| LED Digest 2344: Dangers of Domain Parking? |
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================================================== 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 .............................................. February 9, 2007 Issue no. 2344 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== --== Domain Parking & Valuation ==-- ~ Stephen P. Levin "[Does domain parking] affect the rankings and undercut the value of the domain?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== SEO File Naming Techniques ==-- ~ Michael Linehan "Hyphens are equivalent to spaces..." ~ David Spahr "...a hyphenated domain...may be better than a domain that is a character string." <Moderator Comment> --== Best Practices for Testimonials ==-- ~ David Swiggum "No complaints in 10 years. That speaks for itself." ~ Baruch Avraham "One way I use these [testimonial] keywords..." ~ Shel Horowitz "Testimonials should offer very specific, result- oriented endorsements..." ==== BULLETIN BOARD ============= --== Google Zeitgeist Daily Email ==-- ~ Waitman Gobble ========== NEW =================================== From: Stephen P. Levin Subject: Domain Valuing / Selling / Parking Hi, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. The posts about cybersquatting have brought up some issues I'm currently facing. I own a web site: www.gamex.com. At one time, it was an e-commerce site selling video games (I'm talking 95 and 96). Since then it has been a static site which currently has significantly outdated content. Nonetheless it still gets what I consider to be a decent amount of traffic. It gets over 1200 page views a day -- more in the Christmas season. I would like to extract some value from the site. Right now we have an affiliate link to a video game site, but it is not generating the revenue I'm looking for. The way I see it, my options are to build out a fully functioning e-commerce site again, use a domain parking service to generate more affiliate / advertising dollars, or sell the domain. Building out the e-commerce site would be somewhat trivial for me since that's what we do. But, running the store, stocking the merchandise, shipping, etc. is not what we do and not something I'm particularly interested in. That leaves the other 2 options. As far as domain parking goes, I've spoken to a company called Moniker about their service. Is it a good one? Are there others I should be looking at? This isn't something I'm familiar with -- I don't even know which services are legitimate and what kind of compensation can be achieved. Also, does a service like this affect the search engine rankings and if so does this undercut the value of the domain? Lastly on this option, does it make more sense to do something with Google AdSense than use a parking service? If so, any experiences using that as the primary income on a site would be helpful. As far as selling a domain, again I've spoken to Moniker about their valuation service and their auctions. Are they a legitimate company for either of those services. Are there others I should look at? Valuation in general seems extremely arbitrary to me. Are there any industry supported guidelines. In our case, I'm assuming the traffic brings value, but probably more important is the fact that the domain is short, it has the word "game" in it, and it has the potential to be a high quality brand -- think fedex, amex, etc. A few years back I was offered $50K for it and at the time I thought this was too low. Any suggestions on how to value the domain and how to find potential buyers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Stephen P. Levin Webline Designs, Inc. http://www.weblinedesigns.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Michael Linehan Subject: Page names > Do the search engines apply any ranking differences > based on web page naming format? - B.S., LED Digest 2343 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1740/55/ Yes, they do. The correct format is a "good thing". > Which of the following is preferred when naming pages: > Magnetic-Card-Readers.htm Magnetic_Card_Readers.htm > MagneticCardReaders.htm Magnetic Card Readers.htm To help being found for magnetic card readers... Underscores are equivalent to letters. So Magnetic_Card_Readers is one long, gibberish word that does not exist in any dictionary. No help there. Similarly MagneticCardReaders is another single, gibberish word that does not exist in any dictionary. A file name with a space may or may not work properly on your server. Hyphens are equivalent to spaces - so Magnetic-Card-Readers is equivalent to Magnetic Card Readers - precisely what you want. See Matt Cutts (Google Guy) on this: -------------------- "For URLs in Google, I would recommend using dashes." Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/ -------------------- So get a keyword or two in there. Just don't go nuts as with something like greatest-web-marketing-and-seo-tips-for- small-business.html. Two or three words is plenty. > Also, is it worth the time and effort to submit > key pages to the Google "Site Map"? Absolutely. Submit all pages you want Google to crawl. Yahoo and MSN have also joined the party. The xml sitemap can help your site be crawled more effectively. Check Google or www.sitemaps.org for information. Michael Linehan, Marketing Alchemy www.marketing-alchemy.