Well,

the news section of this site has regrettably been neglected over the past few months due to a relocation to a new office and commitments to other domains in development.

These include Architectural Ironmongers which is a new, industry-defining portal site and a number of other blogs and sites which I will showcase here over the coming months.

Part of the reason the domain sales section of accurate name has been put on the back burner is the current market conditions. Although we have experienced the usual handful of end-user sales there has been a sharp fall in reseller market activity, and many names are currently selling for around two thirds of their early 2008 prices. It just doesn’t make economic sense to sell at this point, so we have been expanding ou portfolio with some of the offers which have come our way.

A new office, landline telephone number and a more active role in the domain industry are just weeks away now, so please bear with us and you will find it worth the wait!

2008 Cybersquatting figures

With recent news about the sale of the domain Toys.com to ToysRus for $5.1million making headline news the world over last week, a refreshing perspective was offered on the domain industry, showing the legitimate money to be made by serious investors in generic domains, without any mention of the “darker” side of the industry so often deemed more newsworthy.

The cybersquatting underside of domain investment was, however, dragged back centre stage today as new figures were released, showing 2008 had the highest instance of cybersquatting complaints ever recorded - 2,329 cases in total, an 8% increase on 2007’s figures.

I would love to know figures for reverse domain hijacking, (where a company aggresively pursues domains with only a tenuous link to their intellectual property rights, in an effort to obtain a valuable asset for free) as I’ll wager the figures on that front have jumped even more than 8%. Many large corporations abuse their power and attempt to extort generic domains from their rightful owner by means of a wipo, yet very little media attention is given to this phenomenon.

Public awareness of typos and cybersquatting is getting more pronounced, even resulting in mainstream advertisements mocking the phenomenon in the UK:-

Godaddy Announce sales of Indian domain extensions

Well, with recent news announced that Godaddy will now be offering the .in extension, as well as 3rd tier extensions like .co.in, which are all the country level codes of India, all I can say is I am amazed it has taken this long! Bob Parsons is rarely one to hang about when there is money to be made by flogging just about any old donkey extension, as can be seen by the recent over enthusiastic promotion of .me, so I am surprised that one with more credibility than 90% of the new extensions has taken so long to be offered by the world’s most popular registrar…

I am, and have always been a big believer in the .in extension. Coming from the UK, it is easy to see the way a well marketed country code can become the accepted norm, even over .com in many cases. The .co.uk extension is a huge success, and I firmly believe that as the itnernet becomes more and more widely available in India, the value of good names in the Indian extensions will rise.

The news that Godaddy will be promoting and selling .in and its counterparts is great news for the extension as a whole, and anybody with a vested interest in its success. Needless to say, I will soon showcase some of my own indain names here at Accurate Name.

Name a business

Corporate branding is now one of the most important aspects of running a successful business and it all starts with a name.

Here I will attempt to underline some of the things you should consider when you are researching a name for your business.

Choosing or Changing your business name

There are many tools and wizards online to help you choose an accurate business name, but there is nobody who undersatnds your business as well as you, so there is no substitute for sitting down with a cup of tea and a thesaurus and doing a little brainstorming.

There are several things you may first want to consider.

What products do you sell?

What service do you provide?

The answer to both of these questions needs to be carefully considered. The best chance your business has is if the name perfectly describes what you do, or is very well branded to your company. The latter can be hard to do without a very large budget and exposure, so for now we will focus on how to find names which perfectly describe what you do or sell.

The first thing to decide is your primary service or product. If you offer several, is there an existing term to describe the collective offerings of your company? If you are not sure of this, have a look at some of your competitors, or maybe try and see how they categorise themselves in directories such as dmoz or the yahoo directory. It is worth considering the categorisation of your business from the consumer’s perpective- as an example, I have another business, which is an architectural ironmongers. Architectural ironmongers is a term well known within the industry, but it unfamiliar to almost anybody with no experience of it. Essentially, the business sells door furniture, such as handles, locks and latches, with the main product being door handles. The name is now brnaded around door handles, as this is what the majority of customers are looking for, and they know the company provides them instantly (by contrast if the business was named ‘architectural ironmongery uk’ for example, it would alienate the retail sector who are unfamiliar with the term). Obviously, there are many factors involved in this decision, but my point is really that you should consider the name of your business from a customer’s perspective also.

