DomainTools Blog

A lot of people are worried about the Holiday tomorrow and there not being enough time to put in a bid prior to Thursday the 3rd so we have extended the deadline to January 10th at 11am PST. This will allow enough time for everyone to download the list and analyze it prior to the gavel closing. With over 170+ domains there is a domain that fits everyones budget.

My favorite domain is still HealthyHeart.com for $225,000. The best value is Grampa.com for only $2,500; I have a feeling the market will set the right price on this one and it will not be anywhere near the reserve price.

To place your bid, just go to the bid page. If you are not already a paying member of DomainTools, you will be prompted to enter your credit card to verify your identity. After that you are free to bid and then to own some of the best domains available on the auction block.

Sanctimonious webmasters, or sheer laziness? I’ve often wondered in sheer amazement at the audacity of the treatment doled out to website visitors. Not (I am hoping) by the company, but by the one or two webmasters who are in charge of the web servers.

For example, if you are a visitor to the FBI website, and you type in http://fbi.gov you would think that the site has been taken down by terrorists. In fact, someone too lazy or self-righteous is insisting that you must type in the www. or they won’t let you in. Yes, http://www.fbi.gov works, while http://fbi.gov earns money for Microsoft in the form of advertising on the Page Not Found error pages. Is the FBI, the only government agency in the dark here? Nope: Hud.gov, ATF.gov, FCC.gov all have the odd 90’s insistence that you put the www. in there. Thankfully, the webmasters over at the CIA, SSA, NSA, FTC and the IRS know what they are doing.

In a bricks and mortar example, this is the equivalent of spending thousands of dollars on advertising to drive people to your store. But you have two entrances – front and side. You could very easily have left the side doors open, but instead, your janitor has boarded it up and allows homeless people dressed as Bill Gates to hang out there handing out flyers for your competitors.

Some server administrators may read this and say that it is not a priority since most people know that you should just add www to a domain name. Maybe in the 90’s you twit.

There are not as many examples of this as there used to be in the business world. So, perhaps we can blame this on Government Bureaucracy? However, there is a very real, and even stranger problem occuring in the business world…

Let’s take the bricks and mortar analogy a step further. Let’s imagine that many of your customers arrive at your store and attempt to open a door to your neighboring building. There’s a doorway there, and every day, thousands of your customers are knocking on that door. Good news – luckily for you, the building was acquired by the CEO in a poker game. Bad news – that damn janitor again has locked the door, boarded it up and is letting a vagrant camp out there yelling “Search MSN – this place is closed!”.

I kid you not. And the bigger the company, the more idiotic the mess. FaceBook has a $15 Billion valuation, they own FaceBooks.com but they have allowed their janitor to keep it closed. An estimated 5,000 people a day visit FaceBooks.com, obviously looking for FaceBook.com’s front door. Doing the math, if it takes 10 seconds for each visitor to hopefully realize their error and persevere on to FaceBook.com, that is 5,000 x 10 seconds x 365 days = 5,069 man hours a year of wasted time.

So, thank you FaceBook. You are pissing away 5000 man hours of your visitors time trying to make it harder for them to get to your front door. Why? I just don’t get it. If you are going to go to the trouble of setting up FaceBook.com to redirect to www.FaceBook.com, why not take an extra 2 minutes and set up FaceBooks.com to do the same?

2 minutes of your employee’s time, to save 5,000 hours per year. That’s a good ROI, good PR and just general common courtesy. In the words of Will Ferrel – ‘Doesn’t anybody notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!’

A few of my favorite domains in this auction that stand out. I love Healthy Heart.com because it will always be a term people hear about throughout their life. If you are young perhaps you may not search out this term, but when you are older you will. For $225,000 it looks expensive but it is well worth it and that is why it is the most expensive domain in our up coming auction.

No Fees.com for $150,000 is a natural as well. Easy to remember and perfect for a nationwide commercial that would promote a particular bank. People naturally don’t want to pay fees and also would seek out this term. With organic linkage good SEO this domain pays for itself every year. This term will not get cheaper and is a steal.

Kegger.com is a great name for an edger version of a site like Beer.com. More of the college ground but less appeal then the more generic Beer domain. At only $150,000 this is another steal.

Money TV.com describes itself. This is a natural domain name that is worth serious money. People watching TV about Money have money and therefor the advertising rates for those viewers is higher then most other shows. For only $90,000 this is a bargain.

