The Great Domain Name Boom Ahead

Email arrives:

""The Domain Distribution Network (DDN), managed by Fabulous.com, has been running aftermarket domains distribution via the registrar channel for a month now.  We are pleased to announce that there has been proof of concept for this new paradigm in domain sales.  The program has had strong sales and is showing promising results.  It is fully expected that aftermarket domain sales via registrars will become a major part of the market, with registrars becoming the natural home for the bulk of aftermarket sales.

Previously, the market was in need of resolving some glaring problems that traditional [sales] portals failed to remedy:

· Slow Transfers - Domains sales could take anywhere from weeks to months to settle and transfer to the new owner – as it primarily remained a manual process.

· Lost Clients - legacy domain sale portals required their clients to be passed away from the registrars to the portal to complete a sale.  This breaks the registrar’s relationship with their client in the process.

· No Prices – The vast majority of domains only had “make offer” pricing without any fixed price options.   Due to this registrars couldn’t process the sale.  They had to pass their relationship on to the portals.

· Poor Quality – Domains that are misspelled, have trademark or brand issues, or were poorly formed were all included for sale.  This left registrars at great risk of brand erosion.

· Unknown Ownership – Domain fraud commonly occurred, and if caught usually only is found at the end of the sales process.

· No Authority – Even if a registrar sold a domain that was listed for sale, the domain owner could always cancel the sale or block transfer.

In comparison the Domain Distribution Network enables:

· Instant Settlement – Once a sale is made the transaction settlement happens in seconds.

· Registrars Maintain Relationships – the registrar maintains the relationship with their clients during the entire sales process, and then have the opportunity to offer additional services like web hosting and privacy protection.  These additional services are the core of every retail registrars business – not the registration.

· Committed Pricing – through fixed and/or negotiable pricing registrars can negotiate and complete the deal without owner contact.  Domain owners set their own pricing, commissions and guidelines, for each domain before the domain is listed.  This allows the registrar to close the transaction in real time – followed by instant transfer. 

· High Quality Control – every domain is subjected to qualitative tests to ensure correct spelling and vetting of brand and trademark issues.

· Validated Ownership – registrars are a natural home for aftermarket domain sales as they are the only entity that can guarantee that the person selling the domain actually owns it.  They are the only entity that can take a binding agreement from the registrant to sell and transfer the domain.

· Pre-authorized Transactions - Registrars that are certified for the Domain Distribution Network effectively guarantees that each domain in the network is owned by the person trying to sell it, that it can be instantly transferred, and the terms by which the owner is selling the domains are valid (owner offer).

Domain Distribution Network Registrar Certification

The Domain Distribution Network enables: offer, acceptance, consideration, and delivery in one instant package.  In order for the market to reach this level of efficiency it requires that only domains from registrars with DDN Certification are distributed.""

_______________________________________________________

Okay,  I do not work for Fabulous.. and could care less who the winner of the "War for control of the sales platform" turns out to be.. but I have privately heard some astounding numbers from these guys down-under, so my bet is on them. There is going to be a huge explosion of domain sales via the Fabulous.com global distribution model with ICANN accredited registrars ("not" traditional sales portals) carrying the lead and controlling the sales process in the future... Power is about to dramatically and irrevocably shift to "registrars" and "name holders". Third party loose-inventory brokers are going to be hearing a huge sucking sound. It turns out the best people to sell premium names are not seperate marketplaces, but the registrar "Brands" themselves.

The registrars control the inventory and they control the shoppers. Registrars are the first and last spot people go to look up who owns a domain name (honorable mention to popular third-party WHOIS providers who are in a similar position and can 'build' retail rars).

What makes this Fabulous.com system so interesting is the speed with which you can close a sale transaction and the amount of sales traffic it can drive by daisy-chaining all the registrars together..  A registrar who has "priced" names, plugged into the Fab system can enable a secure, rate-limited protocol to allow for names to pass instantly to a gaining (purchasing) registrar..  Payment gets cleared automatically behind the curtain, electronically like a NASDAQ market. Name sales are done without people, at pre-set prices. The deals flow as surely as the sun rises. We are talking about selling names which get whois lookups but which draw no traffic and no clicks from a PPC perspective..  Yes, there is a difference and many of those types of names are still "out there" because traditional "domain tasting", which is based on traffic, has not yet revealed them.

Some big sales/brokerage houses such as Fabulous have presumably done whois tasting where they troll the whois lookups checking for repeats or patterns and then registered the stand-out names. Many undiscovered, longer tail versions must surely lie fallow and there-in lies opportunity for you and I.

