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We are the idiots ...

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Are you going to develop some of your domains?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • Definitely plan to develop my domains

    47 
    votes
    32.2%
  • Perhaps develop some of my domains

    38 
    votes
    26.0%
  • Might try to develop one domain to see how it goes

    18 
    votes
    12.3%
  • No, just after selling my domains

    33 
    votes
    22.6%
  • Why work when domaining is so easy and it will make me a millionaire within the year

    10 
    votes
    6.8%
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

That's right 'we are the idiots'.

Why is it that the vast majority of us do not develop our domains into websites.

- Is it cost?
- Is it time?
- Is it lack of knowledge on the domain subject?
- Is it not knowing where to start building a website?
- Or is it because of laziness and just after a quick buck by reselling the domain name without doing any work?

Of course there is another option that should be added to the list, or is it because we do not think our domain names are not as good as we try to convince others that they are and 'they' should develop them into a website?

Of course we all know that a developed website with visitors is worth far more from affiliate income or even the sale of the website than just the domain name by itself that might be able to be turned into such, but very few domainers actually go on to develop websites on their domain.

Even if you cannot develop a website yourself through lack of knowledge on the subject (which can be learned anyway), or lack the ability to build a website (there are loads of programs to help you on the web), then you can hire people to do it for you from website designers to content writers they are all available for hire.

Come on be honest. Why do you not develop the domains you own?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Looking forward to it. You have condensed into a post what everyone should consider and know before entering into any partnership instead of learning the hard way and ruining business and relationships.
Not sure what you mean about "entering into any partnership instead of learning the hard way and ruining business and relationships"? All my partnerships and relationships have been pretty darn successful...just ask my wife of 49 years:xf.smile:
 
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This is a very important point. Websites are never complete.

I like to practice what I preach and that is to get something up and online at the earliest opportunity. There is no point that something is perfect and there is always value in every piece of the puzzle.
That makes a lot of sense considering you've been a member here for over 15 years. However some may have a higher priority than others. For example, I reg'd a domain yesterday using the keyword "hygiene" as a result of Covid-19. The domains purpose is "educational", but a byproduct of the education may result in hygienic sales of things like masks, soaps and disinfectants.

Thanks for your advice(y)
 
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How can two SEO specialists be so far apart in their analysis? Who to believe? I'm beginning to think I'm an SEO expert:xf.wink:...what does that tell you? The thing I do know is that I don't trust anyone who isn't transparent....maybe that's just me, but it's gotten me through life:xf.rolleyes:

Believe the person you want.
SEO is not a science, there is not a guideline that explain how it works, it is not math.
There is not any book/course that tell you make A to obtain B.
You can follow google guidelines or the google sock puppets on social networks step by step and discover after 6/12 months that are completely unuseful.
I talk by experience, I've developed hundreds of projects.
And after that amount I've discovered what is work and what doesn't.
If you don't trust anyone is not transparent imagine how we, seo experts, feel cause google is the worst transparent organization in the world. They will never tell you what works and what doesn't.
And, as mentioned, they release updates every week but have never tell us what they want or prefer or consider important after an update.
it's frustrating to see your site performing well this week and then completely destroyed the following week without even knowing what caused this destruction and how to fix the damage.
For this reason I continue to say to do not develop any projects if you've not budget and skills (skills in development back/front end, system administration, DB administration, SEO, ..., ....., ....).
We're no longer in the 90s high skills are mandatory in 2020.
High skills = college education preferably in engineering or computer science and TONS of in field experience on REAL projects.
My 2 cents.
 
