In a post just published by Stephen Chapman for ZDnet.com entitled: “Capitalizing on hidden sources of traffic: A tale of pure awesomeness”, hopefully will be an eye opener to all SEO types on the value of of domain type in traffic.
According to his bio, Mr. Chapman has been involved with SEO for over 5 years.
In his post, he he tells the story of how he hand registered a domain name that he saw inside of a comic strip which contained a picture of a computer monitor with a non-existent domain on it.
Just days after registering this domain and forwarding the new domain to his blog, the traffic to his blog doubled.
Yes doubled and Mr. Chapman is simply amazed.
Moreover Mr. Chapmanis quite pleased with himself and seems to think that he has discovered a secret previously unknown to man.
Its now around 14 years since I registered my first domain and over 25 years since the 1st domain was registered and SEO experts are still just learning of the power of domain traffic.
That’s pretty amazing to me.
The next time someone tells you that no one types in domain names tell them to ask Mr. Chapman.
Congratulations Mr. Chapman you are now a domainer.
hah, this brings back so much bitterness. Stupid managers wouldn’t understand this if you hit them over the head with a baseball bat.
It is not just SEO, it is everything. I had people tell me they were a 10/10 in Java, Oracle, php, whatever it was… Yet they knew practically nothing. Yes the smart people move on their own and leave the regular world behind. People that take risks discover all this, but sometimes end up broke and on the streets. Done that, been there. But you bounce back stronger. I keep saying it, it amazes me how stupid people are. But I am talking about the people in high places that you would be know 100x what you know. Instead they barely know anything.
I watched every company I worked for do themselves in and blame everyone but themselves. Custerds last stand over and over. For being so smart they sure seem stupid.
But better for us. By the time they catch on they will see we own it all. Then they will have the banks take it all from us and get the taxpayers to them for doing it.
How could you work in SEO for 5 years and not know Direct Nav? It is just mind boggling.
He even mentions how this is not ‘black hat SEO’. Too funny.
What he considers “hijacking,” I would consider just smart business.
The only time I use direct navigation is when I know the actual website exists – Amazon.com, SEDO.com, Namepros.com, Yahoo.com, etc. I cannot recall the last time I just hoped that what I was searching for might be an actual website with useful information (via direct navigation) rather than a parked page. On the other hand I get annoyed by the usage of hyphenated domains. Yes, the search engines recognize them but they just look ugly.
To be filed under ‘no shit Sherlock…!’
Wow…he just cracked his own egg shell like Lady Gaga…
it seems the term ‘expert’ is used too loosely these days , amazing to think how slow some people are
The domain in question may be challenged by the publisher of the comic book. They may try to establish that the domain name is their intellectual property. I’m not an attorney but I’ve read about similar situations where this has happened. A domain was flashed on a TV show, someone registered the domain within minutes of seeing it, and several days later was contacted by the network’s attorney, who demanded that he turn it over ASAP.
“Awesomeness” may turn into “Astonished” if this happens. Good luck with that, Mr. Chapman.
That wasn’t the power of the domain name…that was the power of free advertising & the distribution of the comic strip.
The same domain name likely received ~ 0 traffic until it was featured in the comic strip. If it had an organic traffic stream for years before being highlighted it most likely would have already been purchased. And as that comic strip falls into the archives & into obscurity the organic traffic it was driving will drop back to roughly where it started at: 0.
Type inn traffic is priceless
These seo experts and developed .net owners are a joke
Wake up and smell the traffic
I’m pretty SEO savvy, had the best score for an seo certification recognized by one of the top outsourcing companies, and I know domain potential, not just the exact match boost, anchor link advantages, but also the value of type-in traffic… and that is why I have close to 10,000 domains… just because one SEO guy doesn’t know it, it doesn’t mean it’s always like that…
Nuno Alex Oliveira
Ah, but I’m involved with SEO for more than 10 years, perhaps that is the difference 🙂
@Dan – Similar situation a couple years ago. A fictional domain was mentioned in a popular TV show. Somebody grabbed it, got lots of hits, & soon made some agreement to steer the traffic to the TV show’s official site – the producers of the show didn’t try to take it by force. I think he eventually sold it to them.
(I reg’d the singular version of that plural domain – not a type-in domain at all, would only get traffic from people who watch the show – got hundreds of uniques/day at first, and even now, I still average around 5/day.)
