The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Afternoon Folks!!

Right now Google is getting the majority of all gTLD traffic by default. Go try any phrase with a .whatever, put it in the search bar and voila google sweeps you up.

hello.cam

Hello.cam or any other string you like. So Google already knows about that traffic and whether there is much of it at this.point. Any word separated by a period and no extension and Google is there to rescue you. I assume if you have your browser setup for Yahoo you will have the same results.

So as they each come online, the search engines led by Google will lose any traffic their might be. Of course, it may not amount to much.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Let's all fall on the floor together because no matter your political views, your business sense will have you slapping your knee.

As you know the healthcare site has basically been down for over a week now. $634 Million and........

Morning Folks!!

I am now able to release the domain name I sold and the details behind it. The domain is eBet.com. Hand registered by me in 1996.

Here is the play by play anatomy of this sale for whatever it may or may not be worth.

The deal was agreed to on September 16th.

Network Solutions contacted me on August 29th with a $50,000 offer. I did not think anything of it as I get these all the time.

I countered at $1.8M and went about my business.

On September 3rd voila the buyer comes back at $1MM

The day after Labor Day and the day I have been pointing to all summer. Talk about a ship coming in on time!

Here are just 2 of those INTENSE posts I made pointing to labor day and what was to come after!

http://www.ricksblog.com/2013/09/my-first-few-days-in-domains-1995-1996-alone-then-the-gold-rush-of-1998/

http://www.ricksblog.com/2013/08/domain-industry-fire-sale-what-happened-to-domaining/

So, I thought about it for 45 minutes and countered at $1.6MM if it were all cash.

A week passes. No biggie. I expect it to take some time. The buyer may even be pissed since I passed on $1MM. But I can't control that, they will just have to get over it.

On Friday September 6th the buyer counters at $1.1MM

30 minutes later I think I can either go tit for tat and go down to $1.5MM or I can give them an opportunity to SAY YES!

So I think, how to get that number where I can live with and at the same time they can live with.

So I counter at $1.35MM and that was my final offer.

I hear nothing until the following Friday. September 16th.

They accept the offer!

It really does not matter that I hand registered eBet.com in 1996 for $100. It is the value today, tomorrow and more importantly, the value to the buyer which will play a role in transforming their company and online business.

Now I know the next thing is everyone starts pointing to 4 letter domains. Sorry, has nothing to do with 4 letters. Has to do with a 3 letter WORD and a prefix related to the Internet. The word being commercial and referencing a high number and high profit industry.

So now I have two sales in the $1.3MM range and I have two sales in excess of $3 Million plus lifetime royalties. I believe this is sale #20. And I am working on sale #21. It is just a 6 figure deal but on another hand registered domain. Details next month.

When do I sell? When the domain name is ripe. When is it ripe? When the right buyer comes along.

I believe I will have 2 more 7 figure domain sales within the year. One more possibly this year. In 2003 it was a very big deal. Today, no big deal at all. Commonplace and becoming more common and more acceptable.

All I can do is share the path and the story. Nothing more, nothing less.

As for NDA, there is none and it was never discussed. Had it been, I would have walked from the deal before I would have agreed to a non-disclosure. Men.com, Candy.com, Property.com, eBet.com are the building blocks not just for me, but for many. From 1995-2003 it was all theory. From 2003 to 2013 it has been solid evidence. Like I said, now common place. It may not even be one of the top 10 sales of the year by the time it is all said and done. And of course the domains under non-disclosure alone probably dwarf all the public sales listed.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

It may sound funny, but this is true. One of the real thrills I get is when I get an email. In the subject of that email is a domain name. One I instantly like! One that I want to buy and own. I get a thrill from that.

But that is not the thrill I am talking about. The thrill I am talking about is when I realize that the domain in the subject line is one I already own. That my friends is a thrill!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Each day the gTLD rollout gets a little clearer to me. Last night was the first time I ever went down the list of those hundreds of extensions. Some of these folks are going nowhere. Their extensions are so limited, I have no idea what they are thinking. Selling hundreds of thousands? Millions? I think maybe they will get a few hundred. Some of the extensions are that bad.

I am still musing over .accountant and .accountants. No confusion there!

In less than 2 weeks Team Schwartz vs Team Schilling will rumble at TRAFFIC!

This tag team match will toss it all around. We will debate gTLD's and Frank and his team will tell you what they see and me and my team will tell you why they are looking at it wrong. It will be fun. it will be lively and it will be packed!

