Belgard

Belgard is owned by Oldcastle who are a leading international materials company with 1900 locations and 40,000 employees worldwide.

Belgard have an extensive presence in both the United States and Canada with their products having been successfully used in thousands of residential and commercial projects.

The company are utilizing the .BIZ (Business) web address at Belgard.biz, and have designed an attractive website containing plenty of colorful photos of their many projects. Belgard have independent contractors in every state who are well versed on the various Belgard products. The company hosts ongoing training sessions across the country and provide several certifications as well as business development & expansion courses.

DomainBusiness.US

The .US web address is currently at 1,580,822 total domain registrations. .US (United States) works nicely as an identifier of domains relating specifically to U.S. business, and it makes for a memorable web address.

Another neat angle that takes portfolio owners beyond the parking format is the ability to quickly assemble a landing page that contains a wider variety of content. This may include a formal announcement of the domain name being available for purchase, while also including a blog, creative photos, RSS feeds, and the typical clickable ads.

Certainly worthy of mention is having one access point for all of your DevHub sites. This is incredibly convenient. There’s no logging into separate interfaces. You can view an alphabetical list of developed sites and simply bring up the one you would like to edit or enhance with a single click. I never realized how helpful this could be to have so many sites consolidated into one location.

2. In an ICANN related mistake from the past (as I see it), Verisign Inc. were awarded the exclusive contract to administer the .com and .net web addresses. Verisign’s current contract allow them to raise domain name registration prices up to a maximum of 7% per year. Although most all related technologies and costs are coming down in price, Verisign just announced that they will be raising prices again. As you might guess, they have opted for a maximum price increase of 7% raising .com domain registration fees from $6.86 to $7.34. ICANN should have provided for a competitive bidding process instead of awarding one company, Verisign, a literal monopoly.

3. I have continued use of the DevHub website builder to produce a basic site for Corporate.biz. DevHub are furthering their web development tools having recently upgraded their online user interface (adding nicer features) and also rolling out a newly completed payment system.

4. Ron Jackson of DNJournal published earlier this week some info on the purchase of the premium domain name, Barns.com, by North Carolina businessman Jeremiah Johnson (read his bio here). Mr. Johnson already operated a website at WoodBarns.com, but picked up the premium domain Barns.com for $175,000 in a private sale according to DNJournal. This is a smart acquisition that will certainly build brand identity and credibility.

Evo Media Group

DevHub sites are currently attracting more than two million visitors per month. This writer began using DevHub development tools about 8 weeks ago and presently have 40 websites up and running on their platform.

The $1.5 million in new funding is reported to be coming from Voyager Capital’s Geoff Entress, Whitepages CEO Alex Algard, Intel Capital’s Jeff Schrock, and former Disney Online president Richard Wolpert (as reported by TechFlash.com).

For previous articles on DevHub, see …

• DevHub and Geo Domain Development
• Integrating Job Feeds on Generic Domain Names

$7,500 was awarded for first place to Thueringen.info (a travel site serving Germany). Second place, with a prize of $5,000, was awarded to GPS-Tour.info (a website where individuals can share and download outdoor GPS tours). In third place was Turkel.info, a travel & tourism marketing site, taking $3,000 for their efforts.

There are currently 5,428,453 .info domain names registered around the world. Fully developed sites and services are being launched on a daily basis due to the gradual adoption and popularity of the .info web space.

For those of you who are interested in the .info domain name, check out Spain.info. It’s a beautifully designed website & portal for the country of Spain that exemplifies the logic behind the .info domain name extension.

1. Several of the .biz auctions which occurred at Sedo some weeks ago have finalized. Of note are these sales …

• 6.biz for $8,100
• S.biz at $8,211
• G.biz brought $9,400
• A.biz went for $10,099
• R.biz for $8,855

2. Michael Berkens of TheDomains.com wrote a brief piece about attorney Howard Neu having acquired and developed the premium domain name, MalpracticeAttorneys.com.

3. GoDaddy.com are now offering online incorporation for your business including the popular LLC (Limited Liability Corporation). The service also includes acquiring your Federal Tax ID number.

4. TChat.info was sold via Sedo for $18,000. Not familiar with this company or concept. Under construction webpage appears to be in French. Quite a sum for a non-generic domain name.

