The owner of SanJuan.com is looking to sell this fantastic geographic domain name.

San Juan is the capital of Puerto Rico and has close to 450,000 citizens. It is a popular tourist destination, with hundreds of hotels and attractions. Many of the largest Caribbean cruise lines have a port of call in San Juan. In 2004, San Juan played host to 4.9 million tourists, a number which has certainly grown since then. The capital city boasts the most luxurious hotels in Puerto Rico, and some of the nicest resorts in the Caribbean.

As I said in an earlier post today, there may be only one time you are able to acquire a premium domain name like this one. Once the new owner begins developing this gem, the price will increase exponentially, if it’s ever on the market again. I’ve worked with the owner before, and he is known to be a reasonable seller. If you are interested, drop me a note and I will put you in touch.

PS: Speak with your accountant for confirmation but I would imagine all “research” done in San Juan would be tax deductible!

In many instances, having a generic domain name as a standalone brand, or forwarding a generic domain name to an existing brand’s website can play a large role in the growth of that online business. This is especially true for informational websites, and may be less important for transactional websites.

When the sole purpose of a website is to give information, and there are a number of sites that provide the same information, the consumer may be more likely to simply navigate to the generic domain name. Why bother to remember a complicated domain name when you can find the exact same information on the generic domain name?

However, when a website is transactional, whereby a visitor makes (or considers) a purchase, a generic domain name is important, but less so than for an informational website. With a transactional site, there is much more to the customer experience than simply finding information. The visitor pays close attention to brands, pricing, fulfillment and customer service. Because of this, consumers are more likely to remember the site that gives the best all around service.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that if you are developing a business around the domain name and plan to generate revenue by selling products or services, the domain name may be less important than the other attributes in building a positive customer experience. If your website is informational in nature, and you plant to generate revenue from advertising/ppc links, having the generic domain name may be critical.

In the process of emailing a group of friends today about figuring out plans for Friday night, I included my friend’s girlfriend. Unfortunately, I forgot to include her middle initial in the email address and ended up sending it to a nice person with the same name. An excerpt from our email this morning:

“On 11/29/07, Elliot Silver wrote:
I think we should get together for dinner on Friday before Adam’s
birthday party. Maybe Sushi Samba or somewhere in the area of the
20s-30s on the east? Are you guys up for it?”
———–

On Nov 29, 2007, at 10:55 AM, xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx wrote:
Sorry, you’ve got the wrong person.
———–

On 11/29/07, Elliot Silver wrote:
Two xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx? Sorry about bothering you.
———–

On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:03 AM, xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx wrote:
Don’t worry about it. I think there’s one girl in NY, possibly in a dental program, with international friends, and I keep getting her emails. Enjoy your party and dinner.
———–

On 11/29/07, Elliot Silver wrote:
Shoot… there must be a third xxxxxxxxx. The girl I was emailing dropped out of high school and doesn’t have many local friends, let alone international friends. I was emailing her out of pity.

If you are free, you are more than welcome to join us - especially if you are cute and single. The guy who is celebrating his birthday is a single Jewish doctor. Hot commodity.
———–

On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:12 AM, xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx wrote:
Ha! Thanks for the invite, but I’m in Boston. Single Jewish doctor, huh? Hot commodity indeed. I may be cute, but I’m married to my own Jewish hot commodity (though not quite a doctor).
———–

On 11/29/07, Elliot Silver wrote:
I love Boston. Die hard Sox and Pats fan. My brother lives in Boston.

My friend isn’t really into married ladies (even cute Jewish ones), so I guess that’s out of the question. Your hot Jewish husband commodity must be a lucky man.
———–

On 11/29/07, Elliot Silver wrote:
Wow… I just found out you aren’t my friend’s girlfriend just messing with me. I am in fact looking for the dental student, and I am sorry for bothering you.

Hope you have a nice day, and hope you see another victory parade in a few weeks!
———–

On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:33 AM, xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx wrote:
No problems. When you do find her, tell her I keep getting her emails. I can pass on that international one if she wants.

Have a good day.”

Although email addresses are very different than domain names, I believe this perfectly illustrates why one needs to have a generic domain name. Had this been a case of mistaken website instead of email, and I was looking for a type of product, I may have ordered it from a different website out of confusion. If that website provided the same or similar product with a good customer experience, they may have turned my one time mistake into a new customer.

As I’ve said many times, a generic domain name is worth much more than a brandable domain name for much more important reasons than PPC advertising. People instinctively use the generic domain name, and if that website offers what they want, they will usually have no problem using the new provider.

My apologies to the other person I inadvertently emailed!

I saw the name OBGYNs.com is for sale at BuyDomains for pretty good price. I think this is an especially good deal considering the singular OBGYN.com was in the live TRAFFIC auction for $1,000,000 (it passed). I know there are many differences between the two names, but I still believe this could make a nice medical directory site.

