Video

Eric Borgos Interview by Michael Cyger

We can highly recommend this interesting and educational interview with Eric Borgos conducted by DomainSherpa.com and expert interviewer Michael Cyger: Eric Borgos interview

RSS Feed Spam with Repetitive Duplicate Articles

We have noticed more and more RSS Feed spamming by publishing repetitive and duplicate articles. In fact, one well known blog appears to have published at least 17 RSS articles today to our feed, of which 16 appear to be duplicates of earlier published articles from his feed. In addition, that blog has been spamming DomainingRoulette.com domain headline news aggregator for many days and even more frequently recently.

Domaining Roulette will not allow more spamming and will not hesitate banning any RSS-feed who does that regardless of who they are. For example, the RSS Feed of Afternic.com was recently suspended for ongoing spam.

RunningShoes.com: from $150 to 700k in 5 yrs

DNjournal.com reports that RunningShoes.com sold for $700,000 making it the year’s biggest sale.

To add to the news reported by Ron Jackson, this blog can report the domain name sold for a measly $150 in 2005. Isn’t that amazing!

From low 3 figures to high 6 figures!

Is it a Good Idea to Use WordPress vs HTML?

Personally. I much prefer standard html sites vs WordPress sites. However, with that said, I must say a well designed WP site certainly can look great and be successful. Blogs and forums in particular do extremely well using WordPress where richness of features and live user interactivity are highly desired features, but with that said, I still like HTML vs Woprdpress by far for making “regular” (non-blog non-forum) new sites.

After working for years with regular html before using WordPress at first I found the WordPress learning curve to be huge and taking vast amounts of time. One of the toughest aspects was the look and feel of a WP site which is difficult to control and tricky to modify vs much easier to change html sites. Heavy spam or bot posts of WP sites are also a negative issue which is always looming but that is not a big problem involving standard html sites.

In addition, I do not think WordPress security is that good judging by some WP sites I know being hacked in the past. Speaking of security, the ongoing need to frequently update the version number is also an unwanted hassle, especially since the automatic upgrade capacity can and does sometimes fail.

In fact, you always need to worry your old WP version may not be fully compatible with the latest version and if not your site will go down when the upgrade fails and the old site will then stop functioning due to the upgrade failure. Been there and done that too. Even backups are a big hassle since there are extra steps involved to copy the data base but with standard html the database can be easily copied using simple FTP at the same time as regular htm files, with no other steps needed.

As far as search engine optimization is concerned I suspect WP and HTML are roughly equal in that regard. However, with that said, it’s much easier to do search engine verifications with html sites since it can be quite confusing trying to determine where the needed search engine verification codes are inserted into WordPress sites (because of the .php file names and confusing directory and folder structure, but with HTML and .htm files that’s all quite basic by comparison.

In my opinion, a big reason WordPress is so popular are the vast numbers of people who say they are WP programmers and designers (it must be easy to become one), or sell products that only work with WP, including many web-developer special offers and Clickbank products. Recently I decided to NOT buy several excellent sounding new developent site offers and programs since they were offered or designed only for WordPress and I was reluctant to add more WP sites no matter how good the offer sounds.

As a test, just ask a WordPress minisite developer, site designer or seller to help with some simple and basic modifications to your old html website and you will likely learn he/she can not do the job, no matter how basic it may be. Been there and done that. In fact, some of the things I wanted a bit of help or advice with from my WordPress developers or designers were real basic which I ended up doing myself, and I am far from being good with programming.

A Recently Discovered Quality Domaining Site

Just finished listening to the new DomainSherpa.com interview with well-known domainer Justin Godfrey. Just in case you are not familiar with DomainSherpa.com it’s a relatively new site operated by Michael Cyger. I have spoken to Michael and listened to his informative and educational series of interviews.

By the way, Michael has excellent interviewing skills. His interviews also benefit nicely from their length since they are 1-hour or longer which time allows Michael and his guest to cover a lot of information in that time (compared to much shorter Youtube videos).

It’s also quite interesting how the video interviews are of such good video quality from a basic service which most of us probably already have on our computers. After seeing how good the split-screen videos are I asked Michael about the technology thinking he must be using a top-quality video production system and was surprised the video quality is from Skype.

The most interesting part of the latest one-hour plus interview was how Justin Godrey purchased the domain name Snowmobilers.com for just $500. The name had an equally surprising low asking price of only $900 which Justin received in reply to his email. I doubt I would even bother try to get a better price as he did with that amazingly low initial asking price.

