49 Cent .Info Domains – Get In Quick

Some people love .info domains, especially for their SEO factor on places like Bing.

Right now Godaddy have a deal on their checkout page that gives you .info domains for just 49 cents! No coupon required. Here is how to get the offer.

In order to get the deal, just type in a .com domain you want to register, go through the checkout process and there you will see the “On Sale!” info offer.

Feel free to post a comment if this works for you! Let us know how much you saved.

DNForum and ParkLogic Team Up

DNForum and ParkLogic have just announced a strategic partnership.

Through the partnership, DNForum will now be offering members its own branded domain management and monetization platform which takes advantage of the highly advanced ParkLogic systems. The ParkLogic platform is the result of many years of development and will provide DNForum members with increased traffic revenues and tools to manage their portfolios more effectively.

This strategic partnership has united Adam Dicker (DNForum) and Michael Gilmour (ParkLogic), both of whom are widely acknowledged as leaders and innovators in the domain industry. The long history of friendship and mutual respect between Adam and Michael, combined with the synergies between the two organizations has led to this dynamic partnership.

“I’ve known Michael for a long time and we’ve always made a point of getting together at the various domain events around the world. It became clear to me that we both thought in a similar manner about domains and the sophistication of the ParkLogic management platform was exactly what DNForum members have been asking for.”
Adam Dicker – DNForum

“We are really excited about working alongside Adam who is one of the true experts of the industry. I believe that this partnership is a culmination of experience, like-mindedness and a joint desire to see the domain industry grow and move forward. – Michael Gilmour – ParkLogic

The domain management platform has been released for those in the DNFCollege and will be rolled-out for the rest of the DNForum membership within the next couple of days.

The Biggest Threat To Australian Internet Business

Do you have an Internet business? Are you an Internet Marketer, domainer or an SEO company? Then you better LISTEN UP as this will be the BIGGEST THREAT you will face in the next 12 months.

Did you know that every time you buy a .au domain name, included in that price is a hidden fee (some people would say tax). That fee is paid to a 3rd party called .au Domain Administration Ltd and is referred to as “auDA”. In Australia, auDA write the policies that govern domain names. One of these policies is called the Domain Monetisation Policy.

There is a Names Policy Panel that is reviewing this policy RIGHT NOW. The policy governs entities that earn revenue from a “monetised website”. According to auDA policy, a “monetised website” means “a website or landing page that has been created for the purpose of earning revenue from advertising, including monetised domain parking pages“. In my opinion, this policy clearly discriminates against people who make their living online. It discriminates against drop shippers, information marketers and those people that don’t have “physical stock” to sell. Rather than talk about registrants (people that register domains), it singles out and labels people as “domainers” who have the legitimate business practise of selling products and services online!

Let me spell out the threat in “Plain English”. If someone (such as a competitor / disgruntled customer) complains about your website/business, auDA has the power to take your domain away! They do this (from a technical perspective) by instructing the registry to put it into “Pending Delete”. Other people (such as your competitors) can then buy/backorder YOUR DOMAIN through the domain drop process. SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR BUSINESS. Goodbye to all the SEO you have done, goodbye to your mailing list!

How You Can Protect Your Business

1. Fill in this form TODAY (seriously, do it now)
Private individuals can become auDA members ( in a membership called Demand Class ). It costs $22 and no upfront payment is required.

2. Vote later this year
If you become a Demand Class member today, you can vote at the next election.

What I Am Doing About It

This year I will be running for election to the auDA board to represent the interests of small business, internet marketers and domain investors. I will be actively campaiging for you on this issue, to see this discriminatory policy scrapped!

This is only going to happen if you become a member. Please don’t come crying to me later (when your Internet business has been taken away from you). By then its too late.

Think of it like insurance. If you are serious about your business, you want to protect it. $22 is nothing in the scheme of things.

Just so that you are aware, the election is at the end of the year, but there is a sneaky “3 month membership rule” which prevents new members from voting. As such you cannot delay this application!

Can you do the industry a BIG favour? Fill in this form NOW: http://www.auda.org.au/pdf/auda-membership-form.pdf

After you have done it, drop me a line and let me know. I really want to know WHO the proactive people are – those that will help to safeguard our industry. If you have any questions (or need a stamp/fax), let me know.

Go here now.

Isn’t It Time Bloggers Declared Conflicts Of Interest?