Public Forum.com I see as a bit of a stretch for $75,000 however it is such a natural language phrase I think it is worth it. If there is a bidding war on this one it could go very high.

What are your favorite domains in the auction? Keep it positive and on subject please. No whining about not being picked, please do that in another blog post.

The full list is available now for anyone to view. Bidding will open on Monday and the gavel will go down Thursday January 3rd.

I wanted to give a brief overview of how to figure out the PPC value of a domain. A lot of people are confused about the PPC value of their domains. How do you breakdown the value of a domain when you don’t have access to the Parking stats. It is quite simple, take the keywords of the domain and run them through Yahoo or Google’s PPC estimation tools.

I will use the example of TransferMoneyOnline.com, this domain is coming up in the Jan 3rd auction. We take this domain and we get the three keywords, “Transfer Money Online”. We run these keywords through Google like this:

transfer money online = broad match
[transfer money online] = exact match
“transfer money online” = phrase match

I choose $50.00 as my Max PPC cost to figure out the maximum numbers of clicks I would get if I bid on these terms. Then Google shows me the results:

I know that the exact phrase match is worth $2.58 – $3.22 per click. Google estimates that 1 or 2 people a day will click on my ad each day if I bid like this. If 1 or 2 people click that means that 50 or 100 other people are searching on those keywords but will not click on the ad. So I know there is traffic on this search term of around 100 people a day. However when you look at the loose match I see that 8-10 people would click. So there is perhaps another 500 people out there each day that are using more or less keywords. Now for the direct navigation component, how many of these people are typing in .com after their search. Perhaps 10 to 30 people a day because it is generally around 2-8% of the search engine traffic.

If the domain is taken off PPC parking and is built out, it would go from 10 to 30 people a day to 100 to 200 people a day in organic traffic. With adsense and good content the site can now start generating more revenue then just plain parking. At $2 a click that is good money. Giving people a brief tutorial on each way that people can transfer money online would be a good site. Thirty to fifty pages of content would start earning revenue and would cover the reserve on the domain of $3,400.

By dominating the organic results for its own term. Transfer Money Online.com will be able to make a sizable dent in turning a profit. The future of parking is being able to customize and built out websites with good content. I predict the cutting edge parking companies will expand this ability in 2008 and building content on parked domains will be easier.

I am tempted to buy this domain at auction if no one else bids on it so that I can complete part 2 of this tutorial. Taking a good keyword rich domain and turning it into an SEO wonder with good content.

I just wanted to pick a small list of 50 domains for the Jan 3rd Auction however with over 200 people submitting over 2,000 quality domains it was hard to turn so many domains away. Instead of picking 50 I picked my top 300 and narrowed it down to 170. My eyes have always been bigger then my stomach and my inability to keep the list small proves it. The amount of quality domains is phenomenal. We have enhanced our list to display more information about the keywords in the domains as well. We will hold another auction next month as well, we intend to keep the quality going and giving bidders great domains to choose from.
While picking I tried to separate the domains that people submitted into different categories; Brand-able domains, Dumpy domains, Commerce domains, Trademark domains, Typo domains, and Wishful domains. Let me walk you through the types. Brand-able domains would make great product names or company names however there are so many brand-ables out there that I tried to avoid picking them for the auction unless they are so powerful the domain demanded I pick it. Dumpy, Trademark and Typo domains went straight to the do not pick list. There are a few exception; a trademark domain that can be used legitimately by a dealer or seller of that product might get put in Commerce. Commerce domains have a clear SEO and/or CPC meaning, these are the types of domains that are categories and would make great vertical niche shopping site or information site. If I had to choose between two equal great domains I choose the one that has to do with commerce. So without further ado, here is:

The List

Format of the venue
The auction will start Monday and end on Thursday the 3rd at 11am PST. We will close each Lot one after another just like the live format. In fact, this is the live format but without the house bidders in the live studio audience. The first lot will close at 11am. The next will close at 11:00:30AM, the next at 11:01AM, and so on until all lots are closed. The auction should take about 1.5 hours with no delays. We will close a Lot when no more bids have come in for a 30 second period. We expect about 1 hour of delays as auction fights occur. There are so great names on the list, so I would encourage people to fight before the final 30 seconds. Obviously there will be snippers trying to pick off domains but in the last 30 seconds it will not be possible to snipe.

