The .TEL Discussion Thread

[brendan52190]

Hi

For this, let's assume that .tel will not be a total flop.

What type of keywords will be most valuable for this extension? Will it be geographical keywords, like newyork.tel, losangeles.tel, etc, or what else?

 

[jagdotme]

It's pretty common knowledge that you can not link to parked pages. It's a fairly effective way to have your account blocked. You CAN link to an offer page though. From our friends at
SEDO

Thanks for the info, I now I have to change the whole of my .tel

Cheers

 

[briman1970]

Well, good for you then. You are ripping people off considering .tel domains aren't getting traffic worthy of selling links.

Don't tell someone they are ripping people off without solid information. You don't know how much traffic he gets.

Look, you may not have a use for/understand/want to invest in .tel and you have every right to express that, but if you're here just to mouth off to people then you can go the f away.

 

[stefanb]

Phase 111, there is not even a question here as to what business owners prefer. Let me see: pay 15/ year for a .tel and controlling their own information being able to put all the useful information that is needed to promote a business in the .tel vs paying what I pay now ($233/ month) for a shitty style yellowpages ad that took us 10 phones and significant aggravation to get fixed and published (and I chose the cheapest paid version). Are you guys telling me that I would be paying 233/mos for yellowpages if they would actually list any of my useful information there for free? If they list me for free they include my name and a phone number- they will not say anything about the services or products that we offer and don't offer, basic credentials, etc. That free service has extremely limited value for the public and business owners. So these are my real options as a business owner trying to properly promote my business in the real world: 15/month with a .tel vs 230/month for a shorter, more expensive, limited add with a poorly run and designed business directory. What would any of you do?

Most business owners don't yet know about .tel, but when they find out they love it, because they know the basic realities of doing business in the real world! My friends are asking me why I was such an idiot and didn't get them more than one .tel domain- meanwhile 2 months ago they were too busy with their work to look into .tel and listen to me. Remember that .tel just came out. It will not take more than 2 years for .tels to become significantly more popular than any phonebooks or yellowpages out there- mark my words!

Your just comparing one small aspect of .tel (that of a phonebook killer) which is fine in my view it probably is so adding it all up: yellowpages (free but paid for some listings) vs .tel ($15 and cheaper than a premium yellow pages listing + you get a crap load of other advantages such as vanity, marketing appeal of tel domain name itself and you get to store all your other communication types on there too)
:hearts:

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

Thanks, Chuck.

This is helpful info.

Good to know this now rather than later.

In any case, a mini-site would be a better deal anyway.

It's interesting, though. It seems that Sedo is indirectly admitting that parked pages might be a slightly sleazy practice.

Hmmm.


*

As was mentioned earlier in the thread "It's pretty common knowledge that you can not link to parked pages. It's a fairly effective way to have your account blocked. You CAN link to an offer page though."

A link was also provided to sedo explaining:

Question

May I link to my parked domain from a website I own?

Answer

No. Sedo can only accept natural traffic. Driving traffic to your parked domains violates Sedo’s complete Terms and Conditions and Rules for Domain Parkers. However, you may provide links to the offer pages of the domains. The following URL may be used when directing others to your offer pages:

http://www.Sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=DOMAIN.TLD

Note: You must replace "DOMAIN.TLD" with the domain name you want to sell (e.g. the link to the offer page for freefonetones.com would be
"http://www.Sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=freefonetones.com").

Chuck

 

[kprobe]

Promoting tel domains

I believe we all need to do our part in promoting the huge potential in this TLD. For my part, (and just for starters) I have created promoting.TEL as a community-oriented site for self-promotion.

Promoting.TEL allows you to add resources (such as directories, blogs, developed domains, etc) to the actual .TEL pages on the site. Your additions automatically appear at promoting.tel.

You can also view, search and compare active TEL sites in the Active TEL Directory, which currently is seeded with over 20,000 active TEL domains. Search by a variety of categories and filters, including recent sale prices. The directory allows for self-entry of your new site and auto-indexing by common categories.

Promoting.tel links to a Flash tool for exploring tel sites (development in progress).

