Wanted: Domain .co.uk names required.

[Brassneck]

Hi Stephen

If you can't tell what is and what isn't a pre nom from looking at the whois data you need to go back to domain school for a refresher lesson or two. For the record I said in my first post on this thread that flowers and wine were pre noms and books was a nom reg from August 1996. JR said he allowed all three to LAPSE. How was that possible vis a vis the whois data? If you can explain it I would be more than happy to apologies to JR for doubting him and beg him to come back to Acorn with his spending money. You can always get in touch with him privately at pts.com - an entirely empirical analysis

HI Static

OK - maybe I'm being thick. But if, for instance, one of the names come up with the following:

Relevant dates:
Registered on: before Aug-1996
Renewal date: 20-May-2007
Last updated: 25-Jan-2006


How do we know that the names didn't lapse before the August 1996 - that's all I am saying.

I don't really care who owned what and when - just wondering how people can definitively say that something isn't true.

Stephen.

 

[static]

HI Static

OK - maybe I'm being thick. But if, for instance, one of the names come up with the following:

Relevant dates:
Registered on: before Aug-1996
Renewal date: 20-May-2007
Last updated: 25-Jan-2006


How do we know that the names didn't lapse before the August 1996 - that's all I am saying.

I don't really care who owned what and when - just wondering how people can definitively say that something isn't true.

Stephen.

Hi Stephen

Before Nominet existed domains were registered through the Naming Committee, based in Oxford (that is why Nominet is in Oxford) - a one time registration fee without limit of time i.e. no renewing and therefore no suspensions or cancellations. JR said "lapse" which means failure to renew. This could only have happened for a Nominet registration. Flowers and wine were pre noms converted to Noms. Books was a nom reg, but in August 1996. A previous registration would have to have been a pre nom reg and so how could it have lapsed to then make the domain available to register in the first month Nominet existed? Look, I'm no expert. I don't know everything there is to know about domains. You won't see me on Mastermind with domains as my specialist subject , but JR can't know too much about domains to have thought he could come on Acorn and pull the wool with such spurious claims. Go ahead and do some business with him. If his offers are good then I'll do business with him, but he seemed to be trawling for bargains with an unworthy 'pitch'.

The whole pre nom exercise Nominet went through was because there were so many pre nom registrations to entities that had long ceased to exist, but the registrations remained because they never needed to be renewed - they would have existed forever as unavailable domains unless Nominet had acted to either convert them to renewable registrations, or cancel them.

 

[Pred]

prenoms

Cheers static,
interesting stuff there mate. You make a good point.
Pred :-D

 

[Ellis]

My cat goes by the name of J Rowlinson

Don't ask... she just does

 

[Ellis]

Does anything appear if you type that into Google?

Stephen.

Yep

travel safe - Google Search

 

[Brassneck]

Yep

travel safe - Google Search

Yup - but switch it round to safe travel which I think is more likely to be the search term.

Also thanks to Static for the info about pre-Nominet - so some intersting history.

Stephen.

 

[static]

Cheers static,
interesting stuff there mate. You make a good point.
Pred :-D

I'm pooped.

 

[jrowlinson]

Just to round this off and destroy your credibility further - all these sites are written in plain HTML.

WTF - it's 2006... and you're employing people to write this mess?

Get a grip

I just had to reply to this! - I wish more people would write using 'advanced' technologies - search engines don't understand them ad it makes my job so much easier. If only everyone would shroud their content in user functionality. You have no idea of the business of winning in the search engines. #3 for 'safe travel' on google for a site launched 4 months ago is pretty good.

And what on earth is that site of yours about! I'm sure you must know but it's kept pretty well obfuscated from the visitor!

 

[retired_member27]

A one time registration fee without limit of time i.e. no renewing and therefore no suspensions or cancellations.

The whole pre nom exercise Nominet went through was because there were so many pre nom registrations to entities that had long ceased to exist, but the registrations remained because they never needed to be renewed - they would have existed forever as unavailable domains unless Nominet had acted to either convert them to renewable registrations, or cancel them.

I never knew that, thanks for the detailed explanation Static.

 

[BFTUK]

Not read the whole thread but if your still looking for first time buyer related domain names, any of these any good?

buyingforthefirsttime.co.uk
buyyourfirsthouse.co.uk
firsttimebuyersite.co.uk

Ash

 

[Edwin]

I just had to reply to this! - I wish more people would write using 'advanced' technologies - search engines don't understand them ad it makes my job so much easier. If only everyone would shroud their content in user functionality. You have no idea of the business of winning in the search engines. #3 for 'safe travel' on google for a site launched 4 months ago is pretty good.

What 'advanced' technologies are you referring to? Well-written, validating (X)HTML and CSS is going to get you the best results these days. Are those 'advanced' in your book?

There's nothing wrong with tables and fonts etc. i.e. they're workmanlike and get the job done, but they bloat the code (increasing the code to content ratio) which has an effect on search engine rankings, and they also don't let you easily position your navigation elements after your content in the actual HTML code (since search engines give greater weight to the content towards the top of a page).

