Weekend Fun – Domain Blog Rankings

September 14, 2008

The well known and respected SEOMoz company has come out with a new tool to measure a blog’s popularity, known as the Trifecta.  According to SEOMoz, the Trifecta tool measures metrics to estimate the relative popularity and importance of a blog.  It does this by measuring factors such as the number of incoming links a blog has, how often a blog is mentioned on the web, and how much traffic a blog receives.

I thought it would be fun to apply this tool to domaining blogs and see what the results are.  So, I went through my list of blogs in the domainersphere and looked up the Trifecta score for each of them.

I thought the results were pretty interesting.  The top blog is, without much surprise, the DNJournal Lowdown.  A strong second place contender is The Frager Factor.

Also, when you look at the top scoring blogs, there is not really any surprise about which ones are in the top group.

A lot of blogs with lower scores are new blogs, and I am sure that their scores will improve rapidly over time.  The Namebio blog had a really low score, and I think this is because Justin changed the url over the last few days.

Obviously, the Trifecta tool is far from perfect and it has its limitations.

Without further ado, here are the rankings:

40 – 49
48 DNJournal
46 The Frager Factor

30 – 39
39 DomainTools Blog
37 DotSauce
36 CircleID
36 ICANN Blog
36 Inside Domaining
34 Domain News
34 dotMobi
34 Fractional Domaining
34 Logistik Labs
31 Domain Name News
30 Dot Ca Domains

20 – 29
27 Domain Name Dispute Blog
27 DNXpert
27 Elliot’s Blog
26 Seven Mile
26 The Domains
25 Whizzbang’s Blog
24 Anti-Cybersquatting Blog
23 Dev Mobi
23 Domain Bits
23 Rick’s Blog
23 Rick Latona
21 4 Letter Noob
21 Domain Flipper
20 Domainer’s Gazette
20 Dominik Mueller

10 – 19
19 Scott Fish
19 Domain Magnate
18 Direct Navigation
18 Dot Weekly
17 Simply Geo
16 Afternic DLS Blog
16 Dave Zan
16 FKA200
16 I Squatted Your EU
16 Names at Work
16 Success Click
16 Tia Wood
16 David Carter
15 Domain Pulse
15 Domainer SEO
15 Web Publishing Blog
14 Domainer Developer
14 Domaining Tips
14 Url Academy
13 Available Domain Names
13 Domain Parking Money
13 Domainer Pro
13 Is It Me Or Is Everyone Else Stupid?
13 The Hot Iron
13 Oz Domainer
12 DNZoom
12 DomainJunkies
12 Get Domains
12 Ms Domainer
12 Supernatural Agency
12 Good Url Bad Url
11 Domainer Income
11 DotMobiz
11 Green Taxi
11 Quad Letter Domains
10 Clicks and Bits
10 Come Domain
10 DN Cartoons
10 Jothan Frakes’ Weblog

1 – 9
9 Acro
9 Trend Domaining
8 DN Kitchen
8 Domain News 360
8 Domain Week
8 Predictive Domaining
8 Domaining
7 Domain Blog
7 Domain SEM
7 E3 Auction
7 Domaining UK
7 Electron
7 Mister.us
7 NNNNN Domains
6 Name Blog
6 The Critical Post
6 Unplain
5 MyID.ca
5 NameBait
2 Invest In Domains
2 Newfound Names
2 NameBio

Sibername Increases .ca Prices for Second Time in a Year

September 10, 2008

I just received an announcement from Sibername that they are increasing their prices for .ca domains from $14.95 to $16.95 (Canadian).  This follows on an increase earlier in the year that increased prices from $12.95 to $14.95.

I am somewhat surprised at this aggressive pricing move, especially in light of Godaddy recently entering the .ca market.  Sibername blames the increase on the fact that “.CA domain names require lengthy procedure and communication for changes like administrative email change, registrar transfer.”  .Ca domains are definitely more complex than gTLDs, but this hasn’t changed recently and a lot of these functions are automated (although the CIRA process is so confusing, I bet Sibername gets a lot of requests for support).

In the past, Sibername was one of the top registrar choices for Canadian domainers due to their low prices and TBR success.  To me, this price increase signals a change in business strategy by Sibername away from catering to domainers.  Given the recent very vocal criticism of Sibername by some domainers (and I’m really not sure about the merits of this criticism), this is perhaps a good business decision by Sibername.

By comparison, CIRA charges registrars a wholesale rate of $8.50 per domain.  Namespro.ca, my Canadian registrar of choice, charges $12.88, and often runs $1 off specials and offers discounts to large portfolio holders.  Godaddy charges $12.99 USD, which currently works out to about $13.84.  10dollar.ca charges $10.45.  Netfirms.ca charges $9.95.  DomainsAtCost.ca charge $12.95.  Baremetal.com charges $12.50.

At least Sibername is still cheaper than Internic.ca, the registrar of choice for people with money to burn, which charges a mere $50, and yet manages to be used by most large businesses across Canada.

Rick Schwartz Cashing Out?

September 7, 2008

I noticed this vignette on the TRAFFIC website:

7:30PM Come and buy as many as 50 Original Rick Schwartz vintage domains as Moniker hosts this special auction. Domains like Mens.com, Men.net, DarkChocolate.com, KinkySex.net, GoldFutures.com and many more. Many with type in traffic and reserves set so low that we are guaranteed to have some very exciting and lively bidding.

It looks to me like Rich Schwartz is selling a big chunk of his most premium domain names – at domainer prices to domainers, rather than to end users.  To me, that is a shock as he has recently said that domains are “appreciating too fast too [sic] measure.”  I’m not entirely sure why a person would sell assets that are appreciating so quickly.

However, as Rick has said many times:

I FOLLOWED THE MONEY!! I do that all the time. In anything. ALWAYS….follow the money.

Actions speak louder than words.  Maybe it’s time to do as Rick does, and follow the money – which seems to be selling a big chunk of their portfolios.