Fishing and outdoor network understands the power of keyword domains, also finds success with .mobi.
First Light Net, A Predatorial Advertising Associates L.L.C. Company, has reeled in a big fish with its purchase of Fishing.org for $38,500. First Light Net is no stranger to the power of generic domains, as I found out in a recent e-mail interview with Michael Hodgdon. The company is also finding success on the mobile web, which should be music to .mobi owners’ ears.
First Light Net specializes in serving advertising to the fishing, hunting and outdoors industries. It has a large network of targeted niche portals that deliver over 17 million page ad impressions every month. Examples of the company’s sites include FishingFiles.com and BigFishTackle.com.
The company harnesses the value of generic domains for generating sites and getting into search engines. “We buy key domain names to provide our users with new innovative websites without having to revamp already active sites to take advantage of newer technologies and different user experiences,” said Hodgdon. “We also benefit greatly from having more organic search results (i.e. different sites target different keywords).”
In fact, the company already owns Fishing.us. Fishing.us targets United States fishing search terms and Fishing.org will target broader search terms.
The company has four types of sites: basic aggregator sites with continuously updated content, minor developed sites (beta sites), full web sites, and mobile sites.
Fishing.org will be released as a full web site. “Fishing.Org will be a major developed site and we have actually staffed heavy to expedite its launch date,” said Hodgdon. “We plan on going live the first week of March with a cutting edge social networking site for fishermen.”
First Light Net is also finding success with mobile sites utilizing the .mobi domain name.
“We are constantly amazed by the .mobi sites. It has been way faster than we ever imagined,” Hodgdon explained. One of the company’s .mobi sites is BigFishTackle.mobi, which is a mobile version of the .com version’s forums. “It is a really great tool for anglers because they can literally check fishing reports while they are on the water, find out where people fished recently and communicate with them over their cell while they’re on their boat or on the sand or shore bank.”
Indeed, that is the promise of .mobi. If sites using the domain can provide benefits unique to a mobile environment, the domain can thrive. First Light Net receives about 1,000,000 mobile page views each month across more than 20 mobile sites.
First Light Net is an example of a company that understands the power of generic domains. Hopefully it can catch some more big domains in the future.
[Update: The company has also acquired Fishing.net. The domain sold at the DOMAINfest auction for $52,500. The company bought it from the buyer a few days later.]
Adam says
I’m sure the fishing.com owner is pleased to hear about this.
johndaniels says
.mobi .phoney why the pump on this dog?
Andrew says
@ johdaniels – First Light Net isn’t pumping it at all. They’re actually showing results. The high sales prices for .mobi’s don’t mean anything regarding its future success. But people actually generating traffic on their mobile sites does.
M. Menius says
@johndaniels – .phoney? why the pump?
Traffic on BigFishTackle.com estimated at 32,000 visitors per month, and 6000 visitors per month to the .mobi.
Mike says
@johndaniels
Estimated from where????
Andrew says
M. Menius – to second Mike’s comments, these seem a lot lower than the #s Mike has provided.
fishing says
The .mobi extension is gaining popularity, I’m not surprised they got more hits, from the rise of the iPhone and mobile internet.