If on the other hand you mean pages written using Flash, or Javascript (for navigation/links), then I'd agree there might be a negative impact.

BTW, what's the excitement about "safe travel"? The Overture keyword tool shows basically no results, so it's not exactly a competitive term to optimize for. I'm curious - how much traffic do you get from that #3 listing?

 

[aquanuke]

Ive got firsttimers.co.uk

 

[jrowlinson]

Nominet

We called Nominet today. There were originally 5 bodies taking registrations and there was no real structure or database. When the system as exists today was put in place and someone requested flowers etc then Nominet wrote to the owners and if they didn't reply within a certain period then the name was released. We could dig out the paperwork but it was over 10 years ago now and there is nothing to be gained. I really do wish that we'd kept the names we had - but we didn't and that's that. I had no possible reason to lie about this.

Edwin, we do use css menus - the navigation bar is in css as we wanted it visible to the search engines. It took some engineering to do it from the databases. Much of our work is in the back end system that manages the pages, link requests, sites etc.

We get next to no travel from 'Safe Travel'. On each site there is around 70,000 words and it's the sheer volume of words and the pagerank that gets you the traffic. No one term is 'the one' for us. It is a pure volume game - each site could be viewed as a massive collection of words.

The problem (restated) for us is that the ppc revenue is low and the page/text cost and overhead is high. This is not an easy game. It's not that I want to 'steal' domain names it's just that our business model doesn't allow us to pay what most people ask. We would never sell a domain name that we bought at a profit.

We do have a plan though and it's been really interesting observing the forum for the last week or so - even though we can't participate in actually purchasing any names.

Good luck with your sales.

 

[BFTUK]

We get next to no travel from 'Safe Travel'. On each site there is around 70,000 words and it's the sheer volume of words and the pagerank that gets you the traffic. No one term is 'the one' for us. It is a pure volume game - each site could be viewed as a massive collection of words.

Pagerank does not get you traffic. FACT!

 

[jrowlinson]

Pagerank does not get you traffic. FACT!

That's not what I said! Content gets you in the search results and pagerank orders it. It's the combination of both content and pagerank that gets you into the game.

Buy the book Amazon.com: Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings: Books: Amy N. Langville,Carl D. Meyer - it'll explain it all in some detail. This is like my bible.

 

[James]

Hi jrowlinson,

I enjoyed reading your posts, you make some very good points. Reminds me of Brett Tabke's ideology.

James

 

[olebean]

That's not what I said! Content gets you in the search results and pagerank orders it. It's the combination of both content and pagerank that gets you into the game.

Buy the book Amazon.com: Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings: Books: Amy N. Langville,Carl D. Meyer - it'll explain it all in some detail. This is like my bible.

John

The problem with books by the time they are published they are out of date! If their contents was even remotely current I am sure google would have something to say about it....


OB

 

[jrowlinson]

John

The problem with books by the time they are published they are out of date! If their contents was even remotely current I am sure google would have something to say about it....


OB

OB, it obviously doesn't tell you the intricacies of the google algorithm. What it does state (and I believe to be true) is as follows:

1. There are two modules, the Query module which converts the user's natural language query into the SE language and the Ranking module which takes the set of relevant pages and ranks them.

2. The Ranking module arrives at it's result by combining two scores, the content score and the popularity score. In Google's case the popularity score is essentially PR. There are PR updates at times known only to Google. The last one was early October and the next one will be due just pre-Xmas. This is the update that has retailers throwing themselves off tall buildings when their pages dissapear from page 1.

3. The way to win is to either choose keywords and then heavily optimise your page for the words. I don't believe this is a game that anyone can win other than a real expert and even when they do win it may well be temporary (until the next PR update). The best way is tons of text and links. You never get many visits through any search but you get a lot of cumulative search.

I do believe that, for the good of the web, quality will rise. SE's spend billions a year on making this happen. So play with them, give them what they want, your pages will rise in popularity and the traffic will also.

I also think that, with time, the (mis) typo business will taper off. Take a look at Strider URL Tracer with Typo-Patrol and see what Microsoft are doing. You've got to believe that Google are doing the same.

Anyhow, I really don't want to be contentious and create any flames. All of this is just what I think and it works for me. Then again it is a costly game and we are aiming for 1000 sites with 100,000 pages. That's the way that it all works out - but without the volume the fixed costs kill the deal.

It's a shame that some of these great pages with type ins don't end up at something of value to the user! I wish we had some type in traffic (which we don't).

 

[Ellis]

I just had to reply to this! - I wish more people would write using 'advanced' technologies - search engines don't understand them ad it makes my job so much easier. If only everyone would shroud their content in user functionality. You have no idea of the business of winning in the search engines. #3 for 'safe travel' on google for a site launched 4 months ago is pretty good.

And what on earth is that site of yours about! I'm sure you must know but it's kept pretty well obfuscated from the visitor!

Alex.co.uk makes £10,000+pa as it is, simply from type in trafiic - I've no need to change it, why would I?

 

[olebean]

John

I don't need to play I bought a domain, got it hosted its position one and gets over 90k in visitors per month!