The Life and Death of Domain Blogging. R.I.P!

Morning Folks!!

It's Sunday morning and just like the many Sunday's before this one a pattern has developed and it's not good. It wasn't long ago that a blog post that was posted at 6AM would be on Domaining.com's page 2 by 10AM and page 3 by early PM. That no longer happens. Not on ANY day! But the weekends show the true story. Top 20 blog posts go all the way back to Friday at 1PM. Domain Blogging is a dying art!

As I write this, in the past 24 hours there have been a total of 11 blog posts by only 7 different bloggers. If you take out the ones with no meaning and you take out the ones that are self promoting, there ain't much left. SAD! And within minutes, there will be 1 or 2 less posts during the past 24 hours.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

 



49 thoughts on “The Life and Death of Domain Blogging. R.I.P!

  1. Rick Schwartz

    And before anyone dismisses this as a “Sunday thing”, let me share with you that on Sunday October 27, 2013, this blog had its single biggest day since moving to wordpress with over 15,000 views. That’s over a span of 5 years. Not sure what my high was when I had it at Typepad. However, Sunday is a HUGE reading day! Just look at the Sunday papers. Biggest actual paper, biggest day of the week.

    Reply
  2. Tommy

    Not sure about now but a few years ago Francois charged people $500 to get their domain blog in the Domaining aggregation. Maybe he should be paying people today.

    Reply
  3. christian zouzas

    FB/twitter killed blogging years ago but with increasing censorship of FB/Twitter
    folks will have no choice but to go back to their own site to bypass FB/Twitter

    Reply
  4. Jordan

    Yes its true that Francois charges $500+ to get on the feed. When I was at Lovelogo we paid that to get on the feed(plus had to meet other demands) and we put out some decent content(different but domaining related) and then he just removed us for no reason then demanded much more cash. He should be helping domaining blogs instead of creating barriers

    Reply
  5. Rick Schwartz

    A few elements that I look for in a blog:

    1. Actual name of author

    2. Time and date stamp of article

    3. Comment section that is open

    4. Comments because imho, comments are the interaction that makes a blog a blog to begin with. The collaboration aspect of a blog that has a purpose.

    5. Probably a few other elements like email to the author etc.

    Reply
  6. Mark Thorpe

    It is sad and discouraging at the same time.
    If you and a few others ever stop writing about domains, it will be the official end of domain blogging.
    Sad day in the domain Industry if that ever happens!

    Reply
  7. Merdock

    Blog writers lost control of trolls. They are also afraid, with the exception of DNW, of pissing people off. So the news goes unreported, the people aren’t warned of the dangers and bloggers mostly sell drop lists under the premise that THEY are the smartest and you should get these domains they recommend while they get a kick back for each name. Nobody who thinks a name is good is going to call attention to it. Don’t be stupid! Censorship and deletions are rampant. It’s all a fairy tale. The celebs in the industry are snake charmers. The forums are even worse. Or should I say forum singular? And that one, NamePros, deletes more posts than it publishes! So how do we fix this?

    Reply
  8. Donny M

    Twitter has taken so much of the traffic, the issue with twitter is that most people don’t see what your posting because they are following 400 other people. Only need to really follow less than 10 people.

    This domain industry needs to merge people who are professionals in monetization of traffic. Many have left because $$ has gone down on parked pages- but are sitting on goldmines if developed. Adblockers have killed everything. Just a matter time before google axes all parked pages and traffic. Current monetization companies are so boring! If domainers have type-in traffic- Start developing.

    Reply
  9. Travis

    Francois in my dealing with him was always super rude, and in no way would I support any of his enterprises. The failure of domaining.com, was the the rebirth of namepros.com

    RIP Domaining.com should have taken that $1.8M lol

    Reply
  10. Peter

    The root of the problem with Domaining.com is that he requires you to add his logo and “dofollow” link back to Domaining.com in a way that Google and other search engines frown upon. So bloggers have to choose between losing Google traffic or Domaining.com traffic.

    NameBee.com doesn’t have any of the issues that Domaining.com has. It’s much better in features too.

    Reply
  11. Vito

    Yes he charges $1000 now. Well at least he told me $1k when i inquired about getting on his feed a year ago. I wasn’t sure i could ever make that back thru blogging about domaining so I chose to spend my $1k elsewhere.

    Reply
  12. Anunt

    Domaining. com had a small chance to make a comeback with crypto domaining topics but they also banned that…and now domaining. com is slowly dying and taking all bloggers down with it.
    Why would anyone still pay domaining. com to advertise, they don’t have much traffic anymore…just check the Alexa ranking.

    Reply
  13. Eric Lyon

    In response to the commenter that wrote: “NamePros, deletes more posts than it publishes”

    Please understand the following:

    1) NamePros does not publish content. Users on NamePros post content.

