4 ms·

> I dropped in a bid around $2,200 ’cause I was confident I’d be outbid. 5 minutes later, I was the proud owner of VidaliaOnions.com For those that are looking

> I dropped in a bid around $2,200 ’cause I was confident I’d be outbid. 5 minutes later, I was the proud owner of VidaliaOnions.com For those that are looking to replicate the success of this Vidalia Onion business only have a $10 budget for a domain here are some other options: onlyvidalias.com vidalias.net tryvidalias.com yummyonions.com ordervidalias.com buyvidalias.com organicvidalias.com vidaliafarm.com allvidalias.com simplyvidalias.com

dmix 7y ago
SEO is more than just keywords in domain names, you're buying into a long-term investment. His domain cost $2200 because it likely had lots of backlinks and page rank in Google, which is how he was able to get 600 orders (about $30k in revenue if my math is right) in the first year. It's also the perfect combination of the two keywords with nothing else. You'll automatically be at a disadvantage. But every large market typically has 1 leader and 1-3 other smaller companies who can survive. I doubt this is a large enough market where being #2 or #3 is going to be lucrative. You might as well find other niche premium vegetables. Like 1-800-Flowers and Harry & David (which the author mentioned) does... https://www.wolfermans.com https://www.wolfermans.com made a decent-sized business selling premium english muffins.
- everdev 7y ago
  It was a joke :)
  - dmix 7y ago
    Oh true. The author was also promoting domain name driven businesses [1] so I was mostly replying to that idea and other thoughts I had to sound off on the topic :p https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/ https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/
- shanecleveland 7y ago
  History back to 1996: https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.com https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.co... And someone was running the same business on it just before him: https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.com https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.co... Good strategy. I've seen it suggested to check the wayback machine archive before buying a domain name to make sure you can recreate the same content and backlinks that already exist to take full advantage of any existing SEO.
fma 7y ago
I had another comment in this thread where I said I thought of this idea in 2011. And you know what's funny? I actually bought the domain yummmonion.com. I think I ran drupal (or some other open source CMS) on there as a place holder. I'm not sure how you came up with this option for domain names, but quite a coincidence? I looked at doman name historical records and it said it was registered October 2008...which makes sense because that was the year after I graduated college to start my job in Middle Georgia (I'm a software engineer, if anyone knows that area you know who I worked for). I visited my friend in NYC in September to watch the US Open, so makes sense that it was 2008 that I thought of it.

dmix 7y ago

SEO is more than just keywords in domain names, you're buying into a long-term investment. His domain cost $2200 because it likely had lots of backlinks and page rank in Google, which is how he was able to get 600 orders (about $30k in revenue if my math is right) in the first year. It's also the perfect combination of the two keywords with nothing else. You'll automatically be at a disadvantage. But every large market typically has 1 leader and 1-3 other smaller companies who can survive. I doubt this is a large enough market where being #2 or #3 is going to be lucrative. You might as well find other niche premium vegetables. Like 1-800-Flowers and Harry & David (which the author mentioned) does... https://www.wolfermans.com https://www.wolfermans.com made a decent-sized business selling premium english muffins.

everdev 7y ago
It was a joke :)
- dmix 7y ago
  Oh true. The author was also promoting domain name driven businesses [1] so I was mostly replying to that idea and other thoughts I had to sound off on the topic :p https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/ https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/
shanecleveland 7y ago
History back to 1996: https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.com https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.co... And someone was running the same business on it just before him: https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.com https://web.archive.org/web/19961215000000*/VidaliaOnions.co... Good strategy. I've seen it suggested to check the wayback machine archive before buying a domain name to make sure you can recreate the same content and backlinks that already exist to take full advantage of any existing SEO.

fma 7y ago

I had another comment in this thread where I said I thought of this idea in 2011. And you know what's funny? I actually bought the domain yummmonion.com. I think I ran drupal (or some other open source CMS) on there as a place holder. I'm not sure how you came up with this option for domain names, but quite a coincidence? I looked at doman name historical records and it said it was registered October 2008...which makes sense because that was the year after I graduated college to start my job in Middle Georgia (I'm a software engineer, if anyone knows that area you know who I worked for). I visited my friend in NYC in September to watch the US Open, so makes sense that it was 2008 that I thought of it.