To bid
Create a DomainTools account and put a credit card on file. We will authenticate and monitor potential bidders. Obliviously many of the bidders are long time users of DomainTools and have bid in previous auctions but for the new guys we will collect phone numbers and confirm identities. We are enabling people to now have a Bidding Alias and a Talking Alias. The bidding alias will be available by Monday from inside your control panel and can be different from your blog posting alias.

Transparency
We have tried to bake as much transparency as possible into the auction format; we are disclosing stats, bidders alias, and reserves. There should be no question about how open we are being, more information the better.

Stats
Just a quick note on those stats next to each domain. We queried Google for the CPC on the keywords, the OVT is Overture numbers, and the GOOG is Google results for the broken up phrase wrapped in quotes. We will enable a CVS download link from the list page before Monday as well so that you can preform your own bulk analysis.

Deadline to submit domains for the Jan 3rd Domain Auction will be extended to Thursday the 27th. There are too many people trying to get into the auction and we need more time to review submissions and fix a few software issues. We have over 200 people that have submitted domains to the auction so far. A lot of great stuff to pick through and I don’t want to miss anything. Our auction system is also being used by the last minute NO Reserve auction for ARES right now and we are not able to populate it while we are conduction another auction. The best decision is to keep the submission process open for two more days and allow the ARES auction to close on Wednesday and then announce the domains the next day.

I keep looking at the ARES assets and I am surprised at how much value there is. For a company that makes $12K a month to be up at auction and tied into 57 different MLS systems is a lot of value. The amount of work it takes to program into that many MLS systems is a lot of work. The new owner on Thursday will be getting a great starting base for developing into the online real estate world.

Here is a Christmas Special! All the assets of ARES are up for auction with NO Reserve. The company was built over the past several years by father and son team Robert and Peter Meyer. It was sold last year to Edgio for $200K and then Edgeio spent another $300K over 2007 developing it further. Due to difficulties raising its next round of financing it was decided to close the company and seek a sale of all assets to a new owner. Edgeio was sold on Friday for $280K to LookSmart in our last auction. The reserve was not met on the ARES assets, so we are now authorized to auction off the ARES assets with a zero dollar reserve. The investors want to liquidate the assets before 2008, so the winner will need to transfer the funds before the close of business on Friday the 28th.

Before being acquired by Edgeio last year, ARES, as it is known, has patiently built up relationships with Brokers and Agents in 70 of the top MLS organizations (multiple listings services) in the US. It has about 1.5m homes listed for sale in the areas it covers. It currently makes about $12,000 a month in revenue.

Product descriptions directional from ARES website:

Web Site Plan	Cost per Month	Hosting Cost	Contract	Additional Cost per Agent Page
Agent Essentials	$30	$0.00	none**	Quantity Discounts Available
Agent Pro	$50	$0.00	none**	Quantity Discounts Available
Agency Essentials	$100 or FREE*	$0.00	none**	$0.00
Agency Pro	$200 or FREE*	$0.00	none**	$0.00

* ARES Agency sites are free if 5 or more agents have an ARES Agent web site
**ARES web sites are billed quarterly

The key advance ARES made is that it automates the inclusion of listings via the IDX protocol used by MLS organizations. This is painstaking work as few MLS organizations share common data structures with others. ARES also provides automated web sites for brokers and agents wanting them.To view a demo of a website they power check out: http://www.joycebenton.com/Just from viewing Name Server stats we can see they have about 1000 domains pointing to them right now. Name Server: NS1.ARESMLS.COM (has 987 domains).

The assets include, all the source code, domain names, and all customer relationships.
Website: Adaptive Real Estate Services
Auction Location: http://www.domaintools.com/ares-auction/

The auction will close on Wednesday at 2 PM PST however it will remain open for an extra 5 minutes if any bid is received in the last 5 minutes. It will finally close when no bids have come in within a 5 minute period and it is after 2PM.

UPDATE:
QUESTION: What are the relationships that they have to get the MLS records? Contacts etc.
ANSWER: We have relationships with our broker clients, who in turn are authorized to access IDX data for any MLS they are members of. These brokers authorize ARES, as a third party vendor, to access the IDX to their benefit. This requires we sign an IDX access agreement for each MLS that specifies the terms of our access, and how the data may be used. Without exception, the access is provided exclusively for the benefit of the broker (and their agents) to provide the web site services. Each broker client (and some agents, depending on the MLS) must sign the IDX access agreement, even if we already have an IDX data feed from that MLS.

