There are many successful companies and independent developers as well who have portfolios that consist of 100's, 1,000's and even 10,000+ of on-topic keyword domain names that compliment their online businesses. Without them they wouldn't be what they are today. Those domains help drive targeted traffic and generate business directly without having to rely on third parties 24/7/365. Domains are considered as branches of ones business. So I would like to quickly profile two companies that have been staying on top of things when it comes to this concept that I mention above. It includes strategic acquisitions of on-topic keyword domain names, targeted traffic and business development that is focused on long term growth.
First up is "eCorp" --- an Indiana based company, officially known as eCorp.com Inc., which was founded in 1996. "eCorp is a global venture development platform. The focus is placed on the development, operation, and leverage of Internet based technology, services and products. With a platform of over 13,000 domain names." So they basically own a whole lot of domains. They have been around for more than a decade and have quiet a nice collection of generic keyword domains and active websites. Some of their best ones are dsl.com satellitetv.com handyman.com smallbusiness.com etc. The rest of their domain names are parked... But not with your traditional parking setup. Their setup is unique and with a nice twist.
They advertise their own active websites / businesses on each and every parked page. They also provide a forum on every parked page. Why not? There is also an advertising form at the top of the page, available for potential advertisers. It is anything but your typical boring parking page that is provided by most domain parking companies today. It has a lot going on, sure... But it is still a parking page at the end of the day. They use Yahoo's sponsored results search feed. They have both one click and two click landers deployed across their domains. The designs are pretty old and have been up since 2005 without any major changes. In the earlier years of 2000, they simply redirected all of the domains to their main "search engine" website called SearchNet.
I really have no idea why most domain parking companies don't offer an "advertise here" link or something...or other interactive features such as a forums, newsletters, etc. Well, probably because Google for instance won't allow this for obvious reasons. Sure, last few years more and more domain parking companies powered by Yahoo are offering customization to their parking landers but it really has to be done on a bigger scale. Doing one by one is too much work and kinda pointless. Anyways, as you can see.. eCorp has over 10,000 domain names and they were able to get this type of setup approved and rolled out across all of their domain names. This stuff can be done, easily.. Most domainers though are just too lazy and don't understand or want to persuade this accordingly. Who needs to grow their revenues easily overnight by 200% or 1000%+ right?! Not domainers.... heheheh. Oh well!
Domain developers at core on the other hand, understand everything very well when it comes to building websites / internet businesses and cross linking to their own sites each and every time and want as much control as possible over their e-businesses on all fronts. Domainers just want to park and forget, without lifting a finger, which is fine. To each his own. But just parking domains, you are missing out on so many opportunities obviously. Domain parking companies provide a "for sale" inquiry page which is pretty standard as an "extra" feature.. That is about it. Overall, such a weak setup... Sure it makes you money in the present, but are you thinking about the future? Domainers surely aren't. Developers always are. That is the biggest difference.
eCorp has focused on about a dozen categories and has acquired many good domains within those to control the market as tightly as possible. They include: Business and Finance, Education, Energy, Entertainment, Government, Health Care, Legal, Media, Real Estate, Services, Telecommunications and Employment. I personally am heavily focused and involved in about half a dozen different industries that I am familiar with and specialize in. Developers understand that it is important to be the best at what you do while most domainers are simply all over the place and lack the drive and focus. Most domainers never had an original business plan for any of their domains... They just followed what everybody else was doing, which is registering all the keyword domain names they could for various reasons at that point in time. Developers don't just register domain names --- there is always a good reason behind such an action as well as a vision down the road accompanied by a business plan.
Another domain development company who I'd like to point out is Florida based NetTuner Corp (best known as operating the domain web hosting company and registrar webmasters.com) but you probably never heard of them either upto now... They have one of the best domain portfolios in the world. They have some amazing generic keyword domains in the adult niche. Also many mainstream / e-commerce. "Founded in 1994, NetTuner Corp. is a diversified web development company. We are one of the early adapters of the direct navigation traffic model which uses generic domain names to generate targeted web traffic through browser type-ins. Owning perpetual traffic instead of relying on third party links reduces customer acquisition costs, and enables us to be more competitive in the markets we serve."