    2) The only time we delete content is when it violates a rule, and that is very rare. Less than 0.01% of the time.

    Reply
  14. Eric Lyon

    3) We only know about rule-violating content when members report it to us (with rare exception).

    4) There are thousands and thousands of new posts on NamePros every single day. At most, we delete a handful of them per day that have been reported to us by members. This means that not only are those posts violating the rules, but members also agree with those rules enough to report the content.

    If you ever feel something was handled improperly at NamePros, please our contact support team to look into it.

    Reply
  15. Michael Castello

    What is the purpose of a domain name? If you can answer that, you can get an insight into what the industry is going through and further, how the world views it.. I think you will find it’s undefined, and as such, harder to sell.

    Reply
  16. Kevin

    “”If you take out the ones with no meaning and you take out the ones that are self promoting,..””

    …but what then will the bloggers(?) that don’t write articles on or about domains, but only copy and rehash content from NamePros (so they can collect ad money and ‘seem relevent’), gonna publish on their blogs? Researching and writing is hard work. Copying and pasting others content is so much ‘easier’!

    Reply
  17. Bill Kara

    It was never too sustainable… the feed has always been cluttered with junk and the only way to remove it is to create an account. Since 99% of people won’t do this they get essentially Ron Jackson mixed with Fragfactor… and others I won’t name.

    So the eye balls left even if there where periods of new growth, and for the bloggers why bother putting together a cover story, a video interview or detailed interesting post when your story gets buried by some click bait or a recycled new feed post that ‘bloggers’ just republish with none of their own commentary. On top of that you can compare domains and land but you can not compare domains and other digital goods like crypto … so that new angle is gone as well.

    It’s really sad as the domain world had some very insightful domain and business leaders posting.

    Reply
  18. Richard

    Adblockers are the reason why G will never stop feeding parking pages with their ads. They’re desperate for views and clicks. Parking is very very long tail.

    Reply
  19. Jon Schultz

    I think a domain is best defined as a marketing tool. That’s what I put at Cotai.com as I think it’s a good way to get potential buyers interested.

    Reply
  20. John

    People are too afraid to talk about how much power the 800 ton google gorilla in the room has. Because of them, people in general these days scarcely even know what a domain name is anymore, or care.

    Then of course there are the big runners up for that crown.

    So let me get this straight – people have been paying $500 to $1,000 just to appear in the feed for domaining.com? Seriously? Wow, so unreal. Talk about a hustle. Normally (with some exceptions) if I don’t have something good to say about someone’s domain name or their “hustle” I prefer to live and let live, but I’m sorry (not) that is just beyond ridiculous. I’ve never even liked domaining.com (sorry – sort of) and never use it. The few times I gave it a look I have always not found the feed to be appealing at all compared to others, so it seems to me people have been sucked into some kind of group think about that site being so special and important when it’s not (imho), at least for this one aspect. I use two other feeds/aggregators that I have been happy with for years, one of them a domaining industry peer site for over 15 years that blows domaining.com away imo and which people never ever even mention. In fact I’m reluctant to mention it myself now and never have.

    Talk about laughing all the way to the bank…

    I like Merdock’s point about being afraid of “pissing people off” too. There is far too much of that.

    Reply
  21. Rick Schwartz

    Now down to 9 posts in 24 hours by 7 bloggers and 2 of them are about THIS post!

    I was unaware that there is a $1000 fee. I think he is choking himself to death. :(

    I think the way to revive it is offer 30 days free and $29.95/month. $1/day if a pay model is the way to go.

    How many came here via Domaining.com vs mailing list or Google??

    Only about 12% of the traffic is reported as coming from a referrer. I find that hard to believe. It says only 2 people came from Domaining.com. I find that even harder to believe.

    Reply
  22. Donna Mahony

    I think I came here today via a Facebook share. That’s how I often see an article I might be interested in reading. I don’t think I’ve ever used Domaining.com or any other aggregator.

    Reply
  23. Tommy

    He charges $1,000 so that you can provide his site with free content (the content is the only reason people visit his site). Then he sells headline placements at the top and ad placements on the side. He does no real work and charges everyone everywhere and keeps it all himself. I’d say domaining.com is dying from a greedy business model.

    Reply
  24. Michael Castello

    I came here today, from my mobile , via Domaining .com since I have it bookmarked. I usually type RicksBlog .com into my address bar on my desktop. Put up a poll now that you use WordPress.

    Reply
  25. Jay

    i say we pay Rick $29.95 a month to post on RicksBlog.com from now on and abandon domaining.com altogether.

    Reply
  26. Mo

    Also via domaining.com

    @Rick-Great to see you posting again. Assuming your assumotion is correct then what does this say anout domaining in general? Are we at the end of it?

    Maybe you could start blogging again?