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Believe the person you want.
SEO is not a science, there is not a guideline that explain how it works, it is not math.
There is not any book/course that tell you make A to obtain B.
You can follow google guidelines or the google sock puppets on social networks step by step and discover after 6/12 months that are completely unuseful.
I talk by experience, I've developed hundreds of projects.
And after that amount I've discovered what is work and what doesn't.
If you don't trust anyone is not transparent imagine how we, seo experts, feel cause google is the worst transparent organization in the world. They will never tell you what works and what doesn't.
And, as mentioned, they release updates every week but have never tell us what they want or prefer or consider important after an update.
it's frustrating to see your site performing well this week and then completely destroyed the following week without even knowing what caused this destruction and how to fix the damage.
For this reason I continue to say to do not develop any projects if you've not budget and skills (skills in development back/front end, system administration, DB administration, SEO, ..., ....., ....).
We're no longer in the 90s high skills are mandatory in 2020.
High skills = college education preferably in engineering or computer science and TONS of in field experience on REAL projects.
My 2 cents.
Speaking of "High skills"....my partner in the medical billing business had a computer science degree from LSU, 1970. He wrote most of our software that ran on an IBM System 36 that we would sell to large medical groups...later when PC's came out, he oversaw the development for most of the software for them as well. Basically Phil was a geek, and he knew he couldn't do what I could do, and we both knew I couldn't do what he could do. Phil would tell me, "if it works right the first time, something's wrong" and I learned to respect that. We built a helluva business together that I named AcSel, and the business is still rock'n today.

The point you make about Google and budget and expense tells me I'd be a fool to contract with anyone for development not knowing what I might get. Thus my reasoning to "partner" with developer. I have a track record of being a good partner, but it seems to me many of today's developers think they're somehow a cut above, but I can assure you, they're not:xf.wink:
 
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Not sure what you mean about "entering into any partnership instead of learning the hard way and ruining business and relationships"? All my partnerships and relationships have been pretty darn successful...just ask my wife of 49 years:xf.smile:

My comment was not about you at all.
 
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What happened to your developer partner, Rich?
Oh did I say the equity partner/partners I have now are gone? I didn't mean to mislead you, but I meant "paid" partners vs. "equity" partners. I'm doing just fine thank you, especially with the plans I have for DiscoverScotch.com and the world renowned Scotch aficionado from Glasgow who has also agreed to partner with me. Any more questions Joe?
 
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My comment was not about you at all.
Sorry....I know you didn't think I'd make it this long in the business:xf.wink:, but I tend to defy the odds. I know I'd never bet against me:xf.rolleyes:
 
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Oh did I say the equity partner/partners I have now are gone? I didn't mean to mislead you, but I meant "paid" partners vs. "equity" partners. I'm doing just fine thank you, especially with the plans I have for DiscoverScotch.com and the world renowned Scotch aficionado from Glasgow who has also agreed to partner with me. Any more questions Joe?
Didn't mean that as an attack.

It sounded like things hadn't panned out with your DomainGourmet developer, so I thought I'd ask.
 
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Sorry....I know you didn't think I'd make it this long in the business:xf.wink:, but I tend to defy the odds. I know I'd never bet against me:xf.rolleyes:

I'll say it again :) My post wasn't about you at all. Now, reread with that in mind both what he wrote and my comment on that.

What he writes is relevant to ANY partnership.
 
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I tried developing some of my domains into small websites. I don't have the skills really. I find it tedious to write articles even spinning existing ones. I don't want to put a lot of money into developing sites only to find they still don't sell. It puts the risk/reward up. If there was automatic software that builds up a website with new content etc at low cost then maybe I would do it.
Hi - Consider Fiverr. Can get one page websites done for you for about $5. May be your answer. Just a thought(y)
 
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Didn't mean that as an attack.

It sounded like things hadn't panned out with your DomainGourmet developer, so I thought I'd ask.
Joe...thanks so much for your concern about me...it's much appreciated(y) My developer for DomainGourmet is back on the job, and as you can see a template site is back up.

On another note I have dozens of domains just waiting to be developed so I'm going to need more than just one developer....just a few minutes ago I hand reg'd two YNotXXX.com domains, one having to do with "Pot" and the other having to do with "Play", and both of these domains are screaming for a developer...especially the "Pot" domain. I just need a little more exposure, but you're helping with that. Thanks Joe:xf.smile:
 
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Ahhhh, the good ole days.

I had myself a network of over 400 restaurant sites, all on separate domains and my Google AdSense revenue was growing by about 50% per month. The sites were all keyword domains. When I could get a name like "CityName"Restaurants.com (for example SunnyvaleRestaurants.com) it would hit the first page of google in about a month, like clockwork. All of the sites were legit, I maintained the restaurant listings to be accurate and up-to-date, had reviews by users in each city and everything was humming along.

