Your Own Advertising Network & Keep All Income

Of course, we badly need good alternatives to Google® and Yahoo!® with the best and possibly the only viable option at this time being selling ad space yourself via your our own in-house Advertising Network. A major benefit from running your own advertising network is you keep 100% of the revenue.

Frank Schilling had a very nice Advertising Network of his own running on his domain names but I believe it was deactivated last year for some odd reason. I can only guess as to why.

We would like to install an ad network almost exactly the way Frank’s network worked on all our sites but having lots of difficulty getting it programmed after considerable time and effort.

The problem is the programmers we were trying to hire for the work were simply not capable of doing the job. Therefore, we would really appreciate finding out who the programmer was who programmed Frank’s old advertising network? We have spent considerable time in search of Frank’s Ad Network programmer, including a number of posts about it on Twitter and Facebook but no success. Does anyone know the programmers name or contact information?

P.S. As an interesting side note to demonstrate the major players are trying to improve their own domains and traffic (as small site developers and domain owners are too) we just noticed Fabulous.com (who is a major player with the PPC firms) is both surprisingly and mysteriously using a competitors platform and ad feed on a domain (I imagine far more names than just the one we stumbled on today).

Fabulous is using WhyPark.com (at least with the domain name we noticed today) which is owned by an arch-rival of Fabulous named Parked.com. Isn’t it interesting that Fabulous would use a competitors program instead of their own system!

FYI, the Fabulous.com domain name we are reporting on (which as of today’s date was on the WhyPark.com platform) is registered to FABULOUS.COM PTY LTD.

Any comments you have about website advertising and ad serving networks will be appreciated. Thank you.

Domain Inquiry Sounds Better vs Domain For Sale

There has been talk on the forum boards about the best way to place a notice on your website that your domain name is for sale. Fabulous.com does a good job combining PPC ads with a domain for sale announcement page and developed a type of hybrid between a parked page and a sales page. With that said, ‘This Domain Name is For Sale’ notice does a fairly good job of getting people to make offers, but there appears to be a better way.

That Fabulous page is a good approach but I would like it even more if the banner said “Domain Inquiry” since I believe “This Domain Name is For Sale” notice will detract from the the visitor experience and potential visits to your advertisers (at least to to a degree) since the page may have has less crediblity due to the site/domain being offered for sale. The words “Domain Inquiry” has a less obvious negative meaning to a web-surfer, imo.

Any reviews, comments or ideas you have about how to effectively and professionally sell Internet domain names or websites would be appreciated. Thank you.

Comparative Value of Google Search Rankings

How likely is your URL to get a visitor click based on its keyword(s) search-terms Google ranking?

Click based on Google Rank #1: 42%
Click based on Google Rank #2: 12%
Click based on Google Rank #3: 9%
Click based on Google Rank #4: 7%
Click based on Google Rank #5: 5%
Click based on Google Rank #6: 4%
Click based on Google Rank #7: 4%
Click based on Google Rank #8: 3%
Click based on Google Rank #9: 3%
Click based on Google Rank #10: 3%

Your website url when found on Google’s 1st page of ten search-term rankings (as broken-down above):
Likelihood of a click: 90%

Your website url when found on Google’s 2nd page of ten search-term rankings:
Likelihood of a click: 10%

Note: Data is recently published and courtesy of a reliable source. All figures are rounded to the nearest percentage.

About Green Couches & Ancient Sea Creatures

There are a couple things we have been wondering about regarding both ancient sea creatures and green couches so I posted this on a third partiy site but it was immediatey automatically rejected by the blog as being spam (which it is not) so am posting it here since some readers may find it interesting.

Since at the time we were in the process of purchasing the domain name GreenCouches.com we were doing research about green couches so this was mainly about “Green Couches” which were discussed on that web site.

We asked if the term green couches refers to both the color of the couch and in addition, it being manufactured from non-toxic materials? Also, can a non-toxic couch be called a “green couch” if it’s a different color such as tan or brown for example, or is it usually in-fact green in color?

Another subject of interest is wanting to learn about is what was unique about that website as far as the design goes since it was said the site is somehow similar to ancient sea creatures which have spiral shapes? That was regarding the interesting sea creature picture and the statement: “a fossil of ammonite, an extinct ancient sea creature, which is often used as an “index fossil” to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods.

How does a website possibly embody the basic shape of the spiral, a growth pattern used throughout nature because it allows the organism to grow at a constant rate without having to change shape (as does the structure upon which this that site was built)?

