Think that BOA.com is Owned by Bank of America? Think Again…
It would only seem natural that Bank of America, the largest bank in the US according to assets, would own the domain name BankofAmerica.com – and of course they do BUT it would seem like a no-brainer that a company as big and as well known as BOA would also own the domain name BOA.com. Buuut do they? By now I am sure that you can guess that the answer is no.
If you visit BOA.com right now then this is all that you see on the page in extra large form… well, actually – go ahead and visit http://www.BOA.com yourself and take a look for yourself (it’s kid friendly and workplace friendly so don’t worry – just strange).
OK, so now is the chance for all of you domainers who love to flip names to get busy buying this name and then selling it to Bank of America…
P.S. Have fun typing out the email address: http://www.whois-search.com/whois/boa.com 
“I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic.” = CRAZY
Believe it or not the person who said “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic” is none other than Rick Schwartz, otherwise known as the “Domain King”. I am a big fan of a lot of the things that Rick Schwartz says on his blog as he really cuts loose and is unafraid to express his opinion on something no matter how unpopular (or in this case crazy) it may be.
I realize that Rick is simply pointing out how he conducts his business as he tests the merits of his various domains and that is perfectly fine because after all he has a right to do whatever the heck he wants with his domains and who am I to tell him otherwise, right?! Be that as it may it is still somewhat frustrating to sometimes be lumped into the same category as old school domainers like Rick who “just don’t get it” at times.
To say that you are even remotely close to being involved in anything web related as a profession and to say that “I go out of my way NOT to get search engine traffic.” is akin to a Bank of America bank manager saying “I go out of my way NOT to get deposits of US dollars.”. Sure, a US bank on US soil and on prime real estate on 123 Main Street in a large US city could certainly get some business from people wanting to deposit non US currencies and might even make a nice profit just like a domainer with a premium domain name with a good amount of type in traffic could certainly make a nice profit just from type in traffic BUT is it not pretty ridiculous and borderline insane to turn away all of the free money by saying “No, thank you” to US customers with US dollars to deposit if you are a US bank and “No, thank you” to search engine traffic if you hold a premium domain name?
Note, I am NOT saying that one should rely solely on search engine traffic but to actively go out of your way to avoid the free money of search engine traffic seems pretty crazy to me. Then again, there is only one “Domain King” and it’s not me
Bonus suggestion: If you ever find yourself in the enviable position of having so much search engine traffic that the “The search traffic clouds that information over at this point.” then don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Take 5 seconds and install a web analytics program on your site and then you can have all of the information you need however finely granulated you want it – AND you still get to keep that pesky but lucrative search engine traffic
What We Can Learn About Intuit’s Purchase of Mint.com for $170 Million
I just finished reading the article on the acquisition of Mint.com by Intuit (the makers of Quicken, QuickBooks, MyCorporation.com, etc) at the WSJ Online as well as the synopsis by Chef Patrick and Michael Berkens and I was struck by something that I think is very applicable to all domainers, developers, and web startups and that is the power of non-standard monetization.
I have long been a fan of Mint.com and have loved it for its ease of use, clever packaging, and beautiful user interface but as a full time finance guy (I am a Certified Financial Planner™) and full time domainer/publisher/developer (nerd) with hundreds of finance related websites that I own and manage I was most impressed with the way that Mint.com makes its money.
If you are not familiar with Mint.com then the beauty of their monetization strategy is that once a user creates an account and inputs their financial info (and info for logging into their online accounts so that Mint.com can suck the data from them securely and almost instantly) then Mint.com not only gives the user a lot of cool graphical representations of ways that they can track their money but more importantly Mint.com gives the user personalized recommendations for financial products that the Mint.com algorithm has determined will save them money.
For example, if Mint.com is tracking a credit card of mine that has for illustrations sake an 11.99% APR and I carry a balance on the card from time to time (again, for illustrations sake) then the Mint.com algorithm may say something like “Mint.com recommends signing up for a Capital One credit card with an 8.99% APR and 1% cash back – based on your current spending habits then we predict that you will save $867 over the next 12 months if you switch from your current credit card to this new credit card”. Then of course the link to the credit card is an affiliate link so that Mint.com makes an affiliate commission from the credit card company every time someone either submits a credit card application or gets approved for a credit card (depending upon the credit card issuer as that is the way most credit card affiliate programs work).
What is absolutely beautiful about this monetization strategy is that Mint.com did not just decide to slap credit card banner ads all around their money management software so that as soon as you log in to your account you are instantly slapped in the face with all kinds of blinking banner ads telling you to sign up for a credit monitoring service or submit an application for this credit card or open an account at this bank etc etc.
Come on – be honest – we all tend to get lazy in this area and we would all be very tempted to just take the easy way out and slap up some banner ads or AdSense and be done with it rather than taking the time to really think hard about how we could make the user experience better and also monetize our site to its absolute best potential.
It’s easy to grab some pre-made banner ads from the merchant. It’s easy to copy and paste some Google AdSense on your site. It’s much harder to be creative and think of a way that you can monetize your site so that both A) Visitors to the site are best served and B) You receive the greatest ROI possible.
We could all learn a lesson from Mint.com (many lessons in fact but this one in particular) that jumping in and being creative with your monetization strategy, working hard to maximize the website’s monetization potential, and most importantly putting users first will almost always bring great results for the website owner in the end.
Frank Schilling Paul Sloan Interview
Apparently I have been living under a rock lately (or maybe just working too hard) because I just recently came across this great Frank Schilling interview by Paul Sloan that I had not read before. Great stuff and well worth a read if you have a few minutes. Here it is:
Click here for the full interview in text form.
One thing that I found so very true from the interview is when Frank mentions the Greater Fool Theory. Many domainers rely on making money off of a domain that they buy/register by hoping that they can find someone who is even dumber/more speculative than they are that will buy the domain from them for an even greater price than they paid for it without even understanding or attempting to understand the underlying fundamentals of what makes the domain valuable (or worthless) in the first place.
While it is certainly possible to make money using that strategy there will always be someone left holding the bag (the “Greatest Fool”) and all too often that greatest fool turns out to be the first person to register the domain because they get carried away with buying a ton of .hype and .trendy alternative TLD domains or domains that just plain don’t make any sense.
Be sure to educate yourself on the fundamentals of what makes a domain name valuable and then do all that you can do find those type of domains. Whether its the tried and true value of keyword domains names or domains with type in traffic (for the most part one and the same) be sure and do your homework rather than giving into the Greater Fool domaining strategy.
