Over the last few years many discussions and domain show panels have been held on why non-domainers, “don’t get it” when it comes to the value of domains.
Last week Search Engine Strategies (SES) show and woeful domain auction demonstrate the point.
Let’s look at the numbers. TRAFFIC show attendees, 400-500. SES attendees 6,000.
Out of the 6,000 people at the SES show there were only 150 people in attendance at the start of the domain auction. This represents only 2-1/2% of the attendees. Only 26 domain names sold. I bought 2. I know another domainer that bought 3. That accounts for 5 of the 26 domains. How many non-domainer, SES attendees bought a domain? I would guess less than 10 out of 6,000.
6,000 people most of whom were not SEO guys and companies, but end users.
End users believe and understand the value of having of getting ranked in the search engines and getting ranked high. That’s why so many website owners come to the SES.
End users don’t understand domains and certainly the need for multiple domains.
A company that has a website already has a domain.
They don’t understand the concept of defensive registrations, registering domains similar to theirs, or other domains that are relevant in their field. End users don’t understand the concept of type in traffic.
How many end users come to a TRAFFIC show?
In a few weeks at the TRAFFIC show in NY an award will be given out called the “we get it” award.
Clearly domainers need to get it, that they just don’t get it.
They just don’t.
I wasn’t there, but my intuition tells me two things:
1) Those at a search engine strategies conference may be more of the opinion that the name doesn’t matter that much. Many of my friends who live, breath and eat search engine strategies feel this way unless the domain is a top level category killer.
2) The names for sale weren’t that good. And the ones that were had extremely high reserves (same old story). I believe that the trend has been shifting towards endusers for a while and there were few names for sale would make a buyer stop in their tracks to develop it.
Give IT some time, they’ll eventually get IT.
I’d also add that as ‘domainers’ sometimes we forget that really getting IT involves more than just a great gettable domain name.
SEO’ers and Domainers need to hang out more.
Could it be because of poor persuasive skills, weak arguments being presented …?
Oyster
Many in the domain industry have been making this point for years, through various blogs, articles and trade shows.
I doubt if all such arguments are weak.
More lightly those who “don’t get it” aren’t listening or have a closed mind about it.
Nice post – I have known that LONG ago and you have pointed it out – THANKS
names were not appealing, simply.
Francois
This is not the first non-domain trade show in which moniker tried a domain auction and except for the adult industry none of them have worked.
Well, with an admission fee of nearly $2000 to T.R.A.F.F.I.C they wont really get the chance to “get it” either. It´s not like outsiders are very welcome.. Add to that costs to get there and hotel etc.
“Hey we have something that you should be interested in!”
-“Great what is it?”
“I’ll tell you if you pay me $2000”
MD, I agree. I was at the reasonable priced GeoExpo in Chicago and the first two people I met were not “domainers”. The first guy I met told me he represented a “buyer” that had just closed a multi million dollar deal in another industry and was looking to buy domains.
I imagine if the GeoExpo was $2k to get into there would have been half as many peeps there.
I was one of the few domainers in attendance and stayed for the entire auction. Of course, at the end, I was one of only a dozen left in the room. They came for the food, which was the best food of the entire trade show and when the food was gone, they left.
However, there WERE a number of good domains for SEO people that received no bids.
SEOProduct.com NO RESERVE
SEOProviders.com $1,000- $5,000
SearchReports.com $1,000 – $5,000
SEOProducts.com NO RESERVE (Sold for $2,000)
SearchEngineDiscounts.com $1,000 – $5,000
The admission fee for SES is $1,995, so the cost to attend does not seem to be a factor.
Rick Schwartz and I will be meeting in New York with the heads of SES and explore ways that Domainers and SEO folks can get together. With parking not providing the income it once did, domainers need to find other ways of making their domains profitable, and SEO is certainly one way to do so.
I must be very basic, because I persist saying the lack of appealing of the domains for sale is the first and main reason of the poor interest.
By the way the SEO domains Howard is talking about is simply “garbage” and have ZERO appealing.
And don’t makes lauigh, everyone know to recognize and appreciate the GOOD things, there was nothing good here. Yes probbaly some names was of interest for a domainer but for the rest, if the names proposed are not top premium domains you will not initiate interest. One of the plagues of our industry is everyone is only trying to sell his low value names in these auctions so at the end you have an auction that don’t have the excitemnt it should.
