Domaining.com no longer free

[internext]

Got my usual daily email, clicked a link and got the domaining sign-in page rather than the story I expected. No problem, I logged in only to find the following:

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Unfortunately the Domaining.com membership is no longer free. We started to charge a low annual fee to help us pay our bills: hosting, data transfer, ... For this reason free accounts have been closed. If you are serious about domaining then we invite you to SIGN UP AGAIN HERE.

 

[traderJack]

An update:


Once the membership paid you could:
- Join/participate in our affiliate program that will offer from next week a $5 CPA deal.
- List featured domains for sale.
- Buy sponsored headlines.
- Receive one day before anyone the new featured names for sale.

I'm sorry but you are missing the whole point IMO, you are charging for the privilege of:

Join/participate in our affiliate program that will offer from next week a $5 CPA deal.

Since when did people charge for a affiliate to be able to sign up and promote your service and earn you more money?

- List featured domains for sale.

you charge for domains to be listed! why would anyone pay a membership for the right to be able to PAY for a domain to be listed for sale?

- Buy sponsored headlines.

again, you want people to pay a membership for the right to then be able to pay for sponsored headlines???

- Receive one day before anyone the new featured names for sale.

This IMO is one of your biggest mistakes, when your newsletter was free paying to advertise a domain for sale was well worth the money, but now you have destroyed the service, i have no idea the size of your "paid list" but if this thread is anything to go off its a lot smaller than the full list, I would now not consider advertising in your newsletter as it as lost its effectiveness, the domain would now only be advertised to a smaller list, as I'm sure most other subscribers will agree, for those that get the list of domains a day later they wont even bother to look in most cases.
When i used to get your list i would make sure i checked it early to see if there was a bargain or two to be had, now i don't even look, knowing its already been out to some the day before.

As I'm sure most will agree, you had one of (if not the) best domainers lists on the internet, but you have systematically destroyed it.

IMHO you really need to take professional advice, your business/site/newsletter have great potential to make you a lot of money, but you are going about it completely wrong, you are biting the hand that feeds you.

Your newsletter contains nothing (from you) it contains the blog feeds that are free anyway and whilst this is handy for domainers, its not something they will pay for, and your domain sales, the revenue you receive for advertisements is your payback for supplying a useful service of with the blog feeds.

I've expressed my point of view earlier in this thread on how noone should have to pay for the service, however, if anyone should pay, surely it should be the blog writers themselves as effectively it is advertising. Obviously you aren't writing for the money (and, once again, this is why noone should pay), however, writers must receive significant traffic from Domaining.com.

I am sure there has been an increase in readers to all the blogs that contribute to Domaining.com, thus giving even more reason for high-quality posts. I genuinely am very disappointed by the effects we'll see from Domaining.com's demise; just as a site brings the community together, in one fell swoop it can, once again, be dismantled.

I agree 100% it is sad to see.

when the notice of charging for the newsletter first reared its head i immediately felt although it was handy for the blog feeds all in one email, its not something worth paying for.
I was going to un-subscribe, then came the email saying i wouldn't be receiving it anymore and to subscribe.
Then it came back, now its changed to the point where its useless, clicking a blog link just takes you to a subscribe page, so I'm sad to say i will be un-subscribing as i feel many other will too.

the list that was once one of your greatest assets is being destroyed by the day and you wont need to take my word for it, you know the original size of your list, you know the size of your subscribed list, and as the newsletter is now useless you will see the lists diminish to nothing over the next few days/weeks.

although i don't expect you will publish the figures, It would be interesting to see:
the size of your list before announcing the requirement to pay?
the size of your paid list?
the size of your original list in one weeks time?

On a final note i would just like to say, its not about the $25, its the principle of paying for what is free.
I truly wish you every success in your business, but strongly urge you to take professional advice on how best to monetize your site before its too late.

 

[Premiere]

I am not certain that this is correct, but I have felt a kind of prevailing undertone to all of this.

