I was looking over Restaurantica’s About page when I noticed that it was owned by ‘eMedia’. I had previously met the owner of Restaurantica, and (at the time) was an employee of GeoSign. I heard a few months later it was sold to GeoSign itself. The about page also says that eMedia owns TrueLocal, GolfCourses.com, etc

Color me confused - what is going on here? eMedia.com has nothing on it, and the GeoSign page shows business as usual.

Update 1:

From http://www.linkedin.com/in/vfilby:

eMedia is a publishing company that took over many of the marquee domains held by Geosign. Our goal was to make TrueLocal more competitive with other local search players by improving performance and moving towards a social Web 2.0 ideal.

I’m not sure how taking over marquee domains (eg GolfCourses.com and Hockey.com) has to do with local search?

Update 2:
Sort of an on-going discovery of mine, it seems like TrueLocal also uses lucene. Same thing that Yelp uses.

Update 3:
An interesting oddity - Google blogsearch. You can see the second result is dated from Oct 3 from rmay.ca. The link itself is dead (http://www.rmay.ca/16/) but Google cache has it:

Now that the news of our rebranding is public, I now work for Moxy Media as Manager, Special Projects. It’s a little sad to see the Geosign name go away after six years of hard work helping build it, but similarly nice to have a fresh moniker to stand behind as we move forward in a series of new directions. If you have me in your address book please update my e-mail address as it is now rmay [at] moxymedia.com.

And lo and behold: Moxy Media - a red-version of the GeoSign homepage.

So I can only conclude that GeoSign has split into two - Moxy Media (’content’ sites) and eMedia (100k or so domains + TrueLocal).

Update 4:
At the same time, this job posting says:

Emedia (a Geosign company) is an internet media company, poised to launch sites such as Hockey.com and Golfcourses.com

So - if eMedia (a subsidiary of GeoSign) is doing content publishing (ala Hockey.com) - what exactly does Moxy Media do then?

I had recently posted about how we had changed from ForumTemplates.com to vBSkins.com. One of the issues I hoped to be fixed was the domain name - banned from Google/etc, the new domain was to let us back in.

And results are already in.

Currently ranking in at #25 for ‘vbulletin skins’ and #11 for ‘vb skins’, the SE traffic is already trickling in. And Yahoo is even better - vBSkins.com sits at #9 for ‘vbulletin skins’ (with ForumTemplates.com at #8), and #3 for ‘vb skins’

The domain change has helped tremendously - no more are we generic ‘forum templates’ - you know what you are getting before you click on the domain.

And another interesting tidbit - #12 for vbulletin skins was a site called vbskinstudio.com. I saw it was parked, saw it was for sale for $75, and while I wrote this post, I purchased it. According to Yahoo, it has 38,000 backlinks. The domain will now be promptly redirected to vbskins.com, generating even more traffic to the domain, with a very minimal investment.

Not to mention vb-skins.com is also likely sending me (inadvertent) traffic.

Moral of the story? A good domain helps, and be on the look out to buy defunct sites that can send you traffic you want.

I know quite a few domainers. I’ve talked about them on this blog, defending their business quite a few time.

Yet … some struggle a bit.

You can get some background information here.

Notable from the Wadnd site:

Due to disruption of proceedings at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. caused by certain persons, groups or companies arranging private parties or gatherings while events are occurring, the Board voted unanimously that any function, party or gathering by written or verbal invitation by any person, group or company before 9:30P.M. on the first, second or third full day of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. shall be strictly prohibited and any violators shall be excluded from any future T.R.A.F.F.I.C. CONFERENCE AND TRADE SHOW. Sponsors pay to have full attendance at Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner and it is not fair to them to have competing functions small or large before 9:30 P.M.

I’ve been to quite a few conferences, and private events happen all the time. I would think that if I paid, I can bloody do well what I want (and I’ve mentioned how much I hate people who think they are the guiding moral light).

And the real kicker?

Unethical.com - you’ve gotta be kidding me.

This post is about making money from domain names. The reality is that domain parking is not only here, it is going to grow (and evolve). With companies that have some serious money behind them [100 million+] (eg GeoSign, DemandMedia, iReit, etc), domaining isn’t going to go away.