In the mid 90′s the news media was having a heart attack (behind closed doors) about the Internet. Many journalism purists believed that people wouldn’t read websites, largely because they were not trusted and Internet wasn’t far reaching. In general, the news media believed that the people behind those early websites were not journalists, didn’t have an industry code of conduct, didn’t check their facts, reported recycled press releases and the list goes on. Around 1997/98, the term blogging popped up and has since become mainstream.

Today, many bloggers have earned the trust of the public and some earn a good living from blogging. Unfortunately in some spots, the same old dodgy tricks remain. Using the domain investment industry as an example; it’s extremely easy to sit back and watch the “dance” between the companies (advertisers, parking companies, registrars, auctions and conferences) and the bloggers.

The heart of the issue is around separating out commentary (opinion) from advertising, special interests and those who seek to influence discussion.

Here are a few areas to watch out for:

Scenario #1 – The (Fake) Expert

Many bloggers in the domain investment industry pretend they are experts. Every day we read about an “exciting journey” into the world of domaining (which is fine in itself), BUT where they step over the line is providing advice to newcomers. It’s simply “the blind leading the blind”. Most bloggers are wondering blind in the wilderness, lost, without a clue, yet they are taking it on themselves to advise newcomers. Its a recipe for disaster, because when newcomers accept their advice, the results can be financially devastating for them!

Late last year I had one person call me (in tears) describing how they lost their life savings because a domaining blogger (that they met at a conference) told them to buy a LOT of domains from a specific extension. They were told to buy up big, quickly “turn them around” and flip them. I’m not going to name the blogger or the extension, but I’d note that the extension the person told them to buy, was a HUGE advertiser on their website.

Scenario #2 – Advertising Conferences

This is a textbook “rinse and repeat” that many domain auctions and conferences use as as a part of their marketing strategy:

Step 1 – Blogger writes an article (or FB post) in advance, about an upcoming conference. Banners go up on their website.

Step 2 – Blogger attends conference, gets taken out after hours (by the conference organizer) and “entertained”. eg: dinner, nightclub, the Playboy mansion.

Step 3 – Blogger hangs out with speakers, interviewing them and asking lots of questions about “how they do it”. This content is often “reused” later for how to articles, videos or a $97 PDF.

Step 4 – Blogger takes a few photos of the speakers (and themselves) during the event to post up on Facebook.

Step 5 – Blogger arrives home and reports on how fantastic the event was.

All the newcomers to the industry believe him (because they dont know any better) and sign up for the next conference. What a great investment for the conference organiser!

When was the last time you heard a speech at a conference and said to yourself:

“Wow, this is going to really increase our profits – I can’t wait to get back to my hotel room and try this on our business right now!”

It might have happened once if you are lucky. What did you do with all that info you accumulated at the last conference you went to?

Scenario #3 – Fake News Sites

A “domain news site”, simply copies and pastes press releases sent to them from parking companies, conferences and auctions. They recommend products from vendors who advertise on their site (or simply pay them $$$ directly from their marketing budget). Next time you see a domain news site promoting something, check out if there are any ads (for their blog or related products/companies) on the site they are promoting. Sooner or later you will start to see how these companies start to permeate each other.

Scenario #4 – The Paid Review

There is a growing number of bloggers who have contacted us, asking if my organisation can PAY THEM to write a story about our products and services. The answer has always been “NO” – we don’t engage in such practices. The first time it happened I was in shock! Many years ago I genuinely (somewhat naively) believed that these people were educating the market! The funny thing is – when these guys do a blog post about something, we know exactly who has paid them off. Now we can clearly see who are the ethical companies (who we will engage with) and who are the ones to avoid.

Scenario #5 – Ads That Look Like News Articles

Blogger writes a long winded over-the-top story about how someone within company X is such a great guy (insert academy awards speech and mix with lots of back patting). What they are doing is promoting the interests of their sponsors & advertisers. What is more likely is that the sponsor has paid them to write that story. Alternatively, they will receive something in return. Perhaps an increasing in parking revenue, discount domain pricing or VIP treatment at the next conference?

FTC Guidelines

To some of you, this might be history repeating itself. In 2009/10, we wrote several articles about the FTC Guidelines, including one specifically about Affiliate Marketing. The message for the domain investment industry is – Do you really want the gaze of the FTC upon you? Do you really want to tempt fate and bring about industry regulation?

Time To Get Real

Isn’t it about time that these people started telling the truth?

* Most are not experts, they don’t even come close.
* They have 9-5 jobs – the point being that they give the impression that they do this full-time.
* They work for a vendor because they simply failed when it came to actually “doing it”.
* They make “money on the side” by ads on their blog and promoting affiliate products to their mailing list.

