"Mr. Googlechev, tear down this wall!" - The Cold War Against Direct Navigation

I like this post on Frank Michlick's blog..  It speaks to valid points that all "direct navigation" operators have known for a while... and it's a very catchy title Frank  :)  The spark came from this post over at Richard Ball's blog..  Richard..  you're a clever guy (even if you misunderstand the nature of my webhealth.com experiment ;)

The dominant search engines are not acting like the domain owner's friend. Domain owners get our traffic "around" the search engine, through the browser's address bar.  That seems to be somewhat unsettling to search engines, because they can not control that traffic.  It's a wild-card that can be leveraged by the domain owner to do unpredictable things. So imagine going to Google, searching "Myspace.com", then getting a page which isn't Myspace but which has a Myspace.com label.  The real Myspace.com may have grounds for a lawsuit and the users clicking may be unhappy.  Why are generic domain names any different?  If you get as much traffic as Myspace from a basket of generic names and somebody else advertises your generic names in an effort to trick people into clicking (and Google supports that), are they not stealing from you? How about Microsoft and Firefox? When you type domainnames.xom in the address bar, is the surfer not intending to get to the .com? This stuff will bring itself to a head at some point... There's too much at stake IMO.  Too many website owners being stolen from. I estimate 8% of global direct navigation traffic is being stolen to the right of 'the dot' alone.

So let's think about the money.  Last week I heard a colleague (on the banking side) estimate that 1/3 of Yahoo's revenues now come from the domain channel  (Arbitrageurs included in that channel BTW). Over at Google, 'direct navigation' is very big.  Sedo, Oversee and all the little domain operators plugging into Google -- how much money does GOOG make from that channel?  The public figure for all Google "syndication" is 37% ..  I think a great deal more of Google's "Convertible" (sell-able) traffic comes from their syndication channel. Why do I think that?

Domain syndication partners have precision control over their inventory. Type joystick.com and there is little ambiguity about your intent. I have run a small search engine for years..  Do you know what people type into the search box?  PORN.. SEX ..  Misspellings  ... terrible un-repeatable things..  science equations,  questions..  curse words..  The search-box brings a lot more bad stuff than good.  Google is exactly the same as any other search engine, only bigger. How many of Google's searches can they monetize? Do you honestly think that everybody goes to Google to buy cars, homes and toaster-ovens? Based on my experience, that is not the case.

Additionally, Google gets traffic from Firefox via the domainnames.xom browser stealing I illustrated earlier.  If they call that THEIR traffic on the quarterlies, then expect "their" traffic to go down in future. There are forces working to return that traffic to its rightful owner.

So there's the cold-war...  The browsers and engines try to game, cajole and push the envelope just enough not to antagonize users.  Domainers buy more names and arbitrage visits back from the engines. As web development starts to turn inactive domains into useful sites, a great sea-change is going to occur. The engines have no choice but to serve the relevant domain users call for, or destroy themselves.. Okay that's way too dramatic..  but it is the Cliff's Notes. Give the people what they want or the people will go elsewhere.  The domain owner is on the Western side of this iron curtain IMO.

Comments

[Frank Michlick]

Thanks for the link Frank. I was also going to include the piece on the default search for failed domain lookups as well, but the article was already long enough, so I deleted it for now and was saving it for another post.

/Frank

[rhart]

Enjoyed the blogs and your analysis. The Domainer has oftentimes been an "Invisible Man". The sentence that stood out most with me is "As web development starts to turn inactive domains into useful sites, a great sea-change is going to occur." I am and have developed my many of my domain names to provide useful information and I try to make it better than what is out there. I have said that if I am ignored by the search engines, then the search engines are not that good (and I am applying basic Google SEO recommendations for the most part). I am not ignored, but my ccTLD's (.us) seem to be ignored by Mr. Googlechev.

As was said 20 years ago:

"Mr. Googlechev, tear down this wall!" - June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan

http://files.blog-city.com/files/O05/150158/p/f/reagan_4

***FS*** That is honestly one of the best comments I have ever had (if not the best).. it so perfectly speaks to the injustice. I am going to rename this post.

[Richard Ball]

Frank, Have a Happy Easter! I'll have some interesting PPC data for you in a few days regarding your webhealth.com experiment. I'm aware that I don't understand it. That's why I ask questions. ;-)

***FS*** Thanks Richard :)) I think SEO guys ultimately want the exact same thing as domain guys... relevant content for users (a great end-user experience) and the opportunity to make a living serving that visitor the content they desire. In the final analysis its the same thing the engines want. The best domainers are not 'gamers' they are highbrow operators with altruistic motives who have invested hundreds of thousand or tens of millions developing their enterprise. The difference betw. SEO folks and domainers is: SEO folks view things through the "how can i get traffic from the search engine" optic. Domainers say.. How can I get the visitors directly to "my site" irrespective of the engine. We don't want the engine to deliberately block us... we don't necessarily want extra traffic either.. nice to have.. but not necessary. This post was more to rail against the deliberate blocking. I'll explain more on the webhealth thing later. Thanks again.