DN Buff!

John Motson of DNXpert.com has launched a gigantic contest in which there is certainly no shortage of prices

John has got together some of the industry’s bigest names including but not limited to NameDrive, Sean Stafford, Sedo, Aaron Wall and has convinved them to part with their prized products for this contest.

Yes, you can indeed strike gold by entering this contest as you are almost guaranteed to win something.

So much so, that there is even $870 in cold cash (no strings attached) waiting for you. Apart form this, NameDrive has generously sponsored $200 in NameDrive credit. How easy can it get?

Click here to see the actual post itself. You can enter by just subscribing to john’s expired domains newsletter which provides tremendous value to all it’s subscribers.

Here’s a list of the generous sponsors:

• $700 in cash from We Build Pages who offer Link Building Services. ($700 value)
• $200 credit deposited into NameDrive domain parking account courtesy of NameDrive.com. ($200 value)
• $100 Godaddy Gift card from instantdomaintool.com. ($100 value)
• $100 credit in Bidvertiser account. ($100 value)
• $100 cash from WordPressFreelance. ($100 value)
• $35 Cash from Tim Schroeder of eMonetized.com. ($35 value)
• $35 Cash from Web Hosting Reviews. ($35 value)
• 1 Market Leverage promo pack consisting of: MarketLeverage iFlip (digital camera), MLRewards card ($50), MarketLeverage USB Pen, MarketLeverage Polo and hat, MarketLeverage/Nike duffelbag. ($350 value)
• 2 x Market Leverage promo pack consisting of MLRewards card ($25), MarketLeverage USB Pen, MarketLeverage Polo and hat, MarketLeverage/Nike duffelbag. (2 x $220 value)
• 3 x Market Leverage USB Pens with $10 ML Rewards card. (3 x $35 value)
• 6 months subscription to MarketMotive.com. ($1794 value)
• 1 hour of SEO Consulting from Todd Malicoat from stuntdubl.com. ($500 value)
• 1 year’s PRO Subscriptions membership to FreshDrop.net. ($395.40 value)
• 5 x 1 license of the software product Domain Name Pro (5 x $64.95 value)
• 3 months membership at Aaron Wall’s SeoBook course. ($300 value)
• 3 x 1 copy of the Domain Graduate ebook. (3 x $87 value)
• 5 x 1 exclusive list of 100 expired domains from DNXpert.com (5 x $50 value)
• 6 months premium clustered hosting at iMountain.com (6 x $39.95 value)
• 2 months VIP membership at ClickMojo ($200 value)
• 15 minute one on one phone coaching session with Simon Johnson from Domainer Income ($200 value)
• 2 year subscription to DNSstuff pro tools. ($139 value)
• 1 x 100 domain parking account at WhyPark.com ($99.95 value)
• 1 copy of the Revenue Domains Exposed ebook ($97 value)
• 2 month subscription at Wordze.com ($90 value)
• 3 x 1 copy of the Domaining Manifesto ebook. (3 x $27 value)
• 1 copy of Wordze’s Guide to Keyword Research & Niche Wealth Building! ($80 value)
• 1 copy of a single use license of Brian Gardner’s Revolution blog theme of the winners’ choice ($79.99 value)
• 1 copy of Optin Comments WP plugin. ($77 value)
• 1 DNForum.com Platinum membership. ($59.95 value)
• 1 yearly subscription to Gold Account at iwebtool.com ($59 value)
• 3 x 1 copy of the Killer Domains ebook (3 x $17 value)
• 2 x 50 available domains from WordFuse.com (2 x $24.95 value)
• 1 featured listing on Sedo’s homepage for 1 domain. (worth $39)
• 1 DNForum.com Gold membership ($19.95 value)
• 1 Month DomainNews.com Newsletter Sponsorship - Top Position Advertizing ($500 value)
• 2 months 160×90 ad on ClickFire.com homepage (2 x $200 value)
• 1 Month text link on JustDropped.com search pages ($100 value)
• 1 month text link at DomainNameWire.com ($60 value)
• 1 month of 125×125 banner advertising on Winning the Web ($50 value)
• 1 month 125×125 banner advertising at DNXpert.com ($50 value)
• 1 month 125×125 banner advertising at DotSauce.com ($40 value)
• 1 month text link on blogaboutyourblog.com ($10 value)
• 1 copy of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger ebook ($16.49 value)

Normally, I don’t blog about the Internet Marketing scene but today I’ll make an exception as what I’ve found is really interesting.

Carlo has released a blueprint about making money online. I feel that this blueprint is pretty comprehensive and should definitely help you in your quest to make money online. Just go to Kid Blogger’s Master Plan to get it.