I’ve never been impressed by parked pages. Completely boilerplate, they look awful. I’ve never doubted that domains get a lot of traffic - I just don’t understand who actually clicks on those links. All my tech-clueless friends have said they come across these pages regularly, hate them, and never click on ads.

Regardless - innovation is afoot. The reality is domains get a lot of targeted traffic, and PPC is not the best way to extract maximum value. The standard PPC site can only go so far - you can spruce it up, add pretty colors, etc - but the underlying system is the same. The long term value is very low, and the growth of type-in traffic is pretty much flat lined.

We’ve dabbled in this lightly via iBegin - for example, Minnesota.com. The site has grown roughly 300% in traffic since we put up the new system - not too bad. And this is just the start - we intend on growing this out - reviews, photos, and better monetization (eg hotel affiliates, real-estate, florists, etc). But that is for another day.

So I was intrigued when a friend of mine told him about his upcoming system - Domainer.com. His first live example: Bags.com.

The idea is simple - take a domain, add in content via bloggers (who have agreed to have their content distributed), add some extra relevance via tags, and then sell the product directly (via Shopping.com) instead of using a PPC aggregator like Google or Yahoo.

What was interesting was that he was able to negotiate the ability to replicate blog posts completely on their site (eg Dior Flight Hobo). The idea is to be a win-win for both parties - the domain (getting intrinsic traffic) sends traffic to the blogger (who is properly cited), and the blogger acts as a content creator for the domain.

Domainer.com has taken steps that the original URL (for each blog post) be given its due - linking back and using the ‘cite’ attribute (created by W3):

The value of this attribute is a URI that designates a source document or message. This attribute is intended to give information about the source from which the quotation was borrowed.

Does Google care for it? Doesn’t seem like it.

I’m not a fan of SEO for parked domains - a site that *only* has a bunch of ad links should not be getting any search engine traffic. But I think bags.com may be the exception. Or it is close - just not there yet. While I like the content (you can think of it as the ugly cousin of an aggregator like popurls ), the presentation leaves me unhappy. The content is there, but it seems like it was jammed on the side so one can claim that they do have content. I’m not sure what the purpose was with the 468×60 banner on top - it links to a page just like the links on the left menu do. Why add such clutter?

I wish the site involved a bit more user-generated content. Does it cause moderation headaches? Yes. But in the grand scheme of search-engines, it also creates unique content. Let me get involved somehow.

Right now I would give the site a C+. It definitely extends the idea of Bags.com. It definitely makes it more compelling than a bunch of ad-links. But it falls short of being truly useful. I have no way of participating (not even an ‘email a friend’ link). The store is the complete focus, with the content on the side.

I think in the case of Bags.com a dual-pane approach for the index page may work better. Left side can say ‘Interested in buying bags?’ and the right side can say ‘Want to read about bags?’. At least give the content-side its fair shake.

Regardless - good first version, but it needs some updates before it truly becomes useful. Right now it feels like an SEOed storefront with some content on the side.

I promise after this I will go out and criticize some sites

TechCrunch covers the ‘.CM scam’.

The choice quote:

This is actually one of the cleaner scams occurring in the extremely dirty domain name business.

and

And when money is thrown at these small countries, it seems that they have little hesitation in giving control of their namespace to a relatively unknown speculator.

Lest anyone forget - Pool.com:

Pool management team headed by President and CEO Michael Arrington

I remember seeing listings of TM domains in Pool’s upcoming list. I’m sure Pool picked up a lot of domains that had expired and had been previously websites. Was it not a ‘dirty’ domain business back then? Were domainers not ’speculators’ then?

I only say this because - I don’t think domainers are evil. I do admit I am jealous of what they do. I do admit some cross ethical and moral lines (eg registering typos or disaster domains for pure profit). But quite a few own some decent domains (eg I sold beat.com to the .cm ’scammer’ back in 2003). Anyway - I find it quite irksome when the grand crusader of ‘web 2.0′ was in charge of the largest domain catching service and now pretends like he had no relationship with it.

