Has your domaining been uninspired lately? Have you been groping in the dark, trying to come up with a good domain name for your next web project? Have you failed to even impress yourself with your recent registrations?
Well, it's time to get inspired and get your domain game on!
Announcing the first Domain Forum Domaining Challenge:
The Domaining Challenge is a test of your creative domain mining skills, or a test of your ability to get lucky, or at least an opportunity to demonstrate your sense of humor or other important domaining skills and methods. :)
The challenge is to see who, by force of insight, creativity, skill, or unbelievable good luck can register the best domain in the next ~ 10 days.
"Best" means something akin to a domain that a) is likely to draw type-in traffic on its own; b) holds the likelihood of attracting higher PPC traffic; c) is likely to have a long life (not just a passing fad, but a huge fad might work); d) works really well under the given TLD, e.g., a great ".Info-rmation website". Ultimately, participants will get to say what makes the best the best - assuming y'all can agree.
Terms and conditions of participation in the Domaining Challenge:
Newbies, if you haven't done so yet please read the Domain Forum Charter. [webmasterworld.com]
Are you up to meeting the Domain Challenge? Then get your domain picking game on.
Post up "I'm in" to play.
[edited by: Webwork at 5:38 pm (utc) on June 19, 2006]
Im in
Now for the rest of you . . . you know who you are . . . this one's for fun and possibly your profit . . so don't be shy and don't be absent. Who knows, maybe just by agreeing to play this week might become the week when the domaining gods smile on you. ;0)
Besides, chances are you are going to register another domain in the next 10 days if you are a reader of this forum . . so throw your hat in the ring. Maybe by agreeing to play you'll feel compelled to be more discerning in your efforts, possibly even saving yourself a dubious reg fee. Ya never know . . .
Join in today.
Hi POR how you doin'?
I'm in.
Hi POR how you doin'?
Doin' better now knowing that I've got this one in the bag. ;)
Just kidding of course. I will hint that my domain came right from the original post made by Webwork. ;)
Davezan - You got game?
gpmgroup - You got game?
jtara - You play games? :)
John_King - Get your game on!
AhmedF - No laying back!
Lobo - You a domain predator?
Don't make me name names! :-P I know you're out there.
Is "DON'T MAKE ME WORK!" on anyone's mind?
Lemme tell ya: I got the old thinking cap on last night, fired up my domain mojo, and after a few hours of brain relaxing work I picked up a few gems that very likely a) will find an enduser market; and, b) will go for low $$$$ - no kidding.
Sign up today and give that old brain muscle a work-out. ;)
But while I'm deciding (or sleeping): Webwork - do you want us to just post the domain names here? (do we have a waiver from the TOS?) Or do you want stickys?
Also, I propose that we reveal our domain names with either 1) a simple post consisting solely of the the domain name, or 2) a simple post with the domain name and a very brief description of useage.
We should applaud/critique/shred other domain names in separate posts.
Anyway, that's my 2 pennies.
Also, are we allowed to reveal any other domain names that we considered and/or also grabbed?
Good night.
(and good luck!)
I don’t think stickys are appropriate; it takes the learning aspect out of the contest for the domain name newbie’s.
I wish I had seen this contest earlier. I think it will not only be fun but also informative.
I think it should be done more than just once a year.
- Everyone sends their domain to Webwork today via sticky.
- Tomorrow, or on Monday, Webwork posts a list of domains in alphabetical order.
- Then follows a period of voting and critiquing the domain names (without knowledge of who owns which domain)
- After the winner is selected, people can post info on their methods (or lack there of).
Of course, this all hinges greatly on the premise that everyone has anonymous registrations. I am hoping that everyone thought to do that (so as to prevent people from linking other WebmasterWorld posts to your true identity)
btw - I was going to send this via sticky to all of the "I'm Ins", but we can only send stickys to 6 people at one time.
btw2 - I will probably be gone for most of the daylight hours for the rest of today, so don't wait on me for feedback.
Post your domain entry, here, in this thread. Don't sticky me. Remember: ONLY 1 DOMAIN. (I don't want to see lists, thank you.)
Don't hotlink 'em. Just put in your best entry.
Must have been registered anew (not a drop catch) during the period June 19-29.
Any doubts about the proper protocol read the 1st message up top, explaining the procedure.
Since this is the first time we're playing this game I propose to be a little flexible.
And yes, by golly, I am saying it's okay to post a domain registered anew during the above period. IT'S OKAY TO POST THEM IN THIS THREAD ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE DOMAIN CHALLENGE. Just remember: You only get to post them IF you explain the processes that you employed to come up with a decent domain grab. The point here is to educate others, not promote a domain name. Thank you.
(just remember I am a css'er not a domainer ;) )
lighthousesusa.org
The ocean and lightouses have always been a love of mine, as is the history of things. It was a tossup, and lightousesusa won.
I was more interested in the historical beginings, along with the future and preservation of lighthouses in the US.
I searched the history of lighthouses back to Egypt in 283, where bonfires were used to guide ships. They used the smoke from the fires during the day and the flames from them at night to gude the ships into port.
When I realized how far back the history went in regards to lighthouses and how they started, I knew that it had to be lightousesusa.org.
There is a lot I could do with this name, add things regarding the ocean areas of the lighthouses along with tourist information of surrounding areas.
I think 4css has, in the very first entry posted, proven what I think webwork was getting at with this contest!
