question Help with Premium Deal: ETWLF.com

[OAB]

Hello everyone,

I own the domain ETWLF.com, which is an abbreviation for ET World Leaders Forum—a massive event managed by The Economic Times, part of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., who also own The Times of India. The event is of significant scale, and I believe the domain I have is a perfect, shorter alternative to the long domain they currently use, which was registered just three months ago.

I’ve set a very reasonable price for ETWLF.com, considering the scale of the event and the massive organizations behind it. Moreover, in my GoDaddy control panel, I’ve noticed a considerable amount of traffic to the domain. I suspect that many visitors are looking for the event itself but are mistakenly landing on my domain.

I would really appreciate any help or advice on how to reach the decision-makers for ET World Leaders Forum. If anyone has experience or tips for approaching such organizations, your input would be invaluable.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

 

[Jannes]

They use backordering to buy highly competitive domains, but I’m looking at expired ones instead. If I told you I rank for a strong commercial keyword in the U.S. with a domain less than a year old, would you believe me?

Ummm, you are not the only one looking at expired domains.

Yes I believe you, and you are of course right in saying "the true nature of the domain will only be revealed when it is used."

 

[Grilled]

However, based on the image you shared, if I were to examine one, I’d choose etwlf because it’s pronounceable, which makes it useful for creating a site on it, whereas the others appear more like random characters.

Thanks for indulging my question.

Personally, I don't see any as pronounceable. How do you pronounce it, ET-Wolf?

Based off looks, I would have chosen hmnnw, but that's because I can stretch to see it as Human Now (without vowels).

Then again, this was intended to be a blind date domain experiment hoping to identify value based off metrics, not off looks. Of which, I don't see anything in the expireddomains metrics that would signal etwlf has any more or less value over the other 41 example domains with 1M+ BL's... ie assuming TR=0, TF=0, CF=0 aren't positive SEO metrics, thus the only positive metric on expireddomains is the 1.1M backlinks?

Which isn't to say 1.1M backlinks wouldn't signify rarity, but if that was the case wouldn't you be jumping to register the remaining 5L's available to reg with 1M+ backlinks? (unless there's something I don't see such as toxic links, or maybe these have been available to register for too long and have lost seo value since it wasn't registered immediately after it dropped?)

But enough about this experiment, and back to your domain...

I appreciate the seo argument, but like others I struggle to see how you can justify valuing that domain at the current price without it looking like you are targeting that forum. Which could come down to litigation should the forum want the domain at a far less price, in which case this thread may not serve you well as you demonstrate being aware of their forum. Maybe if all of your other domains are priced similarly to this domain, that could help serve your point that you're just a buyer of seo domains, and you regularly ask similar high prices?

I would really appreciate any help or advice on how to reach the decision-makers for ET World Leaders Forum. If anyone has experience or tips for approaching such organizations, your input would be invaluable.

BCCI has a pretty extensive internet presence. Rather than advice on how to reach the decision makers, do you know what ypu'd say if you reached one?

8,000 associated members on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bennett-coleman-and-co-ltd-times-of-india/people/

Many different discoverable corporate emails using ClearBit...

Message/comment on the facebook page linked on the forums main website: https://www.facebook.com/ETMarketingHub/

Tweet them (Can I still say tweet?): https://x.com/ETMarketingHub

Basically, there's no shortages on ways to contact them, but when you do will you know what to say?

 

[Grilled]

Yes I believe you, and you are of course right in saying "the true nature of the domain will only be revealed when it is used."

Is that another way of saying don't judge a bookdomain by its cover?

 

[OAB]

Thanks for indulging my question.

Personally, I don't see any as pronounceable. How do you pronounce it, ET-Wolf?

Based off looks, I would have chosen hmnnw, but that's because I can stretch to see it as Human Now (without vowels).

Then again, this was intended to be a blind date domain experiment hoping to identify value based off metrics, not off looks. Of which, I don't see anything in the expireddomains metrics that would signal etwlf has any more or less value over the other 41 example domains with 1M+ BL's... ie assuming TR=0, TF=0, CF=0 aren't positive SEO metrics, thus the only positive metric on expireddomains is the 1.1M backlinks?