Its like the spate of business naming that went aroud 20 years ago, where there were countless numbers of ‘A. A. Builders, A1plumbing etc- in desperate attempts to be noticed in phonebooks- the same is true today, but in directory listings, internet search engines and the mind of your customer, it is important to be accurate with your name.

Generic Success

Strong generic keywords that are directly linked to the primary element of your company are very useful in a business name, but where can you find inspiration for these? A good place to look is on a search engine such as google. You can find inspiration from results about your industry keyword, but if you use the keywords tool from google and select the synonyms option, you can get some valuable suggestions, as well as the vlume of searches each month- this can be very useful in determining consumer search habits surrounding your industry.

Deriving a business name from a domain name

If your business will have an online presence, and especially if a large amount of business will be from online endeavours, it may be an idea to base your company name around a domain name that is available to you. Try searching various domain name sites, such as Accurate Name for names relating to your term. You can search for names available to register at most registrars, but be warned, many of these searches are monitored, and you may be disppointed to find a name which was available when you first checked it, has been taken by a company monitoring the search when you come back. Names purchased from a domain broker, such as ourselves, may cost more than just the registration fee, but there are many benefits which certainly outweigh this cost.

Firstly, all the best generic names have been registered. Lets take an example. Let’s say you have a shoe shop, you will be disappointed to see that not only was shoes.com registered in 1994, shoeshop.com in 1997, but also countless variants in different extensions, with every common prefix and suffix in the dictionary. Quite simply, this is because the better names with have a positive effect on the business behind them, whereas worse names can even have a detrimental effect on the company involved - “why?” I hear you ask:-

Authority
Bigger, better, generic names carry with them a natural authority - the consumer will see “Shoes.com” as a reliable, stable, serious business - “Bobsshoesandflipflops.biz” will not carry the same connotations. This trust can be achieved through huge spends on advertising, or by carefully choosing a great name in the first place. The top generic names are often referred to as “category killers” - as they do just that.

Traffic

Some generic names will carry natural search traffic - that is, a ready pool of customers who instinctively type the name with no prior knowledge of the business, just an assumption that it exists- this is only the case with the strongest names, but these “ready-made” customers convert into very real money, so the names are the first to go, and carry the highest prices.

Here we have just touched on some of the most basic fundamentals involved whn you are trying to name your business, there are so many factors involved, and so many which are specific to different business and niches that we cannot even attempt to cover them all, but if you are looking for help nameing your business, then please contact us and we can suggest names to you based on your criteria - just use the contact button above!

We hope to add to this article, developing the importance of branding, and looking at names which are ‘brandable’, as opposed to ‘generic’. This is a hugely important alternative, and often the option companies look to go with to create a unique brand, so come back soon, subscribe to our rss feed, or sign up for our newsletter!

Time well spent

Not much is ever really spoken about the monotony of many domain-related tasks, at least, not in comparison to the number of people I am sure scream profanities at their PC daily over another inconvenient administrative email required, or registrar ‘cock-up’ which needs to be addressed…

I guess the point of what I am trying to say is that not only is being a domain investor time consuming in terms of the amount of research required in finding names, but there are countless responsibilities/obligations/tasks - whatever you want to call them, that holding a portfolio of more than 50 or 60 names starts to demand. (sometimes I feel overwhelmed)

Of course, I am making sweeping generalizations here, and not only am I assuming everybody has a business involving more than just buying/registering names, slapping on ‘auto-renew’ and waiting for a buyer (if only it were always that easy), but I am also not acknowledging that most people, and I really do mean the majority, are better organised than me, which I am certain must be the case. I often think I have my ‘finger in too many pies’ as it becomes harder to remain focused, and I am sure as I roll out more and more developed sites demanding more and more time.