*Related domain names from today’s posts -> MalpracticeLawyers.biz

Ancestry.com

Ancestry was founded in 1983 and employ approximately 600 people. The company has said it may use a portion of its proceeds to expand through acquisitions and investments.

The stock trades on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol, ACOM. Ancestry have grown their online business through the sale of birth certificates and marriage records. Total revenue for 2008 was $197.6 million.

It’s been quite awhile since we have heard of an online company doing an IPO. Sounds like Ancestry.com put themselves in a good position through useful products and steady growth.

Not long ago, #1 domain name registrar GoDaddy.com came close to initiating their own IPO, but they pulled back when the larger economy started to experience problems associated with the mortgage crisis and general negative investment sentiment.

The jobs section of DevHub incorporates feeds from both Careerbuilder and SimplyHired. Currently, I have just one job listings site utilizing the DevHub feeds -> ChicagoJobs.biz.

ChicagoJobs.biz was monetized over the past year using PPC ads alone (at Parked.com). This was distinctly different from the current set-up in which job openings are now posted in different job categories and specific to the greater Chicago metro area. The test here is to see how traffic patterns increase as a result of bringing relevant content to the ChicagoJobs.biz site as opposed to simply displaying general jobs-related advertisements.

The economy has obviously been heavily impacted by terrible job losses. Consequently, online job search has become a frequent daily activity for jobseekers.

Various jobs domain name sales include: Job.us ($35,225), TheJob.com ($15,000), Job.mobi ($43,600), AnalystJobs.com ($3,650), MediaJobs.de ($4,486), GeneralJobs.com ($3,200), BrooklynJobs.com ($8,000), AerospaceJobs.co.uk ($4,900), MiniJobs.ch ($6,963), JobsinMaryland.com ($4,388), PsychologyJobs.com ($10,000), LegalJobs.co.uk ($39,392).

Examples of irritating ads are:

• Pop-up’s -> an ad that opens on top of your target window blocking your view
• Pop-under’s -> an ad which is open on your computer but under the target window
• Floaters -> an ad box which dances across the PC screen blocking your view
• Drop-down’s -> large video or text ads which open when you scroll over them
• Auto-Play -> a video ad that plays automatically when you arrive on the page
• Blinking -> The old neon green strobe ad which screams “Over here, look now!”

These ads are annoying and interfere with your visitor’s experience. Patrons typically come to websites looking for specific content. Bombarding them with advertisements actually discourages repeat visits and can undermine user loyalty by wasting users’ time.

Many of the information sites I enjoy display their ads to the left or right of the main content. This allows users to focus on the content they were seeking without being hammered with intrusive advertising.

Another important consideration for domain developers is designing a logical & intuitive layout to the site. Content sections benefit from substantial empty space between sections as well as visual prompts (simple graphics or color coded text) to help users distinguish different topics and site areas.

Many of the geodomain and local newspaper sites are switching to the Wordpress format. These sites usually organize and display content sections in a clean manner avoiding clutter and thereby increasing viewer satisfaction.

Google for some time now has allowed Adsense partners to customize the appearance of Google ads. I recommend avoiding the placement of Google ads at the top of a page or in the middle of a content section unless the ad is out-of-the-way and inconspicuous.

In closing, do your quality domain name some justice. Even if it is only a parked page. Disable pop-up and pop-under ads, and keep advertising subtly blended into the background or on the sidebar. As has been said many times before … “There is only one chance to make a good first impression”.

Most of the content sections are monetized. Several of my favorites are hotel booking, the local business directory, and the ability to sell products and select which ones you want to include on your site (like computers, ipods, luggage, etc.).

Working with DevHub is a positive experience in that the web design interface downloads to your browser, is drag and drop, and displays the results of your design choices almost instantly.

The revenue split is likely no better than typical PPC earnings, but that is not a priority for me. My primary goal at this point is to give several of my geodomain sites some shape & structure and content that would be of use to site visitors. If you are a geodomain developer, I believe the DevHub content options work quite well for city and state locality-based domain names.

So far, I have four sites built on DevHub. They are …

• www.Bentonville.US
• www.NewportNews.US
• www.Norfolk.US
• www.Lubbock.US

I’ll be adding a few others and comparing the different design layouts to determine which one or two seem to have the most appeal to users.