Here's one for money. :)
FullServiceMovingCompany.com Creation Date: 28-jun-2006
Ya, it's a long URL. Long URLs sometimes work. I have some experience and I'm prepared to place a <$10 bet on a commercial grade industry phrase that is associated with advertisers that pay.
1. It's an industry keywork phrase. Google "full service moving company" = 363,000. I like hits for phrases in the 100K+ range. In the old days I would target 1 million+ hits for exact generic phrase.
Full Service Moving Company [google.com]
So, lesson 1: I like to target generic phrases that are industry grade.
2. Since it's an "industry grade generic phrase" there's a chance an industry grade player may some day express an interest in making an acquisition.
3. [USPTO.gov...] - Zero hits for phrase. I never tread on trademark space by design. I also carry a big stick, so BS claims get swatted - hard.
4. Overture for phrase in May 782 hits. Whatever Overture says multiple that - easily in many cases - x10 for Google. I like to see some search volume.
5. Are there advertisers for the phrase? Yes. Overture: 8 bids > $1.00. What is the value of a targeted sales lead in the moving and storage marketplace? I'm guessing >$10 per qualified lead.
6. Do I plan to sell moving and storage leads? Add it to the list of 10,000 possibilities sitting on my desk.
7. In an earlier post I mentioned that I was taking a geo-targeting approach to my entries in the Domain Challenge. That was true. Pennsylvania Moving Company dot com? Indiana Moving Company dot com? Uh-huh. However, whilst taking the geo approach I had a happy accident when I stumbled across a long URL that makes sense.
So, to sumarize my approach:
NEXT! :0)
Okay, I am not a domainer either. However, I often wind up being the one looking for domain names for clients, friends, and occasionally for myself.
Whenever I do this, I create a spreadsheet for the subject area. I also have several notepad files open as scratch paper.
I just start writing down each idea. I try to think of as many as possible before I start checking availability. When I hit a brain cramp in the creative area, I go back over the ones I have already written down and make a list of all of the words. Then I methodically go through the list to put together all possible meaningful combinations.
This process usually results in several itterations of brainstorms. Or at least some strong synaptic depressions.
Then I start checking them for availability. I usually am only interested in the .com versions. I know Webwork is hating that. But I like to get short domain names or two-word domains with some alliteration possiblities. I feel that if I can do that, people are much more likely to find the website after hearing or reading (printed media) about it. When people don't remember the TLD, they will usually try .com first. And if we've spent effort to publicize it, I don't want it to be wasted when they land at a competitors website because they had the .com.
For this contest, I had fully intended to look for domains pertinent to a specific technical area that I am involved with. However the only time I have to do stuff like this is very late at night after the kids are asleep. Well, the mind wanders and soon thoughts of politics and elections took over. (hey, I was very groggy) Pretty soon election-center.com was left standing as the best of the bunch that adhered to the contest guidelines. I grabbed a few others that may be better, but they are specific to 2008, and as such might be seen to fail on the "fad" test.
Anyway, you can see that my approach is nowhere near the scientific/quantitative methods used by Webwork.
Like your Google numbers [google.com]. 112,000 for exact match. USPTO says no one has staked a claim. The 112,000 hits supports that it's a popular phrase, one of general usage. It works that the non-hyphenated dot com version is parked, too.
Nice catch.
I think my approach is very simple:
Step #1
Make sure there is a market
Check Overture for monthly searches: 1369
Check Wordtracker for: Google daily searches: 74
Competition 273
Kei 53.6
Step #2
Make sure it will be profitable:
Affiliate Products:
CJ- Linkshare- Clickbank
Advertising:
Adsense – YPN – Adbrite
Check Overture Bid Prices: Over $1
Domains must always be .com (free type ins)
Add some good content.
Overall if people are looking for something and there are products out there for them, I just want to help them to find them. And make a couple of dollars for doing it.
O Yeah my nephew is in The Scouts and that is where I got the idea from. It was a project of his.
(but I picked up a nice name yesterday morning - and found a few local gems last night, inspired by Webwork's post :))
AutoInsuranceQuotesOnline.net
Long, and I'm not a big fan of .nets (though in one industry they can be better than .coms ;)), but this has big numbers and for $7 the risk/reward was too good to pass up.
I started with a high-paying market - those are pretty well picked-over, but I was looking for promising, longer terms that could have been overlooked. I found several that were available, wrote them down, then checked out some other things.
This one had:
- No trademark
- OST - over 154,000.
- Google suggest "suggests" that the exact phrase is searched. Overture doesn't necessarily show words in the correct order and it combines singular, plural and some typos. G. suggest doesn't give you any hard, fast numbers but I've found that having a phrase auto-complete, especially if it is high on the list of results, usually bodes well. Sometimes I check Wordtracker but that's more work and a smaller sample of data besides.
- Google results for the phrase in quotes - 218,000 - verifies that the phrase is used in that order (outside of searches).
- Lots of bidders and high advertising bid prices - $7.20 -> $2.10 for the first 10 on YSM.
- High payout for leads in that industry
- I prefer niche markets, but I could develop it. The .com is parked - I could expect to lose traffic to the .com but not as much as if it were a developed site. Much as I dislike .net, I think it still has good visibility (i.e. it's the next thing people try when .com doesn't yield the results they want).
And maybe, just maybe, someone offering auto insurance quotes online could use a name to match :)!
