The Art of Domain Mismanagement

[Spade]

I would like to make an interesting observation about Domains being held by their end-users that are ineffectively managed. My case study revolves around the domain name eLoans.com

I was reviewing the ownership of eLoans.com and found that it is owned by the company e-Loan inc. (Also the owners eLoan.com and e-Loan.com) As it turns out instead of forwarding the domain to their main landing page - the domain actually pulls up a GD search page.

"Parked Free, courtesy of Godaddy". Although this could be worse (it could be a page with advertisements on it) It only pulls up a search for domains page. eLoans.com ranks in the top 50,000 websites in accordance to Alexa - and Compete.com estimates its monthly US traffic in the 800,000 uniques + range.

Compete.com also estimates that eLoans.com gets about 9,000 US visitors per month as well. If we assume the stats are comparable across the board (all traffic) we can estimate that eLoans.com gets about 1.12% the traffic of eLoan.com

Although this may not seem like much traffic - Imagine how much revenue this domain would generate in the hands of a domainer? (assume just US traffic)

9000 x .15 (15% CTR) = 1,350 Clicks
1,350 x $1.50 (estime value per click) = $2,025 per month

(my numbers are very rough, but you get the picture)

Now, what is the value of those clicks for the end-user? It appears this name was acquired sometime after 2005 / 2006 - as this is when the whois records appear to change ownership. (there was a period in 2006 where Privacy was on the domain name). So its fair to say that eLoan.com probably held this domain atleast for a year - perhaps closer to two.

I find this to be an incredible waste of a domain name, and perhaps even costly to eLoan.com altogether. I imagine not only would they save themselves a bit of money, but also perhaps close a few additional sales per month if the domain was properly managed.

 

[lazyleo]

True there are actually many similar domains, many companies don't see the need to get those extra hits or rather if they have a dedicated web service team they are doing a very poor job managing the domain, maybe one fine day they will find this thread on google and realize that they are wasting precious traffic..

 

[gazzip]

True there are actually many similar domains, many companies don't see the need to get those extra hits or rather if they have a dedicated web service team they are doing a very poor job managing the domain, maybe one fine day they will find this thread on google and realize that they are wasting precious traffic..

Very True, I suspect alot of it is down to the web guys

Mobile.com OVT of 2377 with extension - did'nt go anywhere for a very long time and was due to drop.....but now it point to cingular.

Jewels.com OVT of 1317 with extension - Goes Nowhere and its also been like that for a loooong time what a waste ! (owned by Sterling Jewelers Inc).

Oh if only I got get my hands one beauty like that :hehe:

.

 

[Kate]

It is a fact that some companies are pretty careless about their assets
They must realize that their domains have value, they would not sell them to you actually but I assume they know nothing about traffic monetization or just can't be bothered.
Take a look at domains like do.com for example (owned by micro$oft). It's not live, not even parked... there are countless premium names that are wasted, but not for sale either.

Sometimes it gets worse. Less than a year ago, I contacted a company and offered to purchase a very nice old LLL .com that was expiring.
I suspect it was some sort of fat-cat advertising corporation. They couldn't care less about money. The lady hung up on me ("not interested").
A month later the name sold for more than 60K at snap

 

[Nsane Domain]

Man-o-man....That is Nsane considering these companies have a PAID and "dedicated" team that are in charge of these things. They would all get a raise if they only snatched that fringe traffic.

Makes one wonder how many others there are !?!

I'm new to this development stuff, but, I even know better than that.

Nsane

 

[Shane]

This is a very very interesting article!

 

[cdboard]

Less than a year ago, I contacted a company and offered to purchase a very nice old LLL .com that was expiring.
I suspect it was some sort of fat-cat advertising corporation. They couldn't care less about money. The lady hung up on me ("not interested").
A month later the name sold for more than 60K at snap

call back and tell her. you know, as a courtesy.

 

[gazzip]

Makes one wonder how many others there are !?!

There's ALOT, I've got a pretty big list of some sweet names not in use, some of which would be worth 100K +

A total different matter trying to get a hold of them

One day ! :lala:


.

The lady hung up on me ("not interested").
A month later the name sold for more than 60K at snap

Bummer !

.

 

[Badger]

Right.. The classic example has been for a number of years is "milk.com"

Are you interested in buying my domain? Forget it. "I got milk.com!"
Disclaimer

Some people may be offended by things they find in here. If you have even the slightest thought that you might one of these people, then go away right now and visit Zoog Disney or something. You have been warned.

 

[gazzip]

...and Germany.com :lol: must be nice eh !



.

 

[DotWeekly]

No wonder why Bob P. can "Sponsor" all of those ladies

I could only dream of having the parking money GD and other registrar's get off of the careless use of these assets from there customers!

 

[IAmAllanShore]

It's true...

