IDN Domains Talk

I’ve been looking more and more over what Adam Dicker is doing over at DNF as a forum owner and businessman. He’s implemented a lot of things that I personally believe are needed for the growth of a large community. Over the holiday he even had a great discount on upgrading memberships for DNF unfortunately I missed it but will be looking over going to exclusive this year.
Some of the things I really respect his progression on are:

1 Trying to get rid of the make me an offer.
I might have been the first forum owner to do this. It’s a waste of time if the seller is looking for how much my domain is worth. If you want offers put in a range that you find acceptable. Don’t waste people’s time.
2. Development is key
If you are not selling domains at least try to increase your revenue on your portfolio. Even little by little is good. He not only encourages conversation on development, he really knows it well and offers some services to help you.
3. Publication
Looks like DNF will start a publication with writers. I’m actually a bit interested in this myself. Not to really talk about IDNs but more so about marketing advertising from an ad agency workers perspective.
4. Expansion and keeping it fresh
Adam and his team has kept expanding DNF and although some of the designs weren’t the best the site looks great and has kept up with the Jones.
5. Mobile and technology in general
I haven’t used it myself but I know that they released an iPhone app. I’ve been learning app development all last year and have lots of respect for him for this.
6. Social Media
I wrote before that it sucks that no forum owns their twitter account or even tweets. A while afterwards they launch their Facebook page and twitter account. Connecting with your community is NOT just on your site anymore. it’s about the message and if it’s strong enough it will be shared. That’s the power of Social.
7. Credibility
I’ve wrote about using Linkedin for domainers. He’s recently made the move to just use his real name instead of Dot Com God. Before I started working at Ad Agency level and initially went from web designer to SEO there are so many people who will post really inaccurate information about marketing what clients want etc. If you are not an expert yourself you can save time and frustration if you knew a little something about the people you put your trust in.
For myself even though everyone inaccurately thinks my job is SEO for Japanese clients, people still make the association that I’m an ad agency professional that deals with clients. This is needed if you think you represent your community.

I’ve wanted to write about Adam for a while he’s really grown his community well and shows he cares about his member’s investments.

We have an opportunity to take technology made in English and apply it to category killer domains in a variety of languages still. Even if it’s one site in English follow some of the tips he gives then apply it to your portfolio.
www.DNForum.com

***Disclaimer***
Please don’t take my post as any reference to any other domain communities.

In Tokyo there are a few different auction platforms. Most have been active for over a year. The four main ones are Humeia, Rat, Onamae and WIXI. The first two were really behind closed doors until recently.

At the end of the month in December when the jp drop happened I have a feeling things went a bit too automated. No one was around to check which drops were caught. All of the systems catch .jps and immediately put them up for auction. There wasn’t a lot of great terms to catch to begin with. Also if the auctions just go until the 5th no one is really into business mode until the 5 or so.

I’m making these assumptions because I hand registered belt.jp at about 1pm on New Years day. Usually I don’t comment about auctions while they are happening but this month doesn’t have a ton of great selections. Affiliate.jp that’s a fabulous domain but doesn’t seem to be in the auctions yet. I think that will be the money maker.

Happy New Year.

It’s the end of the year and want to wish many of you readers Happy Holidays.

I want to thank J-Seed which was the former incubator that my company came from.

I want to thank Amir of Zenlok for giving me a great start in a much higher level of digital marketing.

I want to thank Bamba San of DMM for the great projects we’ve done and will do in the future.

A bit late but I want to thank Ash formerly from NameDrive. You coming to Tokyo from 2006 to 2008 and hooking up is really paying off now in the form of WIXI.

WIXI team especially Darshaun and Steve. Thank you for creating WIXI and continuing to expand the domaining market in Japan. People don’t even realize that dot jps even being sold outside of Japan was because of your work years ago. Two pioneers from years back. Steve I’ll thank you in a day or two in the form of beer.

GroupM Mediacom MEC Mindshare Maxus Outrider Worldwide.
I work at GroupM as one of the heads of paid search and digital media technology. I’m grateful to be able to use knowledge I gain and coordinate with the top marketing directors worldwide. Some strategies that I’ve introduced to clients came from my developing of domains.

IDN Talk readers.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I’ve never been the one to tell you to sell the house to buy up all the IDN Domains you can. I actually believe that you could just buy or or two great domains and make more than any of us.
Investments are just that investments. It will affect your life.

If you want to have a few good marketing tips and insight from a person who works in digital advertising in Tokyo, I write for you.

Last tip of the year. Your Japanese traffic should increase until the 4th. From today Japanese consumers will leave their PCs and browse the web via their smartphones. Actually it started earlier in the week. It might not be true for strict business terms.

Happy Holidays

Can we base a domain’s value on current traffic?

I look over my domain portfolio & try not to base it on current traffic or parking revenue. Even though it’s good that the portfolio can pay for itself traffic & parking revenue IS NOT GUARANTEED. It’s important that you realize how you get those clicks in the first place.

A lot of people think increase of traffic means increase of Natives typing in their domain with the extension.
Think about it for a second. Do you do that? Do any of your friends do that? Any intelligent person that you work with do that?
The answer: No BUT THEY Do that…
Who are these mythical THEY?

1. iPhone
In Japan traffic is mostly increasing to parked domains because of the iPhone. It was just released to it’s second carrier in Japan. The default browser Safari adds dot com to any keyword entered into the address bar.

2. Mobile Advertising
Mobile Advertising is already robust in Japan but advertisers are switching from normal Japanese cellphone ads to more smartphone based ads. More advertisers means better ads displayed on parking.

