There is always lots of buzz around the blogs and forums when it comes to "geo domains" and most of the time the topics only go one way and deal with some of the more popular cities and towns, but what about US States, or just regions or even metro areas --- there is many of them too, and what about countries? There is plenty of opportunities in this space as well... Although limited! Well, in this write up I would like to just point out a few interesting findings in regards to the states of the US since there isn't really much info on them and here we are gonna dish out the inside scoop. First things first though, who owns them?
How?! Why?? Uhh... Well, of course, there is quiet a few domainers and domain companies that own them... Such as Kevin Ham/Reinvent, Scott Day/DigiMedia, Xedoc, WebMagic, Domain Capital, etc. One company owns the most states by far than anybody else though. Almost 20% of all states are owned by one individual who has been in the game for a long time, developing his internet properties, and creating lots of wealth along the way. Can you guess who it is?! Check out the list of domains below and you should be able to figure it out on your own ;)
alabama.com |
alaska.com |
arizona.com |
arkansas.com |
Telepathy |
The Anchorage Daily News |
Telepathy |
State of Arkansas |
california.com |
colorado.com |
connecticut.com |
delaware.com |
Xedoc |
State of Colorado |
Xedoc |
Delaware.com |
Some of the observations... Lets start with some of the screw ups, such as the domain michigan.com, that doesn't resolve without www and it is owned by the Gannett Company... You would think they know how to at least configure dns records and setup web hosting properly, eh? This is a billion dollar media company we are talking about... But I guess not. It's not as bad as newmexico.com though which doesn't resolve at all.
Another screw up is wyoming.com which by default loads up the "web mail center" and access to e-mail through the web when you type in that domain. This setup was common about 10 years ago across many websites. If you do manage to type in www.wyoming.com it does load up their website. Another funny case, montana.com which hasn't been updated in almost t 10 years. The owner/s must be real busy or lazy... Or just doesn't care for the domain too much? Maybe they forgot they even own it?? It happens... Go figure!
Also four of the states are parked, they are marked with an asterisk. Parked domains aren't really screw ups but they sure are a waste of a good domain in my opinion, although I can't blame the owners... Parking is their "main biz."
florida.com |
georgia.com |
hawaii.com |
idaho.com |
Florida.com |
George On Line |
Gannett Co. |
First Step Research |
illinois.com |
indiana.com |
iowa.com |
kansas.com |
Domain Capital |
The Agate Agency |
Gazette Communications |
The McClatchy Company |
Ok, so enough with the screw ups Is there anything good to report? Yea sure --- Some of the state/gov controlled/owned domains are utah.com, colorado.com and arkansas.com, which is a very small percentage. Many of the state domains are owned by domainers/internet investors. Some are owned by local newspaper/traditional media companies though. Good for them! Many of the states domains are owned by local internet based companies that operate actual web site portals and informational resources.
What I found most interesting though was that the two of the less likely states to be the most popular as far as reach and profits go are actually the highest trafficked and best websites put together overall. Both of them are owned by the same company as well. They are kansas.com and kentucky.com --- Owned by the McClatchy Company, the third-largest newspaper company in the United States, a leading newspaper and internet publisher dedicated to the values of quality journalism, free expression and community service. Building on a 151 year legacy of independence, the company's newspapers and websites are steadfast defenders of First Amendment values and advocates for the communities they serve.
They have been around for like forever now, so it is good to see these traditional media companies actually get it right on the internet and succeed, especially with right domains as well. Bravo! The McClatchy Company today owns 30 daily newspapers in 29 U.S. markets. These markets are growing 50 percent faster than the national average. In each of its daily newspaper markets, McClatchy operates the leading local website, offering readers information, comprehensive news, advertising, e-commerce and other services.
kentucky.com |
louisiana.com |
maine.com |
maryland.com |
The McClatchy Company |
Louisiana.com |
MaineStreet Communications |
Telepathy |
massachusetts.com * |
michigan.com |
minnesota.com |
mississippi.com |
Telepathy |
Gannett Co. |
Telepathy |
CCF Consulting |
A majority of all of the active states .com websites are powered by Local Matters technology, the company owns a few .com state domains not surprisingly as well --- Actually more than half of all states .com domains are directly setup with Local Matters services. The company has many solutions and provides a range of products/services to both publishers as well as advertisers. Local Matters maintains close working alliances with a set of world-class industry partners. Some of their technology partners include IBM and Omniture. Media partners include the Yellowpages.com, Apartments.com and Orbitz.com just to name a few.
Local Matters has clients in the Americas, Europe and even the Asia Pacific. Their clients include: AT&T, Verizon, British Telecom and Telstra. The company which is headquartered in Colorado, has three additional offices throughout the USA and one in London as well. Local Matters has a great team of people working there and some pretty cool technology, exclusive partnerships, plenty of experience in what they do, lots of money in private investments by vc, etc. Definitely one of the leaders when it comes to local search and content delivery/organization. The comany also owns myareaguide.com which has recently rebranded under areaguides.net and guidespot.com which you might of visited and/or heard of already. They are pretty popular sites.
missouri.com |
montana.com |
nebraska.com |
nevada.com |
Telepathy |
Blackfoot Telecommunications Group |
Internet Services Corp |
WebMagic Ventures |
newhampshire.com |
newjersey.com |
newmexico.com |
newyork.com |
Union Leader |
The Vault |
Cyber Mesa |
NewYork.com |
So, why hasn't there been much talk about Local Matters in the domain industry? I had a difficult time finding any mention of them on any of the domain forums or blogs. Anyways, this company is the real deal and they do provide a great service that can simplify things quiet a bit if you own many geo domains. It is a fully managed solution. One that can provide all of the content that you will need as well as help increase traffic and revenues long term. When "world class" domains, or in other words "premium domains" get matched up with "world class" services and companies... The end results can be pretty amazing.
