New website is already ranking well for a very competitive term.
When Blake Janover bought the domain name home.loans for $500,000, people scoffed at how he believed the domain name would help him in search results. Sure, his multifamily.loans domain ranked quickly, but there’s little competition for that term.
Fast forward several months and home.loans is indeed ranking well. It shows up on the first page for me when I search for “home loans” in quotes, and #11 when I search without quotes.
That’s pretty darn good for such a competitive term.
Of course, search rankings fluctuate. Just recently vacation.rentals was on the first page of Google but it appears to have slipped to the second page.
Aaron Strong says
On my end (SoCal), it is showing page 1 with quotes and on page 2 without. It appears he is very close to page 1 without quotes. If I removed some local competition he would top page 1 (with or without quotes) above some of the majors……Congrats to him!
Gene says
Looks like he’s going to have the last laugh, and that he knew what he was doing when he shelled out $500K
Michael Kugler says
Never had a doubt. None whatsoever.
There are a lot of “experts” (gasbags) who will constantly tell everyone how ignorant the buyers are and how there is only one way to run the internet. (Read “their” way)
We too are in the same game as Blake.
Here is some more proof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M627rSFLqu8
Oh… and we are approaching 100 listings on a site that is now (officially) 8 days old. So there is that as well….
Aaron Strong says
Congrats Michael!…I am showing Page 1 with quotes and the VERY top of Page 2 without quotes. Amazing results!!…Are you able to share any traffic statistics publicly?
Michael Kugler says
Thank you Aaron.
Unfortunately (Trust me – I am 100% honest when I say this) we literally just set up Google Analytics today. It was not due to oversight or anything else. It was simply a case of working and working and working to get the website right.
I cannot begin to tell you all of the travails we have went through over the past 3, 4 months to get this thing dialed in. 1,000s and 1,000s of listings, deletions, submissions in GitHub, Slack, YouTrack, etc.
GA was just literally at the very bottom of my priority list and virtually the furthest thing from my mind.
I will come back in 1 month – promise and share true and verifiable website traffic. I have zero to hide with https://vacation.rentals and everything to celebrate.
Obviously, we are being found as client after client continues to sign up with us. Literally today – sometime before midnight – we will be over 100 listings. That alone is reason enough for celebration.
Thanks again, Mike
Aaron Strong says
Yes, please do celebrate!..You deserve it!
Derp says
You’re bottom of page 1 in Iowa
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Wow!!!! Richard aka Bulloney here from Virginia Beach….Blake and Mike, you’re both my hero’s. Blake, as you know I own over 50 mostly single word .loans domains, and what I’m hearing is music to my ears. Like you guys, I’m a domain rebel much to the chagrin the .com crowd. Good luck, and starting in August, I’ll be taking my 1,500 new gTLDs to industries like yours. I hope I can be of help….Congrats!
Andrew, I know you’re reluctant to interview me, but I can be be pretty damn charming, especially when I’m falsely accused of cyber squatting. You have my email address as does Domain Sherpa, Josh Reason, and 60 Minutes of CBS.
Thanks All
Anon says
When I go to home.loan.com I cannot find the site. Help!
Blake says
Anon – you’re missing .net.edu
Alex says
Page 2 with quotes and also page 2 without quotes for home.loans in Google.
For Vacation.rentals I got page 2 number 1 spot without quotes and page 1 number 8th spot with quotes in Google.
I am suspecting Vacation.Rentals would get more traffic then Home.loans as it ranks a tad bit better?!
I also accidentally typed Home.loan (singular) and the name is for sale on SEDO with a minimum bid of $5000? and 222 visitors as a metric?
Sounds a lot better then $500,000USD for Home.loans LOL
Snoopy says
It is going to need a higher rank and a lot of time to ever pay back 500k.
Michael Kugler says
Yeah… I am thinking sometime around the end of next year. Agree it’s unfortunate that it didn’t payoff in a week after purchase.
Snoopy says
A page 2 ranking is not going to bring in very much traffic. All the backlinks are recent domain blog articles and press releases about the domain sale so it is going to be very hard to maintain current ranking long term.
Michael Kugler says
Ya know, you were massively wrong once – I think I will ignore you twice.
Just admit it and move on.
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Mike…Snoopy like most dogs has his head buried in the sand. The Snoopy character first appeared in 1950, and progress has passed him by.
