Although it has been showing signs of life in recent months, the American housing market remains just as stagnant and dismal as it’s been ever since the bubble burst. Foreclosure rates remain high, mortgages continue to be hard to get, and people are increasingly staying put or looking to rent instead of moving and buying a new home. For centuries characterized by mobility and property ownership, our country has found itself doing very little of either.

The lessons of the housing bubble can be applied to the practice of domaining. Those of us who buy and sell website domains know fully well that there are similarities between speculation of the virtual and the physical varieties. In both cases, we are buying a place with the hope of selling later. And, in both cases, the surrounding context (whether neighborhood or links) matter to the value of the place.

So what can the current real estate market teach us about domaining? Here are a few of the main lessons:

• Go for value, not cache. In the 1990s, when home values were skyrocketing and the economy was good, many American families decided to outside their means and purchase the best house that credit could afford – not necessarily the best house for their individual needs. Similarly, a good number of domain speculators have the practice of targeting impressive keywords (ie “phones,” “sex,” and “money”) rather than looking for names that can confer the best resale and SEO value. Just as it is probably prudent to speak with a financial advisor before buying the biggest house in town, so too can it be beneficial to seek the services of seo consultants or an seo company before purchasing a domain name that carries more cache than value.

• Look for saturation. Many families and investors who are currently dealing with plummeting home values are those who bought a house in a highly saturated market. These saturated markets included suburban Phoenix, exurban L.A., and condos in downtown Miami. Taking time to do some research in 2005 may have revealed such markets as far too saturated for purchase consideration. The same can be said of domaining. If you’re thinking of buying busymommy.com, for example, make sure to research similar domains and get a strong picture of the market.

• Growth is not guaranteed. Perhaps the greatest lesson learned from the real estate crash is that perpetual growth is never a guarantee. Sure, home values generally tend to increase over time, but nobody should purchase a property on the assumption that it will do so quickly, substantially, and assuredly. The same can be said about domain names. If you invest in domaining, always remember that nothing is a given – even a domain that seems highly attractive at first glance.

These are just a few of the major domaining lessons we can learn from the current real estate market. Although buying and selling homes involves far more risk and reward, the practice of domaining can certainly still take these lessons and apply them on a smaller scale.

Within basic marketing principles there is a marketing concept called marketing mix. The marketing mix is the combination of four factors, known as the “four Ps,” that make up an organization’s strategic marketing program. The “four Ps” include product, promotion, pricing, and physical distribution, which can also be called “placement” or “place.” Organizations plan their marketing strategies based on the combination of these four variables and have the ability to exert control over these variables.

In a domaining strategy you can adopt these “four Ps” principles to drive websites traffic. Let’s start with product domains, considered to be highly effective, they are desired by top companies such as Johnson & Johnson (not affiliated). J&J uses generic domains like BabyPowder.com and BabyShampoo.com to strengthen their brand while driving type-in traffic to their site.

When considering the promotion element, there are several different concepts. One popular and covered extensively in an earlier post, is the use of slogans within a domain name. Another, is using a brand name + product line in a domain, for example going back to J&J’s case, is the use of JohnsonsBaby.com. Then there is external advertising such as promoting the domain on a billboard, radio or TV spot to send visitors to a site. There are no boundaries when promoting a domain so feel free to be creative and innovate with this “P”.

This one is important, the price element in domain name marketing strategy is to recognize premium quality names don’t come cheap, you get what you pay for. If your marketing budget doesn’t allow it, then use sweat equity. Do not just make stuff up by registering unmemorable and unpronounceable domain names. Be sure to give it a good long hard look and think it through. There are over 138 million domains registered, only 7-14 million are meaningful generics.

Last but not least is place, domain names are the virtual real estate of the web. The hot property is beach front, mall or highly trafficked location, not some deserted exit off the freeway. Successful online destinations add value to user experience, so keep renovating.

There are many other factors to consider when planing your domaining strategy, but implementing these basic “four Ps” is a good start.

