Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

I use LinkedIn – the network of professionals – to keep in touch with people I worked with in the past, present and those that I would like to work with in the future.

I also use it for a different purpose altogether: to gauge or ‘validate’ domain registrations.

Often, I peruse domain lists of available domains; some of which I generate from old corporate data. There are hundreds, if not thousands of corporations that ended their lifecycle; the domains often expire and drop.

That’s where LinkedIn comes to play. A lot of those corporate entities are still semi-active, at former employee level. They often form communities, sometimes they reminisce about ‘the good old days’ and thus provide me with valuable information prior to committing my selections of domains to register.

So next time you come across an available domain, or when you ponder about how much to spend on one that’s on sale, try a search on LinkedIn first.

I first used the Internet in the late 80′s, even though back then it was just email; something that worked surprisingly well. There was no spam, and to read my email I needed permission from the university’s IT department manager. Every single time.

These days, we take it for granted; we are wired – or wireless – on the global network that spans every nation in the world, 24/7. It’s an endless connection, a digital umbilical cord that we’re using non-stop, in order to stay informed, in touch or in sync with the rest of the so-called ‘civilized’ world.

While 20% of adult Americans still don’t use the Internet, those of us that do know well that we can’t unplug from the “grid”; we can’t exit the “matrix” and we cannot escape the “web”. The Internet is part of our modern existence, regardless of whether we use specific parts of it, during our day’s time slice.

Can you stay off the Internet? I doubt it.

After reading the tweets of a domain broker and seeing that the domain was also listed on Sedo, I decided to run a little experiment.

The asking price for this generic domain, which forwards to a corporate, fully functional website, was in the low 200′s – as listed by the domain broker.

So I went ahead and made an offer - knowingly well below the domain’s worth – via Sedo.

The response came back with a counter-offer, and the number was in the low 300′s.

Which makes me wonder, does the owner co-ordinate at all with their broker?

If the asking price of a domain fluctuates this much, I wonder if the broker is aware of the owner’s willingness to sell the domain on their own, for substantially more.

Don’t ask me to reveal the domain; I think that neither the owner or their broker need the embarrassment!

Shane Cultra’s post about increased domain inquiries at Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic outfit, clearly shows something that Sedo and other parking companies need to take note of.

The increased number of inquiries and offers aren’t due to the beautifully crafted landing pages that Frank offers. Actually, I’m being sarcastic about the look of those headers but that’s not the point here, as we’re not discussing PPC conversion rates.

There is one single thing that contributes to the increased number of inquiries, and that’s the large, bold, in-your-face line at the top of the domain that says:

This domain has recently been listed in the marketplace at domainnamesales.com. Click here to inquire.

It can’t be any simpler reason than that.

Meanwhile, Sedo’s “For sale” links in order to place an offer are hidden at various locations, sometimes below the notorious “fold” and in small print. And yes, this costs a lot of missed opportunities.

In the pre-PPC era, I used my own landing pages to promote and sell domains; a simple PHP script would parse the domain URL and create a contact form pre-populated with the domain in question. I received considerably more inquiries this way, which I would then convert into sales, mostly by utilizing Escrow.com

If you’re not concerned about the loss of PPC revenue due to moving your domains away from parking pages such as that of Sedo, creating your own landing pages with a contact form is the way to go, in order to achieve more direct sales.

There is also VooDoo.com that allows for custom placement of the “Domain For Sale” line, including my preferred top of the page.

A post by Elliot Silver yesterday raised again the issue of unscrupulous and unethical practices in domaining.

As I’ve said in the past, various new-comers, shooting stars or even seasoned domainers engage in unethical games for profit.

While I agree that it’s a “dog eat dog” world out there, these practices should both be exposed and condemned by the domaining community.

Front-running, the practice of offering for sale domains before they are acquired at an auction or sale is one such practice.

The twist of offering to bid on behalf of individuals or companies, alleging that it’s a service against “squatting” tops the list of scum domainers.

Fake brokers – individuals that practice front-running, offering to sell domains without the explicit authorization of their legitimate owners – is yet another variation of domainer scum.

Finally, lowballers that allege to be students, stay-at home mothers, start-ups with no funds etc. are at the bottom of the domainer scum pyramid.

Exposing those that engage in such practices helps cleaning up the domaining community.