As of today the majority of all registrars are plugged in to this new Fabulous.com system.. Registrars are the only ones who can authoritatively say if somebody controls a domain because they have the registrant account and credit card information which matches each name. They can act as a title office permitting sales to pass, confirming good-title and facilitating transfer through Fab's instant protocol. The Fabulous system allows the registrar conduit that procured the buyer to retain that sales lead and upsell ancilliary services.. and because all registrar's whois boxes are effectively polling the system, it breathes life into longtail portfolios of traditionally "impaired names" (without traffic) and creates value, shining light where there was dark.

Now you can take 50,000 names which make less than $6.00 a year on PPC, plug them into this system and generate more than $15,000 a day in domain name sales, based purely on whois look-ups ..  This is on names which make no money via traffic!! The registrar who brought the lead continues to control the client for product upsells and there is no freerider bleed-off where potential buyers type the name into the address bar to find the registrant's parked "for sale" page, offering the name for less money. Fabulous's system is designed to protect the Registrar who brought the lead.

Folks, this is a game-changer. Ask your registrar, if they are opted into this system..  Or better yet,  get your own registrar..  Because based on what I'm seeing here, nothing is going to expire anymore in future and your names are going to become much more valuable  -- Heck .. many of your best names are probably still sitting in the available pool right now, unregistered!! Go!

What sells?

Screen names:  ie. matt85.com <<-- how many guys named Matt were born in 1985? What are the most popular facebook/myspace style screennames? Do this with every name/year.. but do this smartly.

.Net and Org, .us , info versions:  of strong .coms do better than 'web', 'net', 'shop'  add-ons  Go up to 2/3 word phrases with high OV (over 2k)

Two and three word phrases:  hotsaleslead.com, eshoppingguide.com, shoppingbutler.com

Any product or service with cityname: Delawarehomedecoration.com, toledoplasticsurgery.com, fargoplumbers.com, losangelestrashremoval.com (this style of regional name is the hottest seller)

Back up the truck folks ..  this is a moment in time to secure the best of the most obvious long-tails..  In the past the renewals would have crushed you,  but if you do it smartly and scale it briskly, you can create opportunity for yourself. Smart people should be able to comb Google for a list of the 100 biggest US cities and add the most popular yellow-page listings..  get to work and your heirs will thank you. Be cerebral..  think about what 'you' would want to run there..  put yourself in the business shoes..  It's counterintuitive to buying names for media/PPC.  I figure there is about a one year window till the best of the remaining long-tail is mined..  if that. 

If the readers of my blog are as smart as I think they are, this should be my worst 'pageview' day ever, because if I was you, I would read this post and leave for a week..  It's time to work.

Go!

Comments

[Bill Henson]

This is a huge step towards defining legitimacy and building integrity in the Domain industry. In time it will establish realistic pricing models that end users can place confidence in.

[Adam]

"Now you could take 50,000 names which make less than $6.00 a year on PPC, plug them into this system and generate $15,000 a day in domain name sales, based purely on whois look-ups"

You making up #s ? or you have an idea of conversions and avg prices ? just curious

***FS*** If I were a seller.. thats what I 'could' make on my crap (which apparently is now 'gold' because the crap was bought with the same instincts as the 'real gold'.. I'm not a onesey twosey seller at the moment though.

[Adam]

great post btw . . . and nice tips to help people out

[Jamie]

thanks for the info, but damn. How am I supposed to get any sleep now?

[Edwin Sherman]

Out of curiosity I took the top 300 US cities and tagged the word "Plumbers" to the end of each. It was very interesting to see 163 out of 300 were registered by Fabulous on September 2, 2004

***FS*** Try plumbing.. and dashes .. again.. it's counterintuitve.. to type in but be careful because you could load with a bunch of crap if you're not.

[Edwin Sherman]

Interesting Fact #2:

I took one of the names Fabulous registered on September 2, 2004 (NewOrleansPlumbers.com), typed it into GoDaddy, and received the following message: "NewOrleansPlumbers.com is available as a Premium Domain Name! This Premium Domain Name can be purchased for $1,200.00."

It looks like Fabulous is testing DDN at GoDaddy :)

***FS*** Oh yes..

[Bob]

Nice post, I can see you are very passionate about this, keep up the good work.

[Patrick Kerr]

WOW! that's the best news i've heard in a long time! so names of Florida City Hotels might be good like stpetersburgflhotel.com or kissimmeeflhotel.com or things like skivacationstowevermont.com or mp3lilwayne.com, mp3lilscrappy.com or pokemonthemesong.com or generic financial names like tradingonlinefree.com jeez i have a ton of these types of names (5,000 plus) hope i'm on the right track!!??