Clearly there are people willing to provide the same service for free, with the same feeds and authors and even a better layout. However, we are such domainers we can't get out of the automation of using "domaining" as our newsfeed. We are in a way, fighting with the owner over the use of a name he purchased and branded - which in some way represents us and who we are.

With the potential loss of that keyword, I think we all feel a little collateral damage. Not just because of the word, but because perhaps the rest of the world is starting to clue in a little and that's the word they are seeing every day.

Do you think RickLatona.com feels any pain from these changes? No, Rick is his own brand and his sales and following aren't the result of the feeds on domaining. Many other authors are definitely going to feel a pinch with a traffic loss and change in readership. It was easy to get the email and read a blog or two when I had time. Now I've already forgotten the habit and it's disturbing.

I feel as if we have lost one of our words to someone who kind of doesn't 'get it' as far as the rest of us are concerned. It was strange, almost around the time we all started to feel like this was such a great resource, and "maybe let's advertise here" or "let's get our blog syndicated here" - everything changed. That's a very disappointing change, but so many companies have made these changes over the years and they are usually not for the benefit of people who aren't willing to follow.

So you and I and everyone we know won't be reading this blog, and I think we need to just give up on that and either create or find the next big resource for domainers and their followers. I don't have that solution but I can tell you that the name, and our feelings about how we were represented, are gone. This niche now remains open for someone else to create their own brand and readership.

 

[DotWeekly]

If there were original articles, insider tips, or something else unique, the $35/year could be justified easily. :imho:

Sounds like DotWeekly.com :blink:

:wave:

 

[tricolorro]

No you don't!

Domaining.com just provides a very clean, easy to read, headline menu of
some of the best domaining blogs.

Here's what I did:

Create a Folder in Bookmarks called DOMAINING or Domain Blogs.

Go to each blog you like and Bookmark the home page in your
DOMAINING folder.

You only have to do this once.

the current blog posting is always on the home page.

Then each day visit Domaining.com and scan the headlines.
He can't charge for that!

Then open you Bookmark folder and click each domain blog you want
to read that day.

If it helps anyone I'll post my current list of domain blogs I've
bookmarked and visit:

http://blog.name.com/
http://www.conceptualist.com/
http://www.david-carter.com/blog/
http://dnblogger.com/
http://www.dnkitchen.com/
http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm
http://www.dnxpert.com/
http://www.dnunderground.com/
http://www.domainerdeveloper.com/
http://www.domainerincome.com/news/
http://www.domainflipper.typepad.com/
http://www.domaining.com/
http://www.domainnamenews.com/
http://domainnamewire.com/
http://www.dotweekly.com/
http://www.ebusinessdomains.com/domainblog/
http://www.elliotsblog.com/
http://estibot.com/blog/
http://www.fka200.com/
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/
http://www.llll.com/
http://isitmeoriseveryoneelsestupid.com/
http://www.namecake.com/category/blog/
http://www.parkingfirm.com/
http://www.predictivedomaining.com/
http://www.ricklatona.com/
http://www.ricksblog.com/
http://simplygeo.com/
http://www.skydomains.com/
http://www.successclick.com/
http://tcattorney.typepad.com/anticybersquatting_consum/
http://www.thedomains.com/
http://www.trenddomaining.com/
http://www.wannadevelop.com/
http://whizzbangsblog.com/

There are many more blogs but these are some of the best.

Too bad Frank Schilling's SevenMile blog is inactive.
His voice is sorely missed.

 

[jeffoverman]

lol...i only really enjoy reading couple blogs so this dosent effect me...

wish them well...

they have other features which i didnt use, i probably wont be paying for this..less reading, less time being wasted, lol...

 

[-REECE-]

I'm saddened to hear this and I wish there could have been some other way. Francois has made a great site out of Domaining.com which I feel has really brought the domaining community more together.