Snoopy says
We will have a rough idea once Semrush updates, at the moment they estimate the value of organic traffic at $173 per month. About 8 clicks per month based on the prior rank of 21.That figure will go up but I don’t think it is going to cover much of the acquisition cost.
https://www.semrush.com/info/home.loans
Matt Bentley says
As a point of comparison, a client of ours in the loans space invested $10 in their domain and $30K in SEO (hiring us) and added Google rankings worth $970K / year, about 3x what a #1 ranking for “home loans” would be worth.
You may be able to do even better. A nice keyword domain certainly makes everything a little easier, but getting a good ROI still depends most of all on execution of other components of SEO.
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Ya think? Ever calculated interest paid over the life of a 500K loan. Do the math, and then tell us how many home loans/mortgages need to happen to justify the domain…..Duh!!!
Snoopy says
It is very good quality traffic but let’s put it in perspective, the top bidders are paying about $45 per click. The conversion rate and margins would be low. It is going to take 10,000+ visitors to pay for itself.
Dave Tyrer says
In 2010 Alan Dunn (now MD at NameCorp, nominated to TRAFFIC Domain Hall of Fame) published an article on Newfound Names called:
“A $21,000 Click”
He said you can’t predict how much a click can be worth and recounted it like this:
“Around 4 or 5 years ago when we had a large real estate network operating online I got a call from one of our affiliate sources saying that we just earned $21,250 from a lead referral…
“It was a simple text link saying ‘Commercial Mortgage Rates’ or something like that.”
http://newfoundnames.com/a-21000-click/
– – –
Good luck and congratulations to the forward thinking people at Home.loans.
Snoopy says
The fact is advertisers in the top spots are paying about $45 a click. That is the value to them. It is about averages, not outliers.
C.S. Watch says
First and foremost, most folks are not throwing tomatoes at the ‘buyer.’ Folks are acting as sponsors from Gamblers Anonymous.
1. The .com investor is not out to quash joy. No gentleman caller is more welcome than the one who has been toiling at his gTLD long enough to now afford its .com.
2. We brokered a 7-figure dictionary .com sale, and it was at number two, not page two, for many months. It took a long time for that big-domain-sale frisson to deflate. Folks peeking in and holding a mirror over your mouth, customers taking what you’re festively giving away, and regrettably, plenty of starry-eyed noobs.
3. One sells approximately five (5) domain names out of every one thousand (1000) when one’s price point is minimum 15-25K. (Others can weigh in with their numbers.) These are ‘ancient registrations,’ not clownpenis.fart. So tally up those annual .com registration fees.
4. Now tally up that volume’s annual fees…on gTLDs. Finita la commedia. Finita la college fund, finita la marriage, finita la retirement. The alarm must match the harm.
5. Sales departments are manned by sweeties, not by unappealing, pustulent Harkonnens. Because business is battle, with weapons suited for the quarry. And domain investors must have the stones to call foul when the press release uses semantics, and when a broker doesn’t make plain their self-interest. (Gene Siskel to Roger Ebert: ‘You can’t be friends with them.’)
6. The buyer of this domain name has gotten a fire in his belly from the naysaying–that’s the best news. The many SEO ‘travails’ he cites above will hopefully carry the day. Great luck in every step of their journey.
Bill Kara says
Very nice work, I got it on page 1. Without quotes… because Im not even sure how many people “search” using quotes anyway.
Doesn’t matter its on page 1 for home loans and the site itself looks great. Best of luck to the buyer seems like he’s lined up a great domains with his business!
Bill Kara says
Although to be quite honest I can’t figure out how they did it…
On the surface the domain is brand new, almost no backlinks and of the ones they have 81% are no follow.
It’s nice to see for the buyer this is ranked so high, I hope it stays up there but based on what semrush says I think it’s a huge outlier on virtually every SEO metric. Im not a seo expert but it would be nice to get some insights on how this ranking has happened in such a short time.
Snoopy says
It has got recent news, I think that is the reason.
Look at Coffee.club for an example of how things often pan out. (211 visitors last month) Huge amounts are being paid for what is no more than an initial burst of publicity.
https://www.semrush.com/info/coffee.club
thelegendaryjp says
Bill makes a good point and is being nice as far as I can tell, no one in their right mind searches that combination with quotes on the regular nor do they include an unnatural dot between them, it’s complete fantasy land. Time to break the bank and bust out millions in marketing because that horse won’t run long term. End of year $500k roi on a dot name… “naturally” of course Bwahahahaha
Bill Kara says
Interesting. I guess maybe with apps and mobile web links are harder to come by in general so even a small burst moves the needle.
