| LED Digest 2262: Domain Drop Catchers and List Promo Tips |
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A useful discussion on domain name drop catchers and squatters. Tips for promoting newsletters and growing subscribers. Search engines aren't listing lodgings, and a question about getting listed on MSN Live local. ================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 9, 2006 Issue no. 2262 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Individual Lodgings not in Search Engines ==-- ~ Shaun Johnston "Do you see something like this happening in other industries?" --== MSN Live Local ==-- ~ Al Toman "...how do I get listed on MSN live local?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Domain Watching Services ==-- ~ Lee Odden "SnapNames.com is a service that I've used in the past to monitor domain names..." ~ Barry Mills "But buying a catchy or generic domain name...is *not* domain squatting." ~ Frank Herda "A number of years ago I ran into a problem with a cyber squatter." ~ Marty R. Milette "[Registrars] have different and conflicting policies regarding when names get released." --== How to Promote an Online Newsletter? ==-- ~ Piotr R. Michalak "...write a press release about the free report and send it to media closest to the topic." ~ Dejan Bizinger "...negotiate ad swap deals with other publishers of high-profiled email newsletters." ~ Donald Nelson "[My] autoresponder course has out-performed the simple sign up box by a landslide." ========= NEW ==================================== From: Shaun Johnston Subject: Individual Lodgings can't get into Search Engines In my field, online marketing for individual destination lodgings, almost no lodgings occupy search engines' top 30 positions for searches on destinations names, even those names combined with "lodgings" etc. Those 30 top positions are taken up with sites with the destination name in the URL, and travel directories. Have I been asleep? Used to be, the search engines were lodgings' primary source of free website visits. Optimizing to be high in the natural listings was a big deal. Now it's pointless. The visits lodgings still do get are for its name that people enter to quickly go to the lodging's site. The day of individual inns getting free visits from the search engines seems to be over. Search engines are in general ceasing to work for lodgings. In a popular destination there may be 30 of them. Obviously not all 30 could be in the top 10 natural position. Now none of them can be. And if they compete to be in the sponsored listings, they just drive up prices without any of them gaining. Lodgings must pay for all additional visits. So you'd think travel directories would be doing well. But actually their Alexa rankings have been falling for a year or two, and they're starting to merge to stay in business. Yet lodgings are as desperate for visits as ever. I think the problem is a lack of people searching for lodgings online. There just isn't the inventory of visitors online to sell, at a price small lodgings can afford (40-50 cents tops). Possibly too many baby boomers are starting up bed-and-breakfast inns. Do you see something like this happening in other industries? Shaun Johnston www.nycgetaways.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Al Toman Subject: MSN Live Local Listing Okay LEDerers, For this dumbumpkin here... how do I get listed on MSN live local??? I got the biz listed on Goo and Yahoo local but can't find the 'get listed' link for MS. I'm going in circles here. Written MSN, no reply, yet. Probably should call Mr. Gates but he wouldn't know, anyway. Checked out MSN help, heh, heh, heh~! I'm totally gobsmacked~! Al Toman studio9.ws ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Lee Odden Subject: Domain watching > Are there any "domain watching services" that you know of > that can purchase a domain the minute it becomes available? - Dina Beach Lynch, LED 2261 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1128/55/ SnapNames.com is a service that I've used in the past to monitor domain names for purchase once they expire. It is an auction based system where you provide a blind default bid and are given the opportunity to bid higher during a period as the name becomes available. You are not guaranteed the domain name purchase just because you monitor it as others might bid much higher. However, it does offer more opportunity to acquire a name than relying on the registrar to indicate the name has been released to the open market. Lee Odden http://www.toprankresults.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Barry Mills Subject: Domain watching Hello everyone. My spam filter has killed this list for a year or more, and I've only just noticed and taken up readership again. Glad to see it's still going, hope you're well Adam. I hate to come out of my lurking period by having a pop at anyone, but I was really surprised to read the somewhat emotive comments about "domain squatters", when the "squatters" referred to were all legitimate owners of the domain names concerned. I don't think this is helpful, and comes over as little more than sour grapes that someone else got there first. Domain squatting is bad, make no mistake about that. It's also illegal in most countries and easily reversed. But the posters on this thread don't seem to understand the term. Squatting occurs where someone with no legitimate right to a domain name registers it with the sole intent of extorting money from the brand owner who's IP it would contravene if used on a live site, or otherwise exploiting someone else's IP. It seems that arbitration cases have even started to include typos in the definition see http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005...squatting-case.html for an example. Fair enough. But buying a catchy or generic domain name, or one such as Adventive.com which represents a previously trading but long-defunct company, is NOT domain squatting. It's domain speculation, and it's as legitimate as any other form of asset speculation in a capitalist society. It's not something I generally engage in myself, but I can't see any reason to object to it. It actually serves a useful purpose imho, because the fact that most good domain names get grabbed by speculators means that they are more likely to end up in the hands of a serious business that will make the most of them. If speculation were somehow banned, or always had been, almost all the best domain names would be populated by half-hearted start-ups or abandoned web sites that were prepared by students who now have a day job. And they wouldn't be