I received an interesting email promotion from Network Solutions today.

“Register a new .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .us or .name domain name extension for any term and get a free .mobi domain name for a 1-year term.”

I guess they have resorted to just giving .mobi names away. I use my Blackberry’s web browser all the time, but I have not had the need or desire to use the .mobi extension. Even though the Weather Channel has a “mobile compatible” website at Weather.mobi, I can still access my local weather by using Weather.com on my Blackberry. I still don’t see a need for this extension.

I admit that I was surprised by Larry and Ari’s mega-expensive purchase of MegaYachts.com. How on Earth would they be able to pay down the $150,000 price tag for this name without going into the yacht business?

Obviously they know more about the name than many, but my bet is that they create an informational site with a form to provide hot leads to yacht dealers, or they could possibly create a database of yacht classifieds or yacht listings. The commission from a single yacht sale generated from direct navigation traffic to megayachts.com could possibly put them in the black for that purchase. This strategy would seem to be less difficult to procure than building a full yacht business, but could be just as lucrative if not more.

The beauty of direct navigation traffic is that people may be looking to buy product when they key-in your site. There will always be “tire-kickers” and window shoppers who have no interest in buying your product, but the few motivated customers that do enter your site may be willing to leave their contact information instead of clicking off to someone else. It only takes one buyer to turn a $1.00 click into a $100,000 commission check.