The sites well done as well so I’m sure those metrics are helping.
Snoopy says
I think fresh news is definitely a big ranking factor.
The question is though why would Google keep ranking a site based on news of a domain sale? That isn’t the type of quality signal Google is looking for, especially once the news is old. The site is no better than the thousands of other loan sites the only difference being it sits on domain that sold for a lot.
Eventually gravity finds its way.
thelegendaryjp says
The moral of the story folks is when there is no reason for it…. Who the heck is searching homeDOTloans or using bloody quotes? This entire thing above has me rolling on the floor laughing. Look everyone if you search my substitute for a quality domain that no one searches for in the real world unless millions are spent on ads/tv etc but ya if you search it exactly or with quotes look how high we are… BWAHAHAHAHAHA And I know the buyer is just itching to give a smart ass reply like he did with Snoopy above…. have at it smart guy, hard to say that when you spent $500k on a $5k or less name.
Andrew Allemann says
the search it’s ranking for is not home.loans, it’s home loans
Josh says
Not sure why Andrew but I do not see that at all. I went pages deep and nothing.
Derp says
I gave up after 5 pages
Michael Kugler says
To start with, the only smart ass comments are coming from you and from Snoopy and a couple other gasbag know nothings. So let’s establish that first and foremost
Secondly – I have spent ZERO on marketing. Get it? ZERO
(Were you one of the clowns publicly smearing Donuts and myself over the purchase price until I published the wire transfer? An apology would have been the decent thing to do)
If you think we are wicked today, wait for a week or two from now when we actually do begin to spend real cash. IOW, everything we have achieved so far – the listings – the rankings – EVERYTHING has been achieved with ZERO paid dollars.
Next, let’s get to the next ignorant part of your statement – searching with the dot.
Well genius, no one ever said to search with the dot.
My site is ranking on 181 search terms at the moment and many of them >40 are ranking top 10.
People are finding us in dozens of ways. I have absolutely zero doubt we will be at 2500 listings by the end of the year (break even for us) After that, we will flood the market strictly targeting the travelers and nothing more. More travelers will mean more word of mouth to homeowners.
Even then you will still sit here and blow flatulence about dot com this and dot net that.
Simple cure – drop the dot com addiction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXPyn-cm01k
Snoopy says
You’ve spent $500,000 on marketing!
Josh says
Exactly Snoopy, he still doesn’t understand when someone spends big money on a quality category targeted dot com it generates the natural traffic that will lead to revenue via sales. Where as he did exactly as you say. He obviously could not obtain homeloans.com, if he did that our tune would be different.
Josh says
As far being a smart ass, you may be right but it’s because I am smart and have an ass. To call Snoopy and myself “know nothings” is a bit worrying, Time will tell 🙂
Michael Kugler says
Ya know, I am not going to get into a flame war here on Andrew’s blog. You have your disrespectful opinion and I have my respectful observations.
I think https://home.loans and https://vacation.rentals are winners. You don’t – fair enough.
I have told Andrew I will come back to this in 1 year to account for the experiment and I believe Blake will as well. So far, I am absolutely relaxed in my investment and expect to see nothing but great results for many years to come.
But please, do not feed into the outright character assassinations that have been lobbed around here and other sites regarding purchase price, hidden perks and all of this other nonsense.
Both URLs were purchased above board and in good faith, nothing more.
I cannot speak for Blake but for myself, I can tell you that the traffic came at me a lot faster than I was prepared for. (Snort and guffaw all you like – it is an absolute fact) We simply were not “Internet ready” and had 100s of inquiries from people who found our site through varying methods of search. (And yes, I had another one this morning I will respond to after this post)
The “know nothing” remark had more to do with people questioning the price I paid, the fact that we would NEVER rank on Google, customers would NEVER list with us and so on. All patently and proven wrong – 100%.
Peace and have a great one, Mike
Josh says
Fair enough. Truce
Derp says
Michael,
The front-end of your site looks great, IMHO
Snoopy says
The “know nothing” remark had more to do with people questioning the price I paid, the fact that we would NEVER rank on Google, customers would NEVER list with us and so on. All patently and proven wrong – 100%.
