Domaining.org.uk

EnglandWide.com

Ray — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:23:52 +0000

I have been really keen to build up EnglandWide.com into a substantial England portal. So, much of my time over the last few weeks has been devoted to thinking a little ‘out of the box’ to try and develop something a little different. Currently exploring a few ideas including:-

blogging about UK tourist resorts
UK visitors social networking site
Travel forum

Not particlulary new – still thinking though
Not sure how to progress and I will write up what I have decided shortly, hopefully.

Geodomain development – Ive been working…

Ray — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:03:55 +0000

Geodomain development – Ive been working hard on developing the network. Nine sites, so far. Decided on a basic template – and plan to take things from there. Everything connected to www.EnglandWide.com. Plan to make that site into an England travel and tourist blog. In the meantime its just a basic site. Plan to develop around 150 geo domain websites. After that I’ll start on the generics. Lots to do, so little time.

I have made an important decision – NO M…

Ray — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:10:58 +0000

I have made an important decision – NO MORE DOMAINING! Well at least thats the plan. Now its development time! With a portfollio of over 500 domains I need to start building sites. Even single pages would be better than parking pages. Lots of thoughts about how to progress. http://www.LiverpoolWide.com and http://www.BristolWide.com are online with a single article each. Enough to get a little interest from Google, so its a start at least.

Hoping to develop about half of my portfolio over the next 18 months. Probably want to concentrate on a small number of geos and then work out from there.

So that means no domaining – for the moment. But I don’t think my domaining days are over, but a transition from domainer to domainer developer.

Welcome to Sheffield Wide

Ray — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:54:50 +0000

The latest addition to my slowly growing geo network is SheffieldWide.com. At the moment it is little more than a one page site, but I plan to develop it into a fully fledged minisite in the coming months.

I’m slowly forming a geo network of sites targetting major English cities. ManchesterWide.com was the first. Over the last few months sites for Birmingham and Leeds have been added to the network. Bristol, Newcastle, Liverpool and Nottingham will follow in due course.

In addition, I added Manchester Breaks to the network some time ago.

Except for my Manchester site, they are all basically pages that need to be made into robust sites.

I think a mistake that many geonetwork developers make is to fail fully build out their network before moving on to the next site. There are lots of reasons why this is a good strategy. However, I believe the money is in development, so I want to build out the existing nine sites before moving on to the next ones.

The revenue goal I have set for myself is $1 per day, per site. Is this achievable? The way I look at it, if a $1 a day is achievable, so is $5 and $10. How easy that is, and whether I think its worth the effort, is something I will discuss in future posts.

Gambling domains for sale

Ray — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:38:59 +0000

I have started to put up for sale a number of gambling domains from my portfolio.

Prices are in UK pounds and are for sale through Sedo.co.uk

BackgammonForums.co.uk (£1,900) – Backgammon Forums – nice domain. Increasing interest in Backgammon makes this domain a bargain

Blackjacks.org.uk (£2,500) – Blackjacks is a great generic – plenty of Blackjacks around. Casino blackjack and online blackjack are two variety of Blackjacks people enjoy, and there are plenty of different types of blackjacks you can play online. A memorable domain with great affilliate ad income possibilities.

iJackpots.co.uk & iJackpot.co.uk (£2,000 each – possible discount for the pair). This would lend itself to a site about internet gambling, or an online casino.

SportsBettingForum.co.uk (£2,750) Possibly the best of the bunch. Sports betting is big at the moment. Football, rugby, horse racing, betting exchanges, betting systems. Great opportunity for a sports betting forum and sports betting content site.

If you have any questions about these domains, contact me on

raymondsimonkay

[stick at here]

yahoo.co.uk

Domaining.org.uk on Twitter.com

Ray — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:47:52 +0000

Domaining.org.uk can now be found on Twitter.com. You are welcome to follow me at DomainingUK.

build a list of as many UK domainers as possible and other domainers who are interested in .uk ccTLD domains.

(I also follow a few of the well known domainers from the US like Sahar Sarid and Rick Schwartz who so generously share their thoughts and tips on their blogs when they don’t need to.)

DomainingUK is a great way to keep in touch and to learn more about whats happening in the .UK niche.

If you are a UK domainer or a domainer interested in the UK domain space please Follow Me on Twitter.

UK domain sales Wednesday July 15th 2009

Ray — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:00:40 +0000

There were some interesting .co.uk domain sales reported in this weeks sales report on DNJournal.com.

PokerRooms.co.uk $22,000
Bandwidth.co.uk $12,225
BestSlots.co.uk $ 4,483
eStore.co.uk $ 4,401
YourSpace.co.uk $ 4,075
Poker-Sites.co.uk $ 3,260
Teckentrup.co.uk $ 2,445
EducationalFurniture.co.uk $ 2,445
4Sight.co.uk $ 1,630
AutoFinders.co.uk $ 1,223
eCamp.co.uk $ 1,100

Some nice solid sales.

