And thus the ceaseless monetisation of our little corner of the Internet rolls on.... if only Robert Elz wasn't forced to hand over com.au to Melbourne IT in the mid '90s we might still have some integrity and an ability to stop phishing attacks on Australian financial institutions.
*sigh*
m.
phishing is nothing to do with domaining. And I don't think there has ever been a phishing attack using a .AU domain name. The namespace is highly regulated (some would say overregulated).
Think of the last time you got an email pretending to be from a bank. Check out the link - it's never a .au domain.
netfleet, how do you get a value for your names, generic are more valuable for instance but what are they worth ? I mean you wouldn't give up a generic name for nothing, they're irreplaceable.
Valuation is a tricky business - esp with less than one year of sales history to benchmark. There is real value in SEO too (search engine optimisation) not to mention the impact of ROI a memorable domain can have on optimisation.
Put it this way, if I was launching a new website (maybe a new business), I'd be happy to spend a few hundred to a few thousand to have a half decent domain if I'm going to try and market it at all (rather than compromise on a crappy hand-registered name)
Are you just gambling on speculation that somebody may actually want the names you register in future? The hit/miss ratio must be pretty high.
I don't see why anybody should have to pay big dollars paid for simply a name, many of which are just common words? It isn't actually anything tangible where any constructive effort has been put into producing the item. You click a couple of boxes, and there is your domain name.
Those rubbish "nothing" placeholder sites which are simply advertising pages give me the irrits, I don't quite why they should be allowed to exist, they serve no purpose as any productive part of the internet..
I've had domain names I've let go in the past, only to go to the sharks who re-register them, simply to capture traffic from the former name and goodwill created from the website to stick stupid advertising banners on them.. I think that is pretty low to piggyback off what somebody else has helped establish as a name.
Yes it is hit and miss but if the 'type-in traffic' (the holy grail for domainers) meets or exceeds your $25 every 2 years, you can afford to play the numbers game and hold thousands of them.
I understand your point re the placeholder sites but remember if they weren't registered what would you see? "This page can not be displayed..." At least a parked site might give you some useful links (albeit ads)
Netfleet do you actually approach companies saying that you have a domain name they may be interested in? or do you simply wait for them to approach you?
The former is very very hard. For example I tried to flog debitcard.com.au to the banks. They wouldn't listen so I spent a few hundred developing it and now if you search for 'debit card' in Google, my little site is number 2, way above all the financial institutions. Now perhaps they might be interested - after all they all spend millions promoting products just like these
Yeah, somebody should get on his or her website and waste their (netfleet's) time
:
You are more than welcome
Look it wasn't a 'viral marketing' excercise by any means. I am just genuinly interested in a trader's assessment of such an investment. Most people in domains (myself included) do not have your skills but just fell into it one way or another.
Of course it is in my interests for more people to invest & trade as it's good for the site.
Anyway I'm happy to answer any questions about it - you'd be surprised to the extent of it & who are involved (did you know Fairfax owns 33,000 .au domains and another Australian listed company owns around 550,000 domains)