Lots of Stolen Domains

Over 1,000 high quality domains have been stolen by a thief in Iran.  He has brazenly set up a website to sell the domains – LuxaryDomains.com.  As well, he is sending out lots of emails to domainers informing them of the domains he has available.  Here is a partial list of domains stolen:

Problems.com
Mistake.com
Enroll.com
Damaged.com
Statement.com
Evaluate.com
UnClear.com
Upset.com
Shetty.com
Pleased.com
Returns.com
Suggestion.com
Suggestions.com
Replacement.com
Explanation.com
Explanations.com
Failures.com
Inquiries.com
Apologize.com
Volunteer.com
WebsiteFinder.com
Confusing.com
Witnessed.com
Concerns.com
Changed.com
Credit-Application.com
CreditApplication.com
Credit-Report.com
Interview.net
MortgageLoan.net
Notions.net
ProductSupport.com
Recommendations.com
Registration-Card.com
RegistrationCard.com
Technical-Support.com
ServeAuction.com
Shopping-Info.com
Service-Info.com
Service-Information.com
UserFeedback.com
Flaws.com
Free-Catalog.com
Free-Product.com
Free-Service.com
HouseAdditions.com
Howdoi.com
Improvements.com
Inefficient.com
Users-Guide.com
Internet-Info.com
Legal-Advice.com
Message-Center.com
ControlYourCredit.com
Cords.com
Product-Info.com
Product-Information.com
Product-Support.com
Criticisms.com
Customer-Complaint.com
Customer-Feedback.com
Customer-Satisfaction.com
Customer-Survey.com
DisAgree.com
DisLike.com
E-Message.com
E-Messages.com
Electronic-Message.com
ElectronicMessage.com
Airport-Info.com
UsersGuide.com
Business-Info.com
Service-Support.com
Computer-Info.com
WarrantyManagement.com
Consumer-Comments.com
Consumer-Feedback.com
Consumer-Help.com
Consumer-Ideas.com
Consumer-Info.com
Consumer-Poll.com
Consumer-Problems.com
Consumer-Product.com
Consumer-Products.com
Consumer-Questions.com
Consumer-Survey.com
Owners-Manual.com

Messages.net
Payment.net
Jennifer.net
Sensitivity.net
Unclear.net
Upset.net
UserFeedback.net
Organization.net
Suggestion.net
Suggestions.net
Payments.net
Pleased.net
Reactions.net
Replacement.net
Requests.net
Replace.net
Return.net
Rules.net
Opinions.net
Evaluate.net
Twenty.net
Experiences.net
Explanation.net
Explanations.net
Failures.net
Feelings.net
Flaws.net
Improvements.net
Product.org
Products.org
Programs.org
Credit-Application.net
CreditcardApplication.net
CreditApplication.net
Criticisms.net
Directions.net
Electronic-Banking.net
ElectronicBanking.net
Emessage.net
Additions.net
Advise.net
Advisory.net
Cadillacs.net
Checking.net
Concerns.net
Consumer-Product.net
Consumer-Questions.net
Consumer-Support.net
CustomerFeedback.net
Comments.net
Cconfusing.net

Pay.org
Register.org
Copy.org
Organization.org
Samples.org
Schedule.org
Sensitivity.org
Services.org
Statement.org
Suggestions.org
Technical.org
TechnicalSupport.org
Theft.org
Unclear.org
Upset.org
UserFeedback.org
Visit.org
Visitor.org
Worship.org
Opinions.org
Organizations.org
Ownersmanual.org
Payment.org
Payments.org
Pleased.org
Postage.org
Problems.org
Product-Information.org