Mark Fulton of DotSauce.com is holding a massive contest to promote the launch of BQB.com. If you are thinking of signing up to their marketplace then make sure you check out Mark’s contest first as you’ll have the chance to win a super-sleek camera.

BQB.com is a marketplace meant exclusively for short-domains and is certainly worth joining while it’s free as you tend to save on the fee of $97 per month which will be implemented later. You also get the opportunity to buy domains at unbelievably cheap prices (ZnFe.com for $34) due to there not being hundreds of members.

I would also suggest that you checkout Mark’s site as he offers excellent content on a regular basis. For instance, today’s post deals with finding expired domains using spreadsheets, a technique I bet you didn’t know about. What’s more, there is a video which leaves no scope for confusion.

Currently Mark is also giving away a free subscription to the premium DotSauce forum. You can view further details by clicking here.  Basically, this “premium zone” contains loads of valuable information like exclusive expired domain lists proven to thrill, Mark’s personal bookmark vault which contains tons of priceless resources and lots ore goodies…

Reece Berg of 4letternoob.com has launched this revolutionary marketplace for short domains and yeah! it’s totally awesome. Their logo pretty much sums up their entire site. Registration is free if you want to get in as a beta-tester. Just PM “Reece” on NamePros or DNF and he’ll help you out.V-Q-I.com was the domain that was sold first by VURG and that pretty much makes history. Right now, there are over 50 listings in the 4L.com category and about 50 more in all the other categories put together. The prices are reasonable and the system is pretty much perfect.Reece has some great ideas to protect BQB (Better Quality Business) from all those scummy scammers. Right now it’s in beta-testing so those changes haven’t been implemented yet, but keep an eye out for this is sure to create ripples (of happiness) in the domaining industry.  

First and foremost, an apology to all my *loyal* and *not-so loyal* readers. I just felt liek taking a break form the entire domaining scene and the online world in general. (NOTE: This doesn’t include FIFA 08 :p Anyways, now that I’m back, you’ll be seeing frequent updates to this blog (at least thrice a week). If you wish to notified the instant I make a post, subscribe to my RSS feed using a reader of your choice or just get my posts delivered directly to your inbox.

Feeling a lot better now and am eager to get going once again. Firstly, I got interviewed by Michael of Domain Magnate, so just follow the link to read the interview. Hopefully, you enjoy reading it

On a more serious note, the dip in the prices of the low-grade LLLL.com’s has created ripples of fear in the domaining scene as many people saw this as an opportunity to gain quick profits and now that the prices have begun getting “corrected” they are desperate to ditch their domains.

Reece of 4letternoob.com has some really good insights in regards to this and I strongly urge you to check his blog out. I myself am a holder of 20 odd “lower-quality” LLLL.com’s but frankly speaking, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. This is the time that most speculators will be ditching their domains and this provides the ideal opportunity for others like myself to pick these up for cheap.

So much so, that I’ve finally decided to ditch a dozen triple premiums and invest in a couple of quad premiums. I feel it’s always better to spread my risks rather than consolidate all my assets (LLLL.com’s in this case :p) in the same place. Who knows, maybe quad premiums will be the next ones to take a dip, so it might be wise to retain at least 10 or so triple premiums to be on the safe side.

Feel free to comment and tell me what you think of this current situation.

Sorry for the sudden absence but had the flu and was busy with other things. This transition of seasons is pretty bad as it’s the time when most people get a bout of the flu and I got to say, it’s irritating as hell.
I’m more an outdoors kind of guy (couldn’t tell, could you) and I really go insane once the flu hits me. Breaking things around me, tearing my carefully maintained “offline journal” (those things still do exist) are frequent occurrences in this time.

I like to rant for hours and believe me, it’s easy to keep going when you’ve started, but I’ll spare you the torture and get to the essence of the matter.

The much-publicized Moniker TRAFFIC Live Auction saw some sales of dictionary words cum LLLL.com’s which should put the industry in a pretty good mood.

DVDs.com sold at 300K which is understandable given the nature of the word. One of the most popularly used words in today’s world, this one was bound to get at least this amount. Kudos to the new owner.

Now, the slightly controversial part, Hoax.com sold for $70,000 which was a bit too pricey, in my humble opinion. It’s certainly not a commonly used word and I don’t see much monetization revolving around the word. I mean, which reputable business would like to have a site called Hoax.com?

On the other hand, Gags.com sold for a mere $40,000 which this time I feel is a tad undervalued. Gags are hot and the products revolving around them are even hotter. A site like Bored.com would have been an ideal choice for an end-user (presumably?) Feel free to disagree with me but I feel the buyer got a steal at that price.

