NameDriver
NameDrive Staff
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2005
- Posts
- 717
- Reaction score
- 8
Afternoon everyone,
As I sit here, two hours before fleeing Hurricane Wilma, I thought I’d take the time to report on T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2005, having been asked to do so by several UK people:
For those of you who are not too aware of the event, it is a 6-monthly coming together of some of the domain world’s biggest movers and shakers, reportedly controlling between them around 10 million unique visits a day. Add to that the countless companies ‘serving’ their needs from Google and Yahoo; to NameDrive and Fabulous; to Afternic and Sedo; to Euro DNS and Directi. Add to that several investment bankers, money men and lawyers and you have a pretty complete picture of the domain world in one microcosm. All of them in the Marriot hotel at Delray Beach, Florida, every meal and cocktail paid for by the sponsors. It was tough.
Considering the parties present, it was no surprise that the affair was mainly US and .com-centric. Each day was broken down into 4 seminars, interspersed with more of that free grub and cocktails. The seminars covered a wide range of topics from a panel of PPC specialists discussing the future of the market, domain investors talking of how to sell and purchase domain portfolios, an informative session on the drop name market and success stories of people innovative and rich enough to make you green with envy, stories of enterprise and Gold Rush riches – the sort of .com success that us UK domainers can currently only dream of. How to turn beer.com from a 5-figure purchase to a 7.5 million dollar sale.
On the last day, as Wilma closed in, there was a live domain auction, believed to be the first of its kind and led by the auctioneer who sold Elvis’ house. There was lots of fun to be had with soapoperas.com going for $55,000, consulting.com fetching $180,000 and bachelor.com/net/org going for $120,000 as a set. A cool $450,000-worth of domains auctioned off on the spot in 90 minutes! The only .co.uk representative, commerce.co.uk, didn’t fetch much interest or the reserve price – possibly indicative of the attitude of those present towards the UK market.
.eu and .es domains caused a stir with Euro DNS doing a good job of whipping the domainers into a fervour. Within an hour of their talk ending, over 50 .eu names had been registered on Euro DNS from the Marriot Hotel, Delray Beach’s IP address… An interesting discussion – as Brits, where do you see the .eu market going? I have to admit I'm fairly sceptical myself.
The parking companies were naturally well-represented. NameDrive opted for a low-profile, but present, presence to make sure we’re on the radar whilst those around us earning millions of dollars a month flexed their muscles and showed off their new programs. Despite our relatively small stature, it was great to hear many of the biggest players in the industry commenting on ‘hearing good things about you guys’. As one parking company’s new program was unveiled at a dinner function, somebody shouted out ‘is that a NameDrive page?’. With patience and saliva, the ant swallows the elephant. Bolivian proverb, that.
Little interesting was really said by the parking companies and not one of them mentioned something that ND haven’t already implemented or are in the course of implementing, so it’s nice to see we’re on the right track, in line with what companies who have been around for several years are now waking up to. The general concensus was that there is only so far you can take a parking company and everyone is now looking to stretch that as far as they can. However, on the flipside, we still have features on the way that weren’t mentioned, so it seems we are looking ahead to an interesting future.
The PPC focus was on quality rather than quantity of traffic, something that plays nicely into the largely-untouched .co.uk market with its generally very high-quality traffic.
An interesting point was brought up by Ireit.com, domain investors, who said that CPC prices on Google don’t change yearly. Not weekly. Not daily. Not hourly. CPC prices on Google change by the minute. Some people chatted to me afterwards, saying they had more understanding for our 48-hour delay that meant we could show those fluctuations as reported by Google and questioned how, if that were the case, several other companies show the same PPC on a parked domain day in, day out for weeks on end.
Practically every parking company out there was launching a new brand and a new image. The market is in flux which can only be good for the good people of this board who earn their cash with PPC income as no parking company can sit back and be done with what they have. Innovation and implementation is key to success and, being small and nimble, we feel well-equipped to do battle with success.
The emphasis was also on the importance of regularly changing the look of parked pages so that the users are not turned off by them. The pros and cons of ‘pretty’ parked pages were discussed, some falling down on the side of functional, boring pages with others on the side of pretty ‘nice place to be’ pages. It will not be long before you won’t be able to say ‘that’s a NameDrive page’ ‘that’s a Sedo page’, ‘that’s a XXX page’. Which can surely be a good thing in the end.
In most presentations, the need to steer well clear of signing any exclusive contracts was again broached. You are the guys with the power with your portfolios, you should never be forced into a corner. A contract means that there is absolutely no need on your parking provider’s part to monetise your portfolio at all competitively. Beware the man waving a contract. We are the ones who sign a contract with Google so you don’t have to sign exclusive contracts.