If you are interested in buying this name, let me know and I will put you in touch with my contact at BuyDomains.

Throughout the past several months, I’ve had many conversations with a fellow domain investor about different speculation strategies focusing on newly registered domain names. He and I frequently share stories of new registrations along with the motivation behind speculating on certain new names.  I want to share a few brief pointers for registering relevant domain names on a speculative basis.  

Travel and geographic-related domain names may be worth speculating on, as their value has climbed and always seem to be in high demand.  Sometimes you can create a relevant domain name by combining a travel destination with a travel-related keyword to form a new name with some value. The key is that the new domain name must make sense, and the keyword should have some click value (be it a large ticket item or an expensive service).

Example:

When I am planning a vacation, there are several things I search for prior to departure:

1. Hotel
2. Transportation
3. Sites
4. Restaurants
5. Etc…

To make the most of #3, I frequently search for a tour guide online, in order to visit attractions that will be most interesting to me and my fiance. With that in mind, I believe the terms “tour guide” and/or “tour guides” could add value to a travel destination.  Turns out, CroatiaTourguides.com is available to register.  Whether it has much value, I don’t know, but I like the name for under $10 because there are plenty of tour guides in Croatia, and there are many people looking to find them online.

Other types of speculative domain registrations I occasionally take a chance on are relevant health related domain names.  With most health or wellness related issues, there are cures or forms of proactive products.  Oftentimes this is in the form of creams, pills, shots, patches….etc.  Sometimes newly discovered and/or trendy plants and herbs are publicized, causing great demand for their related products.  

Example: 

One way to speculate on this type of domain name is to stay on top of these marketplace trends and buy relevant domain names.  Using the herbs or the health issue, you could add keywords to the end of the domain for potential products that may be developed and marketed.  Recently, I’ve heard quite a bit about fish oil.  I know the pills have become popular, but maybe there will be another application.  Perhaps a cream could be in the works? As of today, FishOilCream.com is available to register.  Maybe this name (and product) stinks, but if it does become popular, it will cost under $10 to secure this name.

The final type of name I would like to discuss are state/local professions and activities. These are my favorite types of speculative purchases because they are less about speculation and more about hunting for unregistered gems.  You can search through the yellow pages or various online directories to see if a particular profession exists in a specific area, and if it does, there is probably at least a small amount of demand, and certainly the ability to add content.  This topic is something that Frank Schilling discussed a while ago, and it’s something I like.  Personally, I own WashingtonDoctors.com, NewJerseyDoctor.com, and VirginiaMortgages.com among others I bought in the aftermarket, and I am a big fan of this type of name.

Example:

One way to become inspired is to search through your local phone directory to see what professions exist where domain names don’t.  Let’s say you live down in Palm Beach, Florida.  When I was down there last, I noticed nearly every home had a swimming pool.  These seem to be high value commodities, so presumably there are people who would pay quite a bit for a lead.  PalmBeachSwimmingPools.com is available to register.”Relevant” is the most frequently used descriptive term in this post.  In order to make a wise speculative purchase, the domain name must be relevant.  You probably wouldn’t find much value in registering FloridaMountainClimbing.com for example.  If you stick with relevant domain names, you may come across something of value.  

You should stay away from registering names that contain the trademark of another company. I would advise that you do a search of the USPTO database before registering a potential trademark infringing domain name.  

Again, please keep in mind this is purely SPECULATION!  Just like investing in the stock market, I would only advise a small amount of domain names in your portfolio be of the speculative nature - although some might argue that most domain names are speculative if they aren’t developed.  Owning too many speculative names may be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t be something I would advocate. 

I frequently see people trying to sell “brandable” domain names. To most experienced domain investors, brandable suggests that you need to explain what the name means and why you think it is valuable, which usually means a difficult time selling it. In most cases, brandable names aren’t good buys, especially as a short term investment.

By nature, copywriters, art directors and others involved in the creative process are very attached to their ideas. Deep down, almost every creative person wants to win a Cannes Lion, Clio or an Echo, and they want to win because of their idea. They want to be inspired from deep within themselves rather than developing someone else’s idea. I don’t think it makes sense that some domain investors think that a cool/hip sounding domain name will help inspire a marketing campaign or product name, which would seem to be the reason to register it.

On the other side, some people register these names hoping that a company will use that particular term or phrase in a new product and then seek them out to buy it. While I know of a couple people who did have success with this, there are many more brandable domain names registered than companies willing to buy them. It’s like buying a lottery ticket. Sure, once in a while it may be a good idea or even pay off, but more often than not, you will end up wasting your money.