    Reply
  27. DrDomainer

    Francois please sell domaining.com to Rick. :) That would get the wheel turning again.

    Reply
  28. Dave Tyrer

    Yes it is very odd, I also came here from domaining.com and prior to Rick’s comment about seeing only two visitors from that source. (Back again now to read any new comments, partly because of the worldwide shortage of domain blogs!)
    – – –
    About comments in general, agree with Joseph’s comment above (and Rick’s postscript below) that they can add a great deal of value to a post. So over the last year or so, I’ve tried to become more active, and also made a start on NamePros.
    – – –
    Here is a statement from the NameBee website:

    “NameBee.com Promises
    NameBee.com is and will always strive to:
    3. Be completely free for Domain Name bloggers. These people work hard to provide the news and should not have to pay fees to get listed!”

    Reply
  29. Reminders

    I’ve noticed myself on Sunday nobody really blogs. Other days of the week more active. I think they should focus more and domain names and how they can be utilized. developer tools Etc.

    There’ll always be haters and small-minded people.
    I myself very much enjoyed the blogs over the years.
    I think the problem now is 3 prong.
    1) a lot of noobs entered the industry the last couple years thinking they can get rich quick and easy with little investment. Some made money, most didnt.

    2) the number of quality domains accessible to demeanors at cheap prices has diminished greatly is they have been mined and sold and are now in the hands of investors and end-users.

    3) the ones that complain the most know the least about the value of a domain name.

    Some like the fool above say cryptos is hot but most will find themselves chasing the tail end.

    Domaining will always be around but the quality of names sought after will mean you will have to spend more than a few dollars to acquire them for resale.

    Reply
  30. joesaba2014

    From 2010 to the present I follow the blog that I write domains, and those that I am a subscriber are still 8 years ago, you have returned and the reality is that you withdrew in your way of doing and when you meet again with your followers that are many fill and drag to us in a single blog yours who more than know how to write and write this market.

    Domainking, bless it be god that you have returned with your content with your blog that will always be open with your interviews of two to three pages, and in your twits everything to speak and write, in other blog domains and market news and others like I and many more ………. learn every day and now to return again many of your pioneers leave and not write your blog as before, do business as brokers and only give interviews, the same and very good, but the excellence for many who still continue with their blog domain to give the welcome,

    I like many others give joy your return, in you to be able to write and think what many others do not know how to do the same, you are different.

    Reply
  31. Ian

    Obviously I don’t want to be self promoting, but I want to sell one of my historical domains geeky.com I am thinking its worth around $250k USD when I look at all the other useless garbage being sold at $100k.

    Any thoughts anyone. Any of the old guard around still???

    Reply
  32. Steve

    I just type in ricksblog.com – I check a few times a month hoping to see something new. It’s funny…you posted a ton of information on Twitter almost daily but very little here. Perhaps you have your twitter posts still saved and you can upload them to an archive for viewing? Lots of great tricks and tips on business. Glad you left Twitter…that company is run the wrong way imo…why make Twitter richer?

    Reply
  33. Rick Schwartz

    Francois emailed me and says he showed 498 visitors from Domaining.com to this post. That figure sounds much more inline. Thanks Francois!

    Reply
  34. SFU

    In the old days, monetizeation and affiliate platforms gave even “average” domainers a way to make money for renewals. Marketplace platforms gave them a way to make occasional 4 figure sales and offered the exciting possibility of that Big sale that all domainers dream of. The days of GoTo and Overture eventually got taken over by Google. Google decided they didn’t need or want these Middle Men domainers and the stagnation of the industry began.

    With little money to be earned in those areas, devaluation of mid-range domains (two word and long tails) began. The race to the bottom began. Flipping and selling for hundreds, rather than thousands, became commonplace. End users increasingly become convinced that good domians are worth very little.

    Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. But, all these years later the domain sales marketplaces haven’t changed. Landing pages and a transaction service IF someone stumbles by and decides they want to purchase a domain. The excitement and hope has faded over the years. I do not pretend to have the answers on how to get that back. But, I am one of those who still has to believe that it WILL come back. And, hopefully with a vengeance!

    Reply
  35. John

    Kind of odd and bold to do that here, but I’m easy going. Not my blog though. However, as long as Rick is allowing that to stay up, I would like to say that’s a very good domain. $250k is definitely very reasonable, and if it even sold for significantly more I would also not think it was not worth it. Whether you can realize $250k right now is of course anyone’s guess, however. Also, word to the wise: some of the “old guard” might still have a clue about what domain names are really worth, but you are making a mistake if you think they all do. Wish you the best and would like to see that one make some news…

    Reply
  36. Sigma

    Return of the King. Welcome back Rick. The best domain game was always available on your blog anyways. Its a damn shame newbies discover your blog only after finding their way through the weeds of the domain industry.

    Reply

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