Craig Rowe from WhyPark Talks About Domain Content

Craig Rowe is the President of WhyPark and is speaking on the topic of “Content is King”.

Benefits Of Content Development

• Creates a theme for search engines
• Acquired unsolicited inbound links and proactively build new links
• Provides a good user experience leading to return visits

What To Consider Before Developing

• What will be the ROI
• What is your long term goal with your portfolio?
• How much personal time should I allocate
• How informative of a user experience do I want to provide?

Disadvantages of Affiliate Content

• Always linked to merchant
• Promoting merchants rather than your own brand
• Little flexability over how content is displayed

Case Study: airlinerewards.com

• Added 70 unique articles through it by Whypark
• 50 incoming links in the past 2 months.
• Indexed within 30 days

One of the most valuable tips I thought was to wait 90-180 days to see results. Don’t expect them overnight.

John Berryhill on Domain Legal Issues – D2S1 – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

John needs no introduction. Here are the key messages from his speech:

Names added and subsequently deleted during the 5 day AGP declined from 17.6M in June 2008 to 2.8M in July 2008. Of the 2.8M AGP deletes in July, approx 2.6M were subject to the registrar-level transaction fee defined by the provision.

On the UDRP side of things. We have markel.com, decal.com, signsupnow.com, hero.com, my-life.com. Obviously decal is for stickers. In my-life the complainant didn’t have a business, he was launching one next year.

• Domain name is a dictionary term being used for a generic purpose
• Domain name registration pre-dates acquisition of trademark
• No “idiot defense” if complainant is represented by counsel.
• UDRP panelists have reached a tolerance limit for bad claims.

One significant point John made is that UDRP decisions factor in archive.org results. As such its recommended:

• Determine whether your PPC provider permits archives
• Periodically allow crawls
• Store a snapshot whenever you receive an inquiry
• Be aware of the active content issue.

At the end John elluded to the issue that archive.org can serve up content by filename. As such, it might be possible to change old content that has already been archived!

Divyank Turkhia – Owning Your Own Registrar – D2S1 – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Divyank Turkhia is the President Directi. The presentation is quite fast paced, so I’ll try to keep up with the most valuable information.

What’s the wholesale price including ICANN fees?

• .com $7.06
• .net $5.18
• .org $6.95
• .biz $6.62
• .info $6.95
• .name $6.20

Registrar Landscape

• 75% of all registrars have < 5000 domain names each.

Risks Of Not Owning Your Own Registrar

• Juristiction risks. eg: Kentucky, cost of litigation.
• Probability of law suit
• False spam and AUP violation complaints
• Domain renewal risks
• Fraudulent legal notices sent to registrars.

Important Point: Every registrar gets a 45 day auto-renew grace period (AGP).

Privacy of Information

• Not based on Privacy laws of the registrars juristiction, but based on processes set by the registrar

Primary Advantages Of Owning Your Own Registrar

• Maximum security and privacy
• Access to all registry promotion programs
• Domains at cost
• Ultimate control and complete autonomy
• Participation in new TLD launches (landrush and sunrise)
• Ability to make use of a domain during the entire AGP period. Increases liquidity and reduces cost.
• Registrar level transfer locks

Kellie Peterson – Domain Metrics – D2S1 – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Kellie is the Director of Marketing & Operations, Name.com. She launched right into her slides with a very softly spoken voice. This was a great presentation that managed to steer everyone back to the focus on making $$$. Well done.

What Metrics Matter To You

• Are you a monetizer?
• Are you a flipper?
• Are you a developer?
• Are you a premium domain investor?

When Buying

This is what should matter to you:

• Traffic
• Revenue
• Traffic Origin
• Multiple / Price
• Resale – if there are 3 people in the world who can legally buy your domain, its a harder road.

When Monetizing

• Traffic
• R/EPC
• RPM
• Rev

When Selling

• Revenue history
• Comparables
• Replacabiity – What is your replacement cost? eg: if you sell pizza.com, its harder to replace on a category killer.
• ROI

What Else Matters?

• Venue – exposure
• Inventory
• Sell thru rates – What is the likelihood of getting a domain name sold?
• Average sales price. This depends on the place you sell it at.

The Case Against Metrics

• iReport.com – Ricks domain.
• Floral-Elegance.net – One that makes Kellie about $2 a month
• TiltRotor.com – Name.com brokered the deal for 5 figures $$$
• OpenSocial.org – Hand registered est June 2007, no traffic, stats, revenue. Google wanted the domain and a Name.com client had it.

• End user sales (non premium)

Summary

• Metrics will always matter.
• Metrics will matter to investors
• Metrics will not matter to end users.

Sean Stafford on Data Mining – D2S1 – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Sean Stafford is the author of DomainGraduate and CEO, Elvate LLC.

Key points:

• Data mining is crucial.
• Be prepared to spend a lot of time at the PC
• Find keywords from your portfolio (that people search on). Add a .com and run it through whois.
• Use google adwords.

Buying From Others

• If buying from a Domainer, ask for screenshots
• Verify traffic if possible
• View trends and seasons. eg: the US election & Christmas. Be conscious of the fact it will drop.
• Don’t pass great deals, but don’t be too eager to spend money
• Types of traffic will dictate multiple

Remember Traffic Sources

• Links
• Type-in
• Typo
• Spam/Bot
• Traffic Bleed

Common Mistakes

• Relying on Google frequency to be a benchmark for domain value.
• Do your due diligence and get to know your parking provider.

Squeeze Revenue

• Pop-ups
• Email monetization
• Traffic splitting. eg: Sean owned tube.com.mx – half Mexican and half US traffic. Half were looking for tubes and others were looking for youtube videos. Some parking providers will enable you to split the traffic. This enables you to maximize revenue.
• Mini-site development. If you aren’t getting the return, throw up a 1-2 page site in wordpress and integrate a few ads.