***FS*** Be cerebral.. think about what 'you' would want to run there.. put yourself in the business shoes.. don't buy names people can use as directories.. buy names people can use for their biz.

[Dave Wrixon]

This could work one of two ways.

It could provide a means of educating small and medium sized business on the importance of having their own unique web address, and above all investing in something that is going to give them meaningful market penetration. If this is the case, then this could take domaining to a whole new level, and everyone will benefit.

Alternative, it could take the thinking out of domain investing, and suck in a whole new wave of no-hope speculators, leading to an even greater glut of meaningless and pointless names, that have little or no intrinsic value. This in turn would make it harder to sell second and third tier names because of the extra dross distracting potential buyers.

As ever, time will tell.

[Robert]

I read the same paragraph three times and I still don't understand. How did you arrive at the $15,000 a day figure? This amount is from selling long tail domain names through the registrar's whois lookup page? Are you estimating a certain figure amount per domain? If so, what amount? Are you estimating a certain number of domain sales per day? If so, how many?

Thank you for this blog...

***FS*** Selling through "all" registrar's whois lookups, which get chained together via the fab system. I took a bucket of my names that make little or no money and asked Fabulous "how many leads can I get" then extrapolated the math and sales close ratios from their average. That's the workback number. I'm estimating a conservative $1000 per sale. Which is realistic based on what others are doing on that system.. I could probably double the price but saying I could make 30k a day sounded so 'grandstandy' .. so wanted to be conservative. This is really about the power of media, foot-traffic, people, business and cashflow.

[Edwin Hayward]

Thanks, Frank! While the OVT number is very low, I'm quite happy to have dug up coloradospringslawfirm.com based on your 4th suggestion...

***FS*** That is a terrific name! Singular.. like a law "firm" .. that's the way to do it.. repeat.

[Harvey]

It's probably been asked of you many times Franky but I can't see why you have not decided to be your own registrar?

Having more control over the domains
you own would be worth the effort IMHO.

[owen frager]

Great post!

[Rob Sequin]

Just went through my phone book. Insert your local city or town before the keywords you like and run through domaintools bulk search and see what's available. (long post but should be helpful)

accounting
airconditioning
alarm
alarms
apartments
appliance
appraisal
appraisals
appraiser
appraisers
arbitration
artist
artists
attorney
attorneys
autosales
bakery
bands
bath
bathrooms
baths
beautysalon
bikerentals
bikes
boatdealers
bride
brides
buildingsupply
cabinet
carpenters
carpet
carpetcleaning
carwash
caterers
catering
childcare
chiro
chiropractic
chiropractor
chiropractors
clothing
computers
concrete
contractor
contractors
dayspa
deck
decking
decks
dental
dentist
dentistry
dentists
design
disposal
door
doors
electric
electrician
electricians
employment
engineer
engineering
engineers
entertainment
equipment
excavating
excavation
fence
financial
financialservices
flooring
floors
florist
florists
fuel
funeralhome
funeralhomes
furniture
gifts
glass
golf
graphicdesign
hairsalon
hardware
heating
homeimprovement
homeimprovements
homes
hometheater
hometheaters
hotel
hotels
hottub
hottubs
hvac
hypnosis
inn
inns
inspections
inspector
inspectors
installer
installers
insurance
interiordesign
internet
investigations
jewelry
jobs
kitchen
kitchens
landscape
landscaper
landscapers
landscaping
law
lawn
lawns
lawyer
lawyers
locksmith
locksmiths
masonry
massage
medicalcenter
motel
motels
movers
moving
nurseries
nursery
oil
optician
opticians
painter
painters
painting
personalinjurylaw
pestcontrol
pet
petsitter
photographer
photographers
photography
physicaltherapy
physician
physicians
pizza
plasticsurgery
plumber
plumbers
plumbing
pool
pools
printer
printers
printing
propane
psychotheraphy
re
realestate
realty
remodeling
rental
rentals
repair
restaurant
restaurants
restoration
roofer
roofers
roofing
salon
security
septic
shed
sheds
siding
sign
signs
spa
storage
supply
taxi
tent
tents
tile
treeservice
vet
video
weddings
wellness
window
windows

***FS*** And they say there's no good free info out there ;) Thanks Rob!~

[Robert]

Taking the coloradospringslawfirm.com example.

After he registers the domain, how does it show up on the whois page as being for sale? Is this available to everyone yet OR is it only for beta testers? Does it depend on the registrar you use?

