4 ms·

Domain Squatter Tries New Business: Running Websites

17 points by drm237 19y ago

greyman 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    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.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]
brk 19y ago
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.
- henning 19y ago
  Every SEO person I've talked to or read from always says good domains are the foundation for making money online. Those domains are still quite valuable.
  - brk 19y ago
    Yeah, well a lot of SEO people are just parrots who repeat what they've heard. Does "Amazon" equate to a massive multi-product marketplace somehow? How about "ebay"? "Flickr" is so much like "photo hosting" that you can see why they're such a popular search result. And so on. Having key search terms in your domain name lends a tiny bit of weight to the overall result ranking. The link text, page title and H1 tags will do more for you though. So will text in the url itself (www.foo.com/these-are-my-keywords).
    - eurokc98 19y ago
      All valid points on the SEO stuff. One thing to keep in mind is that the age of the url is important too. One thing I would point out is that everything else being equal a good domain name will generally get more clicks. The higher CTR will eventually lead to higher results in both the natural and paid results. A good domain name is also important for branding and other forms of advertising. I am not going to remember an IP address unless my dork quota hasn't been met that week.
- pchristensen 19y ago
  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.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-09-domainers_x.htm http://www.google.com/search?q=domaining http://www.google.com/search?q=domaining
  - brk 19y ago
    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...
tyohn 19y ago
"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...
dstillz 19y ago
Don't call us domain squatters. We're domain farmers. And you're just jealous. :-)
- axod 19y ago
  A farmer creates something. What do you create? You happened to be the first person to think of registering a certain domain name, and won that lottery. Well done.
- Hexstream 19y ago
  What's next, calling spammers postmen?
- pchristensen 19y ago
  Hex, axod, :-) means it's a joke!
  - axod 19y ago
    hehe never can tell for sure on the intraweb

17 points by drm237 19y ago

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 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]

brk 19y ago

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.

henning 19y ago
Every SEO person I've talked to or read from always says good domains are the foundation for making money online. Those domains are still quite valuable.
- brk 19y ago
  Yeah, well a lot of SEO people are just parrots who repeat what they've heard. Does "Amazon" equate to a massive multi-product marketplace somehow? How about "ebay"? "Flickr" is so much like "photo hosting" that you can see why they're such a popular search result. And so on. Having key search terms in your domain name lends a tiny bit of weight to the overall result ranking. The link text, page title and H1 tags will do more for you though. So will text in the url itself (www.foo.com/these-are-my-keywords).
  - eurokc98 19y ago
    All valid points on the SEO stuff. One thing to keep in mind is that the age of the url is important too. One thing I would point out is that everything else being equal a good domain name will generally get more clicks. The higher CTR will eventually lead to higher results in both the natural and paid results. A good domain name is also important for branding and other forms of advertising. I am not going to remember an IP address unless my dork quota hasn't been met that week.
pchristensen 19y ago
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.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-05-09-domainers_x.htm http://www.google.com/search?q=domaining http://www.google.com/search?q=domaining
- brk 19y ago
  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...

tyohn 19y ago

"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...

dstillz 19y ago

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

axod 19y ago
A farmer creates something. What do you create? You happened to be the first person to think of registering a certain domain name, and won that lottery. Well done.
Hexstream 19y ago
What's next, calling spammers postmen?
pchristensen 19y ago
Hex, axod, :-) means it's a joke!
- axod 19y ago
  hehe never can tell for sure on the intraweb