Several domain blogs & TechCrunch reported last week that the premium domain name, RealEstate.com (with associated domains and online services), was sold by Lending Tree to Market Leader for $8.25 million dollars. RealEstate.com would classify as one of the all time best domain names right along with Business.com and Loans.com. Market Leader is reported to have been buying other online services and companies to expand their niche in the real estate industry.

Neustar, who oversee the .biz and .US domain name registries, has launched a new website at DotYou.biz to promote the forthcoming release of newer alternative tld’s (top level domains). Their choice of the .BIZ web address makes good use of the business-centric focus that .biz represents.

Raleigh, NC was voted the #1 city in America by Businessweek. Factors included green space, cultural amenities, and school performance. Raleigh.info is a premium web address currently available through the Menius Enterprises, Inc. domain name portfolio and the PremiumDomains.US website.

Update: The www.Methadone.US website, which launched earlier this year, exceeded its own monthly record for consumer traffic in August with that month seeing the largest number of visitors since the site’s inception. The largest single day for unique site visitors also occurred in August.

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Like every other industry, the domain name market has its own unique words and phrases that carry a commonly understood meaning among its patrons.

Some of the domain terms derive from other well known business sectors like finance and real estate. Recently addressed here was the frequent overuse of the term premium domains. Below are some other domain catch phrases with a short definition (or description) of what they mean.

• domain name portfolio (a collection of domain names being held or utilized as a financial investment, or active business)
• domain name collection (generally carries the same connotation as domain name portfolio)
• domain investor (anyone who acquires domain names for investment purposes)
• domainer (similar to domain investor but broader to also include domain enthusiasts)
• premium domain (a rare, top quality domain name that commands higher prices due to its superior characteristics)
• generic domain name (typically a one to three word category defining web address like travel, dogs, sports cars, rock music)
• geo domain or geodomain (a pure city, state, country, or location web address such as Detroit, California, Canada, Niagra Falls)
• geo-targeted domains (refer to the combination of a geographical location paired with a generic word such as Boston+Hotels)
• domain parking (pointing a domain name to a search results landing page that contains revenue generating clickable ads)
• domain monetization (general phrase to describe any means by which a domain name is used to generate income)
• domain marketplace (an online brokerage or warehouse of domain names for sale or for lease)
• domain auction (a live in-person event or online auction interface in which participants bid against each other to buy domain names for sale)
• domain name broker (similar to a real estate broker in that the individual sells or buys domains on behalf of a client, and/or facilitates domain name transactions)
• luxury domains (similar in definition to premium domains and suggestive of high quality and high value web addresses)

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Rule number 1 when selecting a domain name for your company is to pick a web address with long term relevance. I have seen mistakes over the years in which companies pick a domain name that contains odd abbreviations, hyphens, or numbers. You have to shake your head.

Often, these ill-fitting domains are difficult to remember, and wind up being an impediment to the company’s marketing efforts and financial bottom line.

While listening to the Dennis Miller radio show this week, Dennis finished a segment with an on-air advertisement for the tax relief company, Tax Masters. After discussing the company’s services, he reminded listeners of the Tax Masters’ website. You would intuitively assume that their website would be “TaxMasters.com” or perhaps “TaxMasters.biz”.

Instead, Dennis launched into an explanation that the Tax Masters’ web address is www.txmstr.com …

“that’s TaxMasters with no vowels, txmstr (spelled out!) dot com … with no vowels.”

Naturally, I searched on tld variations for the phrase “Tax Masters” and they were all registered by other entities some of them tax relief professionals. Tax Masters apparently spend a large sum on advertising. Their ads can be seen on television and the internet, as well as being heard on the radio. What a hurdle they have erected for their customers. Not only do they not have the corresponding domain name of their company, but the awkward singular abbreviation they have chosen (txmstr.com) does not even match their plural name, Tax Masters.

If they were going to commit to an abbreviation, should it not be txmstrs, with an “s” on the end to represent the plurality in their company name? The end result of decisions like this is that Tax Masters make it more difficult to connect with both current clients and in particular, prospective clients.

Chances are that many potential customers are trying to remember Tax Masters‘ abbreviated web address, but wind up on a competitor’s website. Some decisions are needlessly costly. And hard to undo later. Haphazard domain selection creates a long term drag on marketing effectiveness.

