Archive for October, 2009

People often type questions into search engines. Now you can find these questions, answer them and get some great search traffic. You’ll be targeting long tail keywords and providing content that readers want to read and link to.  Enter a single or a short keyword to find the questions people are asking in your market (examples: business, diet, car, organic, climate change, obama).

Keyword Questions, like the new Wordtracker keyword tool, now uses one year’s worth of search data.

 I was doing some research late this evening and came across a Google search results page where one domain received 3 organic search results.  Up until today, I have only seen one domain get at best two organic rankings but never three!!  Has anyone else seen this?

I’m also not talking about Google deep linking from within a search listing or even having a search feature right there in search results like you see when you do a search for let’s say Oprah….I’ve seen plenty of these before:

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, the company will close its paid inclusion program by the end of the year to focus on display advertising, mobile services and producing more and better content…

The advance notice from Yahoo is appreciated as most marketers have to start thinking differently about how they will optimize natural search results in Yahoo.  Both paid inclusion programs; Search Submit Basic, which required an annual fee per URL submitted to the search index, and Search Submit Pro, the cost-per-click (CPC) program — end Dec. 31, 2009

While many complain that Yahoo is no Google, I still recommend you focus on ranking well within Yahoo…..

According to TechCrunch, Digg founder Kevin Rose launched a side project called WeFollow, a twitter directory, earlier this year. And as DNN reports, through searching some historic domain data….they  noticed the buyer krose119 paid $500 for WeFollow.com in January at Afternic. It’s pretty safe to assume that this was WeFollow and Digg founder Kevin Rose.

Here is a screenshot for you:

Came across this creative, very well done spot today for samsung…..I’m still not sure if it’s real or not but hey – it is good!  Enjoy…..

The domain name Luck.com has been sold for $675,000 at Afternic.  The domain name was originally registered in 1998 and had a variety of landing pages.  Originally a website for an Outerbanks vacation rental, the owner was considering offers for the name as low as $50,000 back in 2002 according to Archive.org.  Instead of letting the name go for alot less, the owner finally got a highly lucrative payday for $675,000 – not a bad Return on Investment if you ask me.

Other Notable ‘Luck’ related Domain Name Sales

Luckys.com sold for $36,000 on GreatDomains in 2007 (parked)

LuckyStar.com sold for $30,000 on Afternic in 2007 (parked)

LuckyGame.com sold for $4,614 on Sedo in 2008 (online casino)

Luckyman.com sold for $3,675 on Afternic in 2008 (gimmick site)

LuckyClub.com sold for $2,909 on Sedo in 2008 (doesn’t resolve)

LuckyVoice.com sold for $2,000 on NameJet in 2008 (Karaoke club)

According to DotWeekly,  Afternic sold the premium 2 letter domain name WV.com oyesterday with a sales price of $145,000 . The domain was last owned by Working Version and was purchased by Big Foot Ventures LTD of Central Hong Kong.

The domain name currently sits on the old DNS.

WV is also the acronym of West Virgina in the United States and is clearly a very rare but useful domain name for any company with a business name starting with W and V and pretty much could be used for just about anything.

Insure.com, Inc. has sold its Insure.com brand name, domain, website and related media assets for $16 million in cash to online direct marketing and media services company, QuinStreet, Inc.

Insure.com, Inc. will change its corporate name to Life Quotes, Inc. and continue its business under its Life Quotes and Consumer Insurance Guide brand names. It will also keep its remaining balance sheet assets, national brokerage contracts with 25 life insurance companies, 50 fully licensed insurance agents, call center operations, customer and prospect lists, and nearly all of its current inbound affiliate and traffic partnerships.

Insure.com, Inc. acquired the Insure.com name and website for $1.6 million in December 2001. CEO Robert Bland indicated the sale was calculated to bring in cash while the company refocuses from being a content provider to facilitating transactions.

The terms of the deal involve QuinStreet paying $15 million upfront, with the remaining $1 million due in a year’s time.

AfternicDLS announced on 10/8/09 that it sold Ticket.com for $1,525,000

According to AfternicDLS, the Agreement was finalized with the assistance of a BuyDomains sales executive.

This sale will be the 5th highest domain sale for 2009 as reported by the DN Journal.