If you owned Domaining dot com, how would you monetize???

[Greg]

I preface this post by saying I respect Francois and have always enjoyed the service that he has provided with Domaining.com.

There has been a lot of talk today about Domaining.com and how it is not making the revenue that Francois desires. Here are some examples from today's Domaining blogs:

Bruce Marler
ElliotsBlog
DomainGang
YGrab
ChefPatrick
DomainingTips
DotWeekly

Some points have been made on both sides of the fence. The question that arises is this....If you owned Domaining dot com, how would you monetize the site????

Again, I'm not trying to bash Francois, just giving him the voice of the domaining community that he targets to show other ways to make money for this domain.

So how would you monetize Domaining (:gndot com?????

 

[Acroplex]

I'd display a beautiful French model each day to paid subscribers :D

 

[firefly]

I'd display a beautiful French model each day to paid subscribers :D

lol. Why? I can just search beautiful french models on google image search.

Nice thought though.

 

[DotWeekly]

Sponsored Headlines
Advertising
Other options like the sponsored headlines and utilize the right sidebar

Change it from an aggregator site may be the best idea....

 

[mosilager]

Just how much does it cost to run an "aggregated" site?. I mean all the hard work is being done by other blogs, all his site is doing is aggregating the feeds into one place, how much monetization does one expect from this?.

I visit "Domaining" at least 4 times a day, it's a great site, and I too appreciate his hard work, but monetizing a site like this can only comes from sponsors like hosting companies, domainers who have very active subscribers or from big domainers like Rick Latona.

You turn this into a paid subscription site and most people will go to namebee. :imho:

 

[NetOctave]

Just how much does it cost to run an "aggregated" site?.

Running an aggregator site is not that costly. On the other hand it is way cheaper and easier than maintaining other sites.

I maintain an aggregator site that aggregates contents from more than 15K blogs (see my sig on indian blogs) and I just pay $10 per month for the VPS account. It uses an open source cms and requires no more than an hour per week to maintain.

 

[gingeman]

I would certainly have considered this and made a business plan before shelling out the money he did on that domain which, incidentally, is the reason he needs to monetize it. I am sure the running of the site is a negligible cost.

 

[Carlton]

The value in being listed there lies in the quality of the domain name. "Domaining" obviously has great recognition within the domain name industry. Most people on the street however would not have a clue what "domaining" is so the name doesn't have that much relevance or cachet outside the domain industry. Which could be why the site has not attracted large advertisers.

His addition of non-domaining feeds was probably an attempt to expand the potential circle of interest. That's the beauty of a pure domain name, and also its limitation to some extent. A generic domain name should dictate what content can be found there. I'm not going to have a quality real estate domain name and then sell children's clothes on the site. By comparison, if domaining.com becomes watered down with non-domaining topics then the site will die.

My thought is that the more inclusive Francois becomes of domainers the more success he will have with the site. If he begins to segregate, divide, and exclude members of the domain industry, then today's big players will walk away as well as tomorrow's up and comers.

 

[Greg]

The value in being listed there lies in the quality of the domain name. "Domaining" obviously has great recognition within the domain name industry. Most people on the street however would not have a clue what "domaining" is so the name doesn't have that much relevance or cachet outside the domain industry. Which could be why the site has not attracted large advertisers.

His addition of non-domaining feeds was probably an attempt to expand the potential circle of interest. That's the beauty of a pure domain name, and also its limitation to some extent. A generic domain name should dictate what content can be found there. I'm not going to have a quality real estate domain name and then sell children's clothes on the site. By comparison, if domaining.com becomes watered down with non-domaining topics then the site will die.

My thought is that the more inclusive Francois becomes of domainers the more success he will have with the site. If he begins to segregate, divide, and exclude members of the domain industry, then today's big players will walk away as well as tomorrow's up and comers.

Excellent, well thought out answer (especially the last paragraph). Repped