By adding your fully-developed site to the Completed Sites page, it can find its way into the Featured Sites folder.

All gratis, of course. Hope you find this resource useful. Suggestions and comments are appreciated.

Mark

 

[ecigs.net]

Great work. This shows that all you need is a little creativity and know-how and anything can be done.

Phase 111, there is not even a question here as to what business owners prefer. Let me see: pay 15/ year for a .tel and controlling their own information being able to put all the useful information that is needed to promote a business in the .tel vs paying what I pay now ($233/ month) for a shitty style yellowpages ad that took us 10 phones and significant aggravation to get fixed and published (and I chose the cheapest paid version). Are you guys telling me that I would be paying 233/mos for yellowpages if they would actually list any of my useful information there for free? If they list me for free they include my name and a phone number- they will not say anything about the services or products that we offer and don't offer, basic credentials, etc. That free service has extremely limited value for the public and business owners. So these are my real options as a business owner trying to properly promote my business in the real world: 15/month with a .tel vs 230/month for a shorter, more expensive, limited add with a poorly run and designed business directory. What would any of you do?

Most business owners don't yet know about .tel, but when they find out they love it, because they know the basic realities of doing business in the real world! My friends are asking me why I was such an idiot and didn't get them more than one .tel domain- meanwhile 2 months ago they were too busy with their work to look into .tel and listen to me. Remember that .tel just came out. It will not take more than 2 years for .tels to become significantly more popular than any phonebooks or yellowpages out there- mark my words!

You are right. that's what most of these domainers just don't understand. They only see domains in terms of reselling. Business owners see it differently. I pay about $500 a month in yellowpages fees to get to the top (there are a lot of different competitors) and to be seen outside of my city. Business owners know that there are fees to be in your city, then your state, then nationally. There are also fees for bold letters, colors and an extremely tiny logo. Even with all these fees, the people paying for the paid clicks get higher positioning, so some PPC must also be added to get found. My impressions are high, but the listings only generate about 500 solid visits per month. Though an extremely high percentage of these people actually buy, our low profit margin the cost of getting them to the site nullifies the sales. It is the repeat sales that make these type of advertising methods worth while. What worries me is that some of these people book mark the yellowpage listings and continue to visit our site through those. Thus, we pay every single time they visit us.

TEL, in terms of cost, is extremely cheap. Even though I purchased several of my TELs before the general release and had to pay significantly more for them, my TELs combined cost less than 6 months worth of yellowpage listings.

What I really like is that the TELs are mine. I pay for the yellowpages listings, but only their site becomes more valuable. By actually owning the domain, the costs involved can be recovered later if I were to sell them. It always makes better since to own the asset, than to pay others to use their assets.

Let domainers think what they want. Most of these people go out of business after a year or two.

 

[DubDubDubDot]

Don't tell someone they are ripping people off without solid information. You don't know how much traffic he gets.

Look, you may not have a use for/understand/want to invest in .tel and you have every right to express that, but if you're here just to mouth off to people then you can go the f away.

Paid directories ARE a ripoff (on any TLD) unless they have an ad campaign behind them to attract users to the site.

These .tel hack-a-sites sound really good to people who can't develop a real site, but anyone running a legit paid directory can develop and recognizes that .tel's intended use can only be bent so far. Paid directory businesses are beyond the breaking point of .tel.

That coupled with the fact that even super premium keyword .tel's don't get enough typein traffic to warrant paid listings is enough for me to say that any paid .tel directory is a ripoff.

 

[meanieme]

kprobe - our .tels need all the promoting they can get so people will see the advantage and usage scenarios for .tel.....i submitted mine

 

[DubDubDubDot]

*

It's interesting, though. It seems that Sedo is indirectly admitting that parked pages might be a slightly sleazy practice.

Hmmm.


*

I'm sure the reason is that Google doesn't want the low quality clicks that would result from driving traffic to parked pages.

A "click here for laptops" link pointed to a parked page would probably have a similar level of traffic quality compared to pages where AdSense is integrated right into the design (which isn't allowed either).

