Want to boost ad revenue on parked pages? Try using fewer ads.

By way of legendary domain investor Frank Schilling’s blog, I came across a story about Google showing fewer ads on its search results pages. Google is showing fewer ads on its search pages because it has found that showing fewer ads boosts click through rates.

Schilling points out that he’s seen the same affect on his domains — showing fewer ads ultimately results in more clicks.

I’m a big believer in the Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. When you give someone too many choices they end up making no choice at all. For example, say you stop by a sample booth in your grocery store and there are a few flavors of ice cream to taste. You taste them and like a flavor, and decide to buy one container. But what if you stopped by that booth and there were twenty flavors to taste? Fewer people will end up buying an ice cream, even though there are probably many flavors that are appealing.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed buying something as simple as toothpaste (do you want cavity protection? how about whitening? both? paste or gel? tube or pump? ultimate platinum version?) then you know about the Paradox of Choice.

Apparently this is the case with ads as well. If you see 20 ads on the side of your search results you won’t click on as many as if you see only 5 ads. Domain name owners should experiment with different numbers of ads on their parked pages to find the optimal balance.

Four .pro domain names have sold at Afternic for over $10,000 each.

Four .pro domain names have sold at Afternic for at least $11,000 each. All of the domains are related to video: Movie.pro ($22,000), Video.pro ($35,000), Stream.pro ($11,000) and Streaming.pro ($18,000). According to searches at DNSalePrice and NameBio, these are the four highest priced .pro domain names ever sold (and publicly announced). The domains appear to have been purchased by “Streaming Group” of Belgium.

Other high .pro sales include:

Foto.pro $6,100 (Feb 2007)
Travel.pro $3,900 (July 2006)
Music.pro $2,975 (September 2006)
Paris.pro $2,888 (September 2006)
Poker.pro $2,427 (July 2006)
Photography.pro $2,210 (January 2007)

RegistryPro manages the .pro domain name. It was originally created to offer third level domain names to accredited professionals such as lawyers and accountants (e.g. johnsmith.law.pro). However, a loophole in its agreement with ICANN allowed .pro domains to be offered on a broader scale and without the third level (e.g. movie.pro). The resale market for .pro domains never gained momentum, but these sales will certainly attract attention.

4 millionth .info domain registration occurred last month; registry releases stats.

.Info domain name registry Afilias announced that the 4 millionth .info domain was registered on February 1, 2007. .Info was one of the first so-called “new TLDs” to be released in 2001. 500,000 .info domains were registered in the first 90 days after launching.

In connection with the announcement, Afilias released a report titled “4 Million Milestone Analysis Report”. The report touts .Info as a successful alternative to .com. .Info has certainly been a success in terms of registrations. Aftermarket sales have been reasonably strong as well. When you compare .info head-to-head with another TLD that was introduced about the same time, .biz, there’s no comparison — .info is a winner.

However, the report doesn’t mention that many registrars basically give away .info domains. At a buck or two per registration (and at times free), .info domains have been favorites of “search engine spammers” and scammers. In fact, there have been rumors that search engines are starting to discount rankings of .info sites because of their use for splogs and search engine spam. (This has not been confirmed).

United States residents register the most .info domains, owning 48% of the market. Germany is second with 11% and the United Kingdom with 6%.

According to the report, 74% of .info domains are “active”. Active is defined as having “some type of content”. This includes parked pages, real web sites, splogs, etc. The report says that “over 1 million are dedicated sites that appear to have unique content”. The definition of “unique content” is broad and I suspect the actual number of domains hosting truely unique web sites is less than half that.

The report also touts recent aftermarket sales of NewYork.info ($46,392), Credit.info ($36,000), and Casino.info ($35,125).

Below are some recent (past 90 days) .info sales according to NameBio.com:
Names.info $10,465
Manhattan.info $10,000
Rental.info $7,000
NAW.info $4,558
Evangelist.info $4,500

The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN.

The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN for changing whois going forward. The taskforce did not receive a supermajority vote on any of its proposals, but did receive simple majority votes. Whois is the database of contact information and data for registered domain names.