I wouldn’t think this would be relevant traffic to his niche though, just curious comic readers wanting to see if such a web address really existed. This is old hat traffic acquisition methodology were imaginary names of characters/technologies , movie/comic titles or similar are registered (and typo’s) all in the hope of ppc traffic. Those who bulk scan alexa, compete or similar find theses names anyway and if they’re fortunate enough get the opportunity to register them first.
Type in traffic brings you pre-qualified leads.
The lead may be a customer, a potential direct advertiser or someone looking to buy the site/domain.
I have a number of Caribbean country related domains and now have 40 websites built. I have 2500 related domains and 90% forward to the most relevant developed site.
I love capturing pre-qualified leads. This strategy leads to some revenue from adsense clickthroughs, ordering of a product or service that I offer and phone calls and emails from potential advertisers and potential content/cross marketing partners.
My strategy is to develop on the best domain then point relevant domains to the developed site.
That way even having a type in domain with very low traffic, you might enjoy a very high conversion rate from the pre-qualified leads.
Hello Mike,
Direct Navigation is here to stay no matter how much resistence it recieves. Fighting old battles is senseless. We mean to level the playing field BIG TIME !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
hmmm… SEO expert the doesn’t know the value of a direct nav domain name? 20% of the Internet is direct nav.
Of course you have to remember that SEO is dependent on search engines and their shenaggians.
I love how the only cogent, accurate, fact based analysis of this particular situation, amidst a bunch of babbling posts by domainers slamming SEO guys, was by the SEO guru. LOL.
Aaron Wall is 100% correct. This domain gets a burst of traffic for a minute, then a year from now, gets nothing. This had nothing to do with whatever keyword gravity or properties existed in domain name itself.
Don’t cry LS Morgan
Congrats Mr. Chapman…………..
SEO India
Hello Mike,
This quote above bears thinking?
“Of course you have to remember that SEO is dependent on search engines and their shenaggians.”
S.E.O. optimization is nothing more than Psycho-Babble or B.S. and is an expensive habit that Google forces on its clients, to simply survive in their Business Model. We all know that B.S. sooner or later gets its just deserts.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Or maybe, just MAYBE, SEO is a desirable practice because consumers use search engines to find what they want and ranking high in those search engines translates into the sweet, sweet loot.
Hello Mike,
@LS Morgan ??
How can feeding the hungry $ driven S.E.O. Monkey be good for anyone? Especially when it perverts common language into language that is only useful to S.E.O. manipulation, which leads the consumer away from what they are really looking for ?? We think You need to think 4 steps ahead on your comments ! The old Google Business Model was better than what it has evolved into in leading consumers to real word identification basis findings. Are you sure about your comment above ? Keep it simple stupid, is always BEST!
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
@Jeff Schneider
Google’s clients are those running PPC.
I’ve yet to get a SEO proposal that was less than 400% greater than my PPC budget and both are a treadmill of costs. But, only PPC truly guarantees traffic. Most of the “I can get you to the top of Google” promises are BS.
If you hate PPC and think it should be destroyed, then all search engines will be destroyed and the “skill’ of SEO will cease to exist. Search engines will continue to evolve so PPC is required to get traffic as they have with their own directory listings.
Hello Mike,
You obviously think that Google is the only PPC Model? We do not hate PPC. It just needs some cleaning up! Bye the way Cute, but we are not swallowing the Kool-Aid
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Thanks for removing my wikipedia article about how direct traffic converts at twice the rate. Whats the matter don’t want everyne to know that you are full of sh*t??? Take me off your bullsh*t forum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_navigation
I’d love to see a study on the % of type in traffic that’s simply domainers looking to see if they might be able to buy that domain. Type in traffic just doesn’t seem sustainable.
@ Brandon
Any domain worth his or her salt will not type a domain into the address bar just to see if it’s available to register, or purchase from an existing registrant. There are many other ways to determine this information!
Er, I meant domainER worth his/her salt…
Not sure if domains themselves can type domains into an address bar but I’m going to bet that they can’t.
Check out this post. A reply tl this post: http://www.seobook.com/google-chrome-may-remove-address-bar
Gnanes
Thanks for the link.
Nice if he would have linked it back
SEO is a bunch of bs
It’s really sad that in this day and age SEO and domainers don’t see eye to eye. Aaron’s article was a lot more relevant and correct than most people here think.
Anytime a writer talks about direct navigation or someone defends the value of SEO domainers (the ones who comment online anyway which may be 200 guys who each own one domain) flock together and try to tell the world why direct navigation is better than anything.
It is – any SEO guy will tell you the value of type-in traffic but it also depends on the intent of the type in traffic. Many domainers own names with type in traffic that converts for shit or traffic that is entirely unrelated to the domain name keywords.
