains we do not solicit for more advertisers, possibly creating direct relationship for the domain channel where we can provide a better value proposition to advertisers, charge less than top Google/Yahoo positions and still make more (as we do not have to pay a cut). Why is it then this is being ignored?
10. Add yours here
Cheers, for a better year!
Sahar
10)
We’re constantly in front of the computer (and/or smartphone) trying to reg more domains.
10)
We’re in front of the computer 24/7 and can’t seem to pry ourselves from being “getting work done”.
10) afraid to experiment
Most domainers are set in their ways and afraid to experiment…and there are plenty of opportunities to experiment with domains online… Now the “cool” thing is to develop… but we all must realize that development has been an option forever…it is not new… Just when you are forced to do something, only then you start figuring things out and putting it in perspective.
Sahar, If MSFT was to acquire Yahoo… Do you think they would of killed off the domain channel? not immediately of course… but once all contracts with parking companies and the larger domain aggregators and such would expire which i think are yearly… so domainers dodged a bullet this year with that whole fiasco… and another earlier in the year when Google was in fact considering dropping the domain channel as a whole right there and then i think.
Many individuals are attracted to domaining as numerous stories can be found of pioneers in the field who have done very well financially as a result of their vision and risk-taking. The reality, however, is that most individuals who register available domains, place them in parking and wait for an eventual buyer lose money. Nevertheless, quality domains can be very valuable to a targeted end user or developed into revenue-generating portals. I believe that competition among domainers leads to some reluctance to share the “tricks of the trade.”
10. We get distracted as we have many opportunities and only so much time to accomplish them all. Domainer Distraction Disorder.
btw Part of your point 6 (”consider themselves visionaries”) struck a chord with me as I just finished reading 2 stories about Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers.
From this site : http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/careers/2008/12/01/malcolm-gladwell-talks-about-his-new-book-outliers-the-story-of-success.html
“The book is a response to an idea prevalent in the last epoch on Wall Street, that individuals were the drivers of their own achievements. I argue the opposite. Success invariably involves many things that have nothing to do with the individual.”
Anyway, timing was weird . . .just something I thought when I read that sentence.
Hi Sahar! I would add lack of development of our best domains. I don’t care if someone wants to do it by himself or with cooperation with some third party. Or we can even outsource the development. But let’s start to do it - domain with developed site can be worth hundred times more than only domain name. I know it is hard but we don’t try hard enough IMHO.
10. WE lie to ourselves.
Face IT, the old school methodology of Domaining is dead. TRAFFIC never wanted to be ‘parked’. ALL domains are worth nothing without authentic content LIVING on them. There are no experts in this ‘game’. There are no ‘leaders’. There are no ‘rules’. Loners with computers. Millionaires paying programmers. Don’t be fooled. Speculating is not cool. WE are domaining. WE should be ashamed. The game has forever changed… GET REAL.
Always great to hear the truth Sahar. BRING BACK BIDO!
“A general list of why domaining sucks. Maybe by exploring these issues we can all do a little better, and possibly suck a little less.”
Domaining doesn’t suck. The present situation might suck but I’m looking at my business plan and see a bright future if I can hang on just a little longer while I continue to improve what I have.
“1. We are Dependant on two main upstream providers”
True, but for us developers who host our own pages, we can cross advertise. So when a visitor hits a site we might send him to another of our sites instead of back to a search engine or elsewhere. So we might get a 1.1 network wide hit instead of just a single hit. The returns diminish as he goes to our next site and maybe the next but we keep him in the network long enough to show him another ad or two.
“2. We’re lone wolves.”
Yes we are but we also do share ideas and thoughts. And if there was a bunch of domainers close by I’d meet with them for breakfast or lunch. And we’d share ideas.
I do communicate with one other domainer from time to time. And I do try to participate here.
“3. We lack influence within ICANN”
ICANN isn’t here to help us. It’s here to regulate the system for the good of the whole group. Not especially us domainers. We depend on the system to function. It does! When it breaks, I’ll be asking why. When ICANN does something to hurt me I’ll be complaining. But I don’t expect anything but fair treatment there.