In summary, whatever you do, change it up.

Dinner and Drinks at TRAFFIC DownUnder 2008

Find out what happens after dark when the beautiful people get together. Well the ones I can show you anyway.

www.flickr.com Domainer Income’s Traffic DownUnder 2008 photoset

Chris Disspain on Monetization – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Chris started off by correcting some statements made by previous speakers (ouch). He didn’t have any slides prepared and thanked a number of people, including an individual that persuaded him to come to the conference as he wasn’t going to attend. In my view it was probably not the best start to a presentation to an audience of 200+ domainers. However, he did clarify a list of common misconceptions about domainers and auDA. Apparently auDA like domainers! I think I need a cuddle.

Following on, there were a number of interesting statements made under the banner of “we don’t like”. For example:

• shoes.com.au – we expect a shoe site.
• we don’t like mis-spellings

Registrars as a monetizer – not comfortable with that. “You should make a choice between being a registrar and a domainer is not acceptable in our world.”

auDA is thinking about publishing a list of drop names. One to keep an eye on.

Adrian Kinderis, MD of AusRegistry – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

AusRegistry was co-founded in 2001. Since then its had substantial growth:

• 1 million .au names in November 2007
• 1 million .com.au names in June 2008
• Currently 1.25+ million .au names
• Average 25% annual growth

Adrian talked a LOT (in fact too much) about AusRegistry, explained some auDA policy around domain name monetization. For example, you can acquire a name if your primary business is to monetize. While there is no formal policy on domain tasting, there is a 3 day grace period.

Here is an interest graph of growth in the sector:

Personal comment: Given the low CPC rates and the population, I’d still question the viability of this space.

Erhan Karabardak from CooperMills Lawyers – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Erhan introduced ICANN, auDA, IP Australia and other bodies before getting into their respective functions.

Issues With Regulation

• Most legal actions are initiated by small business
• Time taken to litigate can be a number of years

Key questions in seeking judicial review of  auDA’s decisions:

• auDA claims its not subject to Trade Practices Act. See Capital Networks Pty Ltd v .au Domain Administration Limited 2004 FCA 808
• auDA imposes a limitation of liability / exclusion in all domain name licenses.

Howard Neu – UDRP & WIPO Unveiled – Live from Traffic DownUnder 2008

Howard needs no introduction, he is the co-founder of TRAFFIC conferences along with Rick Schwartz. Before launching into the speech, Howard commented that TRAFFIC will be working on a “Code of Standards” for domainers with a launch date of April 2009. Interesting…..

UDRP

• Is there evidence of bad faith?
• Demonstrating rights or legitimate interest. eg: bona fide offering of goods and services, commonly known by that domain name, legitimate non-commercial or fair use.

How Is It Supposed To Work?

• Impartial arbitration
• Choice of forum
• Inexpensive resolution in that there are no hearings, oral argument.

How Does It Work?

• Pleadings only
• Number of panelists could be important. i.e: some may rule more for complainants or respondents
• No official stare decisus (normally ensures a uniformity of law)

There is nothing to say that a panelist has to follow precedent.

Stragtegy In How To Pick A Panel

• Look at  the previous decisions made by panelists.
• If you remove all the cases where there is no response by a respondent; a panelist may look balanced.

WIPO v. NAF

• The problem is if you don’t respond, you get a track record (as a cybersquatter).
• In another case, the panel will look at this track record. You have to be careful here!

Landmark Cases

Ingram micro vs ingredients (WIPO 2002)

• Ingrammmicro.org, ingrammmicro.net
• 2 TM’s include “Ingram Micro”
• Complainant labeled Respondent cybersquatter
• No response
• No effort to sell domain to mark owner or competition
• No evidence domain acquired to disrupt business
• etc..

Hebrew University v. Alberta Hot Rods (WIPO 2002)

• alberteinstein.com
• Einstein founder and involved with complainant
• Domain redirects to Respondent’s celebrity1000.com
• Previous panels found that Celebrity1000.com fails to offer legitimate goods or services
• No common law trademark
• celebrity1000.com offers links to goods and services, so its a legitimate business.

Falwell vs Cohn (WIPO 2002)

• jerryfalwell.com etc..
• Complainant fails to show that his famous name is used as a label for goods adn services
• WIPO holds that POLICY should be limited to personal names commercially exploited.

Hero.com – Involves John Berryhill

MyKnot.com (WIPO 3/10/08) – Respondent did not reply. The case had been heard by another panel and got a negative result. No new evidence.

BakersDelightLies.com (WIPO 2/25/08) – Australian case. Franchisee of Complainant – left and created an attack site. Panel distinguished from “sucks” – no commercial use – no advertising or link

AlignTechnology.com (WIPO 3/31/08) – Complainant has AlignTech.com for orthodontics – Respondent picks up dropped names – Panel excluded additional materials from Complainant as not appropriate. Again, the respondant didn’t file a reply, couldn’t offer any additional materials.

TastyTwist.com (WIPO 10/13/08) – Domain parked at Sedo. Respondent offered to sell for $10k after receiving C&D – no evidence of prior complaints – no bad faith.

ClickFarm.com (NAF 10/28/09) – No response – Parked at a PPC Monetizer – Regged before the Complainant obtained Trademark – No bad faith.

FreemanHonda.com (NAF 9/2/8) – No response. Complainant had no registered Trademark and was in business since 2005.

Stats for Defense vs Default

• If there is an obvious loss, settle and give up domain. Ask complainant to withdraw the action (so you dont have a track record).
• Record used against respondent in future cases
• Never agree to not register other domains. It may make you look bad in future cases.