////////////////
Many people still question the price, particularly the one that was $300 higher than the other as the price seemed staged to get more publicity.
Please point out who said it would never rank and people would never list with you? I don’t recall anyone saying that.
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
I’m too new and too old to understand all this, but it certainly will help me to market names like; Elder.Loans, Balloon.Loans, HomeEquity.Loans, Recourse.Loans and TaxRefund.Loans to name a few. This is fodder for when I take my domains to the likes of the Mortgage Bankers Association and other lending institutions. Life doesn’t get much better than being in on the ground floor of a new and innovative business model. Thanks Blake.
Derp says
LOL!
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
I take it you don’t know what a Home Equity Loan, or a Tax Refund Loan is??? Thanks for the publicity.LMAO!!!
thelegendaryjp says
test
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Talking about LMAO…why do you even care? I know exactly where you’re coming from. Do you know anything about the average mortgage loan? I can promise you, it aint your average cup of coffee. Seriously, would you like to hazard a guess how many jumbo mortgages it takes to justify a 500K domain? I didn’t think so…thus I LMAO!
adam says
I spent this much on a .com and our company ranked on page #1 for a number of months on a competitive term (granted not as high of CPC as vacation rentals or home loans but competitive). Let’s see how long the G-love lasts.
We had problems with bounce rates from an unforeseen problem with people looking for another site. . . .really horrible experience and the love was lost quickly.
I suspect the love will die off soon. I suggest the owners do everything in their power to make sure their bounce rate is minimal and that the number of pages their visitors hit is high. I think that’ll kill your ranking.
On another note, I checked the site on mobile and it wasn’t so hot in terms of usability. I suspect your mobile bounce rate will be high and you’ll lose ranking because of that quickly. Vacation rentals , same thing for your site. Make sure you’re optimizing or your new love from google will be killed quickly.
Good luck. You’ll need it.
abc_xyz says
Home.loan is 1 google and its parked.
Aaron Strong says
Searching with or without quotes on many terms are close in comparison. The terms discussed here are actually very close, with a slide edge to without quotes. Using quotes when searching Google is very well known and should always be a consideration when developing.
Snoopy says
Have never heard of people searching like this before (aside form domainers).
What statistics are you basing your claim on that “Searching with or without quotes on many terms are close in comparison”.
Aaron Strong says
You can use Google Trends for comparisons…… I might add, the demographics of those using quotes would be more willing to purchase products or services over the internet.
Snoopy says
It is just grouping things together, {home loans}, \[“home loans”]\ and [:home loans:] do well also. Are these all good search terms?
R P says
Any busines model based upon free traffic from Google is very weak long term. Regardless of the TLD. Same was true with free traffic from Yahoo back in 2000. $500K SEO capital outlay is most likely going to end up looking very foolish. Now if you had the $45/click to back up SEO with long term PPC… but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Also, you don’t have a proprietary product. You are a middleman. The amount of traffic lost to homeloans.com will make paid search almost impossible because you don’t have the margins to compete. But if you owned homeloans.com as well… but you don’t.
You’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Timing is critical. And time is probably not on your side. You are a good SEO though.
Think about partnering with a bigger player if/while the iron is hot. I’ve seen too many of you guys think you are going to be the next big thing and lose everything to an algorithmic update.
Aaron Strong says
Snoop – This may help you.
support.google.com/trends/answer/4359582?hl=en
Bill Kara says
So much negativity it’s crazy… you guys want to sell domains for big bucks yet smash guys that buy them for a lot and build on them… this purchase is a bold move and I hope it works out.
I can’t figure out the SEO play but regardless the site is brand new and should only go up from here.
Good luck Micheal I’m sure this is just the start of something great.
Jamie Zoch says
Google has a pretty strong interest in new gTLD’s, not sure if that plays a role or not. It may. In general, new gTLD’s have ranked well in Google for sometime, many extensions. In Google’s eye, the better they rank, the more people use them, the more money they make.
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Thanks Jamie….makes perfect sense to me.The more money Google makes pushing the new gTLD’s, the more money I make. And I luv all the attention they’re getting here. Stay tuned…it’ll only get better.
Postmaster says
I wonder what the stats are at home.loan (not home.loans)
James Kite says
No sign of it when I search, gave up looking after 7 pages.
But that shouldn’t be a concern.
No sign of a .com either
In Australia .com.au is king
Maybe if you had a section geared towards country specific home loans, you could break the cc stranglehold.