I have not picked my team yet. Contact me if you would like to joining Team Schwartz or Team Schilling.

Frank will be joined by Monte Cahn from Rightofthedot.com, Jeffrey Sass of .CLUB and 1 other operator. I will be joined by just 1 other domainer still to be named.

There will be a boxing ring placed in the middle of the seminar hall.

Just kidding about the boxing ring!

Seriously, this is going to be fun and exciting and it just may STEAL the show! The byproduct may be clarity!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

The countdown is on as the last few days before TRAFFIC and our 10th Anniversary year begins!

For those Early Birds that will be coming to TRAFFIC next Friday, you are invited to be our guest at the Full Moon Halloween Party hosted by the Ritz-Carlton.

Last night the hotel still had 5 rooms left for Friday and Saturday nights. So this is the last call for those rooms.

Rick Schwartz

Evening Folks!!

Yup, that's right, Broncos.com domain name will be auctioned at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. on October 21st in Fort Lauderdale.

Should be very lively bidding as the reserve is less than half of what Cowboys.com sold for a few years back.

Wonder who will show up??

Here is the entire list of domains at auction. Silent auction started today.

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

If you own the .com, you can use any domain or any gTLD you like and not be hurt by it. It can even help.

However, if you don't own the .com, you will lose traffic. You will pay a penalty for all your ad costs. You will pay a penalty for customers lost.

You will pay a penalty because your business growth may be stunted or not even there. They have been sucked up by those extra costs that would generally be used to grow your business. The money you might have actually put in your pocket as profits.

If you get waterproof.shoes you MUST own waterproofshoes.com. You must! At some point you either will own it or go out of business. The guy that owns waterproofshoes.com is gonna make more than you with no expense. YOU are paying for HIS advertising. THAT is why the .com will benefit from .whatever. Folks can argue the point, it won't make them any closer to being right. It is so obvious that anyone doing this as long as we have should understand it. I am glad the end-user won't. That will make me a fortune and you too!

Do a test. Tell 100 folks by word of mouth and see how many get it right. You will be stunned!

So hope Madison Ave buys into .whatever. I hope they all do. There is no downside for .com but there is a HUGE upside. Huge!

Put waterproof.shoes in a Superbowl commercial and waterproofshoes.com will have a record day. Guaranteed! He is growing for doing nothing. Getting advertising he could never afford. It is going to be a windfall for .com the likes of which you could only dream about.

Every startup wants their .com when they grow up.

So here is my next prediction. Most of the domainers that lost in .com will try .whatever and see it is even harder. They will get angrier and more frustrated and will lash out in ways we have never seen before. Why? Because they still don't get it. They still don't know the difference between tin and gold, glass and diamonds, water and poison. They will get angry at me for their own shortfalls instead of learning and grabbing their share of the pie.

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

I have watched this for many years. People are always in a rush to choose a name and then they don't choose well. And then they tend to change the good ones. I think the name is a key element of any business. A friend sent me an article from adage.com about how companies just gloss over when it comes to their name.

The problem with initials
The latest marketing trend is the use of initials to make a brand seem "hip."

• JCP instead of JCPenney.


• DQ instead of Dairy Queen.


• RH instead of Restoration Hardware.

When consumers see initials, their first thought is, "What do those initials stand for?" JCP only had meaning because consumers associated the initials with JCPenney.

There are many successful brands known by their initials. "AT&T" for American Telephone & Telegraph. "IBM" for International Business Machines. "HP" for Hewlett-Packard. "AARP" for American Association of Retired Persons. "KFC" for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But name one brand created from scratch with initials only that eventually became a big, successful brand? I can't think of any.

Then why in the world would Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Jack Dorsey, three of the most successful entrepreneurs in America, launch a Silicon Valley advocacy group called "FWD.us."

• Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook.com. Not FB.com.


• Bill Gates founded Microsoft. Not MS.


• Jack Dorsey founded Twitter.com. Not TW.com.

That is just one of the points made in this article and it is a very good one indeed!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Two more companies have been added to our spammer and scammer section at Hall of Shame. Is it YOUR company?

First we are going after the obvious folks that have been spamming and trying to scam us for years. These have both been submitted by domainers and we have all been targeted by these scam artists. They try to fool, mislead and then gauge! Our job is to expose them all!

Rick Schwartz