Top 5 Domain Branding Tips For Bloggers

Domain names are essential tools for bloggers. They become your brand, and are a valuable business tool. Managed correctly, domain names can also be invaluable in helping obtain attract traffic from search engines. Investing a small investment of time to learn about domains can pay dividends on many levels. Here are five domain branding tips for bloggers.

1. Register Your Domain For More than One Year: There are several advantages to multi-year domain registrations. Foremost among them is the fact that Google favors domains that are registered beyond the current year. This bias by Google is part of a broader domain weighting system that also favors older domains that have been hosting active web sites for years. Google considers domains with "good age" and multi-year registrations less likely to be search spam or trying to game the system. Beyond the search benefits, multi-year registrations almost always save you money through a discount from your registrar, and make it much less likely that you'll lose control of the domain by forgetting to renew it. This happens, all the time. In February, 2006 the domain Jasmin.com expired and was sold at auction for $310,000.

2. Shop For An Affordable But Credible Domain Registrar: There are millions of domain name owners who continue to pay $30 to $35 each time they purchase or renew a domain. But don't just opt for the cheapest provider or the one with the flashiest ads. The victims of the meltdown at RegisterFly almost certainly wish they'd been more selective in choosing their provider. Opt for a registrar that provides the combination of a good price, corporate stability and accountability. Go Daddy.com sells domains for about $9, while you can get names for $5.99 at 1&1 Interent.

Posted by RichM May 9, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter

February 22, 2007

ProBlogger.com Expires, Up for Auction

The ProBlogger.com domain has expired and is up for auction on Go Daddy's Domain Name AfterMarket site. Bidding is up to $95 with eight days to go. There have been seven bids already, and the domain appears to get about 3,000 visitors a month, despite no real content at the site. There's been a lot of interest in blogging domains, and even with the failure of some of the blog networks, there could be strong interest in this domain.

ProBlogger.com was registered to ProBlogger.com">Matt Winkler from Chatsworth, Calif. The Wayback Machine shows that in ProBlogger.com/">May of 2006 the site featured a placeholder page that described the coming debut of a "new type of blogging community. Offering innovative technology, fully customizeable layouts, image hosting, and many other features, Problogger is sure to breath new life into the blogging community." Earlier searches from 2004 show a blog with Lorem Ipsum text.

So who's interested in ProBlogger.com? It would be a natural for Darren Rowse, who has built one of the blogosphere's most successful and respected brands at ProBlogger.net. It might make sense for Darren to re-invest some of his six-figure blogging income to register the .com, if only as a defensive strategy to prevent another blogger from buying the name and diluting the brand equity he has built on the .net domain.

Posted by RichM February 22, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter

February 21, 2006

A $310,000 Mistake

The expired domain Jasmin.com has been sold at auction for $310,250, an all-time record for an expiring domain, according to the Domaining Blog. That's more than $50,000 more than the previous record of $260,250. Prices have been rising in the domain name aftermarket for some time, and that has extended to sales of expired domains, which are typically auctioned at sites like SnapNames (which sells domains that drop at Network Solutions and Ragister.com) or in-house registrar auction sites like Go Daddy's Domain Name Aftermarket (TDNAM.com).

There's a reason we rarely see valuable names auctioned in the domain name aftermarket. Can you imagine if you let your domain lapse, only to realize after the fact that it was worth more than $300,000? That's the rude surprise awaiting the previous owner of jasmin.com. It's not easy for a domain to lapse, as most major registrars will send you "nag' reminder emails weeks and months in advance. Go Daddy delivers them at 90, 60, 30 and 15 days before a name expires. You have to be pretty determined to let a name expire. Jasmin.com was registered at Network Solutions, which sends notices six months prior to a renewal date (I know because NetSol is already hounding me about names that expire in August).

Posted by RichM February 21, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter

May 4, 2005

Go Daddy Launches Domain Auction Service

Go Daddy has launched The Domain Name Aftermarket, a new auction service that will provide buyers with access to the giant registrars' expiring domains. Seeking to leverage Go Daddy's inventory and visibility, the service has $4.95 membership fee, and commissions are 7.5 percent of the sale price, with a $10 minimum and escrow service from Escrow.com. This continues the trend of big registrars staking out territory in the domain name aftermarket. Go Daddy is now the Internet's largest registrar, with more than 6.5 million names under management.

Posted by RichM May 4, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter