Internet Babel

OK – straight into it. This installment deals with an important issue to be considered when buying domains on Forums (again using DigitalPoint and NamePros as examples) – that of Due Diligence (or Buyer Beware).

Due Diligence:

As with any transaction, it pays to carry out whatever checks you can to ensure that you’re not getting screwed. When purchasing a domain from the Forums the following checks will be useful in helping you decide whether or not to go ahead with that purchase. 

Common sense also applies here – you may not bother making all of these checks if you’re paying $2 for a domain, but you will want to be extra sure if you’re forking over a couple of hundred bucks.

None of these checks are in themselves foolproof, but they will help to re-assure you that the seller is genuine.

• Seller is an established Forum member: This isn’t to say that a new member can’t be trusted (hey, we all start as Peon’s sometime), but it’s a fact that most people feel more comfortable buying off someone who has a bit of history and more than a handful of posts to their name. This is why I recommended (way back in Part 1) that you get yourself registered at DP and NamePros and start participating in the non-sales forums.
• Seller’s Rep: Pretty simple – if they’ve got red marks or a bad rep, this should sound some warning bells.  
• Seller’s Trader score: Trader points are a good indication of a member’s behaviour in previous transactions. By clicking on their Trader rating/score you will be able to see all positive and negative comments left by others who have dealt with this person before.   
• Whois: Don’t just blindly accept that the seller owns the domain or that they have posted the correct details. There are hundreds of standalone ‘Whois’ type tools out there (plus on most of the major Registrar’s home pages) – so there’s really no excuse for you not to spend a few seconds of your time by checking that the domain registrar/expiry/owner details tally with what’s being offered. You might even want to send an email to the domain’s administrative email contact address and get the seller to reply to that email (but don’t expect to be popular if you do this for very low-end sales – you’ll just seem like a pain in the butt).  
• PR & Traffic confirmation: If the seller claims some kind of existing PR or traffic for the domain, you could ask for screenshots of stats or parking figures as proof. The general rule of thumb is that if you claim traffic/revenue you have to be prepared to provide proof. As with whois, use your PR checker of choice to verify any claimed PR.
• Trademark: You might want to verify that you’re not being lumbered with a potential legal problem – names that look to be trademark infringments or ‘dodgy’ typo’s for example.
• Registrar: Check that the registrar that holds the domain allows a free push between accounts (and that you can set up an account with them if you don’t have one). There are a number of registrars who still don’t allow a free ‘push’ and even make the transfer process awkward – you might have to bear this in mind when it comes to the actual cost of your purchase.
• Too Good To Be True: If it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Which probably means that the seller doesn’t even own the domain or that they have stolen it (yes, that is possible). There are always genuine bargains to be had, but looking around on the various Forums will give you a good idea of what a domain might be expected to go for – so if someone is selling pizza.com for $100 you know that they’re either incredibly stupid or a crook. 

(Also – bear in mind that any sensible seller wil be looking at you, as a potential buyer, in the same light and checking history, trader etc).

Assuming that you’ve satisfied yourself (as far as is reasonable) that the seller is genuine then you’ll probably want to proceed with your bid/offer.

Types of Sale

Now, there are all types of sales threads of course, but the bulk of sales that you come across on the forums will fall into one of three main categories:

• Fixed Price
• Make An Offer
• Auction

You will also find (mainly on DP) sales threads that are nothing more than links to a SEDO listing or a SitePoint auction for the domain. Unless it’s a domain you REALLY want I would tend to steer clear of those.

Part 5 will be along in a couple of days (I had plenty of time to think during my enforced layoff) and will cover the three major types of sale, then the mechanics of buying/selling and transferring your domain…

Thanks
Dave 

Well, Blogging about MMO, won’t MMO.

Why Not?

Most of us working Blogs in this MMO/Internet Marketing niche try to provide advice (basically to each other) – we talk about affiliates, on-site advertising, reviews and whatever, and the majority of what we talk about is aimed at the guys working in the same kind of field.

There’s a lot of needless obsessing about subscriber numbers (and artificial and temporary ways to boost them), Alexa rank, PR etc, and a lot of chatter about methods for making money online.

While it’s true that these Blogs can provide a lot of inspiration, and a small number of people make decent money from them – the truth is that the kind of traffic we get is not good for converting. Most Blog/Webmaster type visitors are too savvy to click on ads, and the kind of traffic you get from social networking is transient and not focussed (as a rule).

What works?

The recent massive sale of Bankaholic (widely reported elsewhere) is a perfect example of a brilliant piece of business and should serve as the real lesson for those of you who want to really Make Money Online.

Bankaholic is a Blog/Site with unspectaclar traffic and Alexa ranking. However, it is squarely and directly aimed at a very high-paying target market, ranks highly for major credit/banking keywords (due to it’s content and SEO) and this (plus its layout/structure) will bring a visitor population that is highly focussed on the subject matter and MUCH more likely to click/convert.

The timing of the sale (given the current Credit Crunch) is a bit unfortunate, but the appeal of the site to the Buyer is unquestionable.

What Next?

So – the lesson to be learnt (as always) is that finding and focussing on a target niche, building good content and running effective SEO/backlink building is the way to Make Money Online. So stop talking about it, go out and try it for yourself. 

I will be running a 1-year experiment starting soon, developing between 10-20 sites based on selected niche markets and I’ll be reporting on progress here. But don’t wait for me, or anyone else, to do it:

• find a niche (preferably one with good pay-per-click, pay-per-action)
• find a domain
• build some content
• build a site
• SEO it
• build some backlinks
• plant some occasional link-bait
• repeat until Rich

Don’t talk about MMO – go and do it.

Cheers

Dave

Hi guys,

Finally up and running again (well, hobbling anyway). Battered and Bruised but ready to roll again.

You’ll be pleased to know that my time convalescing didn’t go to waste. I went through all my Aksimet spam and as a result I’ve:

• obtained a couple of Masters Degrees
• restocked on my pharmaceuticals
• improved my sex-life, and
• seen some very ‘educational’ videos

Fully refreshed, I’m ready to start posting again so will be getting some fresh stuff on-line this week.

In the meantime, I also had a chance to review the comments posted in September. Not as many as I would have liked but that’s the way it goes…Jim (as always) made a couple of interesting points – I don’t always agree with him but got a lot of respect for what he does. Melvin and Carl also made some nice contributions (it seems like ‘beabetterblogger.com’ has gone off line though?).

Anyway – John from Coffesh0p was a consistent and intelligent commentator so I’ve decided to to give the hosting and domain prize to him.  John’s agreed to post reports back on his progress with RankFoundry.com  – I know he has a few ideas in store so I’d urge you to support him while he’s trying to build the site.

As Carl mentioned in one of his comments, it’s all about giving people the base material (be it a domain or information or whatever) and then letting them have a go at building something themselves. I’d much rather do that than spoon-feed people, so I look forward to seeing what John can do. Will be in touch with details very soon, John.

Anyway – thanks for bearing with me while I’ve been out of action. I promise that Internet Babel will soon be in full flow again (with the assistance of Whisky & Bourbon).

 Cheers
Dave

Hi everyone,

Sorry I’ve not been posting for the last week or so. I’ve been out of action following a motorbike accident ;-(

All better now – I just need to follow some of my own tips from my last post, to get through all the jobs that have been piling up while I’ve been getting fixed.

Updates, free hosting winner and next Domain Flipping article all coming very soon…hang on in there.

thanks
Dave