How is that possible when the name is likely worth so much (I would estimate at mid-5 figures or more). Justin was certainly lucky with that one. Why does that kind of luck never happen to me?

Many Websurfers & Users Are Not Internet Savvy

An actual example of how many people are not very internet savvy occurred a few days ago when I asked someone (in-person) to go to a website named Example-Example.com but she typed-in ExampleHyphenExample.com and then announced the website did not work.

Quite surprisingly, she actually spelled and typed the word hyphen instead of using a (-) dash character. Even after I explained that a ‘hyphen’ was a ‘dash’ she seemed a bit confused and still did not understand it.

At another time and involving a different person (on phone) I used the word ‘dash’ meaning Example-Example.com but he typed in ExampleDashExample.com, typing-in the word ‘dash’ instead of the keyboard (-) character.

On a somewhat different subject, it’s also true even today there are lots of people who don’t really know the difference between a browser address box and a search-engine box, especially as far as actual use is concered.

I have several family members who always type the website URL including its domain extension in the Google search box, and do not use the Internet Explorer or Safari browser address window (which is of course where the URL should go). When I told them about it they were not aware they should (or even could for that matter) use the browser window.

On a side-note to our readers who run their own websites and study site visitor data, we believe URL’s typed-in the search box do not count as valuable so called Direct Navigation (a.k.a. typeins) but are considered to be (less valuable) search visitors.

We suspect most website owners (even including some experienced domainers) do not understand or realize their actual direct navigation (typein) numbers are a better percentage than their stats program indicates, something many site owners are overlooking that positive aspect with their website stats software data analysis.

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Google’s Valentine Day Domain Names

As posted about on DomainNameWire.com, Google has registered the domains GoogleValentine.com and GoogleValentine.org on Feb 8, 2011. Since only the .com and .org were mentioned we checked Whois and see they also registered GoogleValentine.net at the same time, in addition to some other Valentine’s Day domains Google registered.

Since Valentine’s Day is only 4 days away we don’t see how there could be sufficient time this year (but if not this year, maybe next year?) for Google to get geared-up in time to actually use the domains as some kind of Valentine’s Day promotion, i.e. maybe you will be able to go to Google and get an Online Valentine? (don’t bother trying to get OnlineValentine.com as it’s been registered since 1999).

Below is our Valentine’s Day wish to you…

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Will GoDaddy’s Super Bowl Ad be a Success?

Godaddy is spending a ton of money on their Super Bowl ad and other heavy .CO marketing but will it make the .CO extension (.CO is actually the South America Nation of Columbia country code) an Internet success?

In our opinion, it’s already apparent .CO will be a flop as far as long-term value goes, and actual use. There are very few .CO developed sites and it has a poor resale market, with rare sales (except for occasional sales of strong single word names).

With that said, .CO is already a big financial success as far as registry and registrars income is concerned, thanks to brilliant and costly marketing, defensive registrations and domainers who can’t get the .COM and think .CO is a good replacement for speculation purposes.

A big hope with .CO was the anticipation of .co getting substantial ‘typo’ or ‘spillover’ traffic intended for the .COM but I can tell you from good first-hand experience that is not happening now, and is also extremely unlikely to occur in the future.

Buy a domain name or order webhosting by clicking below:

A slightly modified version of this article was published today in Fortune Magazine & CNN Money

Learn How Many are Searching for Your Domain

If you have your domain names registered at Godaddy.com you have the unique ability to discover exactly how many people are looking up your Whois information on the Godaddy site. This is very cool.

I am starting to think it may even be worthwhile to use Godaddy more simply to take advantage of this powerful feature. Knowing how many people looked up your Whois information can have major benefits, not the least of which is it can indicate how many possible buyers you might have and you can rank your domains in value based on the number of Whois searches performed.

For example, say you have a low traffic and lightly searched term but suddenly you see several Whois lookups. That can indicate there may be a buyer for your domain or website out there, possibly an end-user who will likely pay a lot more vs a typical low-balling domainer. It’s hard to understand why this very cool and great Godaddy feature has not received more publicity, or other domain registrars apparently do not offer it.

This is how you can discover the number of Whois searches performed on your domains using Godaddy: Go to the Domain Manager, mouse-over the Tools tab at top and click-on Exportable Lists. Next click on Add New Export with a drop-down list. Select All My Domains and click Next.