Recipes.org
Redemption.org
Refund.org
Refunds.org
Religion.org
Repair.org
Replace.org
Replacement.org
Report.org
Request.org
Requests.org
Return.org
Reviews.org
Opinion.org
Evaluate.org
Evaluation.org
Experiences.org
Explanations.org
Exploitation.org
FeedBack.org
Feelings.org
FileShare.org
Flaws.org
Grammar.org
Gro.org
GuestBook.org
HelpDesk.org
Helpful.org
HouseBuilders.org
HouseLoan.org
Impressions.org
Improvements.org
Ingredients.org
Inquiries.org
Interview.org
JunkYard.org
Markets.org
MessageBoard.org
Metals.org
Military.org
Mistakes.org
Conversions.org
Covers.org
Credit-Aplication.org
Credit-Reports.org
CreditApplication.org
Criticisms.org
Customer-Support.org
Customer.org
CustomerFeedback.org
Defective.org
Delivery.org
Directions.org
Distance.org
Electronic-Mail.org
ElectronicMail.org
Electronics.org
Additions.org
Advertisement.org
Advertisements.org
Advise.org
Analysis.org
Answer.org
Application.org
Assistance.org
Cables.org
Cadillacs.org
Comments.org
Commercial.org
Concerns.org
Confessions.org
Consumer-Comments.org
Consumer-Feedback.org
Consumer-Product.org
Consumer-Products.org
Easy.org

OwnersManual.info
Explanations.info
Failures.info
Inefficient.info
Emessages.info
Comments.info
Concerns.info

Suggestions.us
Questions.us
Improvements.us
Comments.us

DO NOT PURCHASE ANY OF THESE DOMAINS FROM HIM! You’ll only lose the domain afterwards.  The whois email on many of the stolen domains is imenhost@gmail.com.  Most of the domains are at 1and1.com and some are at Name.com.  You can learn more here about how to protect yourself from domain fraud.

Making Money Through Domain Parking

Why work hard to generate money when domain parking takes almost no effort and pays well? Your choice: work on a domain to generate an income or NOT work on a domain and still generate an income. It’s a difficult choice!

Domain parking is one method of earning money from domaining. It’s sweet in that it involves comparatively little work compared with developing a website or selling domains, yet can provide a good income. It scales incredibly well, allowing you to profit from thousands of domains, whereas realistically no one could ever develop that many domains. Despite this, many newcomers to domaining have a lot of misconceptions about domain parking. To help, this article covers some of the basics of domain parking.

“What is Domain Parking?”
Domain parking is pretty simple, really. You let a parking company display ads on your domain. The parking company normally has a contract with Google or Yahoo! to use their ad feeds. A visitor to your domain clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays Google or Yahoo!; Google or Yahoo! pay a share of the revenue to the parking company, who pays a share of the revenue to you.

“How Do I Park My Domains?”
After your buy or register a domain, you will need to register with a parking company (and eventually it makes sense to register with several parking companies if you are serious about domain parking). The parking company will tell you how to use their service. Normally, this is through changing your name servers. The parking company will also give you options to target the ads that appear on your domain, for instance, by setting a keyword for the ads.

“How Do I Get Traffic To My Parked Domains?”
Aaaah. Finally, we’ve run into the catch. Parking companies strictly prohibit you from doing anything that would increase traffic to your domain. Sending traffic to a parked page (for instance, through advertising, link building, etc.) is against all parking companies terms of service. The logic behind this is that Google and Yahoo are trying to get their ads in places where they don’t already control the traffic – not recycling traffic that already exists.

Parking is for domains that have pre-existing traffic (normally through direct navigation). This normally means generic dot com’s and generic ccTLDs, typos, and domains that were once websites.

The key to success in making money from parking is owning domains that get natural traffic. Without the traffic, there is, well nothing. Parking isn’t about getting traffic to domains – it is about monetizing pre-existing traffic. To make money from parking, you need to research buying domains that already have traffic (by using various tools available, such as Alexa, Google external tool, etc).

Tip: If a domain doesn’t get traffic, there is no sense in parking it. In fact, I would generally recommend against it, as parking a domain can increase the chances of a UDRP happening if the wrong ads appear on your domain.

“What parking companies are there?”
Domain parking is a very competitive industry, so there are a lot of choices available for you to park your domains. Here is a list of the main parking companies (in no particular order):

1. Parked.

2. TrafficZ.

3. HitFarm.

4. Sedo.

5. NameDrive.

6. DomainSponsor.

7. Fabulous.

8. DomainSpa.

9. 19 Parking.