We always talk about the end user should do this or the end user should do that. When we are not talking about that we talk about getting the end users to come here, there and everywhere.
Let me break the news to everyone as I have for the past year. End users will come ONE PROJECT and ONE NEED at a time. That my friends is the sad reality. It has taken me many years to figure this one out as it puzzles me like it has puzzled the industry.
Now that does not mean it can’t change. But as far as the eye can see…..one project, one need, one company at a time and there is nothing we can do but mark time. Because the only thing that will change that is time. Sometimes you just need to step back and see it through other eyes. One need, one project, one company, one idea, one person that gets it.
Rick
I agree. End users need one domain.
No one outside of the domain community understands the need for or the use of more than one domain.
Francois
I agree that the auction list as a whole was weak.
There were some good names on this list
ad.com
Maybe you didn’t like the price but no one can say it wasn’t a great name.
Same for rebate and rebates which just sold a year ago at $1M.
There were a few others.
And as I said this is not the first non-domainer trade show that moniker.com held a domain auction, with less than great results.
There have been shows at webmaster world, affiliate summit, gambling shows, and none of them have every touched the worst domains auction held at TRAFFIC
Tony
If someone has a show with a moneymaking idea to tell me about which is even 1/10 as good as domains have been, I’ll pay $10K to attend
You make an excellent point, Rick, but I consider serious developers to be endusers.
For example, the major Geodomain players are all endusers because they develop the names they buy. And everyone of them, including me and my brother, Dan Pucrano, Skip Hoagland, etc regularly buy names and will continue to do so regardless of the economy because we know how to monetize them.
As domainers in general begin to park less and become more confident with their development/monetization strategies, you will see a new generation of buyers routinely entering the fray looking to buy their next projects.
What WE need to understand is the SEO guy is looking max 6 months ahead and domainers look at least 10 years ahead. How can anyone prove to SEO marketers that spending $100K on a domain will drastically improve online presence in the next 5-10 years vs. spending the $100K in advertising and seeing the ROI almost instantly with using any domain? Basically the problem is that there aren’t enough success stories of companies buying an expensive domain and creating a very successful online business. iReport is the only success story that comes to mind right now and their success is mostly because of the company behind it and the resources they have to create an instant boom.
This accompanied with facts of successful online businesses that are using domains with little or no value whatsoever is guiding SEO marketers away from expensive domains and closer to SEO tactics and spending their cash that produces instant results. There are plenty of these success stories: YardBarker.com, RottenTomatoes.com, BrightCove.com and many many others. Basically if we don’t produce more success stories of developed top notch domains the public opinion will shift away from domains and closer to developing websites on less desirable names that are even available for registration today. If you tell your friend that the best site with the coolest content is RottenYardCove.com, do you think the length or the stupidity of the domain will stop him from visiting the site? I think not. Test it!
Mike, did you mean to address Tim instead of Tony in post #16?
Anyway, I agree that the biggest thing that most end users still do not get is type in traffic. If you have a killer app, it really doesn’t matter what your domain is. Google, Yahoo, Youtube are not generic words people would type in. You can put that killer app on wiggliest.com and it would get huge traffic regardless. However, 99.999% of end users or small business owners do not have such a luxury and for them, type in traffic could mean the difference between success and failure or success and even greater success. Even if a domain just gets 2 additional visitors a week from its typein gravity, that might not sound much but if I’m a dentist (which I am) who makes $1,000 per new patient per year, that would mean an extra $100,000 to my income each year. How much is that domain worth to me then? If I am a luxury car dealer in Scottsdale and scottsdaleluxurycars.com lands an additional 2 clients to my doorstep each week, how much is that worth when I make $2,000 per car sold? I know other examples have been cited elsewhere in real estate where each new client equates to much much more. These examples are what the typical end user has not gotten yet.
How hard would it be for a well – known domainer to line up to speak at a seminar at these conferences? I would be willing as I am sure many sellers would to pay a higher commission for better promotion or education etc… at these auctions.
If Rick or Monte or Owen or…. would be a presenter at theAffiliate Summit and SES and Internet Retailer conferences, and recieved $$$ for their efforts I am sure we would see the rewards reaped in auction sales.
Am I nuts? I mean why aren’t we talking to and educating the people that are already showing up to these events? If it is a lack of funds, charge a higher sales fee. Nobody is making any money the way things are going so let’s try something new.
