EMD's and gTLD's Google puts more nails in

[findtim]

but what counts is the actual data that we have

snoopy if you are going to state "actual data" then isn't the obvious thing that you have ALL the actual REAL data, since you don't then maybe your comments are totally flawed.
tim

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story: in the 70's volvo bought out a car that was painted green, they actually sold one ! , some guy saw the stats and said " wow, green volvo sales are up 100%, lets make more..........

 

[snoopy]

snoopy if you are going to state "actual data" then isn't the obvious thing that you have ALL the actual REAL data, since you don't then maybe your comments are totally flawed.
tim

----------------------
story: in the 70's volvo bought out a car that was painted green, they actually sold one ! , some guy saw the stats and said " wow, green volvo sales are up 100%, lets make more..........

Tim, nobody has "ALL the actual REAL data".

Much like other industries performance of the market is determined by what is known. e.g. If you want to see how the art market is going you'd look at known sales. People don't say "Oh yes the known have been terrible for the last 3 years, but the unknown sales are probably really good". The very best data available is known sales.

This argument about the known sales somehow giving the wrong picture only ever come up when a market is weak, e.g., alt tlds like .tv where the argument is run constantly to try and debunk obviously weak prices.

The reality is if the unknown sales were strong the known sales would also be strong. People would be bidding up names higher than ever, instead of that they are down 50%+ on most .au's.

 

[neddy]

This argument about the known sales somehow giving the wrong picture only ever come up when a market is weak, e.g., alt tlds like .tv where the argument is run constantly to try and debunk obviously weak prices.

The reality is if the unknown sales were strong the known sales would also be strong. People would be bidding up names higher than ever, instead of that they are down 50%+ on most .au's.

What a load of cow manure Snoopy.

The fact is not many top quality names hit the drops. If you want to run the argument that prices are down solely on the drops (based on data), then you may or may not have a case.

But quite frankly, I don't give a toss what argument you want to run. I'm in the trenches every day, and I know what works for me. I've picked up many domains on the drops that I have re-sold for a minimum of lowish 4 figures. Some I've sold for 5 figures. And I don't publicise prices (mostly out of respect for my clients).

Some of my biggest sales though have been on quality domains that I acquired in bulk from Fairfax Media (OMG). Once again, neither acquisition or sale price is reported.

And Paul, I'm not alone. I know five other local domainers / domain investors (call them what you like) who have similar successes.

Plenty of quality names have sold privately by others as well. Some for 6 figures too. I know of five 6 figure sales in the past 18 months - my bet is that Erhan and others do too.

Oops - and they were EMD's as well. Shocking.

Happy to make you an offer for any .com.au domains you may have - you might want to take me up before the market depreciates any further. Send me a list.

 

[snoopy]

The fact is not many top quality names hit the drops. If you want to run the argument that prices are down solely on the drops (based on data), then you may or may not have a case.

But quite frankly, I don't give a toss what argument you want to run. I'm in the trenches every day, and I know what works for me. I've picked up many domains on the drops that I have re-sold for a minimum of lowish 4 figures. Some I've sold for 5 figures. And I don't publicise prices (mostly out of respect for my clients).

So if you are now saying "you may or may not have a case" &" "I don't give a toss what argument you want to run", why have you just been sitting here arguing with me that values are not down?

Maybe it would have just been easier to say "you may or may not have a case" from the the start and save yourself those first 3 posts saying something completely different?

 

[neddy]

Snoopy, once again you try and twist things to suit your perpetual negativity.

My posts were were simply a response to this initial statement of yours:

But really the .com.au market is off across the board. Even the one word brandy stuff.

You are constantly talking down the .au market - and you seem to delight in doing so. Heavens knows why?

Send me your list of names quickly. The market could drop again massively next week.

 

[findtim]

Send me your list of names quickly. The market could drop again massively next week.

sounds like a good offer snoopy, " get out while you still can" if its truly that bad !
what i find funny is you are the only one talking the industry down? everyone else i talk to via email or phone is soooooo positive about .com.au

how on earth can it be SH1T when its fully supporting so many people ? i'm not on the dole, i'd don't have another job, domains are my job ( i may do it different but its still my business ), i'm not a burden on the government, i pay my taxes ( dam )

we have a saying in byron bay " what is you INTENT for what you are saying " , which means is it harmful? helpfull, warning, ?
so snoopy just answer this question, ..........."what is your INTENT" to post so much negative energy onto this forum, simple question, stick to the question as i REALLY want to hear the answer so we are all clear on it and have a better understanding of where you are coming from.

tim

 

[robert]

I've got to admit, Snoopy, that your constant negativity on the .com.au seems to suggest you don't like the Australian domain name market in general.