10. WhyPark.

11. Active Audience.

12. SmartName.

13. Bodis.

14. Skenzo.

15. Domain Embarking.

16. Sendori.

17. DotZup.

18. Revenue Direct.

19. GoDaddy.

20. ParkQuick.

21. GoldKey.

22. Park Logic.

23. iMonetize.

24. Parking Panel.

25. Parking Dots.

“How do you choose a parking company?”
Yes, that list above is somewhat overwhelming. The best way to do this is through trial and error. For someone just starting out, learning the ropes, and with only a few domains, Sedo may be the place to start parking. Park your domains there for a couple of weeks to get a baseline for performance. Then, you can play around with keywords and altering layouts to see if you can increase revenue. After that, you can move your domains around to other parking companies to compare performance.

Different parking companies have different strengths. For instance, NameDrive does well for my .uk domains and I’ve heard that they are good for a lot of the European ccTLDs. Sedo is reputed to pay well on adult domains.

“How Do You Increase Parking Revenue?”
This boils down to trial and error. Look at keyword lists to find out what keywords pay best in your domain’s niche. Try different ones out to see if that makes a difference.

As well, each parking company also offers different layouts for your parked pages – different ones work best for different niches. Test them out and see what works best for your domain.

Also, move your domains to another parking company. Some parking companies perform better for some niches.

Finally, if you earn enough money from parking, you can always approach your parking company and ask for a larger revenue share.

“Is parking revenue declining?”
From everything I have seen and heard, there is a strong downward pressure on parking earnings. To a certain extent, you can offset this by aggressively testing and moving your parked domains to better layouts and to parking companies that convert more effectively, as well as negotiating higher revenue shares.

A lot of people seem to think that parking revenues are declining because the parking companies are getting greedier. While everyone wants to earn more money, myself included, I think that the parking industry is far too competitive for this too happen. People can — and do — switch parking companies all the time. There are simply too many alternatives available for any parking company to start getting too greedy.

Rather, the revenue downturn is likely due to other factors, such as Google and Yahoo! paying out smaller shares to the parking companies, the general bad economy, and the fact that advertisers can now opt out of advertising on parked pages.

“Is Domain Parking Evil?”
There is a lot of commentary in the blogosphere about domain parkers being evil, useless, lowlifes. Actually, come to think of it, there is a lot of commentary in the blogosphere about domainers being evil, useless, lowlifes. However, even many domainers claim that parked domains are useless and the general public does not like them.

My developed websites get a 5 to 10% click through rate on the ads and my parked pages get a 50% plus click through rate. From that, it seems to me that people are finding what they are looking for on parked pages.

The fact of the matter is – the traffic is already coming to the parked pages. You have a choice of showing your visitors nothing, or parking the domain and giving your visitors what they are looking for. How that can be evil is beyond me.

As well, parked pages provide more choice to consumers – they can choose from several companies offering what they want, versus just one company if a website were there.

In real life (is there such a thing?) people pay good money for publications like Autotrader, which are not much more than a bunch of ads. Is Autotrader evil? I certainly never heard anyone make that claim. Claiming that putting a version of that online makes it evil smacks of jealousy to me, more than anything else.

“What does the future of domain parking hold?”
It is really hard to say, and any statements would be highly speculative. There is no doubt that changes are going to happen with domain parking. When the changes do occur, they will likely happen fast. A prominent domainer with a knack for predicting the future is rumored to have said: “Personally I would expect Google to pull the plug on the domain channel in it’s current form and I would expect that to happen at anytime.”

Most, if not all, facets of domaining are high risk, potentially high reward, and domain parking is no different. I think that the key to being successful with domain parking is to choose domains that have the largest amounts of type in traffic (well, that and obviously buy the domains for a good price). If you do that, you will weather favorably any changes that happen to domain parking. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what happens to domain parking, your targetted traffic will still be there. That traffic is valuable and won’t go to waste – new ways will spring up to monetize it.