I would love to hear some comments on this idea…
I completely agree that we both don’t get each other, but after being at SES I got the impression they really don’t get us.
For example, when I met someone and we introduced ourselves and they said they work in SEO / SEM I knew basically what they did. Whereas I had to explain our industry in its entirety.
…explain parking, type in traffic, and you would not believe how many people asked how a website gets visitors without Google.
Internet is still very young, about 10 years old, and thats why not many people gets it.
Property in the real world, its like thousands of years old ? so thats why everybody there gets it.
@Tony
“Even if a domain just gets 2 additional visitors a week from its typein gravity, that might not sound much but if I’m a dentist (which I am) who makes $1,000 per new patient per year, that would mean an extra $100,000 to my income each year.”
That´s a totally unrealistic calculation assuming 100% conversion rate. No wonder domainers overprice their domains..
@Ray Neu
I wouldn’t dare to call myself a SEO guy if i didn’t know about domains. That is just unbelievable, no wonder more and more people thinks the SEO business is bull.
@Rick
“End users will come ONE PROJECT and ONE NEED at a time. That my friends is the sad reality.”
Yes, because that’s focus, and it’s the only way a business can grow successful. 100% focus and determination.
@Phil
Couldn’t agree more.
The domain isn’t the key. It’s what you DO with it that matters. Developers, developers, developers, developers…
“That´s a totally unrealistic calculation assuming 100% conversion rate. No wonder domainers overprice their domains..”
Fair point, Mike. I should’ve used more realistic numbers for my examples but I purposely understated the type in traffic (just 2 a week) to afford the luxury of overstating the conversion rate for simplicity. However, in the specific examples I used, when a patient calls my office, they are not asking for a list of fees for comparison shopping. They need work done ASAP and they call to make an appointment. The conversion rate is not 100% but it’s pretty high. Also, with the luxury car dealer, if you are selling the particular car the buyer is looking for, chances are good you will get a sale as that is another class of buyer not looking to comparison shop. Good point though and it is well taken.
David,
The thing with geodomains is you have created a successful working model that can be copied, adapted and has the ability to be used widely using basic foundational elements. The only other industry that has done that is Adult.
The problem with many of the domains that domainers own is there is no model. There are no successes to fashion after. That all changes in time.
Road maps are created and then it becomes easier because there is a model to follow. Still requires hard work, but there is a path that has been forged and that is good. But that path still needs to be forged in many other areas. So there is still a lot of trial and error.
Plus, everyone climbs the mountain differently and no way is the right way and no way is the wrong way if one is personally satisfied.
Yes, but enough about domainers. We are trying to reach non- domainers and the perfect way to reach end users is to start by educating the web developers and strategists they work with…
The attendees of the SES show are Search Engine Strategists and Search Engine Marketers who are at the conference attending seminar after seminar looking for creative ways to increase traffic to the websites they are designing, developing and optimizing for CLIENTS they work for. The very people we would like to have buying our domains.
So, while they are already all together and interested in learning something new…
Let’s educate them about the benefits of owning domains so they can bring back the information to the companies they work for and the clients they work with.
These kinds of conferences, along with Web Strategies seminars, Internet Retailing, Affiliate Summit, are the perfect places to begin to engage potential buyers by educating them first.
These conferences are always looking for engaging topics and speakers and I think everyone would agree that we have the most exciting topic of the times and some of the most entertaining and engaging personalities to deliver it.
If it ends up costing an extra 3% on the back end of an auction to pay for the speakers fee, or a professional PR firm to get the party started then why not?
Kelly,
Guys like Monte have spoken on countless panels in many sectors. For example, he has been going to SES for as long as I can remember. They are less than receptive. Even so, Howard and I have forged a relationship with the folks at SES. Both us and the folks running SES realize these 2 groups are oil and water and we both agree that the 2 groups have a lot of reasons to work together. So we are all determined to change things.
Same with PubCon. We are reaching out and have forged a relationship between our 2 industries. These things are not easy and do not happen overnight.
We have gone out of our way to engage Madison Ave. and basically failed. Not receptive. At THIS point in time. When you fast foward a few years, things will change. But not on OUR timetable. Not on OUR terms.
The only thing we can do is keep chipping away and make inroads. But as I have stated….even then, one company, one project, one need at a time.
That said, we need help and support of all. This is not something for “Someone else” to do. This is something all in the sector need to contribute to on an ongoing basis.
Kelly
Rick is right.
