
Domain Squatter Tries New Business: Running Websites - drm237
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/domain_squatter_tries_new_business_running_websites
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brk
Interesting, but I think he's way too late to that party.

These short, generic domain names (like perfume.com) had some value 10 years
ago, when Internet search was still much more of a chaotic crapshoot.

Today, you could practically run a thriving ecommerce site from just a static
IP if you spent a little bit of time on SEO. People go to google, type in
"perfume" or "buy perfume" and go off to either the text-ad sites, or the top
organic results.

Users have been trained on the idea that "domain guessing" is hopeless, and
more than likely to land you on a pr0n site or ad site (like those domains are
currently configured).

Also, for many of these e-commerce related sites, there is a large percentage
of people who are looking to buy perfume+something else. If your site is so
tightly optimized around 1 product class, I think you'll lose a lot of
business to people who want to buy 3 products from 1 vendor, not 3 products
from 3 vendors.

IMO, the majority of these domain squatters have so thoroughly skewed or
ruined how people find products of interest that they have no hope of suddenly
turning things around by turning these domains into what they should have done
from the beginning.

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pchristensen
Users? Trained!?!?!?!? Someone needs to stop hanging out with geeks :)

These domains ARE valuable - both for income generation and resale potential.

<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-09-domainers_x.htm>

<http://www.google.com/search?q=domaining>

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brk
You're going to cite a USA Today article as some sort of conclusive proof of
your argument?

The "value" is perceived, often by people who have no idea what they're doing
(much like the examples in your USA Today article).

This is a lot like the "value" of various antiques, where antique dealers
constantly buy and sell pieces amongst themselves. Did you hear the joke about
the 3 antique dealers trapped on an island with a single King Louie VIII
chair? They all managed to make a living...

~~~
ajm
Jakob Nielsen found that only 76% of people who wanted to do a search could
actually do so. See <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designer-user-
differences.html> \-- it's quite long so search for "Getting to Google is
hard"

~~~
brk
Although it didn't break it down further, the article said that the other 24%
of people trying to get to Google "...either completely failed to get to any
search engine or ended up running their query on a different search engine".
So, some of that 24% were able to execute a search, just not on Google. Let's
be generous and say 10% used something else (like the MSN search that comes up
by default in IE).

My personal non-scientific experience is that users who are so internet-
clueless are also e-commerce-phobic... They won't put their credit card and
personal data "into the intarweb". So, the value to a retailer of this group
of folks that can't master ANY search engine is probably much less than the
cost of developing and promoting these sites based on such great domain names.

~~~
pchristensen
Now _that's_ a good point I hadn't thought of! Hmm. OK, now I'm less
optimistic about the Auctomatic deal. [that wasn't sarcasm, that was sincere]

I think the Plenty of Fish model (lots of traffic, high priced sponsorship ads
and affiliate links to more targeted or efficient sites) is a better bet for
high value domain names, given that characteristic that you pointed out about
the people unable to find a search engine. They might not know what they're
doing, but you can be darn sure they click on ads!

------
tyohn
"each site will cost him between $1 and $3 million a piece" - are you kidding
me? Just to build it out? Wouldn't you build a "test" site first before you
invested a million dollars?

p.s. Congrats - to Auctomatic...

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greyman
What that man does is not domain squatting. He was wise enough to invest into
(now) very valuable domain names, which he plans to develop.

~~~
attack
Buying up vast amounts of prime real estate in an extremely overcrowded town
and then wasting the property just to earn pennies a day while others
desperately need it is not squatting either, huh?

~~~
Harj
the domains were bought almost 10 years ago. Geoff has only just joined and
immediately y stopped the trading/squatting and started putting together a
team to build products that leverage the domains. Hence the re-branding.

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dstillz
Don't call us domain squatters. We're domain farmers. And you're just jealous.
:-)

~~~
pchristensen
Hex, axod, :-) means it's a joke!

~~~
axod
hehe never can tell for sure on the intraweb

