Anyone hear from Red Hawk anymore, Chief Operating Officer of Fabulous.com? I found closed threads with his posts here from 2004, but I haven't found anything current.
My own experience with Fabulous since April 2005, with about 350 domains, has been, for the most part, Fabulous. However, I have noticed a sharp decline in Uniques and Earnings for all domains from January 2006. Just curious about any corporate policy changes that might have occurred... or whether it was just the marketplace? Has anyone else experienced similar things with them?
The other issue I have is that many of my domains were purchased due to expired traffic. In most of those cases, the domain name itself has nothing to do with the traffic nor the intent of the surfer. But Fabulous will only optimize according to phrase breaking of the domain name, so many of my domains will end up being classified in completely different categories than where the traffic wants to go. I have tried numerous ways to work this out, but they are steadfast about this policy. Thus, Fabulous is best suited for those names with "type in traffic", such as Poker-Table.com or SexStories.com.
If you have names like I do, such as 17Cindy.com, with a high number of incoming links (expired traffic) for a website about Cindy Crawford, it will be categorized to the (generic) home page, and not to the Celebrities classification.
Their 5.0 program (just out) is definitely an upgrade to their premium program, which I am still playing with, because it offers keyword targeting. The staff at Fabulous is ultra-professional and highly recommended, but they are definitely sticklers at categorizing domain names according to the name itself. For a name such as MagnusOnline.com, which might have incoming links (archive.org) pointing to a previous website about promotional printing products, the domain would be classified as Online Services (where it does not fit) and not in Promotional Printing. Also, the keyword of "Promotional Printing" would most likely be rejected because it deters from the domain name itself.
If your domains do not qualify for the premium program with Fabulous (I am still learning what constitutes premium names and what doesn't), they will be placed in their "Roar" program, which you have more flexibility with, but thus far I have had terrible results with Roar. Thankfully, 95% of my names are considered premium.
For premium names, you do not have a lot of leeway with categorization... Fabulous will always place the name it the category they see fit. And the category will always match the domain name itself. This quandary has led me to seek alternate PPCs for these domains where the name does not fit the expired traffic at all, i.e. a PPC that allows keyword targeting, and for non-premium names per Fabulous. My only experience thus far with another PPC has been with Sedo. Like most of the comments here, I have had disastrous results with them. Still on my to-do list is trying the other PPCs mentioned in this forum (thanks, guys). However, the jeers and cheers sure seem to vary.
Finally, I have seen posts claiming that Fabulous pays up to $9 per click for poker domains, which intrigues me. Wonder how a person gets their hands on the pay rate for Fabulous, or any of the PPCs. My experience with Fabulous (though I only have a few poker domains currently) has yielded a maximum of $2.12 per click... and that was for a sales domain.
I'd love to hear about other Fabulous experiences. Thanks!
My own experience with Fabulous since April 2005, with about 350 domains, has been, for the most part, Fabulous. However, I have noticed a sharp decline in Uniques and Earnings for all domains from January 2006. Just curious about any corporate policy changes that might have occurred... or whether it was just the marketplace? Has anyone else experienced similar things with them?
The other issue I have is that many of my domains were purchased due to expired traffic. In most of those cases, the domain name itself has nothing to do with the traffic nor the intent of the surfer. But Fabulous will only optimize according to phrase breaking of the domain name, so many of my domains will end up being classified in completely different categories than where the traffic wants to go. I have tried numerous ways to work this out, but they are steadfast about this policy. Thus, Fabulous is best suited for those names with "type in traffic", such as Poker-Table.com or SexStories.com.
If you have names like I do, such as 17Cindy.com, with a high number of incoming links (expired traffic) for a website about Cindy Crawford, it will be categorized to the (generic) home page, and not to the Celebrities classification.
Their 5.0 program (just out) is definitely an upgrade to their premium program, which I am still playing with, because it offers keyword targeting. The staff at Fabulous is ultra-professional and highly recommended, but they are definitely sticklers at categorizing domain names according to the name itself. For a name such as MagnusOnline.com, which might have incoming links (archive.org) pointing to a previous website about promotional printing products, the domain would be classified as Online Services (where it does not fit) and not in Promotional Printing. Also, the keyword of "Promotional Printing" would most likely be rejected because it deters from the domain name itself.
If your domains do not qualify for the premium program with Fabulous (I am still learning what constitutes premium names and what doesn't), they will be placed in their "Roar" program, which you have more flexibility with, but thus far I have had terrible results with Roar. Thankfully, 95% of my names are considered premium.
For premium names, you do not have a lot of leeway with categorization... Fabulous will always place the name it the category they see fit. And the category will always match the domain name itself. This quandary has led me to seek alternate PPCs for these domains where the name does not fit the expired traffic at all, i.e. a PPC that allows keyword targeting, and for non-premium names per Fabulous. My only experience thus far with another PPC has been with Sedo. Like most of the comments here, I have had disastrous results with them. Still on my to-do list is trying the other PPCs mentioned in this forum (thanks, guys). However, the jeers and cheers sure seem to vary.
Finally, I have seen posts claiming that Fabulous pays up to $9 per click for poker domains, which intrigues me. Wonder how a person gets their hands on the pay rate for Fabulous, or any of the PPCs. My experience with Fabulous (though I only have a few poker domains currently) has yielded a maximum of $2.12 per click... and that was for a sales domain.
I'd love to hear about other Fabulous experiences. Thanks!