There are some alternative domaining RSS aggregators and I fear most people will switch to them rather than be required to pay a fee which really is too bad because I know a lot of time + money went into building + promoting Domaining.com.

Got my usual daily email, clicked a link and got the domaining sign-in page rather than the story I expected. No problem, I logged in only to find the following:

 

[DotUSDomains]

Sad to hear,

I hate to say it but i wont be paying to read other peoples blogs.

only 4 or 5 i read daily.

Shame.

 

[Mark]

How do you opt out of the emails if there is no longer an account to log into ?

 

[DotUSDomains]

I'm still able to view my account as it has alsways been,

i'm sure in there emails there will be a link for you to "opt out" of any future emails (thats the law i think )

 

[henniemeijer]

It would be ok to pay if you get to read just informational blogs instead of "more or less" paid reviews of services and self"fragger" image promotion.

 

[cobainer]

I never really used it apart from finding some specific info that I required...& I always found info that I needed

Such a shame that I'll have to stop using it now...

 

[Sameh]

i'm sure in there emails there will be a link for you to "opt out" of any future emails (thats the law i think )

No, there's not.

Only this link, which requires login anyway : http://www.domaining.com/account/editnewsletter.asp

 

[Pound]

It seems someone didn't write a business plan...does he not realise that this is not an original idea and that it could easily be replicated for free?!

 

[Sameh]

It seems someone didn't write a business plan...does he not realise that this is not an original idea and that it could easily be replicated for free?!

I think he should realize that from last time.

 

[footodors]

trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip.

 

[Giode]

Still working free of charge for me.

 

[-REECE-]

I think reducing the advertising rates would be a much better choice. Instead of $100/day to have a sponsored headline, cut it to $50/day. Instead of $1400/week for a banner ad, make it $500/week. The banner advertising prices ($1400/week) are a fair bit more expensive than at Namepros despite Namepros receiving about 250% more traffic than Domaining.com according to Compete.com, so that might explain why it's being hard to sell.

I think Domaining.com could make $2000/month pretty easily between advertising sales and commissions on domains sold -- it just requires looking at the prices and adjusting them accordingly. Better to make at least some money than no money, everything already invested being already sunk.

 

[deleted984054565403]

Hosting/server costs? It's a glorified RSS aggregator. I enjoy the site, but not enough that I'd pay to read someone else's articles.

That also means I'll stop listing "featured domains" for sale at Domaining.com now knowing that a very limited number of people will be viewing my name listed for sale.

 

[Robbie]

IT'S STILL FOC!

I havent seen any differance today!

Im using the site as always!

Regards,

Robbie

 

[DotWeekly]

IT'S STILL FOC!

I havent seen any differance today!

Im using the site as always!

Regards,

Robbie

Maybe early news the OP discovered? I logged out and logged back in and never seen the message either.

 

[JoshuaPz]

Got my usual daily email, clicked a link and got the domaining sign-in page rather than the story I expected. No problem, I logged in only to find the following:

Same happened to me just now.

 

[Mark]

The actual news feeds on the index were always free - But clicking on "submit a domain" or one of the "domains for sale" leads me to a New signup page for a paid membership.

 

[prague7]

Looks like the email has just been sent out informing the site will no longer be free - just received mine saying my account is now closed, no more newsletters and asking for $35 p.a. Doesn't seem much, I know, but I'm afraid I won't be signing up.

What about the bloggers - what are your view on this? Will you be looking for other ways to promote your blogs to the domaining community?

 

[DotWeekly]

I am not sure if it's because I am a blogger, but I have yet to get any email and all the features work for me on Domaining.com .

How this will effect my blog if domaining goes to "paid" I am not sure. Since many will stop visiting Domaining.com, they can still visit my blog directly, RSS and so on. Blogger's could get more traffic really, but it's just hard to say.

Either way, I think making Domaining.com a pay site is the Wrong Way to go...