(video) Keith Olbermann Weighs In on Republican Committee Cybersquatting

Here's a full list of domains registered by the Republican National Committee:

2007
calculatingclinton.com
canttrustclinton.com
clintonbabbit.com
clintoncleland.com
clintoncohen.com
clintonisbad.com
clintoniscorrupt.com
clintoniswrong.com
clintonkerrey.com
clintonlibrarycard.com
clintonlibraryresolution.com
clintonomalley.com
clintonsalazar.com
clintonschweitzer.com
clintontruthwatch.com
hillaryiswrong.com
hillarymythfact.com
hillaryrecords.com
hillaryspendometer.com
hillarytaxplan.com
hillarytruthsquad.com
hopelesshillary.com
outwithhillary.com
thetwohillarys.com

2008
amateurobama.com
barackisliberal.com
barackiswrong.com
baracknotready.com
barackobamanotready.com
barackobamatheliberal.com
baracktheamateur.com
barackthebeginner.com
fauxbama.org
hesnotready.com
meetbarackobama.com
norealexperience.com
nowecannot.com
nowecannot.net
nowecannot.org
obamaisliberal.com
obamaiswrong.com
obamanotready.com
obamaspendometer.com
obamatheamateur.com
obamathebeginner.com
yeswecandowhat.com
yeswecanwhat.com

Why LLL.coms are no longer "safe" bets

Good thread going on over at the NamePros domain forum regarding one senior domainer's opinion that purchases of LLL.coms are growing inherently risky due to the possibility that the LLL domain can easily be taken away by UDRP. Read it here.

One thing I personally agree with is the suggestion that it is better to "unpark" any valuable, non-generic names due to the fact that you have no control over the advertising feed, which means that one single Trademark/competing link is enought to establish "bad faith use". This is where UDRP comes in.

Any domainer owning a LLL.com needs to understand that development of this kind of domain is necessary to create your own identity with the domain name, so if another entity or business tries or attempts to legally "take" the domain, you can help your case by showing good faith use with no received revenue through advertised/competing parking.

Take a few minutes and read the NamePros post to gain some perspective of other domainers on this subject, especially if you own any LLL.com's.

-Rudy

How "Healthy" Are Your Domain Names?

With my annual doctor's appointment scheduled for next week, I thought I'd implement some sort of medical theme in today's post. You see, my upcoming visit is for my yearly physical examination which helps determine how healthy I am as a person. This inspection is very important and allows me to fix or correct any bad trends I may be doing to my body before permanent damage is done. This same concept can be used towards domaining. There are a few things we need to review at least on a yearly-basis to make sure our domain portfolio is "healthy" and "robust". I have listed some tips and suggestions below for helping your domains stay fit, trim and effecient. Welcome to your Domain Name Annual Check-up.

The Parking Exam: Manually check the status of each domain name in your portfolio. This may take some time but I'll explain how it is beneficial. Each one of your domains needs to be either developed for traffic or parked for revenue. This is important. You see, most domain registrars that sell domains have a default status your purchased domain goes into that allows that registrar to park your domain for free, with no benefit of receiving any sort of income from traffic or clicks. You can fix this. The name servers for each of your domains needs to either point towards a domain parking program that allows you to monetize visitor traffic or towards a developed website that allows visitors to interact and use. Allowing the default server settings to stay on your new domain purchases does not benefit you at all since visitors that click or visit the webpage will ultimately be putting money in the pocket of the registar and not the owner. It's your domain name, so take advantage of monetizing the traffic by choosing a free domain parking provider like Sedo while you decide on what to do with your new domain.

The SEO Exam: During this exam, we will be checking the search engine optimization of your developed domain names that have a working website. Metatags, keyword tags and Google page placement are just a few things that are important in determing the health of a domain name. Better SEO means better publicity, which in turn means better value for the domain. Do yourself a favor and check out sites like SEObook, SEOchat and BruceClay to familarize yourself with simple things you can do to help optimize your SEO and tweak more value into your domains.

The Backlink Exam: Who's linking to your domain names? You don't know? Well find out by using tools such as iWebTools Backlink Checker to see which other websites are directly linking to your domain names. The more relevant the site is that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the backlink.  Feel free to inform us of your own domain-related websites for the upcoming Link Love Monday article, where we show some love by posting links to interesting domaining websites suggested by our readers. Enjoy the free link from us!