Newcomers to the industry need to know who is “the real deal”, and who the fake, phony, pretenders are. Some people might say “too bad“, “buyer beware”, “its their problem if they lose their $$$“, but here’s the deal; our industry is still in its infancy. It needs some strong, honest people who are going to stand up to this systemic corruption and call it out. The industry needs to grow and move away from the stigma / popular perception of “domaining”. It can’t afford to continue to “burn and churn” people.

Think about this:

1. You wouldn’t get legal advice from someone who wasn’t a lawyer.
2. You wouldn’t undergo surgery from someone who didn’t have experience as a surgeon.
3. You wouldn’t get someone to build your house who “calls themselves a builder”, but has never built a house before.

Then why are you listening to these people? Make 2011 the year that YOU will change. Stop reading their blog, delete their RSS feed and unsubscribe from their newsletter.

Save your $$$ (donate some of it to charity), save your time (talk to your family instead) and go and enjoy life (get some exercise). You will be glad you did.

Happy Holidays

On behalf of the team at Domainer Income, I’d like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous 2011.

Thanks again for your support throughout the year.

7 Things We Did For Domainer Income Members

We have had a tremendous amount of positive feedback since making our domain investment platform available to the public. Many people have taken the time to write to us saying thanks and some people have made some great suggestions as to how we can make it even better!

“great you are actually looking for feedback, most people don’t care.” – Samuel.

Well – we listened AND we took action after receiving your feedback. Here is just some of what we have done:

1. More Help !

Quite a number of people were overwhelmed with all the different analysis and metrics we provide. While we have descriptions of each column, people wanted more information. We heard you and have added an additional 21 detailed explanations into our existing help section.

2. Clarifying Expired Domains

Many of our Free Members were used to seeing the term “expired domains” misrepresented. They saw expired domains in the context of an auction! For example: a domain had expired and then they could bid on it. They were certainly not used to having a REAL list of genuine expired domains, that they could hand register straight away!

To clarify, it is updated DAILY with new domains. Each day we remove the old data and add new information about domains that have expired. Our aim is to give you the most accurate, up to date information, anywhere. You certainly won’t find any information on domains that expired last week!

3. Enhanced Checking & Data Integrity

We radically improved our existing “fake pagerank” checker algorithm. It used to do multiple checks to detect fake PR, but now its just about bullet proof! I love it! The other great thing you can do is exclude domains that have fake PR from your search results.

4. Enhanced Reporting

Aside from the typical accounting reports like YTD, 30 days, 90 days etc.. we have added some customized reports. You can how report on specific date ranges, as well as “all time”.

5. Keeping Track Of Your Costs – Including Development !!!

We have added the ability for you to keep track of development costs AND hosting costs. Both cost structures can be applied to individuals domains. Now you can see how much you REALLY spent on development!

6. Keeping Track Of Additional Revenue – eg: Product Sales & Affiliate Commissions

Some of our more advanced investors wanted to “separate out” affiliate sales, product or service sales, parking revenue etc… So that is exactly what we did. You can now enter all this information in and allocate it to a specific domain. Of course you can also report on it too and see your real ROI !!

7. Enhanced Portfolio Filtering

Its no secret that domainers can have very large portfolios. As such, some people wanted to have the ability to “cut and dice” their portfolio in different ways. For example, lets say you wanted to view a list of .com domains only, along with their expiry dates. Yes – you can do that. Maybe you just wanted to see a list of domains with a specific keyword or letter in them? You can do that too. We listened, and within 5 days rolled out an upgrade to the “My Domain Portfolio” section.

Summary

There are a lot more changes than I can post here and many more being worked on right now. The satisfying thing for me is that our users are REALLY benefiting from Domainer Income.

If there is anything that you would like to see, please feel free to get in touch. Of course, we can’t do absolutely everything, but we do have a very active development team and plan on continuing to grow and expand our services.

The Biggest Announcement I’ve Made In 2010

I can’t guarantee I will ever do this again, so this may be your ‘now or never’ chance to get in. Applications close Friday Oct 29 at 5pm PDT.

Here is the link I mentioned in the video: > http://www.MentoringBySimon.com/

Don’t Be Fooled By Dodgy Domain Flipping Courses & Software

Every week for the past month I have received emails and phone calls from people asking me to promote their domaining products. In every single case, I have said NO !!!