“4. Corporations in the space are constantly taking of for a ride.”
The corporations exist to serve their stock holders by delivering them a profit. I can’t see the corporations listening to me unless I own a chunk of the Company or am a big customer.
“5. We hardly share data with one another.”
No, but if I ran a hardware store or a grocery I wouldn’t share that data much either. But when the heat is on and effects the group we’ll talk.
“6. We fail each other”
I try not to!
“7. We ask, but not demand.”
I’m not big enough to demand. But I don’t park once I start developing a domain.
“8. We’re constantly falling into TM traps”
Trade Mark? It’s important but I try to stay away from that crap.
“9. We do not solicit advertisers on our sites.”
Maybe we need someone to organize a group of us into some kind of marketing channel for ad space on our sites. I don’t know but I think advertisers are looking for the biggest market and most individual domainers can’t offer that big a market by themselves. I use CJ and Adbrite.
“10. Add yours here”
We pick lousy domains sometimes then try to pawn them off on somebody else and get upset when one of the auction houses turn them down. If it’s that good a domain don’t offer to sell it. Wait til the buyers come to you. If it’s not that good then hold your peace when the auction house turns it down and develop it instead of parking.
If your content winds up being good, the whole will be worth selling outright.
Number 10..
because we are not understood by those outside the domainosphere.
I cannot stress this enough. We need to do 3 things.
1.EDUCATE
2.EDUCATE
3. http://xr.com/EDUCATE
a perfect example: http://xr.com/Read
my best,
Ritz.
I think a better topic would be “Why Parking Sucks”! Which is the name of the article I just wrote and posted at DepositArticles.com. Give it a couple days to be approved.
Sahar,
As much as the domaining industry is going through a slow period right now (same as the real estate, finance and almost every other industry is) domaining is one industry does not suck.
Fact is most “domainers” have never learned how to develop, have never ventured into sales to end users and many times truly believe thier domains are worth 10 times the amount any of them are worth. How many times have you seen auction lists with $20, $30 or $50,000 names that most of us would not even register today.
I understand you are simply pointing out the parts that do suck in the industry but I personally think we are in the best buying time ever in this industry and there are many reasons why domaining does not suck which should also be pointed out.
People need to sharpen their development skills, adjust and increase their knowledge of what makes a good domain and understand that every industry has a slow period.
Some will crash, some will cry but many will rejoice about the deals of 2008 or 2009 many years from now.
Regarding #6, Rick’s board was shut down by the same scumbag who sold the same domainers who made him down the river with his registrant search. The same person who bragged about having unauthorized access to the board and in the same email included his list of fancy corporate titles. It’s a nice reminder of what the domain industry has become to have someone bragging about such a thing feeling perfectly comfortable doing so from his corporate email account.
The “most backordered names” on the daily Pool email are still TM heavy. Many registrars, for whom we are often their largest customers, fall over themselves to steal from us and auction off “their” names.
These are the “leaders” of the domain business and for as long as the domain business supports them we get what we deserve.
I haven’t acquired any new domains in about a year, only renewed existing ones and developed a few.
Look on the bright side, 2008 will go down as the year when there’s finally a profession on the internet less popular than “domainer”. Enjoy it while it lasts, maybe an investment banker will write an apology next year then we’ll be back to the bottom of the shit pile.
#10 Because most PPC advertisers don’t even know about parked domains.
Google and Yahoo sell PPC ad distribution bundled as either “search advertising” or “content advertising” but syndicate to parked domains which don’t actually fit either category. This arrangement doesn’t serve either domainers or advertisers well.
BTW, I wonder how much progress companies like Sendori are making…
There are lot of reasons why domaining sucks. There are also lots of reasons why every other way to earn a living sucks. All have their challenges. However, when putting it into perspective, domaining has more incredible opportunities and a lot less reasons it sucks than most other livelihoods.
Sahar
I think most of the issues you raise, you will find common in all businesses and industries.