In terms of SEO, I have dozens of sites that I have personally SEO'd and have been watching over the past year. With all the different algorithm changes, my results have barely been changing. I doubt this new statement is going to hurt my site rankings much either. 70% of my developed-names are EMD's - while the rest only have one word in their domain name and still rank on the first page.

eg - "domain broker" has seen domainbrokeraustralia.com.au on the first page of Google Australia and America since the end of last year. I doubt that is going to change with this new proposed search handling algorithm.

They've also been carrying on about more weight being given to geo targeting, yet somehow I am still on the first page of Google America for "domain broker" - above local US domain brokers, with a .com.au domain name - as I am in Australia.

At the end of the day - in my opinion - fresh, quality content and white hat backlinking is going to rank a site higher as always, and maybe this geo targeting will become more hardcore, but... whether an EMD influences a higher ranking over a name that is not exact doesn't seem to matter, if you ask me. If you can get an EMD on the first page of Google Search, even if it's below other names, say 4th or 5th on the page, my belief is that searchers will take the EMD name as the "authority" on that first search page and click that EMD website before any other websites. And assuming that EMD website is actually good, there will be no reason for the new customer to leave, hence you have their business.

I know I've only been around for nearly a year, but I'm a huge fan of the one and two-word EMD's in the Australian .com.au marketplace (sometimes even the three-words, but they have to be strong words in a strong market!) and I think they're only going to get even more powerful a few years down the track.

 

[findtim]

robert, well said,
hey snoopy, todays search results for possibly one of the most sort after search terms on google positions in melbourne
http://screencast.com/t/8rKGxOi9pbmo

all 3 arrows for the search term , MY SITES , hmmmmm...... oh look !!!!!! they are EMD's !
and guess what ! richmond florist does not spend a CENT and NEVER has on SEO, yep NEVERRRRRRRRRRR

MF we do , so how on earth does a none paying emd bet a paying emd? by doing what robert said, "quality content"

ohh, and by the way, i rang a friend today that has NEVER searched the term "melbourne florist" before today to check it wasn't just MY computer giving me a false reading and he confirmed that this ranking is what he saw as well and he said YES.

tim

 

[snoopy]

sounds like a good offer snoopy, " get out while you still can" if its truly that bad !
what i find funny is you are the only one talking the industry down? everyone else i talk to via email or phone is soooooo positive about .com.au

how on earth can it be SH1T when its fully supporting so many people ? i'm not on the dole, i'd don't have another job, domains are my job ( i may do it different but its still my business ), i'm not a burden on the government, i pay my taxes ( dam )

we have a saying in byron bay " what is you INTENT for what you are saying " , which means is it harmful? helpfull, warning, ?
so snoopy just answer this question, ..........."what is your INTENT" to post so much negative energy onto this forum, simple question, stick to the question as i REALLY want to hear the answer so we are all clear on it and have a better understanding of where you are coming from.

tim

Tim, I've only ever heard of one person making a full time living form domaining in .com.au, that is Ned. There may be others, but I think it is less than a handful of people. Everyone else is doing a bunch of other stuff aswell, because there isn't enough money in .com.au domaining.

 

[Andrew Wright]

Tim, I've only ever heard of one person making a full time living form domaining in .com.au, that is Ned. There may be others, but I think it is less than a handful of people. Everyone else is doing a bunch of other stuff aswell, because there isn't enough money in .com.au domaining.

Good question - who here makes their living solely from buying and selling/monetiziting .au domains?

 

[Horshack]

robert, well said,
hey snoopy, todays search results for possibly one of the most sort after search terms on google positions in melbourne
http://screencast.com/t/8rKGxOi9pbmo

all 3 arrows for the search term , MY SITES , hmmmmm...... oh look !!!!!! they are EMD's !
and guess what ! richmond florist does not spend a CENT and NEVER has on SEO, yep NEVERRRRRRRRRRR

MF we do , so how on earth does a none paying emd bet a paying emd? by doing what robert said, "quality content"

ohh, and by the way, i rang a friend today that has NEVER searched the term "melbourne florist" before today to check it wasn't just MY computer giving me a false reading and he confirmed that this ranking is what he saw as well and he said YES.

tim

Lol, my search looks totally different Tim with Richmond Florist not even appearing on the first 10 pages and flowersacrossmelbourne in first position. There's even a melbourne.florist in there I see.

 

[robert]

For "melbourne florist" I have melbourneflorist.com.au as 1st spot. melbourne.florist is on page 5.

This thread has now officially turned into an SEO testing think-tank.