Monte has been speaking at all these trade shows for years.
Last year in NY TRAFFIC when Madison Avenue came to speak it, was clear that they didn’t get domains and would not be convinced otherwise.
Ray’s point is also insightful.
People outside of the domain industry simply don’t get it at this point.
Rick,
I agree that it is up to all of us to do our part in increasing awareness and making sacrifices where necessary.
Perhaps the sales commission should be increased by 3% -5% and earmarked towards hiring a top-notch public relations firm to publicize the auctions and get the word out on the industry in general.
On the one hand, we keep saying that Madison Avenue doesn’t get it, but then again, look at all the call to action domains they have been purchasing lately. Open any magazine (Conde Nast Portfolio) and almost every full page ad has a call for action domain connected to a major brand. I think they get it. I think they don’t want their clients to get it…
If their clients ever figure it out, then they also figure out that their ad agency screwed them out of the biggest opportunity of the century!! The call for action domains are still available for a song, so that’s what Mad Ave is selling them on. How do they explain to Hershey that Candy.com is going to cost them 12 million now because they were idiots a few years ago???
I guess we will have to go directly to the source and these Ad agencies may be out on their a** once their clients realize the lost potential that slipped through their fingers as their over-paid agencies slept through the internet age.
Let’s keep in mind the Kevin Bacon theory. Everyone of us knows people who owns businesses, and they know people and so on and so on… Let’s try and talk to the circle we move in about our business, about the power of domains and expand our circle as best we can, and see if we can create some momentum.
If anybody has some concrete ideas I am certainly ready to spend some time on it.
Rick:
Yes, I have to agree that the Geo and Adult domainers (Gambling?) have taken the lead with consistently building successful models. But I do believe it’s only a matter time before other categories break out (and besides the revenue, development is the best way to legally protect a great name). When then happens, they’ll do what we did – scour the market for more names. It’s exactly how we acquired Nashville.com, Petaluma.com and LongBeach.com in 2003.
However, this all begs a different question. Do I really want everyone and his brother to know how great these names can be? In 1997, we picked up Traveler.com, Cost.com, Rate.com, Sample.com, etc because most people thought these names were worthless and didn’t want to pay their renewal fees. Thank God they did.
The bottom line is that the ignorance of others has had no bearing on how much money we’ve made from developing our names. If anything, it’s been a blessing. Sooner or later, one of us is going develop a $100,000,000 model with one of these domain names. Then, everyone will want to jump on the bandwagon.
Of course, they’ll say we got lucky.
David
The answer depends on whether you still in the acquisition mode or the selling mode.
If your still in the acquisition mode you want to keep it quite.
If your looking to sell a major domain to a major company for major dollars, you got to get the word out
I’ll put the shoe on the other foot for a moment, and imagine that these guys for years have been saying “look at these idiots just parking their domains, think how much they could make by just developing them”
I really don’t think there are that many business owners with money to spend at the SES shows. More indians and less chiefs. And I also didn’t see any of the big names in the industry promoting the auction (shoemoney, wolf-howl etc.) – i think if shoemoney, rand or one of those guys would have said “you should go to the domain auction” that would have brought an extra 250 into the room, who may not have bought but would have been introduced to the game….
You will not see the prime generic names pop up as often in auctions anymore. People know what they have and are holding on to them. Most deals will be done private in the future and or they will find a partner who can monetize the domain name correctly in exchange for a share of the profits.
I believe the end user depending on what business they are in and how big they are will not care to much about the name because they have the money to throw at the name to develop it. You still have management in companies thinking they can register a high quality domain name for 8 bucks. time will cure that though, take advantage of it while undeveloped land still exists.
Though the company that registered http://www.floridasnatural.com has the right idea for a geo specfic trade name. They have simple commericial that says to buy US and not from overseas or something to that extent. I bet you this juice companies sales will rise quickly in the future. Makes me want to buy that orange juice.
My bet on future domain names are
Call to action names
geo specfic trade names. Insurance/loans/homes etc.
Vlogs anything specfic
Blogs will become Vlogs. Video is it.
I recently did some work at a company where they did not believe type-in traffic exists except for major destination sites like amazon and yahoo. No matter how I explained it or what data I showed they just didn’t believe that direct navigation is a real search method I don’t think this belief is uncommon with non-domainers. Many people (especially here in the silicon valley) just cannot believe type-in traffic is real and with that kind of a mental block it’s no wonder they don’t get IT.