 

[Work In Progress]

Thanks for the info, I now I have to change the whole of my .tel

Cheers

No problem...


I still haven't seen what I believe to be a practical way to monetize a domain that can't be developed. This is still the main factor I have chosen to stay away from the speculation. You can't develop it nor can you park it, nor can you stick ads on it. That leaves little else than relying on selling links, IMHO.

The water's way too murky and shallow for this guy.

To me, if I want to go to a directory (such as yellowpages), I'd expect to be able to find info regarding anything at a one stop place. That is something I might bookmark and revisit.

Having to visit separate, particular, sites designated to a specific area to get this same information just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If .tel were a well recognized brand, I might visit towtruck.tel should I break down. What would that get me? No contact info, but a link to a full blown website that wouldn't show up very well on my "Joe Lunchbucket" mobile. If I were to be fortunate enough to have a smartphone and could read the phone number, how would a local towing company in California help me in Florida? How much time and effort will someone put into trying to sell this unknown concept to businesses and how long will it take before potential market breakthrough?

I see this as possibly many years or renewals, again, with no good way to even break even on fee's.

Now, on the other hand, had I visited the mobile version of yellowpages.com and entered "tow truck" with my zip code, I'd get &id=single_search_result&c=5866]this (link is not fully functional due to brackets within). As a consumer, which would I be more likely to revisit or bookmark?

Are the Yellowpage listings pricey? Sure can be. But businesses pay for them because they work. They have worked for decades. They bring TRAFFIC and results. Any "new kid on the block" would have a hard time going up against established, well anchored brands such as this.

If .tel has any chance to succeed, it has to rely on everyone building out their little site to it's fullest extent, which is limiting in itself, IMHO. Some .tel's are set up pretty nicely, but many are not. But, again, even the ones that have the effort behind them are likely to find themselves in the hole due to lack of monetization choices. I'd say you'd pretty much have to just about offer free listings at first. You'll most likely have to prove your delivering the goods (traffic) before you can charge fee's. Once you prove yourself (see yellowpages), you can charge for your efforts.

Again, not trying to rain on the .tel parade. Just throwing out my observations and thoughts. I hope I'm wrong and you all prosper, as I always root for the underdog (well known long time Bengals fan).

 

[DubDubDubDot]

Phase 111, there is not even a question here as to what business owners prefer. Let me see: pay 15/ year for a .tel and controlling their own information being able to put all the useful information that is needed to promote a business in the .tel vs paying what I pay now ($233/ month) for a shitty style yellowpages ad

Carpet cleaner A buys a .tel and fills out the profile.

Carpet cleaner B buys a yellow pages ad.

Some company needs their office's carpets cleaned. Who is most likely to get a phone call from them, cleaner A or cleaner B?

 

[plaggypig]

Having to visit separate, particular, sites designated to a specific area to get this same information just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If .tel were a well recognized brand, I might visit towtruck.tel should I break down.

Most of the time we'll find information through .tel search engines, just as we currently find content through general purpose search engines. I don't think anybody is suggesting that we should guess the name of a .tel that will yield the information we seek.

In terms of revenue models, you don't have to charge flat fees for listings - you could charge per communicate - CTC (Click To Connect).

It's early days yet - a lot of the tools we need are still being crafted.

 

[DubDubDubDot]

You'll most likely have to prove your delivering the goods (traffic) before you can charge fee's. Once you prove yourself (see yellowpages), you can charge for your efforts.

This is something I haven't asked the .tel "developers" yet.

If you are going to charge for your directory listings, WHERE will you get the general public traffic from?

I think many people in this thread have a misconception that [keyword].tel is going to rank at the top of Google and they will get sufficient levels of free traffic that way.

The fact is, even in a small town you are going to need to spend thousands branding a .tel directory..... which totally negates the use of .tel for this project in the first place, which was to save money developing a .com directory on a paid webhost.