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: Web Page Naming Strategies I don't think spaces are allowed. Hyphens are. Back in the late 90s, I purchased / rented the antique-photography.com domain name. I made the mistake of telling a "friend" of mine in the business I had done so. He went right out and got antiquephotography.com and hired a designer to put it out right about the time I was launching my site. For the search "antique photography", my site always appeared #1 on all search engines and his was deeply buried. His site failed. It was sold to someone else and is now a bad example of an adsense site. I dunno, maybe the spiders have karma detectors but if not, I think the domain name may have been a substantial influence. His site could also have failed because he hired a designer. That was a problem because he never learned how to run his sites. A site that would be viable with a domain like this requires constant changes and maintenance. Obviously there was no way he was going to be able to afford this or easily get correct listings without spending more time and money than it was worth. He would have been spending as much time with the designer as he would have spent doing it himself because the designer, not being an expert on antique photography, would need him to apply his expertise to write all the descriptions for the listings and probably do the scans too. Once you are that far into the process... He also tried using it to advertise antique photography dealers. It didn't work. His site ended up being an internet block ad. He has another one that is dead in the water too. But I digress... Think of the look of the domain name as well. What looks better, LED-Digest or LEDDigest? Which would be easier to remember? Which contains an easy to spot word? In any case, I think that the fact that a hyphenated domain of actual words may be better than a domain that is a character string. I have no proof other than my own admittedly anecdotal situation, but doesn't it make sense? Everyone with a one word domain name seems to be happy. At least one person with a two word domain name is happy too. What about you, Adam? David Spahr * Stereoviews.com * Antique-Photography.com <Moderator Comment> David, I'm sorta happy. led-digest.com is fine, that's the name of the list, but it's a lousy URL (sorry, "URI" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier ). I also have ledlist.com, and have thought about using that instead (it points to led-digest.com). So it's okay, I guess. I still rank for random "led bulb" searches, and when Adsense was on the site more it was all led light bulb ads. Sigh.... I probably should have gotten discussion-list.com :) -Adam -------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Swiggum Subject: Testimonials I am fortunate in that I meet all my clients when I deliver their puppies to them. At that time I ask them to send pictures of their puppy growing up and tell them that if they do, I will post them on my owners pages. They have already seen my owners pages so they know how it works. Then I post the entire email with contact info and photos for the world to see. No complaints in 10 years. That speaks for itself. Actually, my problem is in keeping up with the submissions. Currently running 8-10 months behind. But that's a nice problem to have. David Swiggum Stargate Kennels Chocolate Labrador Retrievers http://www.stargatekennels.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Baruch Avraham Subject: Testimonials > The vocabulary they use and the ideas and emotions > they express are often quite different than anything I > write in the page content. [Testimonials] can in fact > be a good source of additional keyword content. - Derek Andrews, LED Digest 2343 That's right. One way I use these keywords, is to make a link to the product page order of the item that was ordered. Regards Baruch Avraham Aris Jewelry http://aris-titanium.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Shel Horowitz Subject: Testimonials > ... the following examples would have decreasing > weight when impacting a customer's decision... - Chuck Donner, LED Digest 2340 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1736/55/ Correct -- but the testimonial itself in your example is extremely weak. Testimonials should offer very specific, result-oriented endorsements that can't be duplicated by competitors. What helps to make your company unique and different. And they can go on for a while. I have some that are a sentence or two, and others that are several paragraphs long. I am a big believer in strong testimonials. I have pages of them all over my websites. Two examples: http://www.frugalmarketing.com/testimonials.shtml (58 testimonials about my copywriting and marketing consulting services) http://www.principledprofit.com/new-blurbs.html (78 testimonials about just one of my books) And I can tell you that I have gotten feedback form new customers that the testimonials were definitely a part of their choice to do business with me. They're easy, they don't cost anything, and they're extremely powerful. What's not to like? > ... how much information can we post > without contacting the customer? Zero, but the good news is it's easy to get permission if you do contact the customer. I simply jot a quick note, "May I quote you?" One or two say yes, but don't use my name. The others all say fine. And I keep their permissions on file. Of course, I'm in an industry where secrecy is a non-issue. Shel Horowitz Join the movement to reclaim the business world from the crooks http://www.business-ethics-pledge.org shel, frugalfun.com ==== BULLETIN BOARD =============================== From: Waitman Gobble Subject: Google Zeitgeist Daily Email Hi, I've setup a program to scrape the Google Zeitgeist page [ http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html ] and send me an email every day. I've been receiving these automatic emails for a year now, and it occurred to me that other people (and esp LED people) might like to receive these emails as well. It's nice to see what's on people's minds. The top ten search queries are a reflection of humanity. If you'd like to subscribe, just sign up at http://www.absoluteminds.com/zg.html Alternatively you may drop me a line. Take care, Waitman Gobble, Los Altos, California waitman, waitman.net ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains The Archives: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/126/120/ Subscribe: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/52/77/ Unsubscribe, Change Email, or Hold / Resume Delivery: http://www.led-digest.com/content/category/4/17/86/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us." - Francis Bacon |
