The Evolution of Domaining. Just Another Surfboard?

Morning Folks!!


The domain game has changed many times in the years I have been online. It has gone thru phases, ups and downs, booms and busts. The one constant is that even in decline, things progress. That progress prevents serious decline. Just ebb tide if you played the game well.


When you surf, conditions change rapidly and you have to react rapidly. While the same holds true in business, it is like slow motion compared to surfing. That means that you have a better chance of getting it right in business because you can be more deliberate and consider more options..


So while some freak out about the current conditions I just keep the same mindset in place knowing that will outlast whatever we go through. Whatever phase. But some things in business are predictable, foreseeable, understandable and therefore you can JUMP on opportunities when others cannot. Lions and lambs. Just a force of nature.


April was going to be a hard month with taxes due. There was no two ways about it for the masses of businesses and people. The squeeze was on and the storm clouds were hovering well before that,


Deep breath. We now come out of the tax season and enter the business season. Businesses now know where they are and can set a course. There is some clarity here and with the weak dollar it motivates folks to move those $$$ around.


Andrew has written about Bin Laden names. That is chasing yesterday’s news. That event was nearly 10 years ago. Will there be a few good domains? Probably. Maybe a dozen. Compare that with the thousands that are being registered. May as well go buy some lottery tickets. Like I said, that vein was mined a decade ago.


The next Frank Schilling is entering the business right now. Or maybe it was last year. He or she is unknown and invisible to us but that does not mean they are not there. They are. What do those in business for 5 years say when newcomers come along and find a path that works while some plow a field that will never yield a crop? Don't get angry and frustrated. Take a deep breath and try something new.


We are truly entering a new phase. It is a much more interesting and serious phase because folks are becoming more educated about marketing on the net. Slowly they figure out what works and what does not. They are all coming our way whether they know it or not. I see it. I study it. I make money from it. I love it!


Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

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12 thoughts on “The Evolution of Domaining. Just Another Surfboard?

  1. Kevin

    Most domain investors have one or two particular skillsets they are good at. Very few have the array of skills, capital and business acumen necessary to deal with and exploit all the dynamic changes and opportunities happening in the current market.
    I’m seeing many domainers sounding frustrated and unable to make profit margins like before and it’s because they aren’t adapting their pricing and business models to the changed economics and realities at hand.

    Reply
  2. Kevin Davis

    There might be some traffic on some bin laden names like osama pics or videos.I did reg AymanAlZawahiri.Com he was Osamas number 2 guy.We will see.Cheers.

    Reply
  3. Anthony

    Rick … good post :) … the miracle of science has still not shown us
    everything that can be done with domains …
    I believe we will see new records for premium .coms :)

    Reply
  4. Max

    we all wish there’d be the next Frank Schilling, but don’t kid yourself. the next Frank Schilling is not going to make it in the domain industry. i do hope i’m wrong

    Reply
  5. Bill Roy

    Rick,
    Nice post.
    I think one major factor that is occuring now in the evolution of domaining is the move away from the ‘parking’ mentality to the develop website outlook. Parking has had its time, few outside the parking industry I think would disagree that just parking a domain with no control over what either the parking company pays you or even the payment to the parking company from the advertiser source is a realistic business model for either future planning or prosperity.
    Now many domainers are looking at development as the obvious forward planning movement as the monetization strategy, if nothing else it removes the secretive ‘middle man’ parking companies who constantly make more than the domainer. This is why many domainers are ‘developing’ their domains, it is only a natural business strategy.
    Now as for the next event in the evolution (or the one after next, or the one after that) could be an ‘agency’ style company who will simply marry together advertisers with venues. Using for example one of your domains Rick (yes I know it is cheeky), let us look at Men.com.
    Advertisers could place bids to run advertisements on Men.com, they would need to have available visitor data of course, but say a sports car company wanted to advertise to a niche that was covered by significantly by Men.com’s visitors, they would then place a bid to run ads that would be directly relaid to you as the owner as would other bids from other interested parties wanting to advertise, in other words the agency would replace Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.. Of course this does already happen to a small extent in the industry, but imagine if it were available to those domains of medium or even small traffic numbers. Such an agency could sign up I am sure on literally millions of domains as an agent, and with a rake of 30% for the agency would still produce vastly higher incomes for most domainers over the current peanuts they currently get paid. This would also give power to the advertisers as those sites that did not get results for the advertisers would cease to be used in the future. This is perhaps the replacement for ‘parking’ in the very near future, an ‘agency’ that could clearly deal with both developed and undeveloped domains.
    Just my 2 cents.