Domainers need a blogging break sometimes

Ray — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:04:41 +0000

I am back after a blogging break.

The break was beneficial to me as it led to me thinking in a lot of detail about how to take my domaining activites to the next level.

Although I have not been posting to Domaining.org.uk I have been developing my other sites. I have also been developing a new business strategy taking into account the new, more challenging economic conditions. By working a little less intensely compared with a few months ago I have decided on a few changes that will,in the long run be beneficial.

As a result of my efforts since Jan 2009, ManchesterWide.com, my ‘flagship’ geo website is showing encouraging signs of life, even though it is not, as yet, a financial success. However, with a lot more hard work I am hoping that will turn that corner.

I have been adding to my domain name portfolio while at the same time disposing of those domains that will not generate the results I’m looking for.

I have plans to develop Nameable.co.uk as my core site which will list my domains for sale and link to my developed sites and mini-sites. There is also a possibility that I will use it as a blogging base around naming strategies, running SME businesses and web 2.0 – sounds impressive!

Despite my objections to mini-sites I have been developing many of my own. They do well from type in traffic and on exact match searches via the search engines.

I have domain names for in the region of 250 different viable sites. Although my portfolio amounts to in excess of 400 domains there are duplicates like ManchesterWide.com/ .co.uk and variants like recreationvehicle.co.uk/recreationvehicles.co.uk.

My blogging break has allowed me to think about how I will take my ‘project’ to the next level. Domainers (even those without a blog that they update frequently) should think about the benefits of a (blogging) break. A break from domaining offers domainers an opportunity to look differently at their activities and to think about how they might to take themselves to the next level.

Introducing UK domain names Part 2

Ray — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:46:44 +0000

In Part 1 we discussed a little about UK domains and about the dangers of presuming that the version of English used in the UK is the same as that used elsewhere.

Here are a few more things to think about……….

The differences explained

The most important thing to consider if you are not from the UK is that British English differs significantly from English spoken in other countries. US English is different in many ways from its British counterpart, in particular

1) different words are used to describe something – sidewalk (US) / pavement (UK)

2) same words have different meaning in US and UK English – a ‘fag’ is a cigarette in UK English and means something else in US English

3) spellings differ – colour/ color, socialise/ socialize and so on

There are also differences in usage which are based on custom and practice.

This means that there are many different ways to make errors and its difficult to provide hard and fast rules.

Popularity of .UK domains

The .co.uk ‘brand’ is well established and there is a high degree of trust in the extension.

UK surfers recognise websites developed on .co.uk domains as more lightly to meet UK specific needs i.e. plumbers or dentists. Whereas, where the market for something is global or international the specificness of the .co.uk domain may be an actual disadvantage.

It has been said before but it is worth repeating, that the resale value of .org.uk domains is very poor and although there is a small market for the best generics, they should be avoided, at least initially.

Some helpful resources

From Wikipedia:
American and British English spelling differences

List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom

List of British words not widely used in the United States

List of words having different meanings in British and American English

UK Domain Name Forums

AcornDomains.co.uk
ccTLDS.com

Domain name sales

DomainPrices.co.uk

Introducing UK domain names Part 1

Ray — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:30:43 +0000

With the recent surge of interest in Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) I thought readers may appreciate a bit of information about UK domains.

Lots of people living outside the UK think they know all about the UK. They have seen TV programmes made by the BBC and that movie about the spy with Mike Myers in it. However, British English is different to versions of English spoken in other countries. So, if you want to invest in domains for the UK market you need an understanding of how things work in the UK.

Lets start at the beginning. The UK is a large modern economy which is usually ranked around 4th or 5th in most lists of the worlds most wealthiest economies. Around 60 million people live in the UK, of which around 51 million live in England, the largest of the four countries that make up the UK. (The others being Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)

The principal language in the UK is English. This fact makes it an attractive choice for US domainers who wish to venture into buying ccTLDs.

In theory, there are three country codes to choose from:-

.co.uk (usage is similar to .com)
.org.uk (usage is similar to .org) and
.me.uk

In reality, only .co.uk has widespread appeal (value) within the domain name market. Originally, .org.uk domains were intended for not-for-profit organisations and .me.uk is for personal websites. It is rare, but not unheard of for .org.uk or .me.uk domains to be used for commercial websites. However, .org.uk and .me.uk domains are valued at a fraction of equivalent .co.uk domains and usually should be avoided. The only exception, perhaps is if they are being purchased for their search engine optimisation purposes, as I am advised that Google does not favour any one the three extensions over the other two in terms of search engine rankings.

The big problem for many speakers of US English when trying to invest in UK ccTLDs is that a.) words are spelt differently in the UK compared with the US, b.) some things have different names in the US and UK, c.) cultural, social and economic differences between the UK and other countries may also be relevant.

What this means is that although British English and American English have many similarities they differ in many ways as well. This means that those looking to move into UK ccTLDs need to have some appreciation of the UK language and culture if they are to have any hope of maximising their profits in this area.