I’ve long talked about holding a domainer dinner in Austin. As I talked to others in the industry about it one common request kept coming up: hold it in conjunction with a University of Texas football game.

So that’s what we’re doing November 12-13. Details are tentative, but plan on a dinner Friday, November 12 followed by a night out on Sixth Street. The game on November 13 is against conference rival Oklahoma State and should be a great game. Game time isn’t set yet, and we might have to go on our own to the game because it’s hard to get a block of tickets. But the details on the game will take shape soon.

If you’re thinking about coming and aren’t from around these parts, the most important thing you need to do now is reserve a hotel room. Rooms sell out far in advance for home football games, which are attended by 100,000 people.

Here are some suggestions:

Downtown (football stadium is just north of downtown)

InterContinental Stephen F. Austin $324

Omni Hotel (downtown location) $319

Doubletree – $299

Hilton Austin – $284

Residence Inn by Marriott – $249

Courtyard Marriott – $239

Hampton Inn – $229

Radisson Town Lake – $216

Four Seasons – sold out
The Driskill – sold out

Close to Downtown (just South of Lady Bird Lake, walkable or short cab ride)

Hyatt Regency – $269

Embassy Suites – $239 (Offers suites for multiple people)

Homestead Studio Suites – $89 (for those on a budget)

Hotel San Jose – sold out

p.s. typical high temperature in Austin in November is around 70 degrees.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Related posts:

1. Help Pick the Date for the Austin Domainer Weekend
2. It’s Time For a Domainer Meetup in Austin
3. Last Chance for Domainer Mardi Gras Hotel Rooms

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Tomorrow on Wednesday September 8th, Google will be holding a by invitation only event they are calling; an inside look at the evolution of Google search.

Some blogs and sites are claiming that BIG changes maybe announced at the event, even looking for a hint of what is to come on Google’s home page today, where a bunch of floating colorful dots whirl around the screen to for the word “Google”.

While blogs like Fool.com are speculating that the event will announce a substantial change in how Google search and organizes information:

The Motley Fool:  Is this the End of the Search Engine.

Another SEO blog predicts big changes are coming out of tommorow’s event including AJAX powered search results,  30 results per page, and possibly even putting into the system an updating of search results as you type feature.

Other blogs think this is just a big announcement for a Google iTunes killer.

So what do you think?

Everyone needs to keep their eye on this major Google event Tomorrow and so will we.

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In a blog post, BrandandJingles.com staff reported results from a study of .Co domains (pdf) traffic ranking and how they compare to the .Com counterpart.

This is from their blog:

“There have been many speculations of what to expect from .CO in the coming years. Here is an interesting study by Brands-and-Jingles. We looked on it a bit from a different angle while analysing top .me sites on Alexa.

“To start with, there are currently 249 .co sites in the Alexa top million list. That’s not much, considering that .me is doing four times better with less domain names. ”

“Never mind, .co might be too young to judge upon it.”

“Our of those 249, nearly two thirds, 165 to be precise, don’t have a respectful .com version in the list. Which is good. Means that there is a good potential in the TLD.”

“Among the last 33% of the names, only 11 domain names (challenge.co, t.co, likey.co, eddale.co, opportunity.co, angel.co, halloweenstore.co, howtogetsixpackabs.co, thechallenge.co, parsdev.co, and film-izle.co) have better rankings than .com. The other 73 .co domain names do much worse than their .com siblings. While the average difference in ranking for .CO winners is 293,871, the corresponding number for .COM champions is almost twice of that 538,535, meaning , potentially brandable .co’s are still half way down in the Alexa list.”

So what the authors are saying is that since 2/3 of the highest ranking .Co domains (according to Alexa) are stand alone sites having no .com counterpart with traffic, .Co looks like it has legs to it without regard to the matching .Com.

(As a note when it says “No .Com” on the list below they mean the .Com domain does not have an Alexa traffic ranking not that the .com version doesn’t exist)

Here are the actual numbers from the study:

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I have been seeing a lot of Hanes® commercials lately and they always nicely promote their main website domain name Hanes.com in each and every ad that I see, so while doing [...]
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I’m always interested to hear about a new available domain finder tools, but my interest is usually followed by disappointment. With each query I am let down by the poor quality domains generated by these services.

Take for example a new tool called Brute Force Naming that was just featured on AOL’s popular DownloadSquad blog.

The tool looked promising, providing an advanced method of creating prefixes with vowels in the middle followed by suffixes. That should work, right? Unfortunately it doesn’t.

The results are similar to other tools for researching 5 letter or short domains. They look something like this: Coufo, Blole, Twafo, Twume, Plole, Clule. Terrible.

The domain names generated by many tools today are nonsensical strings of characters. Good quality made up words and “brandable” domains do exist, but they have all been claimed. Just as four letter domains have all been registered, so have gone quality short domains.

Truly quality brandable domains can really only be found on the aftermarket.

So, what are the alternatives?

Keyword Domains

I am a big fan of keyword domain names. Yes, even for branding. I consider good quality keywords to have huge advantages over made up brands that may just sound cool. The advantages are that these types of domains are often very memorable and easily readable.

You’re not too late. There are a lot of keyword domains available to register and many are still affordable on the aftermarket. While you may not be able to get a one-word domain, there are still descriptive two and three-word domain names that have inherent value beyond your modest registration fee.

To find the best names I recommend using data to support the popularity of your keywords. SEO and SEM tools like Google AdWords can provide further insight.

Expired Domains

Every day hundreds of thousands of domain names are allowed to expire by their owners. A few months later these domains make their way back to general availability.

You have two options when going after an expired domain.

