Domain Names: What’s Hot, What’s Not Now

What’s hot in the domain industry, and what’s not?

It’s been a few months since I wrote the What’s hot, What’s not article for domain names. A lot has changed since then, so I’ve updated the list.

What’s Hot

Geo Domains – geo domains have been a cash cow for a long time, but everyone and their mom is talking about them now. The attention will increase before July’s GeoDomain Expo.

Conference Fatigue – with so many conferences on the schedule, a number of regulars are reporting conference fatigue. I suspect the schedule will be a bit lighter next year. TRAFFIC plans to do just two shows in Silicon Valley and New York.

Cost Per Action – Good domains with high converting traffic are starting to see the benefit of CPA over CPC. Major parking companies, including TrafficZ, are adding CPA to the mix rather than relying solely on Yahoo and Google ad feeds.

Domain Sales for Cash Flow – With parking revenue down, a number of domainers are turning to another source of cash flow by selling domains. One prominent domainer told me last week that he plans to sell a couple domains a month to keep his monthly cash flow in tune with last year’s.

Hypocrites – namely Verizon.

Click Fraud Detection on Parked Domains – with ad providers and advertisers complaining of poor conversion from parked domain names, click fraud detection companies such as Click Forensics are helping to separate the good traffic from the bad.

What’s Not

eBay for Domains – eBay now requires all domain sellers to accept PayPal. Anyone who’s ever been burned on a domain sale with PayPal knows this is a raw deal.

Domain Parking – as many people pointed out at last week’s TRAFFIC show, it’s not that domain parking revenue is worse than a couple years ago. But it’s below where it was at the start of the year. Domainers tend to have a short term memory.

.Mobi – If you were in it for the short run, look to liquidate at a fraction of what you paid. If you’re in it for the long run, best of luck.

Typos, Trademarks – Need I say more?

.Asia – But wait! Isn’t Asia the fastest growing internet user base? Won’t they all starting typing .asia at the end of keywords in their browsers? Um, no.