At the click of a button I could update the template of all 400+ websites.

At the peak I was above 10,000 real users per day, all bot traffic excluded. My revenue from AdSense alone was just starting to go over $1,000 per month. It looked like it was just a matter of time before it was at $5,000, or even $10,000 per month for very little ongoing maintenance work. Then Google's Panda update hit and by next month my revenue dropped to about $150 per month. This is after 100s of hours of work put into developing this. We had restaurant owners paying for advertising, and it's hard to keep them once you aren't in the top of the search engine results.

Once the revenue drops to this level and isn't growing, it is just better to abandon it than to have a half-maintained mess that is not very useful. Because the problem is, it isn't worth putting time into for a stagnant $100-$150 per month website. Once you don't put time into it, it doesn't even make the $100-$150 per month.

So my take is, it takes a large effort nowadays to make headway for just 1 website. If it's your passion, then great...go for it! But if it isn't, it's likely to not be a very useful site and at the same time will likely reduce your chances of selling the domain.

To me, a half-baked site just cheapens the perceived value of the domain. If someone has a $20k+ idea for a domain, then goes to the site to see a WordPress template with affiliate links, what kind of impression does that leave them with?

Garrett...i don't remember who started this thread, but it's really got me pumped:xf.wink: I don't know if you follow the "reg of the day" thread, but a lot of creative illustration comes with many of the domains listed daily. All I'm able to do with mine is add an emoji:xf.eek:, or maybe a little color. My point here is, a simple landing page illustrating your domain like seen on reg of the day is probably as good or better than a half aass website. I'm thinking of reaching out to some of the NP creatives to see if they may want to work with me in some capacity for I have lots of great domains that need this kind of exposure.

The other thing I wanted to share from my experience is that all gravy trains eventually come to an end similar to your experience with your 400 restaurant websites. However that's not to say there aren't gravy trains just waiting for you to hop onboard:xf.smile:

I'm having so much fun playing the domain game I know my gravy train is in the station just waiting to take off, and I can't wait for the ride of my life......All Aboard!!!
 
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Joe...thanks so much for your concern about me...it's much appreciated(y) My developer for DomainGourmet is back on the job, and as you can see a template site is back up.

On another note I have dozens of domains just waiting to be developed so I'm going to need more than just one developer....just a few minutes ago I hand reg'd two YNotXXX.com domains, one having to do with "Pot" and the other having to do with "Play", and both of these domains are screaming for a developer...especially the "Pot" domain. I just need a little more exposure, but you're helping with that. Thanks Joe:xf.smile:
Happy to help, Rich. Best wishes with your projects.
 
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Think of it as in buying plots of lands. Where the plot of land is the domain and the location is the domain name, the house built on it, is the website.

A fictional boring story:

First I bought a plot of land because I found it to be real cheap (handreg ) and its location to suite me so well(a domain name that works for me), because it is near my office and kids school is not far.
I really wanted to build a house there (website) a house that we will be living in for good (a major website that may take lots of time and effort to build and maintain).
I am an architect and my wife is an interior designer, we hired a few other people and get the house ready to move to. (we are web developers but still hired a few more people because we are taking the website seriously and we need content creators, marketers, accountants[website has ecommerce..]...etc)
The house we built was big and needed maintenance (longs hour are needed to maintain and update the website and we need full time employees to help us too).

A few years later, we were invited to a wedding to a Greek island and spent a few extra days there, we fell in love with the place (a new niche we got interested in), we bought a plot of land there (a domain name that we are interested in building a website for). We built a small house there that we would visit every summer (a small website that does not require much effort and does not require continuous updates)

While staying in that summer home on the Greek island, we felt that the the number of visitors to the island is increasing, and many cruise ships have added the island to their itinerary (increase interest in the niche) we decided to buy a land as an investment. And a few week later we sold that land for a new resident who wanted to build a house there (a domain buyer end user).