Do any readers of DavidGreen.com blog have any thoughts about how the spiral natural shape of the ancient sea creature fossils (pictured below) could somehow be related to making good websites?

Dallas Cowboys Alleged Domain Price Stupidity

Part of the problem with domain name disputes and domain complaints is the fact so many companies are unwilling to spend a fair amount of money buying already registered domains to protect their valuable brands.

A more or less perfect example is how the Dallas Cowboys representatives made a bid of only $275 (really $275 and not a misprint) for the great Cowboys.com domain name at an auction when other auction bids were in the general area of 200k or higher.

However, strangely the Cowboys allegedly grossly misunderstood the auction price level (in spite of the fact a series of auction bids had worked their way up to more than $200,000., while they were present in-person at the venue) but somehow were oddly thinking a bid of just $275 would buy that great domain. Isn’t that amazing! They say the truth is stranger than fiction. A story like that is so far fetched it could not be made-up!

There is a TV show about the World’s Dumbest and the Dallas Cowboys reps at the domain auction (who I heard it said at least one was a Cowboys attorney) should definitely be on that show based on the alleged auction bidding events.

The proposed world’s dumbest appearance would include the upper management where for just 275k (which should be insignificant to an assumed billion dollar plus business) they later cancelled their absurd $275 bid after being informed the bid should have been $275,000.

This incredible true story about some of the alleged dumbest people on the planet is very hard to believe but this did in fact happen a few years ago.

Are Yahoo Traffic Quality Scores Nonsensical?

Yahoo! is a major advertising feed provider for a few well known domain name parking firms. Domains which are not active websites are usually parked so the domain-name owner gets an opportunity to earn revenue from pay-per-click ads which appear on the pages which are parked.

One of the larger and best domain parking firms is Parked.com, who reports by way of a graphical line chart viewable on the clients dashboard page showing their web-page visitor traffic quality scoring.

Even since the Yahoo feed traffic scores were openly disclosed we have always thought the scores made little sense and seemed nonsensical since the scores fluctuate a lot even though the parked domains and their visitor traffic stays basically the same.

In the past (again with about the same quality traffic) our score has ranged from a very low 1 and all the way up to a consistent 9 or 10, with 10 being the highest possible score, and has held as a 9 or 10 for  long time periods. Here is our most recent quality score report according to Yahoo! which covers the last nine quality score iterations:

2.5 – 3.0 – 0 – 0 – 6.0 – 1.0 – 1.0 – 5.5 – 7.0

In our opinion, it appears to be virtually impossible for such wild fluctuations to take place. In fact, the visitor quality scores almost appear like random numbers, keeping in mind the parked domains and their combined traffic are basically the same for the entire reporting period. What do you think?

Non-US Address Results in WIPO Loss Protection!

The FirstQuote.com WIPO Case Decision (domain kept) and its significant issues & deciding factors:

In our view, the most significant aspect of this case and perhaps in every other case ever presented to WIPO is this statement extracted from the case below: Moreover, the Respondent is based in Hong Kong, SAR of China, while protection of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and the Complainant’s business are limited to the United States of America.

That certainly is an incredibly powerful reason to have your domains registered at a non-USA address!

More… the respondent denies the complainant’s contentions. Respondent alleges that the phrase “First Quote” is the featured tagline for thousands of insurance, financial and legal websites and can be heard in numerous ads from agencies asking to “come in today for your first quote”. Upon the Respondent’s allegations, the disputed domain name is comprised of a generic term, which may be used in hundreds of ways, and the Complainant is attempting to leverage the domain name from its owner by using the UDRP forum to reverse hijack the domain.

The Respondent further states that there are 10 active trademarks for FIRST QUOTE in the US, that there is no proof that the Complainant is the sole owner of and creator of the phrase “first quote” and that the disputed domain name was first registered on January 15, 1997, 6 years prior to the Complainant’s claim of “first use” of the 1STQUOTE-trademarks and even before the Complainant was established, which also shows that the phrase had already been popular before complainant tried to claim it.

The Respondent further argues that he never intended to act in bad faith. Furthermore, according to the Respondent’s allegations, the Complainant has no website, brand, domain name, or anything else associated with “first quote” (rather than 1STQUOTE), and the Complainant does not even own the domain name <1stquote.com>. The Respondent also requests the Complainant should be fined for Reverse Domain Hijacking.

