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By Brett Miller
Remember Lionel Richie?
Remember a singer from a band called the Commodores in the 70s and 80s named “Lionel Richie”? He won all kinds of awards and was a staple of this new cable network called MTV. You might remember that as a channel that used to play music videos. Back in the mid-90s, Lionel’s people wanted me to create their fan club website. Lionel was having a comeback of sorts and he wanted to be on the Internet. In those days, domain names cost $100! Now, they’re less than $10! The first thing I told them was that they needed to purchase LionelRichie.com and explained how to do it.
For whatever reason, this expense got bounced around his management and the people who dole out the money didn’t take care of it for weeks. The accounting department probably said, “What’s a domain name and why are we buying one?” Finally, when I got the message they were ready to buy, we found out that 3 days earlier, someone in Quebec had already purchased it! In fact, the same person had also bought BruceWillis.com, CindyCrawford.com and whole slew of celebrity domain names. These people became known as “Domain Squatters.”
Lionel’s people were livid and threatened legal action to this man, but the laws hadn’t caught up with common sense on this issue yet and this person actually threatened to sue Lionel's people for harassment! It would be years before Lionel would own his own domain name. As a result, the whole website got scuttled. I was upset because would have been quite the feather in my cap, but the research I did during that time really got me thinking about the politics of domains and how they work.
Domain Speculating
It's been going on since the very beginning of the "Internet" as we've known it back in the mid 90’s. We would hear about this domain or that capturing a million dollars. It really got our minds tuned to what seemed like a modern day gold rush to grab all the good ones. So, you've been buying a domain name here and there the last few years with great intentions and now you're sitting on a pile of domains either not being used or being used ineffectively. Does that sound like you? In some cases, the way you are using some of your domains could actually be hurting you.
Google's Rules
It wasn't always this way, but Google now will penalize your Google placement and ranking if it sees that more than one website has the exact same content on it. When you have more than one domain name "pointing to" or "parking on" the same website, Google is reading this as a duplicate website, not as one website with multiple domains. The penalty comes in the form of reducing your influence within the page rankings. If you started off with a website that is optimized well and should rank well, by putting two domains on the same site, you thus reduce your effectiveness by half. If you park three domain names to the same site, you have reduced each domain's ranking prospects to one third, and so on.
Pointing, Parking and Redirecting
There is a big difference between "Pointing" and "Parking" - and "Redirecting." "Pointing" and "Parking" refers to the actual assigning of your domains on your website's DNS (Domain Name Server) to accept these domains as their own, so that if you type in any of the domains assigned to the one site that the individual domain is still visible in the Address bar at the top of your browser. Duplicate website. Penalty!
"Redirecting" is when someone types in one domain name and then is sent to another one. A good example of this is Half.com - if you type in http://www.half.com it will automatically switch you over to http://www.half.ebay.com/. Or http://www.washingtonmutual.com will redirect you right over to http://www.wamu.com. Google actually seems to like this method and will not penalize you.
Domain Names: Keep'em Simple Offline - Make'em Keyword Rich Online
King Carty, a real estate agent from Lake Norman, North Carolina, is a great real estate agent that people like and refer clients to often. When he hands them a business card or is talking on the phone to a prospective home buyer or seller, he needs a simple URL to tell people who know him how to find him online. KingCarty.com is extremely easy to say, to write, to remember and to print on a small business card. So what about the people who don't know King?
When people King knows enter http://www.KingCarty.com they are automatically "redirected" to his real actual web address of http://www.LakeNormanRealEstateHomesForSale.com . "Wow! That's long," most people say. Well, King never has to say this long URL, write it, type it, nothing. He just tells them KingCarty.com. Yet, the longer domain name has important keywords inside it that will help its Google ranking.
You're actually allowed up to 63 characters before the .com or what ever the dot extension at the end is! I'm not recommending using all 63 characters, but it certainly opens up your options. Someone actually created a 63-letter version of Google.com with 57 extra o’s in the name!
You will want to use some free tools like http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ - or http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ to see which search terms get the most hits and create a domain name from the best combination.
King found that "Lake Norman Real Estate" was the most common of terms involving his industry and region. The domain with just those four words was already taken, as the most popular ones are by now, but by adding a word or two you can almost always come up with a combination that has everything you need in it. And remember... you don't ever have to read this to anyone!
Dashing Through The... Domains
Did you know that dashes (hyphens) are great for domains? It's true. Google looks at them as if they are spaces, so in many ways, the individual keywords in your domain will read even better. I wouldn't overdo it, but if your desired domain name is already taken, try putting dashes between the words to see if that domain is available.
Try Domains That Don't End in Dot-Com
Since this is strictly for Internet use and not on your personal marketing pieces, feel more at ease to use the non dot-com extensions like .net, .biz, etc. When telling someone your domain name, dot-com is almost always better since many people will type that in anyway no matter what you tell them (and perhaps find your competitor). Let's review quickly: offline promoting: .com --- online only use: .net, .biz, etc.