QUESTION: How many are actually paying? How many are free.
ANSWER: We have 321 paid accounts, 33 accounts are discounted to no charge due to the number of agent sites at the brokerage, and 25 accounts that are complimentary in consideration of a favor from the broker or agent (EG: strategic relationship or helped us get into a Franchise or MLS).

QUESTION: How much of the $12,000 per month “pre paid” meaning you still owe them service.
ANSWER: Good question – we bill quarterly, so at any given time, the accounts are paid up for 0-90 days. I don’t have an exact amount, but figure an average are paid ahead 45 days.

QUESTION: Is the 12k tied to agreements and what type (12 month, automatically renewable, etc)?
ANSWER: We do not typically have contracts with our clients and the services are month to month, automatically renewable. About 90% of our clients pay with automatic credit card debit, the balance are invoiced.

QUESTION: What contracts or Terms of service do the customers have?
ANSWER: Our TOS is at: http://www.aresmls.com/termsofservice.cfm
Our Billing Agreement is at: http://www.aresmls.com/paymentagreement.cfm

QUESTION: How much does Hosting cost per month?
ANSWER: Our monthly hosting at CrystalTech is approximately $3800.

QUESTION: Will Peter be available for questions?
ANSWER: Yes, Peter can be contacted before or after the auction. He will be assisting the winner take possession of the code and he will explain the system and walk through it.

LookSmart is the successful winner of the DomainTools auction for the Edgeio Assets. All the bidding came in the last 10 minutes of the auction and it was between two bidders.

Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch coverage was very brief:

The auction of Edgeio’s assets is complete, and Looksmart is the winning bidder. They’ve acquired most of the assets of the company for $280,000.

I spoke to Patrick Chapman, LookSmart’s director of corporate development, briefly after the auction closed this morning. He says its too early to say what they’ll do with the assets, but they’ll likely issue a press release sometime soon. Chapman says he’ll be talking to Edgeio’s former employees and will hopefully offer some or all of them jobs with LookSmart.

LookSmart is a small public company with a market cap of around $68 million. They’ve made some recent moves to build the business back to what it was in the 90’s, including a recent share repurchase announcement.

This marks the end of this stage of Edgeio, a company I co-founded with Keith Teare in 2005 and which we put into the deadpool earlier this month. But I am happy to see the assets move to a company with the resources to move the ideas forward.

Mike has rounded up a great set of Board domains and declares a board meeting. The united boards group is made up of Snowboards.com, Skateboards.com, Surfboards.com, and Wakeboards.com. The group of owners includes Danny Keith, Eric Rice, Rick Waters, and WashingtonVC.

This is a pretty killer combination of domains and if used correctly could be a huge online presence. Each of these board domains received traffic peaks and different times of the year. They can be used to gather a core group of users all year long with each promoting the other brands. The group has the ability to target four times as many visitors by combining their traffic.

We covered Snowboards.com in our auction a few months ago and that domain had some killer traffic.

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have agreed to pay a combined fine of $31.5 million for accepting ads for online gambling. They have all stopped accepting this type of advertising a few years ago but the fines are finally getting settled. It is a crime in the United States to allow gambling online or to enable gambling ads on US websites. This reminds me or prohibition from the 1920s when alcohol was made illegal for 13 years. The 18th amendment made it illegal and the 21st amendment repealed it. During those years “drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.” The only way to control something is to make it legal so that there are structured laws around it. Blanketly making something illegal means that there are no laws around the edges to keep people safe that engage in the activity. It is far better to make laws and govern something then to ignore that it exists.

Anyone can gamble in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and on Indian Reservations. So clearly the difference between offline and online is not what makes something illegal, so then why is our country being hypocritical about gambling not being allowed online?

As a poker player, I personally think this prohibtion is wrong. From my domainer perspective, I also think this is wrong. I hope these 13 years of prohibition pass fast. I know they will pass eventually and when they do the gambling domains will be worth a lot more!!!! We all trade these domains from a lot less because revenue is hard to come by on them. Those domainers that control these forbidden domains will be worth considerably more when they come back in favor.