Which isn't to say 1.1M backlinks wouldn't signify rarity, but if that was the case wouldn't you be jumping to register the remaining 5L's available to reg with 1M+ backlinks?

But enough about this experiment, and back to your domain...

I appreciate the seo argument, but like others I struggle to see how you can justify valuing that domain at the current price without it looking like you are targeting that forum. Which could come down to litigation should the forum want the domain at a far less price, in which case this thread may not serve you well as you demonstrate being aware of their forum. Maybe if all of your other domains are priced similarly to this domain, that could help serve your point that you're just a buyer of seo domains, and you regularly ask similar high prices?



BCCI has a pretty extensive internet presence. Rather than advice on how to reach the decision makers, do you know what ypu'd say if you reached one?

8,000 associated members on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bennett-coleman-and-co-ltd-times-of-india/people/

Many different discoverable corporate emails using ClearBit...

Message/comment on the facebook page linked on the forums main website: https://www.facebook.com/ETMarketingHub/

Tweet them (Can I still say tweet?): https://x.com/ETMarketingHub

Basically, there's no shortages on ways to contact them, but when you do will you know what to say?

The site expireddomains.net relies on Majestic, and each platform has its own rankings and criteria, making direct judgment impossible without thorough analysis. As for that forum, I’m no longer interested in it. Remember, I registered ETWLF three months after they registered their forum domain. Whether it aligns with the newspaper’s initials ‘ET’ and the forum’s initials ‘WLF’ is irrelevant to me, as I have other matters entirely separate from them. If they choose to pursue an abbreviation, that’s their decision.

 

[Grilled]

Remember, I registered ETWLF three months after they registered their forum domain.

Yes, you registered it 3 months after because it dropped only 2 weeks ago on October 7th.

The forum registered their domain on June 20th. During this time, the domain you registered was forwarding to a NSFW site, so the forum was unable to register it themselves, had they had interest in it.

The forum held their event on August 31st, which spurred #etwlf usage on x.com, and other online mentions of etwlf.

By the time etwlf dropped and expireddomains showed nice metrics, Google was already showing etwlf references to the forum. So I'm not quite sure the benefiting significance of you acquiring this domain 3 months after the forum registered their domain. Seems to me registering it 3 momths prior to the forum registering their domain would be more in your favor of backing the fact you acquired this domain initially solely for the back link value.

Nonetheless, thanks for sharing this thread. I wish you luck with the domain, I'll follow this domain to see how it's used for SEO value!

Maybe you can report back with SEO results/value achieved from this domain?

 

[Sutruk]

The domain seems that was initially used by a chinese child education site.

But last years it seems that was just used as a link farm site, pointing and receiving hundreds of thousands of links from basically around 8 other worthless random 5-6 letter domains acting also as link farms, and some other backlink checker sites.

https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker/?input=ETWLF.com&mode=subdomains

So the traffic seems basically worthless to me, as it was just used as a chinese link farm and its backlinks come also basically from other few chinese link farms.

 

[Sutruk]

Edited for bad joke.

 

[OAB]

The domain seems that was initially used by a chinese child education site.

But last years it seems that was just used as a link farm site, pointing and receiving hundreds of thousands of links from basically around 8 other worthless random 5-6 letter domains acting also as link farms, and some other backlink checker sites.

https://ahrefs.com/backlink-checker/?input=ETWLF.com&mode=subdomains

So the traffic seems basically worthless to me, as it was just used as a chinese link farm and its traffic comes also basically from other few chinese link farms.

Some of the tools you use are crafted from remnants.

Later!

 

[Grilled]

Edited for bad joke.

That spicy pickle didn't last long! Thanks for etteting your post

 

[Sutruk]

Some of the tools you use are crafted from remnants.

Later!

Really? Please, enlighten us and tell us, from what valuable sites are coming the 1.2 million links to your super valuable etwlf domain?

 

[Grilled]

(to demonstrate availability rarity) Of 299,031,081 .com's currently available to reg in expireddomains.net database, when sorting by highest BL, there are only 44 .coms available to register (of the 299M available dataset) that have at least 1M BL's.