We’re lone wolves and we hardly share data with one another:
I have owned many other businesses in my life, nightclubs, call centers, and of course practiced law for quite a while, to name a few.
In all my endeavors I have found that most businesses do not share information or data. When I owned a nightclub, no one in the district ever shared numbers,like revenue or customers through the door.
People shared general information, like we have a good night or its was slow, but rarely are you going to find competitors telling each other specifics.
You think one law firm tells another what there annual billings are?
Can everyone in any industry ban together and get a better deal, sure but its doesn’t happen in any business.
Nothing special to domaining.
We lack influence within ICANN:
I disagree.
According to VeriSign, parked domains account for 8% of all .com and .net domain registrations. I have no idea of if that is accurate or not, but its a number they consistently use and until someone gives me other data, I’m going to go with that.
This means that 92% of domain holders are not domainers.
We all have a right to comment on policy during periods where changes are up for consideration.
I see very few domainers taking advantage of these periods.
The last period opened for commenting on the new registrars agreement had less than 50 comments.
ICANN certainly isn’t going to hear you if you don’t speak to them.
They aren’t going to read our blogs. You have to make your voice heard when they open the door, and they do seem to listen when, on rare occasions, there is overwhelming opinion
4. Corporations in the space are constantly taking of for a ride.
Of course they are. Think this is special to domaining?
Look at Wall Street firms, banking, the mortgage industry, AIG, just to name a few.
Companies will do everything they can get away with to make a buck.
It only stops when customers get sick of it and stop doing business with a particular company or if a regulatory body steps in.
We fail each other:
You will find assholes in every business. Lot’s of them.
Nothing special to domaining here.
Avoid those who you don’t like, respect or trust.
We’re constantly falling into TM traps
Everyone wants what you have and give you as little as possible for it.
You think Donald Trump doesn’t want a great piece of real estate on 5th Avenue in NY and wouldn’t try to get it from you if he could, for as little as he could.
Anyone can sue anyone for $100 filing fee and then you have to hire an attorney and defend yourself.
The legal system in the US sucks, not just for those in the domain industry.
Like any business we have our problems.
However if the “industry” ended tomorrow, would you say your life would have been better off had you had never been involved in the business?
I gotta add one more thing about why domaining sucks. It sort of goes back to what Sammy (#1) was saying. These damn computers are strangling the lives out of us. I for one will be the first one to admit that I spend WAY TOO MUCH time fused to a keyboard and screen, in a chair, clinching the mouse and wrestling with code, and errors, and crashes, and glitches, and blogs, and twits, and… jeez the list goes on and on and on.
I long for the day when all there will be is hot sand, sunshine and seagulls to rinse away these piles of bits and pixels…
Sahar,
Just wanted to drop a brief note here and say that ‘the future is what we make it’. I love working in this industry which always presents new challenges and opportunities at every turn. In 2009 we will continue to see major shifts in this industry as we have witnessed this year and we will have to continue to adapt and get smarter. So I look forward to the year ahead and embrace change as it comes from parking domains to developing them (www.youth.com.au) we need to make it work.
Keep the posts coming mate!! See you in LA (DomainFest)
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Couldn’t agree more David.
Cheers
Sahar
Domaining is not negative: Domaining.pro is for domainers only and it is free…
It is one more back link for domainers, “people interested in the domain name industry”, which also includes anyone with one domain name…
Let’s not be so negative and general here
10) We arent open to change and never look at new ventures.
“Rick’s board was a unique place that has shut down due to one pushing the other a little too far.” Sorry, but it was shut down cause Rick is a plonker…
He hurts domaining more than enyone else by beeing always so negative and prepontent.
As Google and parking companies cut into profit/ payout margins for domainers…one word stands out - DEVELOPMENT!
FREE: Submit your business blog or service at goyellowpages.com
Because domainers completely over value their own portfolios, their net worth, their importance in the greater scheme of things, their own egos and the fact that “what they do” (which is generally “nothing”) is easily replicated by anyone with 10 bucks.