The science of domains and search engine optimization in general revolves around the fact that Internet users are creatures of habit; some strings of phrases and numbers work, while others fail to catch on. Understanding these habits, calculating them, and using your findings for the bettering of your business is how people find success via the World World Web. As long as people keep typing words into Google and website names into browsers, the job of an SEO consultant doesn’t get any more complicated than it already is.

The problem is that people aren’t typing words into Google or browsers – at least not as much as they used to. Soon, it seems, such actions will be completely irrelevant. This is due to the advent of personal assistant apps and other forms of consumer-level artificial intelligence, most famously demonstrated in the latest software offering from Apple: the iPhone app know as Siri. With such software, individuals will no longer be conducting web searches directly; people will opt instead to simply ask their personal assistant app to do the searching for them.

The problem for Internet entrepreneurs is this: how do you convert a system based on human tendencies into something workable in an age when humans are no longer doing the actual web searching? What will it matter what your domain name is, if the relatively shallow judgments of a human searcher are no longer a relevant component? We’re already seeing more clicking on links as a way to find content via social media versus actually typing and searching. There’s no telling how much more the importance of keywords and phrases will be diluted as such technology advances.

It won’t simply be a matter of deciphering the tendencies of a select number of personal assistant apps – no, it wouldn’t be that easy. Instead, such software, like Siri, is sure to meld its searching techniques with the selection habits of a particular user. If SEO and domain profiteering today were like sending a rocket from Earth to the Moon, the introduction of personal assistants will make it more like sending a rocket from Earth to the moon of another planet; a whole new set of calculations will have to be compromised with existing ones.

Once humans predominantly exit the equation of the search, where will that leave domains and SEO? The more important question to ask is, “How will SEO strategists evolve into a new age of searching?” As representatives of the future face of Internet marketing, you tell me.

See who the members of congress are supporters or opponents of SOPA / PIPA on ProPublica.

Spot by Jeff Clark- real time visual monitor of tweets on Wikipedia blackout against SOPA.

January 18th, 2012 is the largest online protest in history, to stop the internet censorship bills, SOPA & PIPA.

In the News

Recent events have been causing wide spread issues that have caused many to consider taking a new look at the rules of use and misuse for domain names.  The Frager Factor recently ran an article on Apple taking affront at the use of its trade names in many domain names that are totally unrelated to them or their product.  They even went so far as to file a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Making any headway for Apple on this issue will be incredibly hard, due to the fact that owners of these domains are protected.  This protection or privacy service shield doesn’t allow for any release of who owns a domain.  So the issue of policing domain names gets harder due to the privacy awarded to the domain name owners.
Other news reveal as to whether there needs to be more controllers in place for domain names and the people that sell, possess or operate them.  Some domain issues have even called for the involvement of the ICE.  They purport that some even are alleged selling a domain product that has attaches malware that will add the user to a Botnet that generates click on ads.  In essence, adding the purchaser’s personal computer to a click fraud scheme.

DN Journal reported that purchasing of domain names has become an incredibly lucrative business for companies that sell domain names.  In 2011 alone they report that a Domain Market Study reported domain name selling for the third quarter of 2011 at nineteen million dollars or one thousand nine hundred and seventy four dollars for dot-com sales alone.  So this points to the volatility of money that can be made in the domain name selling market.  The sheer amount of income from sale of domain names also makes it ripe for misuse and illegal use.

The Domains recently reported on a sale of a domain name (IRA.com) which was sold for seven figures.  Although the domain name purchaser was inhibited by agreements signed to disclose the exact amount he stated “It’s unquestionably a 7 figure domain name”.  Again, here is evidence of the big bucks involved in domaining sales.  Is it unreasonable to believe that something that has the potential to cause that kind of earnings wouldn’t cause issues with misuse and illegal use in sales?   The buzz of recent events seems to suggest that this issue deserves much more scrutiny then it received before.