There is no right or wrong here but maximum value includes the domain name + the SEO value. What I see by the comments is pretty childish to be honest – if anyone thinks the domain name is the only piece of the puzzle then Aarons follow up post was especially true. Its simple ignorance of not understanding SEO.
My advice – listen to all those people who are commenting and ask whether or not they have developed any sites which have produced much value through SEO. I’m not going to read all the people in this thread but I can guarantee you anyone who has developed is probably not in this conversation.
Jeff takes the cake
“S.E.O. optimization is nothing more than Psycho-Babble or B.S. and is an expensive habit that Google forces on its clients, to simply survive in their Business Model. We all know that B.S. sooner or later gets its just deserts”
Where do you live – the north pole?
I like domaining as much as the next guy (or gal) but there’s a lot more to domains than just changing nameservers to a parking company.
“Nice if he would have linked it back”
I have no problem linking to the great stuff you guys post (I do read your site often & think a lot of what you guys post over here is solid), but when something is basically an ignorance-inspired list of comments attacking my industry why should I go out of my way to directly vote for it?
Not that the post it self was super bad, but the comments were just a flat out embarrassment to web professionals of all stripe. If I would have linked to (and thus voted for) the comments on the page, then I would have been doing a disservice to the web at large.
Nice to see you understand the value of links (unlike most the folks who commented on this thread)! 😉
@ aaron wall
I think you need to re-read the original post by MHB. It talks of a guy who claims to have been involved in SEO for 5 years, and yet he seems to be taken aback by the fact that the domain he registered gets type-in traffic. Surely this shows a staggering level of ignorance on his part. Most of the replies you’ve read above are merely in response to that ignorance.
While some replies have had a dig at SEOers (probably due to bad personal experiences from dealing with poor opperators) to come here and try and defend those who do a good job, you are also looking to defend Mr Chapman’s apparent ignorance on this matter, which can’t be doing you any favours. You might have chosen a bad example to align yourself with.
As most of the best SEO experts are unavailable as they will be working their own projects, that leaves the ones who aren’t as proficient out there touting for business. Hence many disgruntled clients are left in their wake, ergo the type of comments you see here.
@ Aaron Wall
@ LS Morgan
Here’s the truth: most domainers in general never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
The domain got a brief burst of traffic from the free advertsing. End of.
Regards,
NOT Schneider’s Ohio Schmuck Contact Group – Limp Tiger
ps. WTF is this “Contact Group” BS at the end of every Schneider’s posts..?
All I know is this.
Lets say you sat Aaron Wall on one side of a table and EVERY SINGLE PERSON in these comments on the other side of that same table. You then had a contest between the two sides- Aaron Wall versus everyone here- to see who could extract more money from the internet. Wall would crush this cavalcade of Corkies in such spectacular fashion, they would all need years of therapy to sort out their view on life.
“(probably due to bad personal experiences from dealing with poor opperators)
…
As most of the best SEO experts are unavailable as they will be working their own projects, that leaves the ones who aren’t as proficient out there touting for business. Hence many disgruntled clients are left in their wake, ergo the type of comments you see here.”
The above comment is mostly due to people being too cheap. When I was new to SEO I remember some prospective “clients” who wanted me to guarantee rankings, offer a non-compete, read through (and sign) 10 pages of legal paperwork, not give me access to the server, build lots of links, etc. and wanted to pay me a whole $300 for guaranteeing rankings and traffic that would have been worth millions.
That delta is precisely why there is a market for lemons effect. But today there are tons of places for people to learn if they desire to…and most of them are way under-priced as well.
The cure for ignorance is knowledge. If people are both cheap and ignorant they are sorta just out of luck I guess. They can just go around feeling smug & grumpy 😀
I got burned when I first bought SEO stuff from someone else. Why? I was a cheap ass who didn’t appreciate the value of what I was asking for. So the only person who would service me at that pricepoint was a scammer. I got took to the cleaners & I cured that problem by learning. 😉
And no I don’t aim to defend ignorance. But if people remain ignorant it is at their own expense.
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance” – Derek Bok
Hello Mike,
There is an old saying = Lose your cool , Lose the argument ! you know who this targets.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (CONTACT GROUP) METAL TIGER)
Well, being cheap is only half the equation. The other half being the plethora of SEOers willing to promise more than can be delivered for the price offered.
You get what you pay for – but sometimes you don’t even get that.