“The answer depends on whether you still in the acquisition mode or the selling mode.
If your still in the acquisition mode you want to keep it quite.
If your looking to sell a major domain to a major company for major dollars, you got to get the word out”
Maybe this is part of the issue then…. Is there still a large constituency that wants to keep it quiet for a while longer so that they can keep acquiring domains??? Because that is fine too. At least then there is some rationale for the lack of enthusiasm in the marketplace.
I am happy to see gold prices fall so I can accumulate more of the metal at bargain prices before the runnup to over $1,000+oz that I am betting on in the next 6-12 months… I trade stocks so I can wait and hold, no problem.
But, if we are ready to shake the money tree, I would say NOW is the time to make it happen, while investors are looking for somewhere to put their $$$$…..
I am also betting on:
CallToActionDomains.com
CallToActionDomain.com
CallToActionAdvertising.com
CallToActionAd.com
If anyone would like to discuss this further my whois is very transparent.
Gordon,Don and Sofia excellent posts IMO, right on target.
The other thing is how much do people want for those domains at auction? Meaning some names may have value to an SEO person but not at an outrageous premium. Because they know they can take a domain for $8 and move it up the SEO ranking. I mean its not like every name at these auctions has tremendous type in traffic. And the ones that do are in the high xxx,xxx to x,xxx,xxx.
I agre on the call to action domains but I see them as being new hand regs, I do not think a company paying high xx.xxx even high x.xxx they can tweak a word and have their own call to action domain for $8. IMO
On getting the word out…
I guess maybe domainers don’t “get it” when it comes to publicity and promotion the way Madison Avenue does…Just like they don’t seem to “get it” when it comes to domains. Stalemate perhaps.
Or, we could use our collective domains as a way to promote the industry as a whole. Many of us have domains that receive considerable traffic, and many of us own a considerable number of domains that receive some traffic… But all together we have an enormous opportunity to launch an effective marketing campaign.
We could have a small ad that links to a well done site that extolls the benefits of domains, charts, graphs, sales history, etc… Those domainers that are willing to can add the link to all the domains that they own and we can target ten of thousands of people a day. We could have sponsors on the sites who get free ads with links to their sites as a way to get a few domainers to help pay for the initial web site.
Meanwhile, we are educating and informing people 24/7/365 about domains and where they can find the ones they need for their businesses.
If anyone thinks that this idea has some merit let’s start talking about it and see if we can launch something.
“End users will come ONE PROJECT and ONE NEED at a time. . . Sometimes you just need to step back and see it through other eyes. One need, one project, one company, one idea, one person that gets it.”
Funny we make the comparison to real estate often. If you think about a company that buys real estate for their store buys 1 plot at a time in the same way that they are with domains. . . . They don’t typically go around buying all the land. Walgreens buys the land close to the hospital that isn’t serviced by a pharmacy and they build it up right away. They don’t buy up land and put up a sign redirecting someone to the walgreens down the street. . .after all their work and development, then comes CVS or Riteaid and other related businesses following the trends. Give it time.
Sofia12….Our type in traffic runs 29 – 31% tracked by outsides, not us. If one do not belive in direct navigation, they are fooling oneself. Just rember, alot at the beginning didn’t get the worth of ppc advertising….now look at Google. Please, I’ll take a generic any day of the week over non. Thank you.
I own almost 2000 domain names and started buying in 2001.I was at the SES conference in San Jose(as a domainer with very little tech skill) and
i quickly realized that there is very little help for the serious beginning domainer who wants more than to just park names forever but can’t afford
full development for more than just a few names.
I really “GET” the concept of development and
monetization and i know that SEO companies are
a dime a dozen so i’m looking for a more personal
relationship with a monetizing partner(s) but
there seems to be a void for that sort of thing.
I know there are many domainers such as myself
who understand a little bit about market/ social
trends and have purchased domain names ahead
of the peak of a trend.Where are the individuals or companies that can regognize a good domain name and attach it to an obvious current trend and be
willing to put there time and monetizing expertise
into a partnership and share in the revenues?
I’m sure most domain owners feel that their names are woth fortunes and some may be but development is the way to go for me and i will figure it out one way or another.I welcome any thoughts on the subject
Bill, you are absolutely right about developing your domains. I think you should take a look at MissPark which helps you develop your domains without any technical knowledge or experience in programming.
I put the URL in the post so you can just click on my name.