Ignoring these facts, and focusing on what I am trying to say today, I will state that there must still be a lot of domain investors, or domainers, who face a similar problem of having to attend to a number of repetitive tasks.

What am I talking about?

To enlighten the more organised of my ineptitude, and the less-experienced of the pitfalls which may befall them, I will attempt here to underline some of the many problems of time-management which can grow alongside an increasingly sprawling portfolio. The reason I want to do this is firstly, I am particularly bored today having spent a few hours since getting back from my shop organising, adding details and keywords to domains in my main site portfolio, and secondly, I think most people get into the domain investment industry by the lure of residual income, or at the very least the prospect of making good money from very little work. This is possible, but it usually requires a lot if time and effort to get to this position, and, as I am about to illustrate, there are many distractions to mean you must be focused and well organised to achieve your goal.
So, what tasks do i perform with upsetting regularity? (yes, upsetting, there is a lazy man on one shoulder too…)

Firstly, we have

Taking care of/managing domain registrations and renewals

Now this could well not be an issue if you have only a few strong names, or a small portfolio, but most of my points won’t relate to you either, (so you can read on smiling) but renewal management can be a real time eater. Obviously, there are ways you can avoid letting this task from taking over your life- so here are my (mainly unheeded) tips:-

1. Limit your names, have a concise plan and stick to niche’s which you can keep together, develop together or sell together. Names in similar niches are easier to monetise in bulk if you park names. You will also be more likely to serve your names with the best ads using just one or two parking providers- another time-killer.

2. Limit the spread of registrars. Now this is one I do have some difficulty over the years, which I wish I had controlled earlier. A few years ago, when I was beginning to see some potential in the industry as more than just a hobby, I was flipping domains quickly on forums, constantly re-investing profits in more, better domains. This flipping, plus the use of dropcatchers like snapnames, pool, enom and now namejet- led to me creating accounts with more and more various registrars, some of which I am sure I have never heard of when they email me now! By transferring names into one or a few registrars, your portfolio is easier to manage and your time is spared. Note here however, that transferring names in itself can become labourious if you don’t try and keep stringent tabs on where and when you need to do it (many names won at auction cannot be transferred for 60 days due to Icann policy and having just been “transferred” - this means you must wait and keep them monitored until you can do the transfer).

3. Set auto-renewal. Speaks for itself really, I’d recommend setting it up as the account default and checking each name is configured upon arrival in the account. Please note: If you do a lot of tasting, or register a lot of names, or have names at lots of different registrars, you may find yourself getting caught out renewing some you would have dropped if you don’t remain vigilant and take domains you wish to drop off of auto renew on time. One other thing that you may want to look out for is that many registrars offer a consolidated renewal date, allowing you forget about renewals for most of the time.

4. Use tools to lessen the load. There are hundreds and hundreds of tools available on the market, but many of them won’t drastically improve your time spent organising and managing your portflio. One I would recommend is the Domain Research Tool (contact me for a reduced price on this, but I am giving an honest opinion that this tool is worth the money). This tool has so many ways to help you bulk manage your portfolio that I would highly recommend checking it out.

5. Use spreadsheets. You will find it much easier to move data around in batches like this, which is what it is all about sometimes.

6. Remain focused. If I could get back even half the time I spent daydreaming, fun as it was, I am sure I’d be writing this on a beach.

7. Prepare for emergencies. The larger (and better) your portfolio, the more often the case that you can be involved in several transactions at any one time- if you get called away, it can damage your reputation and cause lost transactions- make sure you remain on top of necessary portfolio management and you remember to set aside time to answer emails you might have received.

There are many other considerations which must be given when you have a a growing portfolio. I would advise at all times keeping a well thought out portfolio, which should be well organised (I shall be returning to adding and editing names here after this post), but consider this when you price your names- a few years of renewals may not be just the $20 or so dollars in renewal fees per domain, if you factor in the amount of time spent configuring the domain - logging into change nameservers, checking parking details, adding to any sales sites like sedo.com or your own site - the list goes on; you come to realise there is a cost which you should be compensated for.