Weekly Roundup

I’m going to introduce a weekly feature on my blog – every Sunday, I’ll select 10 of the best blog posts from the domainersphere and discuss them in more detail. Like my blog, rather than concentrating on news stories, I’m going to select blog posts that have good practical value and will help you succeed as a domainer.

In no particular order, here are the posts I found most informative this week:

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DomainBits – The Interview By Domain Magnate

I recently did an interview with Michael of Domain Magnate. You can read it here.

Thanks a lot! And make sure to add Domain Magnate to your feed reader.

Domain Bits – In the Spotlight at Domainer Developer

Domainer Developer recently did a profile of this blog and me. You can read it here.

Thanks a lot! And make sure to add Domainer Developer to your feed reader.

The Big List of Domain Auctions

Domain auctions are one of the most important market venues for a domainer – whether you are a buyer or a seller. If you are a seller, they offer immediate liquidity for your domains – you don’t need to wait for an end user (or another domainer) to show an interest in your domain. If you are a buyer, you have a choice of a number of often high quality domains available for purchase at wholesale levels. Even if you aren’t buying or selling, the results of major domain auctions provide a good barometer of the health and direction of the domain market.

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How to Get Started with IDNs – 14 Tips, Techniques and Resources

How does becoming wealthier than Frank Schilling sound? Schilling, the most successful individual domainer in the world, has a portfolio of about 300,000 names, estimated revenue of $20 million dollars per year, and has received several 9-figures offers for his portfolio. Yet according to long-time IDN investor and IDN expert David Wrixon, “[t]here are IDN investors out there that will make Frank Schilling look like an amateur.”

When it comes to making money in domaining, there are many strategies. But if you are looking to capitalize on one strategy that holds a lot of potential, you should check out IDNs. Although you may never be as successful as Schilling, the timing for getting into IDNs is good.

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Interview of Larry Kutscher, CEO of Register.com on Front Running by Network Solutions

I discussed in a recent post that Network Solutions had started front running domains. To gain more of a perspective on the issue, I spoke with Larry Kutscher, CEO of Register.com, a leading domain name registrar, about his views on the matter. Here is what he had to say:

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Domainersphere – List of Domaining Blogs

There has been a real explosion of blogs in the domainersphere over the last year. I don’t recall there being any blogs solely devoted to domaining a year ago, and now it seems that at least once a week I’m discovering a new domainer blog.

To keep up with all of this, I’ve decided to create a list of all the domaining blogs that I’m aware of that are regularly updated (there are some great blogs out there that unfortunately, seem pretty much abandoned). I’m going to keep this list current, so if you know of any domaining blogs that I’ve missed that are regularly updated, please drop a note in the comments.

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Moniker’s Live Auction Flops

I spent the afternoon (I’m on the East Coast) watching the video feed of Moniker’s Live Auction at the Geo Domain conference. Unfortunately, the auction was a big flop. While there may be last minute adjustments, at the close of the video feed, the total value of the domains sold was $435,000. $200,000 of that came from just one sale – Perth.com. None of the most publicized domains, like Wallstreet.com sold.

The auctioneer, who did a great job under the obviously difficult circumstances, was practically begging people to bid at some points. It was clear that he was very uncomfortable with the whole situation. The auction was scheduled to last 5 hours and barely went over 2 hours.

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Welcome to Domain Bits!

Inspired by Sahar’s post that every domain owner sould seriously consider blogging, I’ve started Domain Bits. The goal of my blog is to help people learn about domaining and make wise investment decisions that will pay off handsomely. For some people, this will mean quitting their jobs and living off of domaining; for other people, this may simply mean just taking that extra vacation every year to exotic locations that they have always wanted to go to.

Now that the domain industry is starting to mature, I think that it’s very important that people, especially people just starting out, have as many resources as possible to educate themselves so that they can maximize their chances of success and profit in the industry. This blog is my contribution. I’ll give some of my opinions, help you stay up to date with the latest news, and occasionally write more in-depth articles with extensive research.

I hope that you enjoy this blog and please feel free to leave a comment. You can subscribe to my feed or have the posts conveniently delivered to your inbox by email by signing up with the subscription form on the right-hand side.