With regard to the Respondent’s bad faith registration and use, the Complainant contends that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name with actual or at least constructive notice of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and was using the disputed domain name in bad faith primarily to intentionally attract for financial gain Internet users to the Respondent’s web site by misleading and confusing Internet users who are searching for the Complainant’s website but, merely, misspell or mistype the brand name of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE on-line application processing service. Respondent has denied these assertions and provided evidence of substantial third parties’ use of the term “first quote”, including the provision of services similar to those of the Complainant.

It seems to be more likely than not to this Panel, the Respondent acquired the disputed domain name, as he contends because of its meaning and because of the substantial third party use of the underlying words, and not with a view to the Complainant and its 1STQUOTE-Marks. The Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks are not used identically in the disputed domain name but with a different spelling, and they enjoy less than average distinction, if any distinction at all, as they are made up of two generic words which are commonly used together.

Moreover, the Respondent is based in Hong Kong, SAR of China, while protection of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and the Complainant’s business are limited to the United States of America.As a result, on the balance of evidence, the Complainant has failed in this Panel’s assessment to prove that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith, i.e. with the Complainant in mind.

We would appreciate any comments you have about trademarks and WIPO cases – which feedback we could also add to our web site since we are actively looking for personal feedback about trademark issues to expand the web site, which site you can visit by going to Internet Intellectual Property now, or clicking-on the image below. Thank you.

Chinese CC Domain Registrations Decline by 39%

Noticed on the newly redesigned igoldrush.com web site registrations of Chinese country code (.CN) domain names has declined a very high 39%. That is not too surprising in view of the loss of domain registrars who were once selling .cn names (before recent strict Chinese government domain restrictions were put imto effect), plus some other issues.

We owned ony one dot-cn domain, a name which we owned for many years. However, what with the comparatively high yearly renewal fees and its low traffic the Chnese domain- name was not worth renewing again this year.

I always wondered why Chinese people would actually type-in an English word followed by the .cn extension? I believe English use by the public is not nearly as common in China vs Europe and many other nations of the world. Can anyone confirm that with some statistics or opinons?

Do Websites & Traffic Add Major Value to Prices?

There has been discussion on domain-name forums and blogs about developed websites adding significant value to domain names, and also making the domains easier to sell plus sell for a higher price. Agree to a degree, a developed web site with traffic is of high overall value. However, with that said, based on hands-on experience, I can say end-users rarely if ever care about the traffic your domain or its website gets, and in fact don’t ask for any statistics. Even if you offer them your stats, they don’t want to see it.

In view if the above I am unfortunately somewhat dubious about a developed website (with good traffic and typeins too) being more appealing to end-user buyers and the price they will pay for the domain, at least much beyond intrinsic value. Potential end-user buyers may actually be a bit negative about an existing web site and as a result its pre-branding.

Please note that my comments do not indicate I am negative about developed websites, or do not greatly value traffic. The exact opposite is true, since I have a number of developed sites which I am very happy with, most of which get good search-engine traffic, enjoy the benefits of high SEO rankings, plus receive natural typeins (from Internet users like President Barack Obama, pictured below, likely looking at a health website)…

Is It Still Possible to Register Domains with Value?

Is it possible to freshly register domain names of value (which may not necessarily make you rich) but have some value, and can make you at least a bit of money?

Rarely a week passes where we do not stumble upon at least a few unreg’d names which I am sure would get natural traffic plus search traffic too. We can’t possibly register them all (there are simply too many good ones) but when we do register the available domains there are often typein visitors to the temporary webpage right away.

Anyone else run across good targeted keyword unregistered domains lately?

Real-Time Example of Page Title Keyword Value

There has been an ongoing discussion for years about the SEO value of having important keywords in the webpage title. Some SEO experts tend to downplay its value to a degree, while many others say it is of high value. Personally, I have always talked about its great value.

As an experiment I picked a more or less randomly chosen basic word, the word is ‘make’ and then did a Google search for “make.” The search shows out of 100 top search results the keyword was in the web-page title 95 times (95% of the total).

I think that is pretty strong evidence of its significant SEO value. In fact, it would appear the keyword in page title may even be of equal or greater value than the website content (at least on some of the search-result sites I looked at). This is all quite interesting if this seo research is in fact valid.

Here is the search: click-here for Google Search

Wondering About the Knowledge of Domainers?

There are a lot of mysteries with domaining such as how often expired names sell at places like Snapnames for $60 or more but no sale for $20 before expiration at forums, etc.

However, the oddity which really has me wondering about the knowledge many domainers really have is why I keep on running into health and medical related domains available in .org but already reg’d in other extensions which have far less likelihood of traffic vs dot-org?

