Usually in the closing days of an auction, a few domain names receive interest and the remaining names go untouched. Domain Consultant hasn’t gone the way of a typical auction, and that is obvious with their announcement today.

Reserve.com was listed in the extended domain auction at No Reserve. In addition, some other great domain names were added, including Massapequa.com (a wealthy town in Long Island), Zodiac.com, and Fargo.net.

If you haven’t checked out the extended auction, you now have a great reason. You should also check out Moniker’s extended auction. I will have some picks from that tomorrow if I have time, as I will be traveling to Detroit for another wedding.

A comm0n response to an advertising inquiry I’ve made numerous times for my websites is, “we already do our Internet advertising on Google.” Sure, Google can be a very effective source of leads, but it can also be expensive and might not send the most targeted traffic, depending on the Adwords campaign.

One of the best ways to close an advertising deal on a website or blog is to discuss the direct navigation traffic. It’s important to point out to a potential advertiser that direct navigation traffic can’t be purchased like traditional media buys. Visitors to a particular website that directly navigate, generally do so because they know what they want, and they either know they can get it at a particular website or they assume this. Companies who want to reach out to these visitors need to advertise directly on that website. In my brief experience, I have found this to be a compelling argument, and the same can be made by any domain owner whose domain name receives type-in traffic.

I was thrilled when traffic to TropicalBirds.com grew to over 90% search engine-based. It meant that I was doing something right in terms of SEO, and I was happy that people were visiting because of it. However, an advertiser could easily buy some of  this traffic simply by advertising on Google. However, direct navigation can’t be bought because it completely bypasses Google and Yahoo. IMO, this is a great deal closer.