Now you can select the data to export. Check-off exporting both Current and Previous Period Whois Searches, and click-on Next. Then select CSV file for use by opening your Excel spreadsheet program. Probably no need to compress the data so select “none”. Give the exportable list a Name and click-on Finish. After a few minutes GoDaddy will compile the list and email it to you.

Buy a domain name or order website hosting by going to the Godaddy banner below:

Example of a Cleverly Disguised Hijacking Attempt

Watch out for all the very well done cleverly disguised attempts to get your login name and password to various websites such as PayPal, Amazon.com, your Bank accounts, Facebook, plus email providers such as Gmail, and other sites.

For example, reprinted below is one of the more clever ones making the rounds today, which I am sure could work very well for the hijacker of your account:

“Gmail technology team has recently launched Google web software to protect and secure all Gmail Accounts. This system also enhanced efficient networking and fully supported browser. You need to upgrade to a fully supported browser by filling out the details below for validation purpose and to confirm your details on the new webmaster Central system.

ID:
PASSWORD:
LOCATION:

Note: Your account will be disabled permanently if you failed to provide the details required above within 72hours. Gmail will not be held responsible for your negligence. The Google web Service.”

In 1994 Katie Couric Didn’t Know About Internet

Back in 1994 people like Katie Couric had a hard time understanding or explaining what the Internet was!

Why Does Bing Make it Difficult to Submit a Site?

If you own or run a website you realize the high value of getting your site listed well in the major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!

Often you simply wait for the search engine to find your site which they normally will do from following links and other ways to find and index your website. That passive approach usually will be adequate in most cases but it’s not assured and sometimes your site may not get indexed as fast as desired.

However, it’s not necessary to wait since you can be more aggressive by submitting your site directly to the search engines yourself by using their Add URL feature.

The becoming popular Bing.com search engine and others require the verification code be read and typed in. Bing in particular seems to make it unusually difficult to submit your URL since they use a verification code you need to type in, which is far from easy to read.

Those verification codes are also known as Captcha Images which can be read by a human but not by a computer or an automated system since the characters have misc fonts and text styles, and be displayed in various font sizes.

The Bing.com Captcha Image appears to be much harder to read compared to other sites which also require a verification code be entered. In fact, the Bing captcha verification seems so difficult that it makes you wonder if perhaps Bing.com does not really want you to submit your website to their search engine!

Take a look yourself. Try submitting any website URL to Bing.com. Click the 1-11-11 image below to access the Add URL to Bing link:

Skype has acquired Qik.com for $100 million!

We have joined qik.com which was recently purchased by Skype.

•Capture special or spontaneous moments on video using your mobile phone.

•Share the moments live or anytime later with anyone you choose using cell phone live video.

Many Famous Men Are 33rd Degree Freemasons

Been researching Freemasonry lately. One of the most interesting things about becoming a free mason is freemasons saying “a man should never enter freemason fraternity in anticipation of making business connections or for any other sort of professional or monetary gain. If he does, he will be badly disappointed. Instead, he will find a group of like-minded men, who are willing to treat him as a brother and share in a deep and rewarding fellowship with him.

He will find true friends and life-long companions. We expect men who petition for freemason membership to be good but not necessarily perfect men. We know all men have limitations and weaknesses. The freemason symbol pictured below is mysterious to the public as far as what it means and its origin.

Making money and businenss connection is definately not welcome by freemasons. Instead, they say a primary purpose of Freemasonry is the ongoing development of the Mason as an ethical, honest, moral, caring, sincere and charitable man, learning about his own potential as a human being and developing his intellectual and spiritual character.

We just finished a small website about the 33rd degree mason level which I believe is the highest level possible.

Some very famous men have or are freemssona (mostly 33rd degree masons) including: Bill Clinton (Senior Demolay; Newt Gingrich, 33rd Degree Freemason; Bob Dole, 33rd Degree Freemason; Jack Kemp, 33rd Degree Freemason; Storm Thurmond; 33rd Degree Freemason, Colin Powell, 33rd Degree Freemason; U.S. Secretary of State; Jesse Helms, 33rd Degree Freemason; Barry Goldwater, 33rd Degree Freemason; W.D. Gann, 33rd Degree Freemason, Famous Stocks & Commodities Trader; Al Gore, Freemason; and many US Presidents including: George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Bush

33rd Degree Mason

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