    Reply
  6. Bill Roy

    Edit above post.
    “is a realistic business model for either future planning or prosperity”
    should read:
    ” is NOT a realistic business model for either future planning or prosperity”

    Reply
  7. Domain Lords

    Schilling, he’s BANNED from google. Not one of his dogs is page one and type in traffic is not the GAME, it’s all about FIRST VIEW of the hot SE, that’s what drives ‘business’. Then having something that ‘converts’.
    Does Schilling have one decent insurance domain, one of the top cpc zones in the world is INSURANCE, nothing major. Does he own one major legal term, another huge cpc term.
    Does he have the ability to get page one for his ‘type ins’ on google? NOPE they don’t like his java crap and that’s why he’s ‘exclusive’ to yahoo, his adsense account was probably terminated for not having ‘original’ content.
    LOL
    Anyone following Schilling is a fool, even Ferber had a better ‘score’, 500M+ or whatever.
    Now look at Ferber, he’s hustling low end development crap, handyman.com and lawn service.
    The real ‘gurus’ have always been ‘tech’ gods, guys that are in the shadows, that move stuff and the masses never even know they’re moving it.
    Magicians.
    Domains are domains, you don’t need a .com to make money on the net, you need visibility on big buck terms, that’s what moves all net marketing now.
    In the old days, ‘business’ didn’t understand the net, they did business from yellow pages and local media and a small percentage of business was done via major media.
    Ferber scores came showing how ‘traffic’ sites could make money by selling massive untargeted banner crap.
    Yeah, McDonalds and Airlines can use it.
    Local businesses cannot.
    You’ve seen the collapse of most ‘local media’, so the net is really the ‘media revolution’, the digital media revolution.
    Sure, some money in huge traffic stuff, but it’s all done, and it’s getting more and more fragmented, more new players all dividing up the same dollars big companies have.
    The growth is in local advertising, using the net to convert ‘local searches’ for the everyday thing that local businesses used to buy print ads for, yellow pages, radio and local TV. All those ad streams got more and more fragmented, like the big traffic sites are all diluted due to TOO MANY.
    Someone wants or needs a local product or service, what do they do?
    GOOGLE it or a minority yahoo/bing it.
    That’s the big money now in domains and development.
    Sure, a few minor scores to be made in brandables and or chasing big buck keywords, but the local advertising market is where the big growth of the net is.
    What was googles big ‘tweak’ about? All about making LOCAL PROFESSIONALS pay now for any local serp’s.
    Just look any professional term in any major city.
    What do you see?
    5 ppc ads and 2 maps that are more and more becoming ‘associated’ to ppc budgets.
    So right before your eyes the revolution is happening and NO ONE IN THE DOMAIN GAME has a clue as to what is happening.
    GOOGLE is the net, period, it’s a VERB NOW.
    I’ll google you.
    Yeah, FB and YT get traffic, so what, it’s not NEED DRIVEN TRAFFIC, massive garbage traffic it is.
    You wanna make money on the net, you control FIRST VIEW of Google and yahoo for NEED driven traffic.
    That makes the phones ring, that makes revenue. That gets clients paying month after month.
    Then the next trick is, HIGH RESPONSE TRAFFIC.
    Any of you even know what a SQUEEZE PAGE IS?
    Google usually hates squeeze pages, but, there’s a way to do them with google’s blessings.
    So having a domain name on first view for a high cpc term and then having content that CONVERTS means, you did what the game is about, you now have a rental property, and it’s not adsense chump change, it’s a lot of money PER MONTH from businesses that see RESULTS.
    ROI for a local company is the game now, and almost NO ONE has a clue.
    The only ones showing local professionals huge returns from internet marketing investments is THE LORDS.
    Not to plug our work, since no one here can hire us, but, damn, some of you have ok names AND YOU ARE NOT USING THEM RIGHT.
    So wake up dudes/dudettes.
    You got downtown NYC in 1809, you know the future, every acre is priceless in the future, well the future isn’t 202 years from now the way the net is evolving, it’s 20 years now, what took 200 years to do in 1809 is now done in 20 years not 200
    1995 was the beginning of the commercial net.
    2005 came the future (HD VIDEO AND HIGH SPEED)
    2011 is showing businesses, ok, this is the greatest media ever created to hit NEED DRIVEN shoppers.
    The traffic sites are using old world thought, 3 channels a captured audience, anything sells IF you can buy the air time.
    Now the traffic is dilluted, like TV like Cable, like radio.
    NO ONE CONTROLS the huge marketshare now
    The only one in CONTROL of market share is GOOGLE
    They control the most valuable market there is, NEEDS DRIVEN USERS.
    Enough of Internet Marketing 101
    The LORDS have spoken.
    LOL

    Reply
  8. pakal

    You talk about NEED DRIVEN shoppers. You can look for them or if You are big enough create NEED. All big players don’t look for NEED they create it. You drink Coca Cola, drive BMW etc.

    Reply
  9. Stephen Douglas

    Hi Rick,
    Thanks for using the analogy of”SURFING” for your article here! As one of two of the only accomplished surfer domainers (Joe Politzer is the other), we appreciate any article that refers to”surfing”. In the future, some of the terms you can use to describe a great”domain” compared to surfing would be”man, this domain is a six foot bowl with 10mph offshore winds, and NO CROWD!”
    peace

    Reply
  10. domain save

    @Domain Lords,
    I agree with you fully. A SE org called me from Nevada claiming they know the answers how to SEO & Convert sale.
    One time good sum asked for.I asked what is the assurance? After getting my credit card if they did not perform how to catch them. Only 60 days money back BS gurantee! Such way we all lost money this way or that.
    What is your advice-is there any real SEO who could tweak any domain or any ext.? to convert by selling at the local market, the high demanded what products?
    Appreciate your further tips/insights with more details plese.
    Regards,

    Reply

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