 

[Ashman]

Lol, my search looks totally different Tim with Richmond Florist not even appearing on the first 10 pages and flowersacrossmelbourne in first position. There's even a melbourne.florist in there I see.

Same here. Melbourne Florist appears half way down page 2 and Richmond Florist not on first 4 pages of Google search for term "Melbourne Florist".

 

[Ashman]

Whether anyone thinks Snoopy is talking down the market or not, IMO he always addresses statements made on this forum in a logical manner. I agree with him most of the time.

 

[Data Glasses]

I see MelbourneFlorist as number one under the Adsense listings up top ........but above two sites with google reviews?

 

[Data Glasses]

If I was in the Hat trade I would want to have Hats.Com.Au on my business card, regardless of what goggle say

 

[snoopy]

If I was in the Hat trade I would want to have Hats.Com.Au on my business card, regardless of what goggle say

It is a great name for an online store, but it doesn't have the same SEO benefits it once had. It is the the kind of name that someone might have bought to run a secondary site or a domainer might have bought to try and develop a site, that appeal is now heavily diminished after those Google changes.

 

[Rhythm]

Snoopy I completely agree with you.
I'll buy all your .com.au keyword EMD's for $1.

 

[robert]

I know "technically" that Google are saying EMD's won't hold SEO weight over standard or brandable domain names from now on, but in terms of SEO, I believe an EMD is so powerful you don't have to be in the very first spot. An EMD is still going to be "chosen" more from the first page than another website that is beating it with better SEO. Which means, to me, that an EMD is still very valuable and still holds a lot of weight in search results. Basically, I don't believe these changes are going to diminish the .com.au EMD's at all.

Let's continue with the above examples.
Let's say I want to buy flowers for my wife.
And let's say I just moved to Melbourne.
So I hop onto Google and as fast as my little fingers can type, I type in: Melbourne Florist.
I see 4 names at the top of my search.
1. Flowersacrossmelbourne.com.au
2. MelbourneFlorist.com.au
3. RichmondFlorist.com.au
4. Melbourne.Florist

I can only speak for myself here, but I honestly would HIT MelbourneFlorist.com.au first - every time. And, if fact, if I lived in Richmond, I believe I would hit RichmondFlorist.com.au first before any of them, because I would want to support local. Which would mean the flower shop in Richmond who invested in that EMD (although they are coming third on the page) made a great solid investment because (assuming their website content is great) they just made themselves an easy $100 and they now have a customer for life if the flowers are nice and fresh and my wife loves me again.

In this example, the SEO that had been performed for MelbourneFlorist.com.au was obviously not as good as the SEO performed for Flowersacrossmelbourne.com.au - BECAUSE, I agree with what you are saying Snoopy, EMD's are not holding their SEO weight anymore, which is why MelbourneFlorist.com.au has ranked 2nd in this example and not 1st in the search results.... but regardless.... ...and stay with me here...

... even though the EMD Domain Name is 2nd (in terms of SEO placing) to a weaker domain name (a three-word .com.au) the EMD DOMAIN NAME WILL WIN a majority of the time, and is the MOST VALUABLE domain name on that page, because (I believe - and I'm sure many others here do to) most people will click on that EMD domain name FIRST before any other name on that page of search results, no matter what position it places on the page (3rd, 5th, whatever).

I believe this new statement by Google regarding less weight being given to SEO for EMD's will not diminish .com.au EMD values. In fact, from what I am experiencing, geo targeting (giving more search ranking weight to .com.au domains on Google.com.au) is already more-so effecting search rankings. Notice how you hardly see a .com come up on the first page results of an Australian Google Search anymore? Google knows where we live. It knows that Australians want .com.au(.) They're all mostly .com.au's - Which is making an Australian EMD (.com.au) even more valuable than it's ever been.

Another thing I am noticing is that Australian Businesses are only now just beginning to understand what is happening in the Australian domain name marketplace. And they're late to the game. And they're prepared to pay to start playing. That's what I'm finding.

Don't worry. I consider myself late to this game. But on the flipside it has given me a unique "fresh-eyes" perspective on what's happening in this industry. I think... I hope...

Australian .com.au EMD's are powerful, valuable, but really cheap at the moment, in my humble opinion, and I believe, just like house-prices in the 80's, that things are going to go crazy in later years.

Or ... maybe I'm just dreaming and all that's really happening is I'm addicted to collecting and buying as many digital internet names that don't really exist in the physical reality - all for the sake of giving my clients a leg-up against their competition, for website development and domain monetisation, that may not work out and send me broke

Who knows? There's only one way to find out.

 

[snoopy]

Basically, I don't believe these changes are going to diminish the .com.au EMD's at all.

They already have.