Your domain name is your invitation to the world … and an open door for customers. Fill the doorway with garbage, or block it with debris, and those customers will simply walk on by.

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship (aka UFC) are owned by Zuffa LLC and have become a household name for sports enthusiasts. The organization established early on an internet presence with UFC.tv originally. They then migrated to UFC.com after purchasing that domain name some years ago.

The company have taken an active stance against pirating of their UFC programming and have been very diligent in protecting the UFC brand and trademark including related terms like “The Ultimate Fighter” in reference to their successful reality TV series.

Ron Jackson’s DNJournal publishes known weekly domain name sales. In reviewing Ron’s recent sales list, I observed that UltimateFighting.ca was just acquired via private sale for $5000 USD.

The UFC have been hugely successful in Canada. UFC President, Dana White, has gone on record many times with the company’s appreciation for Canadian fans. Their foray into Canada has been bolstered by rapid ticket sellouts for UFC events held in Canada. 

Upon checking the whois (registrant information) for UltimateFighting.ca, I discovered that parent company, Zuffa LLC, is indeed the new registrant of the domain name. The domain is already forwarding to their primary website.

Once again, we see companies recognizing the accretive value of domain names and the importance of strengthening their brand & reach through continual portfolio expansion.

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Movies scheduled for release usually are promoted using a website that provides movie trailers, photos, and movie review quotes. As expected, the website address almost always contains the actual name of the movie.

A new political documentary by filmmaker Ray Griggs is out October 15, 2010 entitled “I Want Your Money.” It is an examination of the differences that exist between America’s two primary political parties and their views on the role and size of government.

The website for I Want Your Money is being promoted on IWantYourMoney.net as well as also being located on the .com version.

In this instance, the producers were able to secure an exact domain name match for the title of the movie. This is always a best case scenario when trying to market one’s product on the internet. Similar to having a domain name like Hotels.com if one’s business is in the hotel industry.

Many movie web adresses remain active long after the movie’s theatre run has completed since movies can have a long shelf life in the overseas market and for several years as a DVD release. 

Internet Domains movie domain names

A recent check of Sedo showed some interesting domain name sales which illustrate just how global the domain name market has become.

• Sound.ch for $7450 (.ch is the country code for Swtizerland)
• Cafe.de for $19,050 (.de is the country code for Germany)
• Pocketbook.eu for $11,993 (.eu is the county code for the European Union)
• BudgetAir.in for $20,000 (.in is the country code for India)
• Falcon.co.uk for $9183 (.co.uk is the country code for the United Kingdom)
• Finanzblick.de for $7574 (.de is the country code for Germany)
• Gezocht.nl for $24,500 (.nl is the country code for the Netherlands)
• SEO.es for $7620 (.es is the country code for Spain)
• Tech.TV for $5000 (.tv is the country code for Tuvalu, but branded for “TV”)

A recent Moniker .US domain auction produced the purchase of Flights.US for $11, 770. Another recent Moniker brokered sale was Slots.ca for $206,906 (.ca is the country code for Canada).

Also in the news was the sale of SydneyHotels.com for $100,000 by owner Rick Schwartz to a company with a network of travel focused domain names & websites. This same company own the LondonHotels.biz website among many others.

Here is an update on the growth of America’s official country code, the .US web address. Between February 2009 and the end of June 2010 (roughly 1 year and 5 months), the .US web address added 338,764 new registrations for a current total of 1,724,961 .US domain names in play. This was a remarkable 24.4% increase in registrations.

Related domain names of interest:

SydneyHotels.biz | Kolhapur.in | WestHollywood.US | ChicagoIllinois.TV

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Pockets of depressed real estate are beginning to pick up in some areas. Florida experienced an over-building of luxury condos in the last decade which created quite a surplus in the major Florida markets like Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and other famous hot spots.

However, as prices have steadily come down, condo buying has increased considerably as prudent buyers knew that the time was right to buy in. The Herald Tribune posted a recent article examining condo trends in the Sarasota, Florida area.

According to them, condo sales in the Sarasota area rose a massive 71% in May 2010 compared to one year ago in May of 2009. The piece reported that 384 condos sold in comparison to just 225 in May of 2009. Additionally, the median sale price increased 3% to almost $153,000.