In my opinion, if you can’t afford to buy a high value keyword name and choose to register new names instead, I recommend sticking with generic keyword phrases. Put two or three related keywords together to try and create strong sounding names. Use “quoted Google searches” to see how many references that term has in Google. Generally, the more references, the more interest in that particular topic. State specific keywords can be good, too.

Registering new names can be a thrill. Knowing what to register is what can save you hundreds of dollars.

Last week I blogged about Citibank’s purchase of ThankYou.com to go along with its “Thank You Rewards Program.” While it may seem like the obvious domain name for this program, many corporations simply assume its customers will find out more information about a branded product or service by navigating to the corporate site instead. Last week, I congratulated Citibank on this wise purchase.

I was reading a post on Frank Schilling’s SevenMile.com blog about Citigroup’s branding of Mortgage.com, and I wanted to bring attention to this. Clearly the ThankYou.com purchase isn’t just a one time smart move. There is a strong marketing culture at Citigroup, and its domain acquisitions prove that the company understands its customers’ web surfing habits.

Mortgage.com is miles ahead of any other domain name in the mortgage industry. Sure, Citigroup executives could have said “if a potential customer wants a mortgage from us, they will navigate to Citigroup.com or Citibank.com.” This could have been true, and nobody would really say otherwise. However, the Citi branding of Mortgage.com allows Citigroup to make their pitch to ANY potential customer who wants a mortgage and visits this site. Instead of paying $x.xx or more per click to attract customers to its site, they now own all of these leads. They’ve eliminated the competition that existed, and they don’t have to compete with other advertisers.

It’s so easy, but so many companies just don’t understand this. I can’t say enough positive things about this great purchase.

**Although Mortgage.com was acquired by Citigroup, when they purchased ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc.

Yahoo recently announced the launch of Kickstart, a new social networking site.  I wanted to check it out, so I navigated to Kickstart.com, and I found a Network Solutions “Coming Soon” landing page.  Curious, I did a Whois search for Kickstart.com, and I learned that Yahoo doesn’t own this name.  It’s owned by a company called Toe-Food Chocolates, and has been owned by them since at least February of 2003.  Yahoo’s Kickstart website is actually located at kickstart.yahoo.com.  

Although this is in line with Yahoo’s other brands (http://finance.yahoo.com as an example), I think this is very shortsighted.  Perhaps Yahoo is looking in to acquiring this great generic name, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to acquire the name before launching the brand?  I can’t even imagine the amount of traffic that has been lost in the last few days. It would probably be better if Kickstart.com was a developed website so visitors would know to look elsewhere. Because of the landing page that is currently on the website, visitors may just assume the site hasn’t launched yet.

I was looking at Frank Schilling’s NameAdministration.com website and just spent the last couple minutes drooling on my computer. Now that the keyboard is dry and the screen is clean, I am able to pose this question: If you could have one of the names listed on the Name Administration website, which would it be?

I would probably choose eShopping.com and build it out as a virtual shopping center. I would find as many shopping affiliates as possible and sell as much stuff as I could, doing my best to optimize each page for Google search.

What would you choose?

WeddingChannel.com is a company that uses generic domain names to its advantage. When you take the term “Wedding Channel” at face value, it doesn’t really mean much in terms an interactive company. My first thought would be that “Wedding Channel” is a television channel with shows focusing on the planning and execution of a wedding. Well, WeddingChannel.com is actually one of the largest online wedding resources.

In my opinion, the bread and butter of WeddingChannel.com is its wedding registry. Couples are able to sign up on WeddingChannel.com and link wedding registries from stores such as Bloomingdales, Tiffany’s, Macy’s, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn….etc. Guests are able to learn more about the couple, sign a guest book, see event details, and of course, they can purchase wedding presents from various registries all online. Because couples know that most guests will search for them on WeddingChannel.com, they sign up.

One reason for the success of WeddingChannel.com is that they own a ton of awesome generic domain names that all forward to the WeddingChannel.com website. If a person enters one of the company’s names, they will automatically land on WeddingChannel.com, where they are able to find what they need. Some examples of fantastic domain names owned by WeddingChannel.com include:

WeddingRegistry.com
BridalRegistry.com
BridalGowns.com
WeddingPlanner.com
Weding.com (They even own a high value typo!)

This shows that WeddingChannel.com “gets” domain names and uses them to promote their business. Some people don’t get this. They choose not to buy a generic name because they claim it will water down their brand. I think that’s crazy, because as long as they forward the traffic to their main site, the visitor will hardly notice.

Anyone who types in WeddingRegistry.com is looking to find (or create) a wedding registry. Instead of having to pay per click on someone else’s domain name, WeddingChannel.com OWNS ALL OF THIS TRAFFIC! If a person is searching for a wedding registry and they directly navigate to WeddingRegistry.com, Voila - they will find what they need at WeddingChannel.com.