Thanks!

[DP]

This will be awesome once it is fully rolled out. Last update I had from Fabulous is that you can only currently list names at Fab on the DDN.

[Edwin Hayward]

And here's the other half of the puzzle - the 50 largest cities in the US...

NewYork
LosAngeles
Chicago
Houston
Philadelphia
Phoenix
SanDiego
Dallas
SanAntonio
Detroit
SanJose
Indianapolis
SanFrancisco
Columbus
Austin
Baltimore
Milwaukee
Boston
Washington
ElPaso
Seattle
Denver
Charlotte
FortWorth
Portland
OklahomaCity
Tucson
NewOrleans
LasVegas
Cleveland
LongBeach
Albuquerque
KansasCity
Fresno
VirginiaBeach
Atlanta
Sacramento
Oakland
Mesa
Tulsa
Omaha
Minneapolis
Honolulu
ColoradoSprings
StLouis
Wichita
SantaAna
Pittsburgh
Arlington
Cincinnati

***FS**** Thank-you too Edwin!~

[Dave Wrixon]

Did a similar exercise on IDN last year.

You can soon end up with massive matrices of potential registrations.

What did we learn?

Focus on services whose delivery is inherently local or associated with a specific location.

The location bit should be the obvious next question. You don't look at Hotels or Holidays or even Restaurants without the locations being implicitly or even explicitly asked. Music downloads by contrast can go from anywhere to anywhere!

[Bear]

Thanks for the information regarding Fabulous's DDN.

Which registrars have they partnered with? This doesn't seem obvious from their homepage.

It's not apparent that my primary registrars have opted-in to their network.

[Jack]

Frank,

I would submit the plural, miamigolfcourses.com or atlantalawfirms.com, is more intuitive and much more valuable from a PPC and directory model than the singular. Our research from our 10,000 plus name portfolio strongly validates this. Fact is, the general populus will type in the plural looking for variety and selection rather than the singular which is not necessarily a commonly used generic term - dallascardealer.com for example. Give me the plural all day and every day.....

[Jason]

[newbie!] So, registrars will never let domains drop and they'll have better searches against their whois records? Are you saying that registrars will earn money from parking these domains and putting up ads on whois search result pages? I don't get it: are we saying they'll be stronger sales (price & quantity) of after-market domain names in the future -or- that more Ad revenue will be earned from registrar keeping and parking their domains, or both?

There's still the aesthetic of the name to consider, no? "real-estate-investments-austin.com" drops soon, but yuck!, what a name!

[AhmedF]

Well - the advantage of having data :)

We operate iBegin Source - http://source.ibegin.com/ - an open YP listings.

So - I did one, and got the top 150 categories (by # of businesses) and top 150 cities (by # of businesses):
Top 150 Categories: http://www.ibegin.com/sevenmile1.html
Top 150 Cities: http://www.ibegin.com/sevenmile2.html

Feel free to spread it - if you want to :)

[Jason]

Here's the list for tomorrow's drop combining the first two lists of yellow page listings and top 50 cities: http://zwah.com/2007/06/01/let-your-domain-names-do-the-walking/

[Michael]

Frank,

I just grabbed the following list. Please tell me, are they any good under the scenario described in your post?

albuquerqueasphalt.com
arlingtonasphalt.com
baltimoreasphalt.com
birminghamasphalt.com
charlotteasphalt.com
chesapeakeconcrete.com
elpasoasphalt.com
fortworthasphalt.com
indianapolisasphalt.com
jacksonvilleasphalt.com
kansascityasphalt.com
louisvilleasphalt.com
louisvilleconcrete.com
mesaasphalt.com
miamiasphalt.com
milwaukeeasphalt.com
nashvilleasphalt.com
neworleansasphalt.com
oaklandasphalt.com
omahaasphalt.com
portlandasphalt.com
sanjoseasphalt.com
scottsdaleconcrete.com
tampaasphalt.com
tulsaasphalt.com
washingtonasphalt.com

***FS*** I think those are fine names.. but you should think about each one .. some towns hae less driveways.. be cerebral. Good job though. Also some parts of the country they call it paving, others it's asphalt.. love the concrete ones tho.

[Ryan]

It's no secret that geo is the next big thing. I'm somewhat new to the game but I've been working on that part almost since I started. Especially with the rise of google and yahoo maps and similar sites.

As far of .net's and .org's of strong .com's, how do you value the .net counterpart? Do you usually give it a percent of the .com version's worth? For example, if a .com is worth 10k, then the .net counterpart might be worth 1k.