 

[Kate]

Phase 111, there is not even a question here as to what business owners prefer. Let me see: pay 15/ year for a .tel and controlling their own information being able to put all the useful information that is needed to promote a business in the .tel vs paying what I pay now ($233/ month) for a shitty style yellowpages ad that took us 10 phones and significant aggravation to get fixed and published
...

You pay for the traffic and the exposure.
It's not a question of how much it costs, but how much it yields.
Besides, the yellow pages are not the only place where you can advertise. Businesses will advertise where there is a qualified, targeted audience.

.tel will have next to zero natural traffic. You will need to build your own. Promotion comes at a price. Do the math.
Domains with no traffic (visits) are useless and worthless... .tel is no exception.

Remember that .tel just came out. It will not take more than 2 years for .tels to become significantly more popular than any phonebooks or yellowpages out there- mark my words!

Marked. But sorry, you're dreaming.

 

[vanex]

Comparison

How can you compare Yellow Pages to .tel ?
.tel is less than one month old.
In a longer (not even long) run Yellow Pages have no chance to compete.
This is the reason they try to discredit .tel

I have an idea how to promote .tel and get a million dollar worth of publicity for about $10
First list relevant businesses on your site free for a few months.
Don't worry about monetization, it will come.
Second, if you live in a large or larger city register your most popular
talk show radiostation .tel
After registering it contact the station and tell them that you would like to
give it to them free providing that every time they mention the telephone number to call the host they will also mention that people can contact the station by going to their cell phones and type in XXXXX.tel
You could also ask them to go live on the radio with the most popular host for a few minutes to explain what this service is and how to use it

 

[Sam]

Carpet cleaner A buys a .tel and fills out the profile.

Carpet cleaner B buys a yellow pages ad.

Some company needs their office's carpets cleaned. Who is most likely to get a phone call from them, cleaner A or cleaner B?

Best example I have seen yet. Reped.

 

[GF]

I believe we all need to do our part in promoting the huge potential in this TLD. For my part, (and just for starters) I have created promoting.TEL as a community-oriented site for self-promotion.

Promoting.TEL allows you to add resources (such as directories, blogs, developed domains, etc) to the actual .TEL pages on the site. Your additions automatically appear at promoting.tel.

You can also view, search and compare active TEL sites in the Active TEL Directory, which currently is seeded with over 20,000 active TEL domains. Search by a variety of categories and filters, including recent sale prices. The directory allows for self-entry of your new site and auto-indexing by common categories.

Promoting.tel links to a Flash tool for exploring tel sites (development in progress).

By adding your fully-developed site to the Completed Sites page, it can find its way into the Featured Sites folder.

All gratis, of course. Hope you find this resource useful. Suggestions and comments are appreciated.

Mark

Fantastic site, Mark!

 

[kprobe]

kprobe - our .tels need all the promoting they can get so people will see the advantage and usage scenarios for .tel.....i submitted mine

Thanks for submitting. More exposure for all.
FYI searching for promoting TEL is rating very high in google. Now for other keyword combinations to help increase exposure. Everyone can benefit if we all develop and promote our domains.
Mark

 

[Steven]

Fantastic site, Mark!

I agree with Galel.

Great site and nice api usage

 

[hasseily]

Carpet cleaner A buys a .tel and fills out the profile.

Carpet cleaner B buys a yellow pages ad.

Some company needs their office's carpets cleaned. Who is most likely to get a phone call from them, cleaner A or cleaner B?

May I suggest a slightly more real-life example?

Carpet cleaner B buys a yellow pages ad for $2,000/year which displays a phone number and an address.

Carpet cleaner A buys a yellow pages ad and a .tel, for $2,010/year. The yellow pages ad displays a phone number, an address, and a web link to his .tel that gives a lot more info. Furthermore, A's .tel is indexed in search engines and can be referenced in all sorts of places. A can also buy google ads that reference his .tel, for real cheap click-based cost, and not pie-in-the-sky yellow page eyeballs.

Now, what would you do?

Speaking of companies, .tel domains are for the 50% of small and medium companies that today do not own their website, and who never will. A plumber doesn't need a website to show a picture of himself smiling and holding a pipe. He just needs to be contacted.