This morning something happened that tipped me over the edge! I received another email about a new course on “domain flipping” with outrageous claims. As such, I felt obligated to write this post and give everyone a heads up.

Here are just a few examples, so consider yourself warned.

1. Domain Flipping Course

This course claims that it made it’s owner $10,577.55 per WEEK. Oh please….give me a break!!! If you see banners with “Make Money Flipping Domains” being advertised on various blogs – it’s probably this course.

2. Domain Availability Checking Software

Earlier this year a couple of guys announced some new “domain software” and gave it away for free. It claims to check if domains are available (nothing new here). It’s something that registrars do for free, but these guys have been pushing it as something special.

The concern I have is that the data could be used for frontrunning and to record what keywords you are searching for. Newcomers to domaining – be very careful what you use to register domains with – you might find that if you come back later, someone else has already registered the domain you were after!

3. Web-based domain software.

This software also claims to check domain auctions for “aged domains”. It’s being peddled by a bunch of marketers with no experience in domain investment. When it was released I had a brief look at it; it just didn’t work.

These snakeoil salesman have since updated their software to show a small number of domain names from various auctions – sound familiar?

One of their users contacted me recently asking about domain auctions and when I showed them the REAL, full list (from the auction company) – they were completely blown away.

4. Domaining Markets  (Free PDF)

Yet another free PDF with all sorts of claims about how to make money with domains. In order to get this, you need to sign up and give them your name and email address (which is then used to market directly to you and upsell you their dodgy domaining software).

A Serious Threat

These people are a serious threat to the integrity and stability of our industry.

1. They burn newcomers.

These snake oil salesman sink their claws into newcomers (to the industry) and leave them disenfranchised and believing they can’t make $$$ from domaining. This means they don’t register domains, they don’t bid, they don’t park, they don’t develop – they are gone and don’t come back.

2. They have no regard for copyright and reproduce our work as their own.

I’ve seen first hand, content being ripped off and presented as their own work. Some people say “go after them” others say “it will catch up with them in the end”. What do you think?

3. They “teach” their followers strategies that just don’t work.

These scammers are ignorant and their so called “secret tactics” just don’t work. If I had $1 for every person that said “I saw X speak at a conference and he says I should buy an aged domain. It’s just like how wine ages. What do you think?”

4. They cause many reputational risks to our industry

Think of the last time you tried something and it didn’t work out. If asked, you will probably share your experience with others. What we are starting to see are things like:

“Oh I tried that domaining thing once – I got a free PDF, bought some software and attended some GURU’s webinar, but I didn’t make a cent!”

Unfortunately, it’s a minority that ruin it for the rest of us. It’s the same thing with cybersquatters and people who register domains containing trademarked words/phrases. When they get found out, they attract the media spotlight and all of a sudden, the industry is tarnished with the same brush.

What Is Their Motive?

The primary motive of these leaches is NOT to help people, it’s to take THEIR money! Why? Because these people simply don’t know HOW to make money with domaining. Their business model is about slapping together another $97 “how to make money course” in the hopes of taking advantage of newbies.

Who Are They?

Oxygen thieves. I’m not about to name them all here because they would love the attention. If you are domain blogger, don’t give them the publicity.

Let’s be honest, these people would be laughed at, before they even got to the DOOR of a domaining conference. Most appear out of nowhere, but some of them are on the outer rim / fringe of the Internet marketing world.

Don’t get me wrong – we all have to start somewhere; but to use an analogy, these are people who have read a John Grisham book and now they are teaching people how to be lawyers.

In any (regulated) industry, these activities would be illegal. In Australia it could be classed as misleading and deceptive conduct. I’m not going to stand here and put up with it and neither should you.

So when you get another email, facebook, twitter post from someone touting the next best thing – delete it.

Best Kept Domaining Secret – Revealed In 48 Hours [Video]

On Thursday October 14 at 5pm PDT, I’m going to make one of the biggest announcements this year. Stay tuned.

Here is the link I mentioned in the video: > http://www.facebook.com/domainer/

Introducing Episode 3 Of Our Domaining TV Show [Video]

Many domain investors are discovering ccTLD’s and are using them as a diversification strategy against the staple diet of com/net/org.

With that in mind, I recently sat down with George Pongas formerly from Dark Blue Sea (some may know them also as Fabulous) and had a chat about all things .au.

iTunes users – click here to subscribe to the video podcast and keep up to date with the latest episodes.

For everyone else (using a browser), you can check it out on our TV show website.