Good News, Bad Action in Domain Industry
Domain Industry News March 16th, 2008
In the financial trading world, there is a term called good news/bad action, which means that good news causes a bad action for the price or market. An example of good news/bad action would be the orange crop report scene in the movie “Trading Places,” starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd. With the crop report expected to be bad due to the weather, the price of orange commodity futures rise tremendously. Once the report is released, and the crop damage is less than expected, the good news causes the price of futures to rocket down.
The domain world can also offer a similar phenomenon. Yesterday in Britain’s Guardian, a positive domain article was published, called “Trade in Web Names Worth Millions.” The article cited the story of domain investor Neil Stanley, former banker at Goldman Sachs, and now owner of the domain names bridalfashion.co.uk, onlinecareers.co.uk, schoolguide.co.uk, sendingflowers.co.uk and impotency.co.uk. The crux of the article was the amount of money Stanley and other domain investors earn from parked domain names, and the relatively little work that is needed to profit in this manner.
From my viewpoint, the article’s purpose was to tell people the good news about how easy it is to make money by owning domain names, and it would seem to be good press for domain investors. The idea is that savvy “dotcom entrepreneurs” earn plenty of money because of the clicks of others, and if the dotcom entrepreneurs want to cash out, domain names are like liquid gold and can be sold for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
The bad action from this and other similar articles that make domain investing seem easy, is that domain investors will become even more of a target. People want our domain names and will do what it takes to get them. Scammers will continue to pop-up, attempting to steal or sell stolen domain names. Laws will continue to be proposed in an attempt to take our domain names. Now is the time need to support the Internet Commerce Association more than ever.
Our industry isn’t a get rich quick scheme. The people making good money with pay per click advertising on great generic domain names either spent a considerable amount of money acquiring them, spent countless hours in front of their computer screens researching domain names, or went out on a limb and invested in domain names when few even knew what domain names were. While a domain name may make a mint in PPC advertising, buying these domain names wasn’t and still isn’t a simple task. I love the domain industry, but there isn’t any truth to the stereotype that this is an easy business.
The really good news is that if you do your research, you will be rewarded.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Great post there but I’am sure that you know as well there is a upside in every downside and a downside in every upside.
Keep up the great work - NICE ARTICLE
March 16th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I have pledged 15% of all sales of my domains at the TRAFFIC auction to the ICA.
I challenge every domainer to meet or beat my pledge. You are also able to donate a domain with all proceeds going to the ICA.
We need to take action, and we all need to do our share to protect our interests.
Contact Monte at Moniker with your pledge. Let’s make a huge contribution to the ICA!
March 17th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Arguably it doesn’t help domaining’s image that one of his names Stanley highlights only generates the claimed GBP10 p.w. revenue by profiting from being a subtle variation of a prominent firm which has the #1 Google sponsored link for the search term.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Nice article. The real situation is posted. Domaining is not an easy business, domainers spend 10s and 100s of hours on research and analysis to register even a single domain and add them in their portfolio and pay for renewals for a few years. If you will research and register a nice name you will be awarded with cashcow.
Best Regards.