The summer after we have decided two buy more lands that are in a really good location of the islands. We bought five of them (buying more domain in that niche) we sold two of them to a real estate investor (we sold the domains to a domain investor)

We now have two homes, our main residence and the one on the Greek island (we own two websites) and a few plots of lands in different locations waiting for interested buyers (three domain names in a niche)
we get asked if we are planning to build houses on these empty plots (domain names without developed websites) we dont have enough time and money to build them, we will wait until a buyer comes.



Santorini-cruise-iStock.jpg
 
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yes, we do not develop because we are NOT idiots
 
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yes, we do not develop because we are NOT idiots
Interesting....here is a quote emailed to me by one of the most successful domainers over the last 25 years;

"I learned early on that developers have no concept of sales and marketing.
However, they will build you a beautiful, gorgeous site that will not generate revenue.
Technology will always come first to them and no matter what you tell them to do, they will try and pull it their way. I've always said that if developers were paid solely by how much the site generated, 1000X more sites would've been profitable."

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.
 
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"I learned early on that developers have no concept of sales and marketing.
However, they will build you a beautiful, gorgeous site that will not generate revenue.
Technology will always come first to them and no matter what you tell them to do, they will try and pull it their way. I've always said that if developers were paid solely by how much the site generated, 1000X more sites would've been profitable."

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.
Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!
 
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....

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.
 
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Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!

After youtube, I had to scrap newpix ( and started all those "tube" jokes ).

When it's time to shoot, SHOOT. Don't talk. Don't fiddle around until Rome burns to the ground.

I had to have everything PERFECT. Especially Social. There was a site called Cherry Tap ( now Fubar )

that billed itself as an "internet bar for drunks". They had the best, the cutest Social and I was going to

copy/integrate it all. But Google wanted to be there NOW ( then ). So a bunch of kidz in a loft above a

pizza place in CA with a five-month-old start-up that had NO sales, NO earnings, etc. gets the $2 BIL

from "Great Googly-Moogly", which may be dropping the ball - why I just bot, on this very site, findingg.com -

"Find In GG" ( see above ).
 
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This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

I am no clown either; I am a CMS Specialist. I can install Joomla on a domain ( if YOU want ).

But I will NOT be a hostage of Joomla Code Gods. I could not even get in Joomla Day, and I LIVE

in Chicago. So I had my own Joomla Day at the Dunkin Doughnuts in the basement food court in the

building next door. Because of Joomla, and to a lesser extent Drupal, but mostly due to the vulnerability

of databases, we have seen the rise of Flat-File CMSs ( Grav ). However, while I was busy learning CMS,

BOX achieved 70% penetration of the Fortune 500 and needs to make a new high over 30 before I buy.....

meanwhile, there's Nokia, GE, and Xerox ( who just might get Hewlett-Packard ) - but I digress...
 
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Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!
Luke....and thanks for acknowledging. I can share a few other experiences that drive this point home. While not a developer, my "technical" partner in a medical billing business I started in 1978 would always warn me, "if the software I wrote works right the first time, there's probably something wrong". Keep in mind he was a "partner" and not a paid contractor.

Then I had an experience while building an office building where we made a group of architects and designers partners who were challenged to help us bring the building costs in $100,000 under budget. They were to be tenants in the building, but it was their desire to keep tweeking the plans such that it came in $100,000 over budget. Collectively the partners had to come up with the 100K because the lender wouldn't lend us anymore money. We didn't have the money, but we were fortunate enough to find another lender to give us a second loan.

Finally Luke....a partner and myself are starting a business and a site; DiscoverScotch.com. I'm the business guy and my partner is the star (scotch aficionado), and in order to pull this off on a virtual global scale, how would you go about finding a developer or sweat equity partner? Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.
 
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This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.
I'm not a clown either, and I'm not about to have a developer make a clown out of me. Ever hear the expression "takes two to tango"? Just read Luke (developer) response to see where I'm coming from.
 
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Just as an update to my previous post, still trying to get OwenCounty.com live, waiting on a lot of content, primarily. But 7/1, I should be good to go.
 
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My ideas are always too big and I always kill out the server resources so I could have a site with 100,000 posts on it, but then it would be slow and I'd have to rebuild it after it gets that big (1-2 months for an automated site)
 
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