People occasionally email me about buying the domain milk.com from me. I used to respond to such requests with, "How much are you offering?" These days, if you don't mention a number, I probably won't mail you back. However, let me warn you that I like the name and I have a reasonably well-paying job, so it'll have to be a pretty damn good offer. Note that a number (in whole U.S. dollars) which includes fewer than 7 significant digits to the left of the decimal point does not constitute "pretty damn good" in my book, and in order to really get my attention, consider offering 8. For the mathematically-disinclined, this means that I think $1 million is lowball, and $10 million will almost certainly make me cave. The GreatDomains valuation model seems to agree with me on this. (As of February 2001, the estimate based on their publicly-available valuation chart would have the domain be worth something in the range of $500 thousand to $10 million.)

Many people ignore the above and still seem to insist that I should be willing to take less. Keeping in mind that, as I said, I like the name, realize now that if I'm going to sell out, I'm going to do it right. Furthermore, I've done my research.

According to publicly available documents, the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program has annual revenues of approximately $110 million. They use this to fund various marketing efforts, including a couple of ad campaigns, among other things. Clearly, if these guys wanted it, they could afford my domain.

I don't have an official link for the California Milk Processor Board, but according to this article in the UC Davis Innovator, in 1999 their revenues were a more modest $27 million a year, which they use for the "got milk?" ad campaign among other things. Maybe it'd be a bit more of a stretch for them, but they could afford it too if they wanted.

 

[geb9696]

Answer.com is held by CA Inc I believe they got the name when they bought out a smaller company. They also own CA.com and CAI.com Not sure what other names they own but answer.com hasnt pointed anywhere since around 2000. I e-mailed them if they were interested in selling the name and got no reponse...

 

[cache]

this should not be uncommon.

Some people use milk to bath, while the rest of the hungry world drink milk.

 

[Gregory]

I would like to make an interesting observation about Domains being held by their end-users that are ineffectively managed. My case study revolves around the domain name eLoans.com

I was reviewing the ownership of eLoans.com and found that it is owned by the company e-Loan inc. (Also the owners eLoan.com and e-Loan.com) As it turns out instead of forwarding the domain to their main landing page - the domain actually pulls up a GD search page.

"Parked Free, courtesy of Godaddy". Although this could be worse (it could be a page with advertisements on it) It only pulls up a search for domains page. eLoans.com ranks in the top 50,000 websites in accordance to Alexa - and Compete.com estimates its monthly US traffic in the 800,000 uniques + range.

Compete.com also estimates that eLoans.com gets about 9,000 US visitors per month as well. If we assume the stats are comparable across the board (all traffic) we can estimate that eLoans.com gets about 1.12% the traffic of eLoan.com

Although this may not seem like much traffic - Imagine how much revenue this domain would generate in the hands of a domainer? (assume just US traffic)

9000 x .15 (15% CTR) = 1,350 Clicks
1,350 x $1.50 (estime value per click) = $2,025 per month

(my numbers are very rough, but you get the picture)

Now, what is the value of those clicks for the end-user? It appears this name was acquired sometime after 2005 / 2006 - as this is when the whois records appear to change ownership. (there was a period in 2006 where Privacy was on the domain name). So its fair to say that eLoan.com probably held this domain atleast for a year - perhaps closer to two.

I find this to be an incredible waste of a domain name, and perhaps even costly to eLoan.com altogether. I imagine not only would they save themselves a bit of money, but also perhaps close a few additional sales per month if the domain was properly managed.

Have you emailed them to inform them of their "mismanagement"? I think it would be rather amusing to see their reply, if any at all.

 

[accent]

Less than a year ago, I contacted a company and offered to purchase a very nice old LLL .com that was expiring.
I suspect it was some sort of fat-cat advertising corporation. They couldn't care less about money. The lady hung up on me ("not interested").
A month later the name sold for more than 60K at snap

call back and tell her. you know, as a courtesy.

Oh please please do it, I would love to hear what she says.


In the industry section is the tale of cowboys.com - I have not seen it discussed up here, maybe I missed it.

There was a phone bid for ~ $275,000 at the last TRAFFIC Auction for that name. Turns out it was a rep for the Dallas Cowboys football team. Then after the auction it seems that the lawyer on the phone thought that he was bidding $275 - no zeros. The football team canceled the bid (didn't know you could do that) and Rick Schwartz and a few friends bought it in the silent auction for a significantly higher price.

The point is not that Cowboy lawyers should not drink and bid, the point is that much of the business world has little concept of the domain market. This will change, but slowly.

 

[Damion]

Justin, here is another great example of domain mismanagement.

First it was a complete blank page now they have some sort of ridiculous set up where visitors would need to click a link so Messenger would pop up so they can tell about their loan needs

Someone should stand in front of their office with a megaphone and blurt out to redirect the domain to the Wells Fargo mortgage page.

 

[yandig]

There are over 3.7 Million Google results for "courtesy of Godaddy.com"

Most of these are domains that Godaddy is reaping the parking revenue on.
If each of these domains generated .10 each day, that would be $135 million in parking revenue per year.

 

[randomo]

Talk about wasted domains - check out stockexchange.com

 

[lzy]

Talk about wasted domains - check out stockexchange.com

He could be banned by Google by asking visitors to click on the "links". :o