OKay, got that out of my mind so I’m back to smashing things around me :p

First of all, kudos to Ty (bfluid on NamePros) who organized the entire auction and conducted it in the utmost professional manner and mwzd who generously offered to help with the auctioning.  These two guys put their heart and soul into the auction and all of us domainers appreciate your dedication and sincerity.

However, the auction’s turnout wasn’t as much as what I expected. I expected at least 200-300 people to attend the event but the maximum people in the auction room at any given time never exceeded 113. Many major players Reece and Michael_Goldman in the LLLL arena also gave this auction a miss. The listings were well-organized and the quality of the domains was exquisite (SHAM.com, Weak.net etc.) then what exactly caused the auction to miss the status of a roaring success?

1) The buyout clause - This clause basically stated that a seller could pay the winning bidder $5 and be free of all obligations to sell. The clause was originally introduced to make up for the lack of a reserve system but it ended up making the whole thing look like a joke.
The buyout option hindered buyers too as they could never be sure whether the seller would enforce the buyout option or not. In case of a reserve the buyer would be able to ascertain whether he would possess the funds to continue bidding on further names but with the clause there is no way to know unless the seller is online.
Also, there were several bids above $10K and the buyout clause made them look a bit ridiculous as the seller could simply choose to pay $5 and not sell.
If the buyout clause had to be enforced, we could have had a higher amount to be paid, say 5%-10% of the winning amount.

2) Time Confusion - The auction actually started an hour later than it was supposed to start.Ty had no other choice than postpone the auction and he did it but it did cause a bit of mayhem. I cannot complain, as I just got to it 10 minutes before it started believing I was 50 minutes late.

3) Dates - The Easter Weekend was a bad choice for the auction as many people decided to give the event a miss due to other commitments.

4) Excess Of Names - A payment for every lot/name submitted for the auciton would have been a good idea as it would have kept out the rubbish and restricted the length of the auciton to something more reasonable. (FYI, the auction lasted around 4 hours)

Anyways, let’s come back to the auction for now:

The auction started off with some decent LLLL.com’s followed by 7 odd LLLL.net’s. The LLLL.net’s received practically no attention and all of them resulted in buyouts as they went for ridiculously low prices like $5.2 for a quad premium.

Then came the really valuable names like Sham.com, Weak.net and Coil.com (all three resulted in buyouts) . Later, the auction started losing it’s fervor and many big-players had to withdraw as they were out of funds after bidding on the earlier names.

One notable bidder in the final stages was bgmv who was the highest bidder for at least 8 auctions (I wonder how many were buyouts?) and I’m sure he must’ve gotten at least some real steals.

All in all, it was a decent event and an EXCELLENT first attempt. Next tiem, if the changes are implemented then we’ll surely be on our way to having a giga-event guaranteed to turn eyes.

Recently, a massive debate (more like an argument :-p) has been conducted on whether all LLLL.net’s will eventually rise in value just like their .com counterparts?

I honestly, think so as when supply = limited, demand = extreme. Imagine, a company looking for a website and their intiials tend to be a LLLL domain. If they are a small scale company more often than not, they won’t be able to afford those oh-so expensive premium .com quads so logically they turn to .nets which can be bought for 1/10th the price.

The next question is who will grab the low quality domains after all the good ones are gone? Answer: The same people who bought the high quality domains ad want to exhaust stocks ASAP (ie. us domainers). SO what, if their quality isn’t *that* good but they are 4L.net’s nevertheless. Prices will skyrocket soon after the buyout and us 4L.net investors will finally start reaping the fruits of our hard work. (You call sitting and regging names, hard work?)

Ty maier (bfluid on NamePros) has put in loads of hard-work and has been making preparations to organise an exclusive 4 letter auction. Lots of LLLL.com’s and LLLL.net’s shall be included and most importantly, it is a live auction

Bill, a prominent member of the NamePros staff generously agreed to let out the live auction room in the NamePros Live Chat for the big night. We owe you one Bill!

Anyways, back to the auction, I honestly believe that this is going to be a roaring success with the quality of the names we have and the buyers who shall be attending the auction.

You may go here  to view a list of the lots up for auction and you are surely going to be astounded by the featured lot which has some super-premium LLLL.com’s which anyone would kill to possess.

The auction shall be held on March 22nd at 3PM EST (GMT-5), the timing is a bit awkward for me (12 : 30 AM) but I’ll surely sit through the entire auction hoping to snipe off some names and will present an exclusive report of the auction for the benefit of those of my readers who couldn’t attend.