Thursday, June 21, 2007

Auction of Top Domain Names Held in NYC

The world's largest domain live name auction took place today in New York City. Over 100 of the most desirable domain names changed hands with CreditCheck.com setting the pace, selling for a cool 3,000,000 dollars. A 'silent auction' is still underway and runs through June 27th at http://silentauction.moniker.com.

Dot Coms Continue to Dominate
Fact: of the 50 top selling names in today's auction, 47 were Dot Coms and the other three were .Nets. In fact the great majority of domains sold consisted of the grandaddy extensions of Dot Com, Dot Net and Dot Org. This shows that where big money is concerned, Dot Coms are still considered most valuable with Dot Nets a far off second banana.

Dot Nets do however seem to be holding their own and continue to rise in value with Houses.net ( 75,000 ), Camping.net ( 60,000 ) and Laptop.net ( 40,000 ) leading the charge.

Surprisingly, the chic factor of .Mobi seems to have worn off with only Mortgages.mobi ( 25,000 ) and Laptops.mobi ( 4,750 ) being sold. This is a 'bearish' symbol for .Mobi and could perhaps single the end of the .Mobi craze.

When it comes to the wonderful world of domain names, 'it's a Dot Com after all'.

Monday, June 11, 2007

'The Google Ripple'

"Let it Ripple..."

If you are a business person, chances are you participate in forums or read a blog or two . As you probably know, this is the way to gain 'an edge' or at least become more 'up to date' on the latest news in your specific industry, politics, sports, or Paris Hilton's prison fashions ( I personally enjoy www.DNForum.com - a domain name forum ).

But...have you ever "thrown in your two cents" and replied with a comment to a posting to the blog post or forum post you just read? You may want to think about starting to. Why? I have found posting on forums or commenting on a blog's posting, very helpful in driving extra traffic to my websites and blogs. I call this the "Google Ripple".

The 'Google Ripple' ( I could call it the "Forum / Blog Comment Effect", but the 'Google Ripple' sounds more intriguing doesn't it? ) involves posting 'comments' on blogs and forums that you read. Most of my blog / forum comments are one or two sentence opinions on how I felt about what I just read. What happens after these comments get posted is what interests me and may interest you. References to my comments and posts show up in the Google search engine results pages ( or SERPs as they are called ). I just Googled my name ( come on admit it...you've done it too...your name that is, not mine! ) and was amazed to find some of my postings and comments listed within Google search results. What a great way to quickly drive extra traffic to your website or blog!

So, comments and posts are a great 'gorilla marketing tool' to have in your arsenal. Go ahead, Google yourself or your business. See if the "Google Effect" is 'rippling' for you too!