2009 is the year where many partnerships should be inked, and will be, without a doubt. Domain parking is in it's final days and simply put, there is no future or any potential for things to get better with parking... It's only downhill from where we are today. People are eager to try out new stuff and get involved with their domains and businesses as well and take things to the next level. Domainers aren't developers by nature, and you can't learn development in one month or a year either even if you do manage to put together a team of seo experts, webmasters, developers, etc.
It takes years to develop quality websites... Companies such as Local Matters help automate everything and have created a custom solution to simplify things quiet a bit. I don't know whether they charge a licensing fee per domain, or a monthly service fee, or by volume of traffic or type of data served or whatever... But it is definitely worth looking into if you are serious about your business. Most of their content is scrapped from various other sources, it is not unique or exclusive by any means, but it is better than many of the other similar services.
They don't have too many pictures in their content feeds, which is a real shame --- because in order to be successful in the SEO game, you really need to have lots of pictures throughout your site to compliment the text. Just having text on a website isn't going to get you far this days. The type of website setup they deploy isn't the best for SEO, so be sure to get an expert SEO's advice if you do decide to use any of their services. For example, louisiana.com redirects to one of Local Matters hosted pages... I don't get it. Why didn't they have all of the content hosted directly on louisiana.com like they do with most of the sites?
This type of setup doesn't get any organic traffic growth from the search engines and definitely doesn't get so many bookmarks from it's visitors. It also confuses the visitors as to where they are and so on. The company gets it right most of the time... But I did spot a lot of little mistakes as well as ones that are pretty critical on their part as well, which I really don't want to get into. Maybe for another day and review when I'm really bored...
northcarolina.com |
northdakota.com |
ohio.com |
oklahoma.com * |
Telepathy |
Local Matters |
Akron Beacon Journal |
DigiMedia |
oregon.com |
pennsylvania.com |
rhodeisland.com |
southcarolina.com |
Oregon Interactive |
Telepathy |
A.H. Belo |
Intellistrand |
Local Matters was formed in early 2005 through the combination of three leading participants in the local search market: Aptas, Inc. ("Aptas"), Information Services Extended, Inc. ("ISx") and YP Web Partners, LLC ("YP Solutions"). This transaction combined two leading providers of Internet local search solutions with a leading provider of voice-based local search solutions. By blending internet, wireless and voice solutions into one company, Local Matters provides a comprehensive foundation for the increasingly demanding and diverse needs of new media publishing and search marketing.
The company is focused exclusively on local search.They provide services for publishers, and described in their own words "Building on the content and sales channel advantage of Yellow Pages and local information publishers, Local Matters delivers highly interactive shopping and search destination websites. These are designed to provide a highly differentiated consumer experience, and a high-value local advertising destination. " The companies goal is to goal is to be in the center of usable innovation for the local search challenges that matter the most. Our Media Publishing team focuses on innovation, development and execution of new and exciting web destinations, centered on social and vertical trends in local search."
southdakota.com |
tennessee.com |
texas.com |
utah.com |
ProName Media |
Local Matters |
Texas.com |
State of Utah |
vermont.com |
virginia.com |
washington.com * |
westvirginia.com |
WebMont |
Telepathy |
Reinvent |
Citynet |
wisconsin.com |
wyoming.com |
||
Wisconsin.com |
Wyoming.com |
Now, that was 50 states... I'd like to quickly profile a few more as well, puertorico.com, which is owned by NewMedia Holdings. A company with a well established network of developed country domains such as russia.com, ukraine.com, southafrica.com, scotland.com, ecuador.com and a few more great domains. They own and publish all of the content themselves through their media publishing company Paley Media. Their websites are actually standalone businesses and great examples of how a fully developed geo-focused website should be.
The districtofcolumbia.com domain and website is owned and powered by Cities Unlimited, who also get some of their content and data from Local Matters for many years now. Most of the Cities Unlimited content is pulled from various other custom feeds/partners and mixed resources though --- their website network consists of approximately 20,000 US cities and towns domains, which is one of the largest website networks in the world.
The washingtondc.com domain and website is owned by Boulevards New Media, also known as just Boulevards.com, a company with a focus on popular US city domains. They have been around forever now and own and operate other prime city .com properties such as losangeles.com, sanfrancisco.com, houston.com, philadelphia.com, seattle.com and many more. The geo space is one of the most exciting and hottest niches in the domain industry and it has really exploded this past few years... So many opportunities. Everybody is convinced that local search is the future.
Marchex is another company doing big things in local search, but that is for another day. I'll do another write up specifically focused on cities and towns domains, their development and biz model. Many successful companies out there in this niche and lots to write about. Should be a good one.
So... Did you figure out who owns the most .com states?! Nat Cohen of course, of Telepathy and StateVentures. Nat Cohen owns thousands of premium domain names and has one of the most impressive collections of domains when it comes to actual valuations and potential. It all started when Nat left the security of his position as a financial analyst at Fannie Mae for the life of a self-employed Internet entrepreneur in the 90's. Nat holds an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland College Park and a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College.
Nat is pretty active in the domain industry and still attends many of the organized conferences. Definitely one of the sharpest and nicest guys around... Another great success story of a visionary and entrepreneur that got on the fast track all thanks to the right keyword domain acquisitions and investments within very specific niches.
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 $$$$$$