I can say based on lots of experience the only 2 tld’s which work nicely with health names are .com and .org. In fact, depending on the name .org can sometimes do as well or even better vs .com in health/disease related names. All the others are poor with very rare typeins.

Just this afternoon I was doing research using Google’s Insights For Search and discovered a real nice 3 word health term which seems like it would get both search and typein traffic.

I figured it would be taken in dot-com and dot-org for sure and maybe even other extensions but upon checking was surprised to see it unregistered in .org but taken in .com .net .biz .info .us and even .eu so I quickly registered the dot-org.

Why is it not better known that dot-org works so well in the health, wellness and disease category? Just one of life’s many mysteries I guess.

Why Develop Someone Else’s Domains Free?

Recently a forum member posted on one of the domain name boards he was looking for a reliable partner to develop his (no traffic) domain names into developed websites, including adding site content and making money from the site. He also wants the free developer to pay 50% of future expenses (such as web-hosting) in return for a 50% split of potential revenue.

Getting someone else to develop his no traffic and dubious value names (which also adds good value to them) and even pay 50% of future costs is a fabulous business plan for HIM. However, he needs to seriously ask himself why in the world would anyone do that when they can develop their own names and get 100% of the site ownership and future revenue for themselves (or develop for others receivung up-front compensation for the job)?

Pros & Cons Site Development vs Parked Domain

Many domain name owners are now saying the smart money in 2010 is on website development.

It appears most everyone is saying development is best but the fact is it can be much tougher to get revenue vs a ppc parked page.

Several reasons for that including the fact Click-thru-rates (CTR) is often 4 or 5 times better on a parked page which means the developed site will need 4 or 5 time more traffic to earn the same revenue, assuming the Earnings-per-click (EPC) is about the same comparing say Adsense/YPN vs the major parking firms.

With that said, a nice advantage the developed site has is the ability for site traffic to increase (but that can easily take many months or even years), whereas the parked domain is unlikely to ever get more traffic.

I have more developed sites vs parked domains so I also believe strongly in development but the strength of the keyword name is a big factor, imo. In addition, development involves vast amounts of time and work, including the site/domain server setup, content, hosting, seo work, site maintenance and monitoring, not to mention the hosting cost and time involved and many months or years of waiting for traffic to slowly build-up over time.

Keep the following example in mind if you are developing a good keyword name which gets say 100 typein visits/mo and earns say $2.80/mo at parking (based on 20% CTR and .14c EPC). Once you make it a developed site you will start-out with approx the same 100 typein visits but more often than not your CTR will drop to roughly 4% (or even lower) which means your revenue will decline to just .56c vs $2.80 on parking.

That typical example scenario in-effect means your traffic will need to skyrocket to 500 visits/mo to equal the same $2.80/mo revenue when parked. Can you imagine the time and work involved increasing your traffic from 100/mo to 500/mo!

Coming Events Cast Shadows in Search-Terms

Our server has two excellent stats program running which tells us most everything possible about how visitors arrive at this website, including the search terms used in the search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo and others.

The popularity of the beautiful Alexis DelChiaro (photo above) as far as search results coming from our server stats program is quite surprising. Upon checking our statistics today we see Alexis DelChiaro is the most searched term. Making that more surprising is the fact most of the searches relate to the possibility of Alexis and husband (Chicago Cubs pitcher) Sean Marshall being separated or divorced, with 15 of 20 looking for information about Alexis and 12 of 15 regarding separation or divorce.

Here are the top-20 search terms (non-Alexis search terms are not shown):

alexis delchiaro divorced
alexis delchiaro
alexis delchiaro separated
alexis del chiaro separated
is alexis del chiaro divorced
sean marshall divorced
is sean marshall divorced
is alexis delchiaro divorced
alexis delchiaro age
alexis delchiaro divorce from sean marshall
alexis delchiaro sean marshall separated
did alexis delchiaro get divorced
alexis del chiaro
alexis del chiaro fox news separated from sean
alexis delchiaro and divorced

As discussed before in this blog, “coming events cast their shadows” which indicates to me it’s very likely Alexis is at a bare minimum having problems with her marriage and separation or divorce is likely. After all, why would these search terms be so common unless there was some truth to it?

As a side note, there was a popular old article with a series of comments published here about Alexis Delchiato which I believe are indexed in the search engines so I am sure that is at least one of the reasons some of the separaton or divorce search-terms end up being referred to this blog.

Please note, personally I am not interested in this or care about this subject at all, and only reporting about this as far as my strong interest goes in search engines, web site traffic and search term statistics.

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