Make sure you remember this the next time a potential buyer demands you justify why your domain costs more than $x amount…

Just one small reminder that the newsletter is where it’s at: signup for the best domain newsletter yet to be seen! Signup link here and remember to pop back to Accurate Name!

Accurate Names

This question may seem incredibly obvious to anybody reading. At its most basic level, lets look at it this way My name is Chris, you would not get my attention with a “BOB!” or “PETE!”, well, certainly not as quickly!

There’s very little difference in the fundamental principals of internet domain names. The more accurate a name is to the product, service or information is, the more likely it is to grab a net surfer’s attention.

One of the most important elements in determining a domain’s value is to look at the number of people who search for that phrase each month. There are a number of tools that can do this including wordtracker, old yahoo overture data and google keyword analysis. These metrics help show the domain’s potential, as an accurate name to a searched term leads to benefits in search engine ranking for that term. It is also possible to determine the (approximate) amount of type-in traffic a domain receives, and this is a very valuable asset to a domain. Domains which are extremely accurate are very valuable, and generic domains with direct type-ins usually convert into the highest advertising yields.

This site was formed to allow the marketing of a collection of premium domain names to the public brands which will benefit the most. To stay up to date with th latest domains to come on sale please be sure to sign up for the newsletter.

Domaining Lessons

Well, if there is anybody reading this, (which I do wonder!) you may notice a change in the blog and it’s contents as of this post…

Earlier in the week, it came to my attention over on the domain forum namepros, that my earlier vision for this blog was not being well received, due to the publication of rss content from other blogs. Although this in itself is a common practice, and all posts were linked directly to their respective author’s posts, the posts were being published in their entirety - an oversight on my part due to my inexperience with syndicated feeds.

I had originally decided to start pulling rss feeds from some of the industry’s top blogs after the popular site domaining.com decided to alienate some of its userbase by deciding to charge. Knowing that a fool like myself can put together an rss based site (albeit badly - I’m sure I could have learnt) I can completely understand why people were unhappy at being asked for a membership fee.

Seeing an emerging potential gap and having just installed this site a couple of month’s earlier and yet to begin blogging, I decided to try and build a similar service to domaining.com. I decided that it may drive users to sign up for the newsletter I have been working on (it has a large number of private investors but relatively few ‘domainers’ so far) and failed to consider it might ruffle a few feathers of those who originally wrote the articles.

Upon realising my error I confirmed with many of the authors that it was the reproduction of full articles, and not the syndication which was not permitted. I have since decided that inspite of this, it would be a smarter decision to offer some original thought and put it down to experience. i have removed all syndicated posts so it is a little bare around here now! Brrr! - is it getting colder?

The conclusion

From now on Accurate Name will be my personal blog. I will continue to bring you my ‘pick of the drops’ service, although I have to admit that like most of my online life, this has been neglected in favour of turkey, brussel sprouts and lots of festive obligations. Haha. I’ll introduce a few more features, including an available domain list, some of my development stories, sales, successes and learning experiences like this one. If I am honest i don’t know what direction it will go in, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Happy new year everyone, may it bring prosperity to all who strive for it.

Here we go again with another list before Christmas of all the best dropping domain names. As always, do your own research before making a bid, but these should be some of the best names around and the ones dropping at a registrar partnered with a drop service are organised accordingly. Enjoy!

Snapnames domain backorders

obsession net - *traffic* single word generic. A diamond of a domain.

ladder net - one word high ovt, pr3

condition net - single word, good ovt

zombies biz - A nice .biz

bri net - premium lll net, short for first name brian also

mbe org - great, premium lll org

other lll names dropping at snap include azc net, jjk org, htb info, ouy org, xch net, bxd org

guitarchord info - huge ovt (searched term) develop and win

pornstarland com - nice adult type in traffic name

other (lesser) names include:-

kar20 com - big traffic but not sure where from- again, do your research!

iraqimedia net - traffic but contentious source

britneystape com - aha c’mon! Hahaha!

