Domain Names

Domaining is not cybersquatting!

I read an article in a major newspaper a few days back – the new form of cybersquatting – domaining. Hogwash! Its as much a legal business, if done right, as any other business. While booking someone’s name or brand is generally unacceptable, there is another type of domain investment that’ll shock your socks off.

Before I go any further, here’s some recommended reading –

#1 – pls note, this is just for 2008.

here’s the one from 2007 – #2

And here are some resources to allow you to do your own research –

http://www.namebio.com

http://www.dnsalesprice.com

Ready for the punch line (what did you think… its a blog post, not a novel 😉 )

Domaining is nothing but short for ‘Domain Name Investing’. Not much different than property development. You buy a barren piece of land, get a road to it, add water, add electricity and sell to a builder for a decent ROI. In this case, think of the web as a blank unlimited universe. The only planets or even solar systems that are worth anything are those on a common ‘type path’.

Once people type in a common term and stick a TLD behind it (.com / .net / .in / .tv / etc) and do it often enough to generate a decent amount of traffic… its worth money. To you as a domain owner, to the parking company as a source of traffic, to the ad company (goog/yahoo) as a potential location to place customers ads and even to the advertiser (most so tbh) – who gets targeted interested traffic… at a pittance.

Once you have enough of these type in types, all you need to do is sit and count your money at the end of the month, sit and chat at NP or DNF and live like a king!!

edit – interesting article in LA Times

Samit Madan is an advertising professional with almost three decades of experience. He's known as the MediaWizard due to his expertise in advertising & marketing. He currently heads MediaWiz, a leading Media Company.