I do not have a convenient method of checking publicly listed sales of real estate domain names. I recently sold a .biz real estate domain, and also just acquired one in the .info space.

Real estate domains are perfect web portals for both home buyers and sellers of various properties. I visit LuxuryRealEstate.com, MLS.biz, and Collett.biz as well as Homes.com and consider these excellent examples of workable domain names paired with well-designed web sites. Two premium domains I have been developing are Condos.biz and Estates.biz.

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Domainers approach management of their portfolios from different perspectives. The size of one’s portfolio, monetization methods selected, and development goals can all affect how one might choose to manage their domain collection.

An initial benefit is to consolidate all of your domains with one registrar. I have found this very helpful since monitoring domains across many different host registrars is cumbersome and a big time waster. You wind up with too many passwords and must learn several different user interfaces when using multiple registrars.

You are also likely to lose track of a domain name when utilizing many registrars simultaneously. I have consolidated the bulk of my portfolio at GoDaddy. Some like Moniker while others use Enom. Each of these registrars have positive and negative qualities so it boils down to personal choice depending on which features are most important to you.

Another commonly accepted norm is to keep your domains on auto renew so that you don’t accidentally lose a domain. Some registrars do not send renewal reminder notices and you do not want to depend on that as your only means of monitoring a needed domain name renewal.

Many domainers are happy with one PPC provider. It’s fairly convenient to load your portfolio into one parking company, like Parked.com for example, but often another parking provider will provide a higher rate of return for certain domains. So diversifying your portfolio across different parking companies may be a technique that you want to try if you are really focused on maximizing PPC income.

Aim for volume discount in your registration fees as your portfolio grows. A registrar knows that your portfolio will be a repeat and steady source of income for them. Never pay retail registration fees. As a portfolio owner, you will likely also be buying other services from the same registrar, and you may direct new business to them if you are satisfied with their services. The larger your portfolio, the better the price consideration you will receive.

In regard to website development, a whole other article is actually merited. Website development of multiple domain names is a complex issue … particularly when you are embarking on a creative endeavor with some level of complexity involved.

I have had numerous websites with different hosting providers and none of them have gone without a hitch. Suffice it to say that the consolidation concept makes much sense and offers huge advantages to you as a developer. When it comes to development, I am a “jack of all trades”, but an expert at none. When you have limited time, learning different development platforms and software becomes a huge time and energy drain. Simplicity rules, and especially simplicity with reliability.

In 2008-2009, I discovered the beauty of WordPress. That has become a popular development platform for good reason. It is not without occasional headaches, but is certainly preferred by some who would rather not learn html or other code writing skills.

In 2009, I learned about DevHub. After testing their platform, I commited fully to DevHub for developing various domains in my portfolio. I started simple and have continued to refine my sites over months as time allowed. The advantage is that I can edit my sites from any PC and have easy, quick access to multiple sites all contained within one development platform. Also, a module developed for one site can be replicated on another site fairly easily since you are working within one common platform.

Now for the downside. If an online platform goes down or experiences a major hiccup, your entire portfolio of develop sites goes down. Scary as hell when you have invested hundreds of hours in website development. For example, DevHub recently upgraded their entire online system and moved their hosting to a new provider. The repercussions were initially catastrophic. Thankfully, DevHub are commited to building a loyal customer base and went to work for several weeks sorting through & correcting a myriad of unexpected problems that their upgrade introduced.

The lesson here is to make sure you are hooked up with some high integrity, well-funded professionals who really value what they are doing. Anything less than that and you should run in the opposite direction. I am sticking with DevHub at this time because their upgraded system really is the cream of the crop. I am sure that they will more thoroughly test run their next upgrade.

Lastly, a portfolio owner needs to consider the sales venues they might utilize for listing domain names for sale. And, also how one might assemble their portfolio online to display to potential buyers and business partners. I have an html-coded windows hosted site (PremiumDomains.biz), a linux hosted site built on Noah’s Classifieds (PremiumDomains.US), and a page dedicated on this blog (Domain Names For Sale) profiling some premium domains from the Menius Enterprises domain name portfolio.

Murphy’s Law is a constant. Might as well accept this. Advanced planning and preparation are the portfolio owner’s best defense. Organizational skills and back-up of one’s work can also not be overstated.

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