Backorder - Find out which registrar the domain name was claimed at. If a domain was previously managed at GoDaddy then you should place a backorder for the name at GoDaddy for the best chances of winning the expiring domain.

Catch the Drop - Approximately 2 months after a domain expires it will “drop” from the registry and become available again. This option usually works for less popular domains. DomainerIncome’s blog has a detailed look at the expiration process.

You may be able to find a quality brandable names by researching expiring domains, but I wouldn’t hold your breath! This is a good place to look for keywords though.

For further reading, I’ve previously written some pro tips for researching expired domains.

Shop the Aftermarket

There are a lot of great marketplaces that are not getting nearly enough of the attention they desserve. The largest domain aftermarket site is Sedo, because of the sheer quantity of listings from around the world. There are less known marketplaces, privately hosted portfolios, and auction services like Flippa where gems can be found.

Earlier this year I shared a list of the top 20 places to buy domains in 2010. The list features the top marketplaces, forums, conferences, auction houses and other options.

Private Inquiries

So, that perfect name has been taken! It happens to thousands of people every day. Why give up on it? You can contact the owner of a domain by looking up their WHOIS information, but you’ll need to pray it isn’t private.

The bookmarklet below will let you quickly view WHOIS data when browsing any domain in you browser. (More useful bookmarklets here)

Bookmarklet:  DomainTools (Drag & Drop link to your toolbar)

Email the owner a brief, polite message expressing your interest in the domain and make an offer to purchase. Your offer should be close to the final amount you would be willing to pay if you expect to receive a response.

How do you find quality domain names?

Are there available domain finder tools that actually work?

Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions for finding quality domains. Please share your thoughts in the comments area below.

This article is from DotSauce Magazine.

Domain Finder Tools Do Not Work Anymore! Search the Aftermarket for Quality Domains

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This past year has been a big one for domain name parking service SmartName. It has combined all of its parking brands into one as well as rolled out (or enhanced) both SmartName Shops and a content parking solution.

Apparently a lot of people are using SmartName these days, as I’ve received lots of requests to add the service to DNW Certified Stats. The day has arrived — now you can use DNW Certified Stats with SmartName. DNW Certified Stats is my solution that makes it easy to share domain name parking stats. SmartName is the sixth parking service added to the system and more are on the way.

Also, I’ve removed the requirement that you must be logged in to view someone’s domain parking stats. So now if you want to share your parking stats with someone you can just send them a link to your DNW Certified Stats certificate and they won’t be required to create an account. It’s also easier than ever to insert a link to your certified parking stats in forum postings. Here’s an example certificate.

Please give DNW Certified Stats a try and send me an email if you have any feedback.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Related posts:

1. Sharing Domain Parking Stats is Easy with DNW Certified Stats
2. DNW Certified Stats Now Works with Parked.com
3. SmartName Shops Provide Parking Alternative

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Domain lifecycle platform Epik likes to try new and innovative things. Next week’s Domain Swap event at Epik DevCon in Seattle is another example.

The Domain Swap brings in much needed liquidity and a common currency to domain trading, something that has been absent from similar ideas in the past. Here’s how it works:

1. Send a list of domains you wish to sell to Epik

2. Epik will buy some of the domains with its own currency, EpikBucks (the company has spent $50,000 in EpikBucks over the past 24 hours)

3. Use your EpikBucks during the swap event to buy other domains

It’s actually quite a clever concept. And you don’t have to limit your EpikBucks to just buying other domain names. You can pay for your admission to the conference with domain names, something I’ve never seen for a conference before. So if you were thinking about going to next week’s conference but are short on cash, you can now trade in some of your domain names instead.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Related posts:

1. Epik Domain Developer Conference Taking Shape for September
2. Epik Provides Excuse to Visit Seattle in September
3. Epik Buys JustDropped

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A recent UDRP brought by drug giant Sanofi-aventis is interesting on a couple counts.

First, the company lost the case over the domain name ferrlecit.com. The respondent is a former licensee of Sanofi-aventis. It registered the domain name while it was a licensee. So it was registered in good faith. But when the drug company and licensee terminated their relationship through arbitration, there was no mention of what to do with the domain name. (Another example of lawyers overlooking an important part of intellectual property.) The respondent kept it, and now Sanofi is arguing it is being held in bad faith.

The UDRP states that, to be found “guilty”, you must have registered and used the domain in bad faith. Yet in this case it appears it was registered in good faith, but subsequently used in bad faith.

Two panelists agreed that the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith. Even though it may have later been used in bad faith, this doesn’t matter because of how the UDRP is written.

But one panelist disagreed, and it should come as no surprise as to who it is.

M. Scott Donahey has been on somewhat of a crusade to change how panelists view the registration and use clause to be registration or use. He has done this with the help of panelist Andrew F Christie. The pair keep referring to each others’ views on the matter which in turn reference their own decisions and views. It’s really quite entertaining.

Donahey is also the one who penned one of my candidates for “dumbest UDRP analogy ever“:

As this Panelist sees it, the majority’s interpretation elevates form over substance. The approach taken by the majority is the equivalent of applying the scienter test in the case of a shooting not only to the shooter’s state of mind at the time he fired the gun, but also to his state of mind at the time he purchased the gun. Thus a man who purchased a gun with the intent to engage in target practice would be free thereafter to shoot his neighbor with impunity.

I wonder how long it will take for Christie to refer to Donahey’s most recent decision.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

Get Certified Parking Stats at DNW Certified Stats.

Related posts:

1. Is This the Worst UDRP Domain Dispute Analogy Ever?
2. How to Save UDRP from Bad Panel Decisions
3. Big Companies Get Benefit of Doubt in UDRP Decisions

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