Aaron
There was nothing in my post that attacked SEO as a profession or even began to discuss whether SEO in general was valuable or not.
I do not by in large censor comments, even when people tell me I completely wrong in a nice way or not.
Obviously SEO plays an important roll in getting ranked on search and according getting traffic to your site.
However I still find it amazing that the subject of my post who is internet savvy, didn’t seem to know that domains got type in traffic.
Finally I think its only out of professional courtesy if your going to use a story on someone blog to form the basis of your story that you hot link it back to the source this way I would have learned about your use of it from you instead of from a reader.
However out
Hello Mike ,
The biggest problem with current S.E.O rollouts are their inability to ghange a websites content and strategy at a moments notice. In todays Market place you need to have Lightning Fast response to Marketing changes to be competitive. This by the way in the near future will be changing, so that response will be in a NEW YORK MINUTE !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
I personally think that Google/Bing will be getting so good at stopping SEO that the market for SEO professionals will collapse.
Add on to this companies like Demand Media and Associated Content, and an army of copy cats, that are producing so many new documents a day, literally thousands and thousands, that the search engine indexes will become so saturated with content that trying to do SEO will become futile, and eventually moot.
My guess is only the top 5% of SEO guys and gals will still be left b/c when this tipping point is reached it will take the very brightest SEO people to be able to make any headway in getting a site indexed well. Only a handful of SEO pros will be able to do this probably. It may be that none can do it eventually.
Remember how easy it was to get to the top of the search engines in 2004, for example, and how hard it is now? Well, if the trend in difficulty continues then you can expect SEO to basically die off in a few years.
Add to this Google’s BETA page whereby EVERY position on the first page is paid for, that is if it becomes the norm, then you can count on the SEO industry dying off.
Not trying to burst anyone’s bubble, that is just how I see the final blows coming to SEO.
I just read the Aaron Wall “article”, which is unsubstantiated with NO references to fact for any of his points.
And, if you want to comment on his site, you have to sign up and download some crap from him. So effectively, he squashes and retort that may come his way…….hence only one comment in the comment section.
Total bullsh*t commentary from him. 98% of my traffic is type-in Aaron, so I don’t need the search engines. Also, surfers will not allow a browser to keep them from going to their intended destination my friend. They will just use another browser IMO.
What a punk to not link back to this article, and what a punk Aaron Wall is for not allowing easy comments on his arrogant blog.
Aaron…..it’s not that we are too cheap as you imply as the reason we dislike SEO guys in general……it’s that the SEO community is arrogant, ignorant, and full of crap for the most part. I’d venture to guess that over 80% of the SEO community is scammers. I’ve seen it first hand for years. I know guys that used to be musicians, or from other fields, enter SEO and charging thousands for it and they have NEVER known a damn thing about the Internet.
Either way SEO is doomed per my previous comment and your profession’s objective will be moot in a few years.
I remember having a similar “debate” with a PPC affilate that their business model would die before mine did. They were confident they won that one. Until they got drove out of the AdWords market they were almost right.
I think this line presumes a lot
“surfers will not allow a browser to keep them from going to their intended destination my friend. They will just use another browser IMO.”
only if market regulators block them from taking it will the address bar remain viable. Give it a few years and see.
they don’t have to block all traffic to make something lose most of it’s profit margins: just check your PPC parking revenue stats over the past couple years 😀
“arrogant, ignorant, and full of crap for the most part”
talk about recycling a message & dropping attribution 😉
“over 80% … scammers”
unlike the domain auctions I nearly win, just before seeing a 1200% ramp in price in the final 2 minutes, only to hear that the ‘top bidder’ didn’t pay & I am welcome to buy the domain for 40x it’s market value 😀
halvarez is an anomaly…as are most other such incidents…I don’t buy that many names at the auctions because it often feels a bit like
youtube.com/watch?v=8c1BQkKUsx0
Aaron – great throwback video. I myself built out a dn classified platform because I felt the same thing was happening to me at auctions end. Now if you feel the price is right, then pay the owners asking or make an counter offer.
“Remember how easy it was to get to the top of the search engines in 2004, for example, and how hard it is now? ”
Buy an exact match domain and do some basic SEO, its not rocket science how domains like SydneyHotels.com or DubaiYachtCharter.com went from a blocked parking page to the front page of both Google and Bing in approx two months.
That’s the Real power of domains right there….but of course Mr G could probably change that at a moments notice.
ps – I forgot to ad visitstockholm.com in Google 😉
By choosing the right domain, you can easily be on top of google.
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