Some of NetTuner's best adult domains are: videos.com cuties.com sexyamateurs.com gayporn.com sexypictures.com groupsex.com tease.com nakedwomen.com dykes.com pornmovies.com nudewomen.com nakedgirls.com sexycouples.com and so on... Not a bad collection right? The mainstream domain portfolio includes: torrentsearch.com blood.com jewishpersonals.com explorer.com universe.com webspace.com white.com webrings.com webservers.com and so on and so on. They are all great names.
Now for example if you visit NetTuner's domain name sexycouples.com --- you are immediately presented with an age confirmation page which is standard for most adult sites. Once you click on "enter" a new window opens up for you and leads to their adult search website nudity.com which is setup directory style, filled with sponsored pay per click ads. If you were to click "exit" you would be taken to their mainstream ppc search site index.com. They also cross promote their own sites with large banners at the top and bottom with animated eye catching banners... Even SMS sex chat as #s well as phone sex 1-800 ads on the right! How clever is that huh? It's really great thinking outside the box..
I am sure they do really well with this setup. They have really great optimization in place. You should browse around a couple of their domains and you will be sure to learn a thing or two. It's how you make the most of your traffic by kind of manipulating them without really doing anything wrong. While developers understand this type of stuff, domainers have chosen to simply ignore all of the basics and stick to straight up parking which totally sucks and in 2009 is old news. There are bigger and better opportunities out there... PPC still has it's place of course, and you can have the best of both worlds as I demonstrated in the two examples with eCorp and NetTuner. It's nothing new, really... Was always an option but it is not taken seriously by anybody in the domain industry. Simply ignored... Who cares right?!
Domainers were innovators at one point with PPC parking companies and everything, in the early days right around 2002 and on but from there on... It is all old news and the setups deployed with the parking pages are boring and sooner than later they will be retired. Something happened where everybody just went into being so passive and not caring anymore. They got a little money and decided that it is ok to not care anymore. Sometimes people ask me why I never setup a PPC parking company or had a direct feed with Google or Yahoo for the monetization of my own names...
Well, because the way they structure it is in their favor big time. They don't think of you as 50/50 equal partner... They are greedy and structure it in a very strict and favorable way towards themselves. They really don't care about you at the end of the day... Plus the only flexibility I was offered which I could of worked with which was acceptable to a certain degree was with Yahoo which sucks because Google is where the real money is.
It's time to take control. Stop letting others handle everything for you... Stop neglecting your clients (visitors) because domain names should be developed and not parked. If you have 1000s of them or whatever that are all on-topic then you should simply setup one relevant site and redirect the of the traffic to it. NetTuner does this as does eCorp. It is really a no brainer. PPC payouts are only a fraction of what the traffic may be worth. Don't you know this?
If you don't at least experiment with development at one point in time then you will never know exactly how much it is worth and the powers you have... All you will know is that you had made this much and that much by being able to generate clicks for other businesses... To me personally, that is really boring. I want more than that. While domainers are still trying to figure all this stuff out and catch up, professional developers have been going at it for years. Way ahead of everybody... Way ahead of the curve... Way to go!
The lack of innovation in the domain industry this past few years is really depressing. Oh well. I am glad parking doesn't even account for 1% of my revenues today. The good thing about domains is that it is never too late to make them really work for you. You can experiment as little or as much as you want... Whenever, with withatever. If you want to make the most of what you got with domains and traffic, you should experiment each and every chance you get! The more you try.. The more odds are in your favor. Only a matter of time before you get it right. If you keep trying... You will. Guaranteed!
Observations at WannaDevelop.com
02/23/2010: Dozens of Amazon affiliate stores for sale.. Developed by DomainMassDevelopment.com 01/11/2010: Wanna be part-owner of DomainState.com with myself and a few others? Ok, read this now... 11/02/2009: FS gets it on with WP... It's about time, no??!?! 08/24/2009: If all else fails... Who is gonna pay the bills?!! 08/22/2009: Frank Schilling has the winning formula $$$$$$