The question was asked whether a parked domain should display a ‘for sale’ sign on it. Does it cannibalise PPC? The answer was pretty emphatic and it is something I have always believed. If your name is generic and free of trademarks, there is really no reason why the name shouldn’t be for sale on a parked page. I have nothing to gain by encouraging you to do so. We don’t take commission for the sales, but we do know that several sales have gone through our parked pages already and, as was mentioned several times, selling a domain name for 250 quid could be 10 years’ revenue if it gets little traffic.
Not only that, but my own personal view is this: maybe your ‘for sale’ link does take the odd click away from your PPC ads but, say it happens in 1 click out of 20. If you sell your domain for just 100 quid, you can afford to have that ‘for sale’ link take anything from 50 to 1,000 clicks from a PPC ad before you’re losing out by having that link up there. Parking should never be seen as the be all and end all of domain monetisation, nor should selling. They should both work in synergy to get the most out of your domains. Setting trademarks for sale? Not on your life. Parking them is at your own risk, but posting them for sale is generally accepted as a poor idea.
I think that is pretty much it for now. I think that’s long enough. I hope you find this interesting and informative. Tickets to these events are not cheap and they are not exactly hosted around the corner, but they are extremely interesting and informative. Not least, they’re inspirational. Being around so many millionaires in the business, standing next to people of my age who personally own and monetize 1.4 million uniques a DAY at $70 RPM – you do the maths… really makes you want to go out there and get your hands dirty in the domain world. I immediately went back to the ND house in Florida and looked at registering all sorts of domain names.
Then I gave up because I realised I hadn’t started in 1995. Nuts. However, there is hope for us all and, as was often mentioned: we are still at the very birth of the Internet. It is still only 10 years old. It is still taking its first steps in the world. You think we’ll still have Internet in 50 years? I wouldn’t bet against it. And this means that, even now, when people are disillusioned and frustrated by the Internet, we are at the start of the era, not the end. The world of domains will change again and again. It is possibly one of the fastest-evolving markets in the world. The .co.uk market is still untapped, yet to fulfil its potential, one of the most Internet-savvy nations on earth has a domain industry that is still in kindergarten. There are bright days ahead. The future is orange. Just like the ND logo. Handy, really.
It’s good to be back on here. It seems various improvements have taken place in my absence with more in the pipeline. I’ll keep you updated. Feel free to ask me any questions about the conference. For now, there are some interesting things to discuss, I believe.
Have a great weekend.
Ed
As I sit here, two hours before fleeing Hurricane Wilma, I thought I’d take the time to report on T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2005, having been asked to do so by several UK people:
For those of you who are not too aware of the event, it is a 6-monthly coming together of some of the domain world’s biggest movers and shakers, reportedly controlling between them around 10 million unique visits a day. Add to that the countless companies ‘serving’ their needs from Google and Yahoo; to NameDrive and Fabulous; to Afternic and Sedo; to Euro DNS and Directi. Add to that several investment bankers, money men and lawyers and you have a pretty complete picture of the domain world in one microcosm. All of them in the Marriot hotel at Delray Beach, Florida, every meal and cocktail paid for by the sponsors. It was tough.
Considering the parties present, it was no surprise that the affair was mainly US and .com-centric. Each day was broken down into 4 seminars, interspersed with more of that free grub and cocktails. The seminars covered a wide range of topics from a panel of PPC specialists discussing the future of the market, domain investors talking of how to sell and purchase domain portfolios, an informative session on the drop name market and success stories of people innovative and rich enough to make you green with envy, stories of enterprise and Gold Rush riches – the sort of .com success that us UK domainers can currently only dream of. How to turn beer.com from a 5-figure purchase to a 7.5 million dollar sale.
On the last day, as Wilma closed in, there was a live domain auction, believed to be the first of its kind and led by the auctioneer who sold Elvis’ house. There was lots of fun to be had with soapoperas.com going for $55,000, consulting.com fetching $180,000 and bachelor.com/net/org going for $120,000 as a set. A cool $450,000-worth of domains auctioned off on the spot in 90 minutes! The only .co.uk representative, commerce.co.uk, didn’t fetch much interest or the reserve price – possibly indicative of the attitude of those present towards the UK market.
.eu and .es domains caused a stir with Euro DNS doing a good job of whipping the domainers into a fervour. Within an hour of their talk ending, over 50 .eu names had been registered on Euro DNS from the Marriot Hotel, Delray Beach’s IP address… An interesting discussion – as Brits, where do you see the .eu market going? I have to admit I'm fairly sceptical myself.