Misspelled Names
Tami DeLand, a Saint Cloud Minnesota real estate specialist, has a website with her husband Steve at http://www.TamiAndSteve.com . Unfortunately, people misspell "Tami" all the time, either as "Tammi" or "Tammy" and were not able to find their website. She solved this problem easily by registering the misspellings of her name: TammiAndSteve.com and TammyAndSteve.com - then simply redirecting them to the correct website.
1-Page Wonder: One Page Domain Gateway Websites
So, you've already got your Short Personal Offline Marketing Domain (SPOMD) and your Long Keyword Rich Online Marketing Domain (LKROMD) - so what do you do with all the rest of the domains that you've been holding on to for years? You create a special 1-Page Wonder Domain Gateway Page Webpage!
This 1-page site should not be a duplicate of another page you already host online. It should be its own free standing unique, content-rich super page that is optimized to the hilt with links pointing to your main website. These links are the main reason for having this 1-Page Wonder. The more links pointing to your main website from other websites on other servers the better for helping you achieve higher ranking on the search engines.
On your 1-Page Wonder, you want to post as much content that is applicable to the subject as possible.
It's better to write new copy for these pages. If you can create a special Blog for just this domain that you will keep up and not let it go stale, this is a great idea since Google LOVES Blogs.
Create as many different keyphrases that apply to this domain name and link those to your main website.
Add RSS and XML Feeds to your page with news items that are based on your keywords to ensure that you have constantly updating content, or better yet, set up a Blog that you will enter special material just for that gateway page.
There are a lot of services coming out every day that will give you "widgets” – snips of web code – that your webmaster can place right on the webpage to show your Blogs and Newsfeeds. A couple of these are FeedBurner.com and SpringWidgets.com.
A good place to find information on a 1 Page Wonder gateway page websites is at http://www.HoopJumper.com
Cheap Domains
A great place to buy inexpensive domains is at HoopJumper Domains – http://www.HoopJumperDomains.com – where for under $10 per year, you not only can register a domain name but get a "free" place to host a 1-page Domain Website. Now, “free” is a relative term since anything you get for no charge online comes with advertising posted on your site, but for under $5 a month, you can turn off the ads if it makes that much of a difference to you.
Backlinks and Reciprocal Links
As I stated before, along with a well optimized website and content that is constantly updating, Google's main criteria for giving high placement is how many other websites are linked to you. It's like a popularity contest or an election. The great thing about this "election" is that you can stuff your own ballot box! There are some important caveats, though.
A one-way link, where someone links to you but you don't link back, is called a "backlink." When 2 sites point to each other it is called a "reciprocal link." Backlinks give you more "points" from Google because if they link to you but you don't link back, you must be cooler than them, right? That’s what Google thinks.
If you find some linking partners, Your 1-Page Wonder gateway page is a great place to put their link if they will put a link to your main website on their site. This is what I call the “triangulation” approach, and will make all the links look like “backlinks” instead of like “reciprocal” links.
Unneeded Domains
So, for some of your remaining domains, you know you’re not going to redirect or create a 1-page Wonder for them. They were simply an impulse buy that seems like a good investment for the future, but now, they just eat up $10 or more per year each. What should you do?
Ask yourself, is it REALLY more valuable for you to keep the domain then to allow your competitors the chance to own it? Usually, it really doesn’t make sense to keep paying for a domain that you know you’ll never use. If you have months to go, consider selling your domain on EBay, or any number of sites online. You don’t have to ask for a lot of money, you might even just want what you’ve invested in that domain the last couple of years. If you’d like a Domain Name Appraisal, consider getting a Domain Name Appraisal at HoopJumperDomains.com for as cheap as $4.99. If you just let your domain name expire, many times an after-market domain reseller will snap it up and try to sell it themselves for a very high sum which will probably keep it out of your competitors hands, though not always.
For your “boutique” domain name of your company, it makes sense to own the .net, .biz and .org for those, but probably not for the generic termed domain names, so waving goodbye may be a better bet to you then continuing to pay for these. Be sure that you remove any auto-renewal options from these domains if you will not be renewing so you won’t be charged.
Domains are like Dreams
In conclusion, domains are like dreams and its easy to get excited about the possibilities, but just having them sit there do you no good. At the very least you should re-direct them to another page. The best use for any domain is to have its own website, whether a real full content rich multi-page site or a 1-Page Wonder site that helps promote your main site. If you do a lot of off-line promotions with direct mail or print advertising, having an easy to remember domain that redirects to a specific page on your website may be a great idea. But paying year after year on domains that you don’t use is a waste of your money and you should consider dropping them so you can afford a better domain that you will use.
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