able to sell them on, so the whole internet would be full of this rubbish. I agree that $35k is a bit steep for Adventive.com Adam, especially since I know what the company was sold for and what happened to it afterwards. So don't buy it. But I don't really think you have any cause for complaint, old friend. If you'd wanted it, you should have contacted the previous owner when he shut up shop. There hasn't been a trading business called Adventive for some time now though, and if the domain name is available on the open market anyone is perfectly entitled to register it and ask for what they like if someone wants to buy it off them. If they ask too much, it won't sell, but that's their problem and their choice. Dina asked about domain watching services. The usual term for these services is "drop catchers", and if you search on that you'll find lots of information. The main player here in the UK is www.dropcatcher.co.uk, who I can recommend. I think the main player for global TLDs is www.snapnames.com although I've no experience of dealing with them and couldn't comment on their service. Hope this helps. Barry S Mills, Managing Director Netstep Corporate Communications http://www.netstep.co.uk -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Frank A. Herda Subject: Domain watching A number of years ago I ran into a problem with a cyber squatter. I and my cousins had TLDs. One of my cousins forgot to renew his and a cyber squatter picked it up. Then proceeded to e-mail telling me that I could purchase it for a unreasonable amount of money. I returned the e-mail telling them I would purchase the name for the cost of the NIC registration. I also told them since the name of the TLD contained my family name that it was no use to them and that they were holding it for ransom. They did not appear to appreciate my comments or offer and returned my e-mail telling me that were considering legal action against me for slander. I promptly responded that they could talk to my attorney and the NIC. Needless to say, I never heard any more from them. Also they continue to renew the TLD, probably just to anoy me. It is a shame that the NIC allows cyber squatters to get away with this. Frank Herda www.herda.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Marty R. Milette Subject: Domain watching Some registrars refuse to release domains within a reasonable time of expiry -- effectively holding the domain hostage. (Can anyone say Network Solutions or GoDaddy?) Since July 18th, 2001, Network Solutions (now Verisign) offers the "snap back" service of "snapnames" -- which means if you don't mind paying extortion (rather than waiting for the name to be released to the 'public' as it should be), you can get the name, the first millisecond it becomes available. Failing that, hope for the best. All registrars seem to have different and conflicting policies regarding when names get released. NSI (Verisign) has a favourite and that is to blame 'technical problems' for not releasing names. Marty R. Milette -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Piotr Michalak Subject: Newsletter promo > I'm working on a newsletter that already has over > 100k subscribers, but the client would like to see > it go up by at least 20%... I'm trying to think of online > methods to increase the subscriber base. - Dan Jeffers, LED 2260 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1125/55/ The most obvious one is creating a valuable free report. I don't know what type of business your client is in, but for most businesses: You can create a report on a topic that his clients would be interested in. Then insert links and recommendations in the report to subscribe to the newsletter. And a call to action that states: "Send this to your friend, so he or she can gain from this knowledge." The report should be given at the conferences, not flyers. And, the report should be sent to the list, so they would act on it and send it to their friends. Second thing to do is to write a press release about the free report and send it to media closest to the topic. Pass some of the information in the press release, so that the media can publish something valuable too. State in the press release, that the rest of the information can be found at a website -- which would be of course your clients website where people can sign to the newsletter. Done well on the operation level, this strategy should work. There are also other ways, but I hope that's enough for the start! Wish you luck, Piotr R. Michalak Ententa ...Builds Your Profits www.ententa.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: Newsletter promo Since you already have a significant base in your email newsletter it won't be hard to negotiate ad swap deals with other publishers of high-profiled email newsletters. I don't know if your client also has and regularly updates his web site. If that is the case, promoting subscription boxes on every page of his web site can increase subscription to his email newsletter. Also, he can offer incentives and special coupons only to email newsletter subscribers and this technique not only increases the number of new subscribers, it also makes them more loyal. Maybe you already use this technique, but do you ask in email newsletters your readers to forward the newsletter to their friends and colleagues? You can also make a subscription box on web site where people will be able to enter the referer and each month you can reward your top referes either with free ad in your email newsletter or with some payment. Good technique can be participating in web forums, email discussion list, writing relevant articles and get new subscribers with your resource box. At the end, you can consider using AdWords / AdSense for getting more subscribers. Hope this helps. Best regards, Dejan Bizinger http://www.emarketingblog.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Donald Nelson Subject: Newsletter promo Dear All, The discussion in LED 2261 about promoting a newsletter was a good read [ http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1128/55/ ]. I have two sites that use two different methods. One site has a sign up box and a short description of the newsletter. The other site has an autoresponder course that offers a lite form of the ebook that is sold on that site. The autoresponder course has outperformed the simple sign up box by a landslide. So, when I get time I will write some more autoresponder courses, because they really are attractive. Donald Nelson www.a1-optimization.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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