Note: This is part of a ‘three-setter’ on internet morals and what not:

1. Moral Relativism: I’m better than you
2. Love & Hate are not like Black & White
3. Moral Superiority in the face of Hypocrisy

While very mis-understood (and hated by a lot), the domain industry is on fire. With big sales like Vodka.com for $3 million, and with people like Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks) investing in companies investing in the domain space, you can only imagine it is going to grow up.

Before you roll your eyes - while they will never admit it publicly, Yahoo! execs have unofficially admitted that domain names generate roughly 10-15% of their revenue. That is - billions.

One of the lead proponents of domains and how super amazing is Rick Schwartz, the self claimed ‘domain king’ (and also ‘webfather’, which has to be the most retarded and inaccurate nickname ever).

Anyhoo - Rick has a very boisterous attitude. The best way to sum up his outlook is ‘you are either with us or against us’ - there is no middle way.

He is also a pretty shrewd businessman. He helped found the TRAFFIC conference, dedicated to domain names and how super-awesome they are. He also sold Men.com for a purported $1.3 million.

Rick also operates the TRAFFIC forum, a forum for established domain owners. We are talking about some big guns here, people making millions a year. One of the members include Frank Schilling (very smart person, his blog is an excellent read. Consider him the anti-Rick).

I was a part of that forum. Keyword ‘was’. Recently there was a kerfuffle when a board member posted on some other forum as ‘domainking’. Ever diligent about his ‘TM’ (more on that later) of ‘domainking’, Rick did what he does best: go ballistic. While I don’t want to delve into the soap opera that ensued, he not only banned the offending person, but also Donna Mahony, who was just trying to mediate some calm. There is a difference in being a ‘forum administrator’ and a ‘tyrant’, and alas our good friend had moved into the tyrant phase. A member called for a walkout, and I participated.

Now I want to make a moment to pause - a walkout is when you leave something in protest. It was an institutional standard during the Vietnam War, but alas nowadays it has morphed into an ‘evil act.’

We were subsequently banned (at the end of the day, nine of us were removed).

The ensuing ruckus (I was told) was quite hilarious. Lots of capitalized words, lots of !!!!!!!! - you know the drill (if you’ve ever talked to a preteen girl).

Anyhoo (I was setting the background) - Rick considers himself to be a domain pioneer, not only in the domain names he has, but also in ‘domainer rights’. I do want to say that I believe if you bought Green.com (and there is no TM company named Green) you damn well have the rights to it. A recent case was MSG.com being reverse-hijacked by some company with deep pockets. It is stealing.

Regardless - the moral hypocrisy: voyuer.com. Voyuer.com, a typo for voyeur, was bought for an astounding $112,100. Our good friend Rick owns the domain voyeur. To say he was angry was to understate the obvious, nevermind the fact that it was a typo of a generic word (and that voyeur.com itself was nothing more than a parked page. He did what anyone would do - file suit, claiming he had a TM on that word.

The self-proclaimed ‘Domain King’, who ‘fights for the rights of ‘domainers’, tries to reverse hijack the domain. From the panel:

The hurdles for showing that a generic term like “voyeur” has acquired a secondary meaning are high – Complainant has not cleared even the first hurdle.

Nothing more than a greedy plan. What really irks me is the entire process - while Rick could afford the couple thousand it would cost him to file the UDRP (process of resolving domain name disputes) and so could the respondant, what if the respondent was someone who couldn’t afford it? A valuable domain, with minimal hassle.

This all ties into my previous post on moral relativism. The moment someone starts imposing their ‘morals’ on someone else is when things start to fall apart. A lot of these people are willing to smile at you while they try bleeding you dry.

After all, what do you when you have a lot of money? Make more of it.

UPDATE: As is often the case with written text, some people are getting the wrong idea. This isn’t about Rick in person (he seems to be an okay guy, just has some problems with temper and criticism). This is an issue about morals - the moment you let someone else dictate what is moral and what isn’t (only a few things in life are truly black and white), that is when you run into trouble. Rick was simply an easy example - while talking about domainer rights, he tried to do what he ‘crusades’ against. Be independent please - be your own judge (ie while I respect Frank and Dean a lot, they aren’t my source of right & wrong).