Correction, it looks like 21 of the 41 available 1M+BL 5L.coms were regged yesterday and currently redirect to (goodrichgoodyear.com = a newly registered 21 day old dropcatch domain) which is blocked by cloudflare, which is also the nameservers of these 21 regged domains.. The registration time: 2024-10-24T08:06:12Z looks to have been prior to me posting this list; thus only 23 remain.

 

[Jannes]

The domain seems that was initially used by a chinese child education site.

I'm trying to decipher "the original" ETWLF. Based on their Introduction page (translated) I'm guessing WLF=Wenlifang, and Wenlifang Education Technology Co Ltd is mentioned. Of course it's possible that the letters don't have English meanings.

 

[MKA]

If you have a newly acquired domain, it's not a good idea to reach out for the reasons previously mentioned. In fact it was a bad idea to even create this thread.

All you've managed to do here is create strong case for that you don't have any interest in the domain and that it was acquired to the purpose of selling "for valuable consideration in excess of the domain name registrant's out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name."

 

[SixFigures.ltd]

This thread now is full of drama and pointless discussion, why this why that blah blah your backlinks are not real backlinks, arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

[Jannes]

This thread now is full of drama and pointless discussion, why this why that blah blah your backlinks are not real backlinks, arguing for the sake of arguing.

Thanks for letting us ignoramuses know!

 

[jberryhill]

Please, enlighten us and tell us, from what valuable sites are coming the 1.2 million links to your super valuable etwlf domain?

That's the part which escapes me as well.

I'm genuinely curious about why this should be considered a valuable domain, so please tell me what I'm missing here in this summary of what I understand - or misunderstand - about the answer.

I get that one reason expired domains may be valuable is that they may come with built-in traffic looking for whatever used to be there, but which since has been abandoned.

I also gather that search engine ranking of a site may depend in part on how many other sites link to the site in question. The point being that if a site has a substantial number of links to it, then it represents a collective judgment that the target site has a worthwhile reputation.

Because of that second point, there are persons who engage in constructing artificial networks of linked bullshit domain names and websites. The purpose of that activity is to boost search engine relevance and attract traffic on the basis of artificially gaming search engine ranking systems, rather than the sorts of human decisions on which the metric of ranking based on backlinks is premised. The ultimate consequence of this activity is to decrease the actual relevance of search engine results in favor of those most skillful at essentially fooling search engines into misjudging actual relevance.

Would that be a high level summary of the proposed legitimate purpose for having acquired the domain name?

Because if it is not in some sense approximately correct, then I don't understand why it is difficult to get a relatively simple answer to my question of why are there supposedly so many other sites which link to this one? What was there which a million other websites found to be worth directing visitors to?

If it is approximately correct, then I can certainly understand why you might want to register it, but I can also say without hesitation that if push came to shove between that reasoning and someone else's claim of rights in the string in question, I sincerely doubt a UDRP panelist would consider that a sufficiently legitimate reason. For example....

https://www.adrforum.com/DomainDecisions/1843527.htm

Here, Complainant submitted evidence supporting its contention that the mark is famous in the entertainment industry. It further contends that, rather than attempting to divert users away from Complainant, Respondent attempted to capitalize on the fame of the CLINTON SPARKS mark in order to attract users to its own site by enhancing its search engine rankings (i.e., its search engine optimization (“SEO”)). Complainant provides a screenshot of Respondent’s LinkedIn profile where he markets himself as an SEO expert. Accordingly, and in the absence of a response or other submission by the Respondent to refute this assertion, the Panel finds that Respondent did have actual knowledge of Complainant’s mark and registered the disputed domain name in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii).

But maybe I'm just missing something, so help me understand.

 

[homebuyer]

I feel like this is turning into accusations rather than a constructive discussion. For clarity, I own several domains of different lengths, including five-letter ones, all with backlinks and domain authority. I registered ETWLF with no knowledge of the ET World Leaders Forum. It’s ultimately just a random set of letters. After noticing unusual traffic, I researched the event and saw a potential match. If they’re interested, I’m happy to discuss it. If they prefer legal action, I welcome it.

Case Closed

I understand your perspective, but the odds of randomly selecting a specific 5-letter combination are over 11 million to one. Given that, it’s quite a coincidence for a random choice to match something as specific as the ET World Leaders Forum. This isn’t about accusations; it highlights the statistical improbability.