One of the recommendations deals with correcting inaccurate whois data. Whois accuracy is hot topic after GoDaddy recently revoked the registration to FamilyAlbum.com and registered it to another customer. GoDaddy is one of a few registrars that actively work to maintain accurate whois information.

Currently, registrars are required to verify information in whois when they receive a complaint of inaccurate data. Although the registrar may delete a domain registration for inaccurate data, it is not required to do so. It is also unclear what steps the registrar should take to verify the data beyond merely sending an e-mail to the e-mail address listed in Whois.

The taskforce’s recommendation on correcting inaccurate data is summarized below:

1. The Registrar must notify the Operational Point of Contact (new contact type proposed by Taskforce) or the Registered Name Holder in a timely manner.

2. The oPOC or the Registered Name Holder must correct the alleged inaccuracy or defend the accuracy of the data, also in a timely manner.

3. If the oPOC or the Registered Name Holder does not update the contact record with corrected information within this time period, the Registrar must either place the domain name on “hold” or revoke the registration.

4. Before accepting the new information, the Registrar must verify that the oPOC or the Registered Name Holder is contactable using the new email address provided.

5. If the basis for the original complaint of inaccurate data included data elements other than the e-mail address, the Registrar must take reasonable steps to validate corrections to these other data elements before accepting them. (This may include making a phone call or sending a letter, but this is ambiguous.)

6. A standardized mechanism should be used to convey notices of alleged inaccuracy from the internet community and distribute them to the relevant registrar.

Among the companies providing feedback to the taskforce regarding Whois were:

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)
Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS)
March of Dimes
American Heart Association
RE/MAX
Motion Picture Association

You can review the final report here.

Does “domain sniffing”, in which a third party registers domains you’ve searched for, really happen?

I’ve always been skeptical that domain sniffing happens on a wide scale. Here’s what domain sniffing is about: you query a whois site or domain registrar for a domain to check its availability. You wait a few days and then go back to register the domain. To your surprise, it has been registered by someone else. Domain sniffing means that someone was able to view (“sniff”) your domain queries and use this information to register the domains.

But does domain sniffing really happen? Few people point to evidence other than anecdotal incidents (“I checked for a domain, and three days later it was gone!”). My advice to people searching for a domain is to go ahead and register it when you find a good one. At $8, why risk it? Plus, it could just be coincidence that someone registered a domain you searched for.

Or maybe not. I looked up a domain about a week ago and didn’t get around to registering it right away. I went back a few days later to register it and it was taken. “OK”, I thought, “it’s reasonable that someone else might want this domain, even though it’s obscure”. However, there are a couple peculiar things about the registration. First, the registrant is protected by whois privacy. Why would this person want to protect their identity on a non-sensitive domain? Yes, it cuts down on spam, but this still raises a red flag. Second, the domain is parked at a major registrar. If someone snapped up the domain for parking revenue why would they keep it at this registrar and let the registrar profit? Again, it could be coincidence…or is it?

At this point I recalled an article by Larry Seltzer of eWeek. He researched a situation at CNET last year and detailed his findings. Someone complained to him that her search for a domain at CNET resulted in a registration by a third party. CNET’s search box aggregated domain queries to a number of providers, which opened the door for a number of potential sniffers. Seltzer searched for three random domains at CNET and they were all registered 30 hours later — by the same party.

There are other ways a domain could be sniffed. Here’s one theory from a thread at Webmaster World:

Place an advertisement at one one the popular domain check sites. Whenever a domain is checked, it shows up in the URL field of that particular user’s browser, and correspondingly shows up on the advertisers log as the URL from which the image (advertisement) was served. An simple automated script pulls the domains out of the log, checks for known words, number of characters, etc, and automatically registers those that fit the criteria. If they don’t get any traffic to the autmatically generated landing page, the domain drops after 5 days, and doesn’t cost the register anything. If they do, they pay the 6 bucks and keep the name.

Was the domain I searched for sniffed? If so, was it by the registrar or just some rogue employee? I’ve thought of a way to
find out who is hiding behind the whois privacy, although it will cost some money and time. I’m going to run test queries to look for patterns before proceding. In the mean time, if you have concrete evidence of a domain being sniffed, please e-mail the details to editor (at) domainnamewire.com.