For every decent, generic, dot com domain, there are a trillion parked / domains-for-sale with a net worth of zero.
Traffic from the domain channel is complete junk.. And i mean complete junk. True, there are some domains with type-in traffic where the conversions for advertisers are good, but these pail into insignificance when you add up the volume of fraud advertisers receive from all the other domains in the network.
Why large scale domain owners havent combined their collective traffic pools and sold this via their own ad network is anyones guess.
Take 2 Laxapors and call me in the morning
All EXELLENT points Sahar but in order to be heard Domaining needs to have a strong voice. At the moment there is’nt one…it appears to be - look after number 1.
Many of these issues could be easily fixed, take a very important point - number
, the idiotic WIPO descision on chillibeans
There are only a VERY small number of parking companies but between them they hold millions of domains, why don’t they get together with each other Google/Yahoo and implement a system so we can choose/approve or block any ads on our parking pages.
Just how hard can that be ?
It’s in everyones interest, including Google and the parking companies who have (on the odd ocassion) also been held liable for showing TM ads.
Result: Our domains will end up in WIPO far less (instead of far more), Parking companies won’t end up in court and Google won’t have to pay millions in legal fees.
..just what are they waiting for ????
If they don’t act soon many of us are going to loose generic domains to people who just don’t want to pay for them.
If there are any parking companies reading this….use some common sense and get the ball rolling !
I don’t usually post on, but do often read various “domaineer” blogs and articles just to see what everyone is talking about. I develop websites and have a very small portfolio of domain names that I am holding while I develop them one at a time. I do not hoard names nor do I just sit on them while I wait for the ever elusive fool to come along and say “hey, can I pay you a bazillion dollars for that piece of cyber real estate that you registered 12 years ago and have completely ruined by having it parked for the last 10 years? No, I will make websites, develop them and profit from their success.
I read so many articles where domaineers complain about “cybersquatters” well, i challenge all of you then, start practicing what you preach.. id you want to complain about those who hoard domains (squatters) stop doing it yourself, get up and do something with the names you have or get someone who can do it for you. The reason anything “sucks” is always the fault of those doing it, if domaining sucks it’s your own fault, do something about it and fix it then.
I challenge everyone who will read this, pick one domain.. just one from the thousands you are sitting on, and actually do something with it. Make one site, that is useful and that contains relevant content and see what happens. I will bet you will never go back to just sitting on your hind quarters and waiting to make your 100 payout threshold from Google every again.
I agree with you Sahar and do believe that we need to come together, more like the GeoDomainers, and that would benefit us all as we shape and make the Domaining Industry.
Sincerely,
“The G. Man”
Domainers are lazy. parking is the easy way out. In all reality if one of the “higher powers” decides to completely shut the parking/non-original content channel down, a lot of “players” in the “game” will be forced to find alternative revenue streams. This is why a portfolio of 20 well developed names can out perform the latter of 1000 names. Like Jamie Parks says, “Get REAL!”
Change is happening and if you can not find the boat your portfolio will be left in the dust.
Sahar we miss BIDO.com ;)!
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Bido will come back January 2009. Will try and write more about it sometime next week.
Cheers
Sahar
Domaining still isn’t covered enough by the Media.
Great post
Sahar: Interesting post. I have to agree with the comments above re development. At the end of the day, great content added to a great domain is where the market is going. I have done 7 figures off my typepad domains at tcattorney.typepad.com (which I am now stuck with because of the traffic). My traffic obviously has nothing to do with the domain.
Painfully true.
Here we go again ! There is a saying that ” repetition is the mother of all teachers ” If we could change one aspect of the domaining Industry it woild be the lawlessness that is prevalent because of,
NO LEASE HOLDER RIGHTS.
ICANN is the root of the foundational problems that plague our industry. We have stated many times that ICANN refuses to protect the rights of current lease holders.
This is a blatant neglect of fiduciary rights of all current lease holders. The truth of the matter is registrars will sell you a lease ,but they accept no fiduciary responsibility that you will keep the lease till expiration. This is why in all the hyjacking of leases by Kentucky-and contless others ICANN has been completely SILENT, as if lease holders have no rights.
