I believe it’s more difficult to sell a domain name with any type of development as compared to a parked domain name. Many people who are unfamiliar with the Whois database will type in a domain name to see if someone is using it. If they see a developed website (even a mini site), it’s likely they will move on to other domain names, unless they absolutely need a specific domain name.

When you visit many domain names parked with Internet Traffic (and other parking providers), you can see a bright bar at the top of the landing page announcing that the domain name may be for sale. From what I understand, this helps drive a significant amount of offers for domain owners. Although many offers are unqualified, it still opens a dialog.

The Hello Bar is a neat toolbar that you can easily add to the top of your website or blog, and it can be used to let visitors know the website is for sale. You can choose any color or font combination and add a link to a destination url of your choice. Many people traditionally use it to direct visitors to certain articles or make special announcements, and I think it’s a great tool to sell a website.

It’s very easy to install the Hello Bar, whether you use WordPress, Typepad, Tumblr, or basically any content management system. For WordPress, you can download a free plugin, and then enter the code from the Hello Bar website into the correct field on the plugin editor page. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to install and add. You can then add a page on your site to let people know how to get in touch with you or how to buy the domain name and website.

I want to share an example of how I set up the Hello Bar on one of my websites this morning, and it only took a few minutes. Visit BabyRegistries.com and you can see how the Hello Bar looks. Once I added my messaging to the Hello Bar, I set up a very quick and free form at Woofoo.com. It took less than 30 minutes to set up on my first try.

I can’t tell you if it will work for certain, but it’s a great way to let people know your domain name with website is for sale.

I read a press release this afternoon, and it should come as good news for Tucows domain registrants who are looking to sell their domain names.

The company has been added to Afternic’s Domain Listing Service (DLS) Premium Promotion network, meaning that it is easier to list domain names for sale across the full DLS reseller network. With DLS, customers can seamlessly list, sell, and transfer domain names with far fewer hassles and delays that accompany many domain transactions. Customers can select names they want to sell, price them accordingly, and potential buyers will see the names at various POS opportunities at DLS partners.

There are over 11 million domain names registered with Tucows and its affiliates, so this should also be a boost to Afternic as well.

Press Release below: (more…)

I learned that Go Daddy was nominated for two Stevie Awards in the Customer Service Department of the Year – Computer Services category and the Best Use of Technology in Customer Service – Computer Hardware, Software, Services, Electronics, or Telecommunications category.

According to the award website, “The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service honor and generate public recognition of the accomplishments of sales, customer service, and call/contact center professionals worldwide.” There are dozens of categories in which companies in different industries and of different sizes are competing. Judges for the awards come from some of the largest companies in the world, like Microsoft, AT&T, Marriott, Canon, and many others.

Just yesterday, I wrote a comment about Go Daddy’s customer service team. Although I think it’s sort of tacky to quote myself, I wrote “for people without reps at Godaddy, the company has great 24/7 US-based customer service. I can’t recall ever being dissatisfied with an issue at GD.” 

Companies also competing for the Customer Service Department of the Year award are: Reputation.com, BUMI, CenterBeam, Datapipe, and and Rosetta Stone. Companies competing for the Best Use of Technology in Customer Service – Computer Hardware, Software, Services, Electronics, or Telecommunications include CrunchTime! Information Systems, L-com Inc., OnStar, Rosetta Stone, and VIZIO, Inc.

Congratulations to the company on this honor and good luck to them. It’s nice to see the company honored with these nominations.

I saw an article on Business Insider with a link to a page within your Google account where you can see what information Google believes it knows about you based on your browsing habits.

Topics they monitor include things like news preferences, topics of interest, and demographics. Based on this information the company collects, they can then show advertising to you they believe will be relevant (I believe it’s on websites that have Adsense enabled). You can opt out of this if you’d like, and I chose to opt out via Chrome plugin.

You might find this interesting if you use Adsense on your websites. By disabling this cookie, you can see what ads would be displayed to the average user who visits your website. For instance, on DogPark.com, the ads now seem more related to dog parks and even dog walking than previously, when I would see web hosting and other technology links.

It’s interesting to see what Google thinks it knows about you, and you can either edit or remove those insights, or you can prevent Google from using the cookie.

A little over a week ago, I expressed my dismay that Bari Meyerson no longer works as my Account Executive at Moniker. Today, I want to share some reasons why having an Account Executive or Account Representative at a domain registrar is important to me.

Obviously we all put a lot of trust into our domain registrar. Our assets are digital, and there is always a concern they could be stolen and pushed to another account or transferred out all together. Should something like that happen, the process to recover domain names is a bit opaque, and having someone to help with that process is assuring. Knowing I have someone to email who would advocate for me and help me is important and reassuring.

In addition to this worse case scenario, there are every day issues that come up. There have been a number of times where transfers were denied for various reasons, and it’s always helpful to have someone tell me exactly what the problem was. Further, instead of having to submit a ticket to resolve the issue and then submit a ticket to get a refund and re-try the transaction, it has been helpful to have someone willing to make this easier and expedite it.

When I receive renewal notices via email, I am often away from my desk. It’s great to be able to forward the email to my account representative and ask him or her to take care of the renewal for me. It’s one less thing for me to worry about, and it also means that I won’t end up transferring the domain name elsewhere.

Oftentimes, domain registrars are larger companies with various products and services (hosting, web design, marketing…etc). When a problem arises, it’s nice to know you have an ally within the company that will speak with the people who can get things done when they aren’t able to do it themselves. My account representatives know what steps need to be taken to resolve an issue or head off potential trouble, and they are proactive on my behalf.

In various domain related surveys I’ve taken over the years, I’ve been asked to state the importance of having an account representative and/or good customer service compared to other needs like pricing, security, back-end user interface, additional products and service offerings, and other features/aspects. I am pretty sure that customer service was the first or second choice for me – always.

With a dedicated account representative, it’s likely I will do more business with the domain registrar. I am inclined to work with people I like and trust, and if I have an established relationship with an account person, it’s more likely I will register and renew domain names at that registrar.

I understand that it wouldn’t be economically feasible for companies to assign Account Executives to each client, but I can tell you that it does impact my decision when it comes to registering and transferring domain names.