The parking companies were naturally well-represented. NameDrive opted for a low-profile, but present, presence to make sure we’re on the radar whilst those around us earning millions of dollars a month flexed their muscles and showed off their new programs. Despite our relatively small stature, it was great to hear many of the biggest players in the industry commenting on ‘hearing good things about you guys’. As one parking company’s new program was unveiled at a dinner function, somebody shouted out ‘is that a NameDrive page?’. With patience and saliva, the ant swallows the elephant. Bolivian proverb, that.
Little interesting was really said by the parking companies and not one of them mentioned something that ND haven’t already implemented or are in the course of implementing, so it’s nice to see we’re on the right track, in line with what companies who have been around for several years are now waking up to. The general concensus was that there is only so far you can take a parking company and everyone is now looking to stretch that as far as they can. However, on the flipside, we still have features on the way that weren’t mentioned, so it seems we are looking ahead to an interesting future.
The PPC focus was on quality rather than quantity of traffic, something that plays nicely into the largely-untouched .co.uk market with its generally very high-quality traffic.
An interesting point was brought up by Ireit.com, domain investors, who said that CPC prices on Google don’t change yearly. Not weekly. Not daily. Not hourly. CPC prices on Google change by the minute. Some people chatted to me afterwards, saying they had more understanding for our 48-hour delay that meant we could show those fluctuations as reported by Google and questioned how, if that were the case, several other companies show the same PPC on a parked domain day in, day out for weeks on end.
Practically every parking company out there was launching a new brand and a new image. The market is in flux which can only be good for the good people of this board who earn their cash with PPC income as no parking company can sit back and be done with what they have. Innovation and implementation is key to success and, being small and nimble, we feel well-equipped to do battle with success.
The emphasis was also on the importance of regularly changing the look of parked pages so that the users are not turned off by them. The pros and cons of ‘pretty’ parked pages were discussed, some falling down on the side of functional, boring pages with others on the side of pretty ‘nice place to be’ pages. It will not be long before you won’t be able to say ‘that’s a NameDrive page’ ‘that’s a Sedo page’, ‘that’s a XXX page’. Which can surely be a good thing in the end.
In most presentations, the need to steer well clear of signing any exclusive contracts was again broached. You are the guys with the power with your portfolios, you should never be forced into a corner. A contract means that there is absolutely no need on your parking provider’s part to monetise your portfolio at all competitively. Beware the man waving a contract. We are the ones who sign a contract with Google so you don’t have to sign exclusive contracts.
The question was asked whether a parked domain should display a ‘for sale’ sign on it. Does it cannibalise PPC? The answer was pretty emphatic and it is something I have always believed. If your name is generic and free of trademarks, there is really no reason why the name shouldn’t be for sale on a parked page. I have nothing to gain by encouraging you to do so. We don’t take commission for the sales, but we do know that several sales have gone through our parked pages already and, as was mentioned several times, selling a domain name for 250 quid could be 10 years’ revenue if it gets little traffic.
Not only that, but my own personal view is this: maybe your ‘for sale’ link does take the odd click away from your PPC ads but, say it happens in 1 click out of 20. If you sell your domain for just 100 quid, you can afford to have that ‘for sale’ link take anything from 50 to 1,000 clicks from a PPC ad before you’re losing out by having that link up there. Parking should never be seen as the be all and end all of domain monetisation, nor should selling. They should both work in synergy to get the most out of your domains. Setting trademarks for sale? Not on your life. Parking them is at your own risk, but posting them for sale is generally accepted as a poor idea.
I think that is pretty much it for now. I think that’s long enough. I hope you find this interesting and informative. Tickets to these events are not cheap and they are not exactly hosted around the corner, but they are extremely interesting and informative. Not least, they’re inspirational. Being around so many millionaires in the business, standing next to people of my age who personally own and monetize 1.4 million uniques a DAY at $70 RPM – you do the maths… really makes you want to go out there and get your hands dirty in the domain world. I immediately went back to the ND house in Florida and looked at registering all sorts of domain names.
Then I gave up because I realised I hadn’t started in 1995. Nuts. However, there is hope for us all and, as was often mentioned: we are still at the very birth of the Internet. It is still only 10 years old. It is still taking its first steps in the world. You think we’ll still have Internet in 50 years? I wouldn’t bet against it. And this means that, even now, when people are disillusioned and frustrated by the Internet, we are at the start of the era, not the end. The world of domains will change again and again. It is possibly one of the fastest-evolving markets in the world. The .co.uk market is still untapped, yet to fulfil its potential, one of the most Internet-savvy nations on earth has a domain industry that is still in kindergarten. There are bright days ahead. The future is orange. Just like the ND logo. Handy, really.
It’s good to be back on here. It seems various improvements have taken place in my absence with more in the pipeline. I’ll keep you updated. Feel free to ask me any questions about the conference. For now, there are some interesting things to discuss, I believe.
Have a great weekend.
Ed
.