And you know what ? Under the current ICANN bylaws all the other players in the industry have more rights than the lease holders themselves. Until leaseholders under ICANNS jurisdiction gain some lease holder rights, the violins will continue to play a woefull song.
I agree Sahar, I met you in 2005 in Vegas. We have thousands of Domain Names and business seems to suck lately. I have 140 blogs and lots of built out sites. Let me know if there is any “Uniting” going on, We are In… Lets Show the Big Boys the Power the Domainers have.
Hi Sahar,
Way to go with an article that gets domainers to sit up and go “uh oh”.
My belief, after 10 years of professional domaining, is that I personally haven’t utilized the domains I had to build them out even with limited content. I fell into the “park ‘em and leave ‘em” trap. Not good for domain values and appreciation.
I started thinking differently about five years ago, when I noticed that certain people were beginning to “focus” on their domains and build them out as businesses, or even “pseudo-businesses.” The results were that outside domain industry buyers became interested, even fearful, that a good descriptive domain name with content competing against them might be ripe for purchase or acquisition.
Bottom line, we domainers now are moving away from believing all the value in our domains comes from non-transparent parking companies providing us landing pages full of google and yahoo links. The truth is, your domain is what YOU CREATE IT TO BE WORTH. Put content on your domains, create something that uses a variety of monetization sources. Contact AEIOU.com, Trafficz.com, Whypark.com, and EVO to discuss taking those 80% of you domains that do absolutely nothing at a parking service, and get some content, any relevant content, on them as soon as possible. Prove that you believe in your domains, or sell them or let them expire.
In 2009, content will rule the path of success for domainers.
Great article, Sahar. My wife and I are looking forward to seeing you at Domainfest in January!
I think domainers are too timid when it comes to trademark issues. I find it ridiculous that a company can spend $300 and own an English word that has existed for a long long time. I can see if the company has spent years and millions promoting the name (word) and has become synonymous with it. But other than that any trademark should be worthy of challenge. In fact, It would be nice if a law existed that a dictionary word that has existed for so many years cannot be a trademark candidate. That way, the companies are not able to start associating themselves with the dictionary words in the first place.
Domaineering is the web-based marketing business of acquiring and monetizing Internet domain names for their use specifically as an advertising medium rather than primarily speculating on domains as intellectual property investments for resale as in domaining where generating advertising revenue is considered more of a secondary bonus while awaiting a sale. In essence, the domain names function as virtual Internet billboards with generic domain names being highly valued for their revenue generating potential derived from attracting Internet traffic hits. Revenue is earned as potential customers view pay per click ( PPC ) ads or the Internet traffic attracted may be redirected to another website. Hence, the domain name itself is the revenue generating asset conveying information beyond just functioning as a typical web address. As the value here is intrinsically in the domain name and not in a website’s products or services, these domains are “parked” and not intended to be developed into conventional websites. As with traditional advertising, domaineering is part art and part science. Often to be the most effective as an advertising tool, the domain names and their corresponding landing pages must be engineered or optimized to produce maximum revenue which may require considerable skill and keen knowledge of search engine optimization ( SEO ) practices, marketing psychology and an understanding of the target market audience. Domaineering generally utilizes a firm offering domain parking services to provide the sponsored “feed” of a word or phrase searched for thus creating a mini-directory populated largely by advertisers paying to promote their products and services under a relevant generic keyword domain. Occasionally content is added to develop a functional mini-website. Domaineers and some of those who advertise online using keywords believe domaineering provides a useful, legal and legitimate Internet marketing service while opponents of domaineering decry the practice as increasing the ubiquitous commercialization of the world wide web. Domaineering aka “domain advertising” is practiced by both large organizations which may have registered hundreds or even thousands of domains to individual entrepreneurial minded domaineers who may only own one or a few. The earliest known verifiable identification and defining of domaineering as a distinct Internet advertising practice is attributed to Canadian Professor William Lorenz.