Richard Morris aka Bulloney says
Clearly shows up on second page here in Virginia Beach;
Home.Loans
https://www.home.loans/
Home loan, mortgage refinance, and home equity solutions in one place. Mortgage solutions simplified.
Curious…do you know a domainer from DownUnder who’s moniker on NamePros is “Kate”. Aussies seem to hate and feel threatened by the new gTLD’s. Why do you suppose that is? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Josh says
Same here, tried each and every search option with nothing after pages I gave up. Geo may be playing a role?
JZ says
Could be. I couldn’t find either home.loans or vacation.rentals. i am not in the US.
John says
What can I say, I don’t regard it as a burden being right so often, in this case about how great this domain is while being no “threat” to .com. 😉 And Andrew Rosener was right about this domain too, so I may be considered in good company.
steve says
When I searched for “Home Loans”, Home.Loans appeared on page 2 (middle), which is pretty good –
The algorithm weighs relevant content (which Home.Loans has)
Also Google weighs prior search history per loans, home, etc — depending on the browser – so my search results would be different.
For those who have made multiple searches of home loans and clicked on Home.Loans,(the site), Home.Loans will appear higher
Bottom line: I prefer .com, but I also root for the entrepreneurs, so I wish Michael and his team well with Home.Loans — I’m sure you and your team will do very well!,
JZ says
personally i think the domains have little to do with any success aside from publicity from a domain sale.
Derp says
In Iowa, not in the top 50 without quotes, #13 with quotes
austinandrew says
It looks like home.loans has quickly fallen off the Google radar…I’m not seeing it on the first few pages anymore for the home loans search.
Anon says
I don’t see it ranking anymore. I did see newcastle.loans on Page 3 though.
TLDnic says
Got home.loans on position 115 and newcastle.loans on position 72 for home loans without quotes on US Google desktop version today.
If you want to check organic results on different Google versions without a proxy you can use Google Geo Switcher:
http://g.com.pub/
Alex says
“To start with, the only smart ass comments are coming from you and from Snoopy and a couple other gasbag know nothings. So let’s establish that first and foremost
Secondly – I have spent ZERO on marketing. Get it? ZERO”
Mr. Michael Kugler- You just lost my respect with your unprofessional name calling comment!
1. $500,000USD spent on a domain = marketing!
2. It blows my mind how you are putting this much effort and energy into defending your acquisition instead of putting your effort and energy into running your business and proving your point! If you are that much worried about what others think then you have already failed in business.
just wow!!
Michael Kugler says
My apologies, I just seen this comment.
To begin with Alex, I doubt I had your respect in the first place. This entire thing has been a tear down of outside the lines purchases and the 2 idiots who made them.
Secondly, you need to go back further up the line and read what actually triggered my comment.
Failing in business is not something I am willing to accept. We will stay in this for years to come and every single day brings a Christmas gift for us. Every… single… day…
Buying this gTLD has become the absolute best decision we have ever made, hands down.
Anyway, the short of it is – gTLDs are ranking just fine.
Video from this morning 6/13/2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf_wUzmHLjo
Omainsday says
Its back… Page 1 / 5th…
TLDnic says
Awesome, I even see it in position 4 now on the first page!
richard morris says
Thanks TLDnic…the higher .loans ranks, the more value and opportunity for other .loans extensions. Keep up the great work Blake….thanks.
Snoopy says
Update: Now ranking #93 according to Semrush (US)
richard morris says
Snoopy…what in the world are you looking at? When I key home .loans, it comes up #1 on the first page. You should be so fortunate.
TLDnic says
home loans (no quotes, no dot) shows on position 5 on first page for me today.
Michael Kugler says
It’s easier when it doesn’t fit their narrative Richard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf_wUzmHLjo
richard morris aka Bulloney says
Michael…it hasn’t taken me long to learn just how F/U the domain industry really is. Arrogance and and “know it all” attitudes plague the industry. I’ve owned businesses and worked in a multitude of industries to include the financial services industry, the healthcare industry, the sports and entertainment industries, and I can honestly say the domain industry is seriously screwed up. I’ve been advised to chill, and try to get along, but that isn’t happening:). Like I’ve told you and Blake, anything I can do to help either of you, I’m here for you. Enjoy your summer, and maybe I can get to Branson someday for a visit. Good Luck and Cheers!
Roberta Arwood says
Thanks for sharing this information.