Man buys .net domain name for $62,500 with big plans.
Some people like to talk big. Patrick Gavin is putting his money where his mouth is.
The founder of Text-Link-Ads.com just plunked down $62,500 for SearchEngineOptimization.net at BuyDomains. It’s a steep price for a domain who’s .org version sold for just $750 back in 2006. But Gavin has a plan, and he’s going to let the world watch him succeed or fail.
Gavin plans to turn the web site into a learning resource for search engine optimization. He’s going to chronicle all of his SEO work for the domain as he attempts to get it ranked number one for the ultra-competitive term “search engine optimization” within one year.
Just goes to show what SEO experts and domainers already know: exact match domain names are a good foundation for search engine optimization.
Jeffrey Henderson says
FYI, telling Google you’re going to leverage the exact match domain strength and documenting all your strategies is NOT a recipe for success.
I’ve seen many cases of Google removing the exact match domain benefit in cases where it’s been abused.
Josh says
The first thing he should search optimize for is a brain.
don says
step 1 is on track with the keyword domain
step 2, he linked to all of the top seo firms/sites
Will be interesting to watch the evolution, there are some ill feelings from google to his company and I wonder if the “do no evil” empire will squash some of his momentum, but I would guess he will be #1 in yahoo in 60 days and the other serps first page in a few months, but no way to guarantee #1 overall and no way to predict the google carry over, but its great pr for his main company
Jason says
@Josh, lol
Adam says
Step 3. Email all the domain bloggers and attempt to get them to link to your site.
WQ says
There are more folks telling others how to make money SEO’ing their sites than there are actually doing it.
The domainer blogs have been full of “SEO tips and how to’s” lately as well.
Why tell me how to make money when you can do it yourself?
Francois says
I am confident that my friend Patrick will succeed, he has:
– The domain.
– The knowledge.
– The experience.
– The connections.
Patrick is not saying he will use black hat techniques to acheive good rankings, at the inverse he is telling us he will create an interesting site about SEO.
His domain + original content + traffic + links will automatically do the ranking job without probably having to care about optimize his site.
That’s very good news for the domaining industry that one of the most respected face of search engine marketing launch a new site where the domain name is considered as one of the main pilar of success.
If he succeed, as I think, this should be a great example of the impact of domain names to acheive top search engine ranks for the term of the domain.
Good luck Patrick, we will follow you.
Richard Douglas says
@Andrew
This should be a very interesting exercise to watch.
Note that he already ranks in the top 10 for this search term with his personal blog so he knows what needs to be done.
Wonder if he’s going to 301 his blog to the .net?
– Richard
Patrick Gavin says
Francois, thanks for the kind words!
Richard, I definitely thought about the 301 but would hate to lose my personal blog that is out there but now you got me thinking about it again…. 🙂
Parting an idiot from his money says
I suspect PG will succeed in his new venture based on his past success. Need more people like him.
Michael says
This will be an interesting project to watch, and I wish him all the best. I see no reason why having another site dedicated to SEO would be a bad thing. The domain name is the right step to making this succeed.
BTW – I have searchoptimization.ca for sale right now at http://buydomainnames.ca/domain_names_for_sale/searchoptimization.ca.html
😉
Michael
Henry says
Interesting comments from some Nay sayers. I strongly believe he is on the right track. Someone evidently understands the power of keyword and search term matching.
Google will do what Google may, and has been doing, but the fact still remains that it is a term people search and search often. If he builds authoritative information around that term he will more than succeed and with Google to booth.
Cheers,
Henry.
Ed Muller says
The reality of good content, proper SEO (which in this case is exactly the target), and a great domain name will win hands down over most of the garbage out there. Good luck Patrick and show us what you got!
surfvoucher says
Why spend so much on a .NET domain when he could have spent $8 on another brandable name and use the $60K on marketing/branding it. I’ve always thought that a non .COM domain will always loose some returning traffic to the .COM version of the site.
Sumit Bahl says
It always is a tough call, but “aged” aspect does have its own advantages.
chandan says
lets see / hope he will be doing good seo for that domain 😀
Anthony says
A search marketing firm with the knowledge, skills, and a proven process that consistently delivers results. Is SEO.com there results that they deliver are significant and will increase your traffic and a Big ROI.