3. Yen
The Yen is super strong right now against the dollar. WIXI optimizes my portfolio for me so I don’t do much but my parking revenue is way higher than it was just last year or even years ago. Let’s say that I get a 200 yen click today that’s $2.50 where in 2007 that would have been $1.76. Big difference. Also many international companies are increasing advertising budgets in Japan.

Mobile advertising will continue to increase but no one can guarantee that keywords from Safari’s address bar will continue to go to dot com by default. No one can also guarantee that the Yen will be so strong against the dollar forever.

When it comes to new IDN extensions they will have no relevancy to traffic. I’m basing this off of the fact that I have actually inserted Google Analytics on several of my high traffic IDN domains that are parked.  About 99% of the traffic came from Safari browsers. NameDrive WIXI and other parking stats see this as Direct Traffic, others in the industry even call it “Natural Traffic”, but it isn’t. If most of your traffic is coming from a browser direct, why would an educated person believe it will increase with new IDN extensions?

We’ll go back to my previous question.
Would you randomly type in a keyword insert an extension in your own language & go and buy something?
Think about it for a second. Do you do that? Do any of your friends do that? Any intelligent person that you work with do that?
The answer: No BUT THEY Do that…
Who are these mythical THEY? (Yeah I copied & pasted it because it’s the same result)

This so called Natural traffic is not Natural & we can’t guarantee it. So I believe we cannot hold & base domain value solely based on current traffic. Also some are holding out waiting for new extensions for dot com in various languages to increase their traffic & revenue. If a person cannot simply research where their traffic is coming from, how can you trust your investment in their hands based on their opinions?

I do believe we can firmly base domain value on search volume & competitiveness of the keyword. I don’t want you to believe this post is a negative look at IDN or any domain. It isn’t. I also want people who are waiting for whatever reason to have accurate information on what they are waiting for & why.

For those who disbelieve that their high traffic domain maybe coming from a browser redirect. I suggest try it. When I started doing this using an iFrame was ok. For one week take 3 of your high traffic domains. Put it in an iFrame & insert Google analytics code to see where your traffic is coming from. Look at the browser version number. Install the same exact version number of the browser & insert the keyword.

For dot nets dot jps etc you might find links to your domain that you didn’t know existed. I’ve found this on several of my dot jps that received traffic. Also sometimes people name their site in Japanese with my domain name. It’s happened with over 10 of my domains.

Happy Holidays guys. I write this for those who will listen & try to better your life based on facts.

It seems there’s always a few good names going at some high prices. This month & actually just a few hours ago Emoji.jp sold for 500,100 yen. In dollars that’s about $6,400. I would guess that the buyer had to be the Emoji app creator this time.

I can’t wait till WIXI makes their auction system available so users can sell their domains there too.

I met with a few people I have ties with and discussed the .jp extension going to .日本.

I can clearly tell you everyone right now is wondering what is JPRS doing? Truthfully even people that are in the domain industry in Japan have no clue what they are up to.

Things like this diminish your plans. Also this is one of the reasons why from the begining I adviced people to invest within your budget. I own as many .coms as I do .jps. I even have non IDNs of coms & JP.

I’ve been pulling back from domaining & truthfully I have more to do other things.

Don’t become a domain addict where you believe because you bought it, you have to sell it to someone. You can always drop if you are carrying too many domains. I’m not trying to put anyone’s financial status down.

I realize I have a few readers who may understand I trying to post things to make their investment choices better.

Today’s post is

Don’t base your investment on Old

Don’t renew domains or buy based on OLD Overture Scores
One of my domains had an Overture search of over a million when I registered it in 2005. Current searches almost none. It took me forever to find out it was a book. It wasn’t one of those domains I really thought about so I never researched why it had a million searches a month.

Don’t register or keep domains relating to OLD technology.
Would you like to be the owner of 8Track.com or even freeNewspaper.com all pretty much dead technology. Could be used as historic trendy branding later but register generics that will last for generations if you can.

Don’t listen to OLD Men
This is a big one. When it comes to technology there has to be fresh blood involved. I shouldn’t say don’t listen to all because Rick Schwartz is is a bit old VERY business savvy & knows corporate America well. Even though he doesn’t develop he knows what they want to hear. He has a track record too.

Many of us got in early with IDNs. Many still believe that the early 90′s with parking is going to mysteriously come back. Some think that people are just going to keep mysteriously increase typing in their domain names. These are OLD Men ways of thinking. Realize WHY you are getting traffic. Realize why it CAN get shut off. Realize why parking can get a little better but development most likely holds far more benefits.

There’s domain related bloggers who suddenly become popular just because they realize they can beat the pants out of the older crowd when it comes to internet marketing.

Don’t rely on OLD Developers

Instead of seeing people with 7,000 domains that they have to keep renewing for $70,000 a year.
I’d love to see people hold 100 to 300 great domains that pay for themselves in any language. Then take your extra income & spend it on development on one or two domains or just better living. Don’t get some old developer to develop for you. Get some young college kids who think about things they’d use.

OLD DAYs are Coming back (a bit redundant)
Don’t listen to anyone who is waiting for the OLD DAYS to come back if they can’t understand what was going on back then.  People weren’t typing in domains they were typing in keywords to the Nav bar. IE redirected everything to the dot com. Google did not separate the content network’s domain parking from web sites.
When IE7 came & Advertisers could opt out of domain parking this alone would have reduced income from parking by at least 75% in my opinion. If one can’t understand why things happened can they truly forecast a comeback? Think about it.

I haven’t wrote this line in a minute but
Stay New School….

Disclaimer (Sorry Rick if you are one of the readers who pops in from Florida from time to time)