The ugly side of domaining

[steveteva]

Yesterday I have a group discussion with some students from a university.
The theme I submit was domaining and domains sees by "Mr. Joe"
I've ask questions or did some small polls :
-Do you know what is domaining? Some gave good answer but don't really know much or think its not something making big money, while others did never heard of.
-Did you know that some domains were sold or are for sale for hundred thousands? Again they did not know it and most told that they don't care how much money were spend on because they don't visit a site saying on homepage "It cost me $$$$$, so come on in" but they visit website that have interesting contents that focuses on their searches.
-Do you visit domain names that have keywords in? Almost everyone told me NO (that shock me) they said they do trust more on domain that are branded like yahoo, ebay, facebook, amazon, expedia... or even other small ones for example someone told me it will more likely to visit foto.com than photo.com (these are website that we haven't visit but was example of witch one they will more likely visit), 100% said yes foto is what they will trust on. I than ask why? they said that keywords domain names or more like hobby sites not professional or just a page with few infos and lot of ads (they might refer to parking pages)
-Do you ever visit websites with domain names like .biz, .net, .mobi, .us, .pro, .tel... we call these TLD? Most of them if not all said NO, they don't even know that it exist all kind of TLD's, they know .org, .net .info but don't even type or click on these websites even if top ranked, they click on the next .com they see, I then ask why? some said because it's usually "garbage sites" or "spam sites" yes a student explained me he got lot of spams from websites with .net, .info, .biz.....
-Do you trust on CCTLD? I explain what was CCtlds but mostly never heard of, some did when they seeks on Google for hotels in new zealand and landed on .co.nz or others for australia .au but wasn't big deal for them since they book on dot com sites like expedia, kayak... They said that they believe that CCTLD was better than .com when in the country but not outside.
-What do you think of new TLDs like .me, .tel .pro .cm...? They laugh, great but really useless in real life a girl told me, and almost all said similar things but some recognize that .me is fun for personal use as social things like facebook or myspace is growing and a .me page is welcome.

There are some other questions and answer but couldn't write all here will take pages, globally we domainers are in a "BUBBLE" :imho:

 

[deleted984054565403]

Again they did not know it and most told that they don't care how much money were spend on because they don't visit a site saying on homepage "It cost me $$$$$, so come on in" but they visit website that have interesting contents that focuses on their searches.

There it was -- right in front of our faces the entire time! :blink:

You can have a million dollar domain with zero-dollar content, and it won't mean a thing. Unique, valuable content is more important than anything.

 

[Debt.tv]

loans.com is forwarded to Bank of America......

 

[deleted984054565403]

loans.com is forwarded to Bank of America......

It isn't 1999. Most people don't type the keyword they're searching for + .com in the address bar anymore; they use search engines. If I want to learn about loans, I'll Google it; if I want information about Bank of America, I'll go directly to their website.

And when you do any search, what's on the first page? Mini-sites? Adsense- and PPC-riddled sites with copied and pasted content? In most cases, it's an actual service or an actual page with information.

 

[ecigs.net]

I agree.. For years the generic key words have been held hostage using slap on mini sites just as a pay per click ad with no real content at all..If you think about it the majority of the net is owned by several people IE .com's with little or no content to the public.The new generation have grew up with this and are annoyed. New ideas and slangs will dominate the net in the future. If Adsense closed down for individual sites then the majority of large domain holders will eventually have to let go of the names they have.8^X

Isn't that the truth. Look at BIZ. Just about every major keyword domain name is some ugly parked site. There is very little real content there because the TLD is overrun with domainers. The TLD never had a chance because it was parked to death. Until the great keywords get into the hands of endusers, none of the lesser TLDs will have much of a short term future.

The solution: "Buy and Build a Website with Good Content", not "Buy and Park the Domain Name to Death".