phonetap com - traffic

crazygirldate com - might be some good converting date traffic, but don’t expect buckets of it

chitalka info - lots of links, believe its a genuine pr6

acouple of pr5’s - netrake com, magicajax net

Namejet

generate net - a good generic net, don’t get over zealous though

submitted net - a good one worder for a directory or related site, again though, don’t bid too much

rpd org - good lll org

hxm org - good lll org

schs com - a great llll com with type-in traffic

debtreliefsolutions com a good name for these times and should have light traffic too

Pool logo

1sd com - 3 character com

7782 com - nice four number domain

ghrf com - llll com domain

Here’s a few others from round abouts! Best order these ones everywhere!

prisonlife com - traffic generic

analvault com adult traffic

That’s all for now- check back soon or subscribe for more!

A little later than I’d hoped due to a hectic week, but better late than never - here’s my pick of the domains I see dropping today. As before, the domains are organised to show the best place to backorder (if known), and I have tried to demonstrate why the names are worth a pop! As with last week’s post, I am looking constantly for feedback to try and improve this service!

Snapnames domain backorders

poem biz - a very string keyword in a lesser sought extension may offer a bargain opportunity! There are some other .biz one word generics dropping of lower keywords- if you want them too just drop me an email and I’ll sort it out!

einstein net - a very brandable .net with a number of potential end users. Should be some type-in traffic too!

gonzo net - could be some good type-ins here in this hot domain which nods towards hunter s thompson, as well as an adult niche generic. You’d be a fool not to get involved if just to watch the bidding action!

parakemas com - Not fully researched but this one has a low alexa ~300,000 so should be some traffic

polytechnic net - nice traffic to this generic .net

sportszone net - a very strong brandable with some residual traffic

stuff9 com - good links and low alexa, do your research!

kag net - nice lll.net, pronounceable

Namejet

susan org - a popular female first name- grab these whenever you can!

thins com - could be better as its a bit of an unnecessary plural, but a nice and short generic .com

chickensalad com - a great generic .com with type-in traffic

nigeriatoday com - a very developable domain with some traffic

Pool logo

forg com - llll.com

Here’s a few others from round abouts! Best order these ones everywhere!

glenl com good traffic and pr4 from this expired site

btcar com pr3 and traffic here

ivk net lll.net

That’s all for now- check back soon or subscribe for more!

I just had a great idea to bring a new service to the blog! I’m calling it pick of the drops ‘cos that’s exactly what it is! I will try and do it every few days (or thereabouts!) - some of the names will be advanced warnings, some you’ll have to jump on to get in the auction in time! I’ll see what sort of reception it gets and go from there!

My intention is to highlight some of the best domains I see dropping, I’ll try and let you know the best place to backorder them by picking from their lists, and I’ll also see if I can find another few choices for the readers of this blog!

Snapnames domain backorders

dcmc org - potential type in traffic, pr2, medical niche, regg’ed 2000

myquiz com - nice brandable .com, potential for traffic, registered since 2002

6kfinance com - could be nice traffic here - haven’t fully researched

wildwomen com - I’d like to get my hands on a few of these! ;P this one has loads going for it

wuy org - short and sweet

hkx org - another lll.org, always sweet

osopinion com - think this one’s a pr6 and a fair bit of link pop

undercover2 com - pr5 I think, link pop

africa-expedition com - pr5, dmoz, link pop

Namejet

encourage net - I love this generic one word.net

backpackers net - popular hobby, nice generic

detect net - they just keep coming…

westcoastchopper com - careful how you use it but big traffic

ccta com - a nice llll.com

Pool logo

bism com - llll.com

financebroker com - great generic

pibc com - llll.com

4z5 com - 3 character .com - not the greatest combination, but hey, a good investment!

Here’s a few others from round abouts! Best order these ones everywhere!

pod info

re2 com

smokeless com

seeing as this is my first droplist - I’d appreciate some feedback! If you are looking for something else in your droplists - just leave me a comment and I’ll try to include more of what you’re looking for in future

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