Three days later it’s finally done. My new domain portfolio/for sale site: Hot Domainer.com..
While I will continue to showcase several of my domains here, I feel it is much more professional and organized to streamline them into one site. I’m very pleased with how it came out, so go look at my new baby!
I was checking my stats a bit ago and noticed a link to an Ebay auction, where my gradients were not only being offered for SALE in a massive Photoshop package obviously including many other ripped items from other sites, but the thief in question did not even think to link to their own server! Here is the auction:
Here are the FREE gradients, albeit an older collection, but enjoy. Click Here to Download.
A dear friend of mine recently replied to a thread on a well known webmaster board, to a guy looking to buy domains. She PM’d him and he immediately insisted on taking the conversation to MSN Messenger. They negotiated the deal and she sold him two names for $500. The money showed up in PayPal and she transferred the names, as has been done so many other successful times with no problem for her. 20 minutes later she received a PayPal alert that the transaction had been flagged for fraud. Bottom line is she ended up scammed out of both her domains, though PP and GoDaddy are working on it at this time.
My warning to any domainers out there, make sure you can prove who you are selling to. In this instance it was because the conversation was taken immediately to Messenger and there was no verbal detail exchange in the PM, she cannot prove the scammer is the guy in the thread, though it is obvious it is, still hard to prove.
This transaction was from Canada. It would be my recommendation that for any international PayPal domain sales, to tell the buyer they will have to wait several hours before the domain is transferred, so the payment can be verified as safe.
Hope this helps somebody. My dear friend lost two killer domains!
I noticed in my stats today a nice visit from the creator of my WP theme, Kong Technologies. By no surprise, his theme is being used all over the place and he was nice enough to list my site and compliment my use of it.
I’m very inspired lately to begin theming on my own. I really have just fallen in love with Wordpress and love it’s functionality. Time to maybe dig in and see what I can come up with.
If you haven’t been to the Kong Technology blog, he’s got some great SEO articles.
Meanwhile I’m knee deep in continuing to sort through my piles of domain names. I sold one of my favorites yesterday, PinkBling.com. No idea what I would have done with it but I hope the new owner comes up with somethin nice.
I’ve been domaining several years now and while I claim to be no expert at all, there are some valuable tips to consider when choosing a solid successful domain name.
2. YOUR NUMBER’S UP. Numero uno is best for phone numbers, addresses and all those fun things numbers like to do. I’ve seen people register names that reflect their age. “www.sandy32.com”. What happens when dear Sandy turns 33? Naturally there are exceptions to this rule but all in all, big no no. The only acceptable use of a number in a domain name is the controversial “4″ or “2″, as in “Dots2Go.com”, “Names4Sale.com”. Another possible “okay FINE” situation is a name like “OneHotChick”. So you can see that there are many sides to this coin. While I will not get in on the debate as to what is more acceptable, it’s my own personal opinion that numerical characters should not preceed any TLD unless your company name IS numbers!
3. BACK TO BACK. A while back I had considered starting a separate website for photo retouching specifically for females. While I’m not giving away the name, the reason I did not register it, is that the first word ended with a “d” and the second word STARTED with a “d”. Example: “cookeddinner.com”. See how that just doesn’t look pretty and is a bit confusing to the eyeballs? Please though people. DON’T get clever and leave OUT one of the double consonants all together, making it “cookedinner.com”. That’s making a bad situation even worse. Perhaps change your wording all together, such as “cookedmeal.com”. See how much better that flows? : )
4. DOT FORESIGHT. Foresee possible future domain issues. I bumbled badly a few months ago when I registered a name ending in “studios” and did not check to see if the “studio” version was registered. It sure was and while my domain and site are living through that just fine, it does make me wonder if I am missing traffic. When you register a name that ends either in a plural or singular with plural possibility, check it and grab it if you can.
5. PLURAL VS. SINGULAR. Speaking of plurals, there is no way to accurately recommend if a plural adds or decreases from the value of a domain name. One would think that a plural would automatically make it less valuable. It depends really. For instance, I own RockstarVideos.com, which just wouldn’t quite sound as catchy if it were RockstarVideo. In this case you want the “s”, but take that to heart when registering a domain.
6. REVERSE-O-RAMA. Consider the backwards effect. Some catchy names can be easily changed and yet sound the same when swapping the words around. Example, if you are looking to register PinkAngelic.com, consider AngelicPink.com, and check to make sure it is not an already active site.
7. GET CREATIVE. Before taking over the massively trafficked domain boards to get an appraisal on a killer name you just grabbed, do your homework first. I’m not saying you need to be an expert in Alexa or Google PR, backlinks or anything of that nature, but do the obvious. If you registered “BackyardLeaves.com”, make sure names like “BackyardTrees.com” isn’t already available before proclaiming you have struck dot com gold. Consider this too prior to registering the name. The value of a name is dependent upon many things but the bottom line is, the “RARE” factor.
How valuable is your name? on NAME value alone? The bottom line is this. Ask yourself if the name can be readily duplicated. If so, it’s not gold. If NOT? Then you may be on your way to domaining decadence!
I will be adding more to this article and bumping it up as I go along. I hope these tips are useful to you!
It appears I have just too many projects going. I don’t know whether I myself am coming or going lately. I do know that I couldn’t wait any longer to put the new blog and layout up, powered by Wordpress. Yep, I finally joined the masses and in the few months since WP and I started dating, I’ve already built probably at least a dozen blogs.
This blog has a long way to go. I plan to add my domains immediately. With over 300 in my collection, it’s time to start marketing, promoting, developing and/or selling a few here. There is a separate site for my domaining addiction but it’s under wraps for the time being as it is being tidied up for visitors.
And while there is also a separate site for my Photoshop goodies, I will probably post a few here. I have about 125 or so custom styles to offer up for your PS arsenal.
I’m still doing quite a lot with the photo retouching as well and Retouchables is getting a much needed well … retouching, so to speak!
All things in their own time but a clone right now would be good!
Darlanne.com has been online since Dec of 1999. Since it’s inception, it’s grown, morphed, been taken offline for a while, revived and revamped and gone through just about as many changes as a site can go through. Now it’s in a new phase. Wordpress is it’s new beating heart and while it is still a personal blog, I view it as more the hub or central location for all my projects.
Thanks for your patience as I get this party started!