The Whois Exam: Correct, complete and proper Whois information is a very imporant detail in the well-being of a domain name. Not only does it serve as a means for a potential buyer to contact you regarding the possibility of purchasing your domain, but it also is used to confirm a certain domain is registered to a certain person or business. Take a few minutes and check the Whois information of your domains at Whois.net, Internic and Who.is. If you want to protect your privacy when it comes to your domain name registrations, opt to use a proxy buying company or pay the small extra fee offered by most registrars to activate private registration.

The Sales Price Exam: So you've listed some of your domains for sale. Great! Traffic is good and steady but hey, if the domain is so valuable, why is no one offering to buy it? Good question. It's not that the domain is not wanted, it's just that the sale price may be too high. Face it, the asking price on most domains listed is pretty ridiculous. With the recent sales of premium domains, it's easy for a domainer to believe they are sitting on a multi-million dollar portfolio. Truth is, if your domain is up for sale and you've either received no requests to buy or traffic is minimal and scarce, you probably have it listed too high. Re-examine the domain for sale and check current trends or fads that may have caused you to list the high price when you initially purchased it. Edit your sales price, list it again and entertain any reasonable offers you receive. Keeping the sale price too high almost guarantees you either having to reg it again or confining the domain to a life of obscurity. You bought it to sell it, so multiply your chances of receiving an offer by pricing it fair and reasonable.

The Expiration Exam: Dropped domain purchasing is a huge aftermarket niche. You can believe that every single day, there are a growing number of domainers that search and hunt the newest dropped domains and scoop them up, some of the time without the original domain owner even knowing their precious domain is available to be bought! This can be a huge nightmare, believe me, I know. Protect yourself by checking the expiration on all your domains and setting them to automatically renew. You can thank me later.

The Competitors Exam: Pull up Google and search for your domain keyword. Notice the paid for Google Adwords sponsor links that pop up in the search page? These are your competitors. These websites have paid to have their domain automatically invade the page when a certain keyword is searched for. These sponsor links are there to take traffic away from your site. Research these competitors and know thy enemy. 

Utilizing these 7 simple domain tips can help add value to your domains and increase your peace of mind when it comes to the  "health" of your entire domain portfolio. Take the time to examine your name investments on a regular basis to avoid costly mistakes or negative trends in efficiency.  

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Go Daddy Announces .ME Domain Extension

.ME - THE NEW DOMAIN THAT'S ALL ABOUT YOU!

GoDaddy.com has announced Internet users around the world can register the catchy new domain extension for personal or business use later this year.

Imagine the possibilities. After all, .ME translates to a wide range of catchy words throughout the world - including the obvious English translations, such as "about me.” Others include "amar.me," which means "love me" in Spanish, and "secondo.me," which is Italian for "in my opinion."

Read more of the Go Daddy Press Release here.

Would You Park Your Domains For Charity?

Last night, I was out with my fiance enjoying a nice simple dinner when I was approached by the waiter at the end of the meal and was informed that 50% of my dinner expense was going to be donated to a local charity.  Seems that on the first Thursday of every month, each patron that dines at this particular restaurant is participating in a charitable event that allows half of the dinner expense to be donated directly to a benefiting charity. I was instantly delighted. Not only did I get to enjoy a fabulous dinner with my significant other, but I was helping out an organization that helps out others... and I didn't even have to exert any extra effort or thought. Seems a win-win for both parties.

And that's when it hit me. If I could get joy out of helping those in need by simply following my regular routines and lifestyle, could this somehow be implemented into the world of domaining? As a smile slid across my face, my fiance asked me what I was thinking about. I simply responded: charity domain parking.

It would probably take tons of work, but in theory, it seems simple enough. Create a domain parking service that allows members to park their domains with the option of how much or how often the revenue generated from their natural traffic clicks would be donated to their charity of choice.  There could be a list of charitable, non-profit organizations to choose from and even the option to keep their donations on a local-city level.  Think about it. Maybe you opt to allow your domains to donate their click revenue once a month on a certain day (as the above mentioned restaurant did) to a deserving non -profit or simply opt to allow a certain percent (with a set maximum) to automatically be contributed per month. You would still profit from the domain parking service AND effortlessly endow an deserving organization with a positive financial contribution. I don't know about you, but I can almost feel the good karma that would be involved with this endeavor. 

Beyond the evident, I'm sure there would be a lot of facets and "red-tape" to be ironed out before this idea would be actually be materialized such as tax write off options, relevant advertisement stipulations and domain server management.  But to me it still seems something that could be achieved by a group of committed individuals. 

And that's the million dollar question: Would You Park Your Domains For Charity?

I'd love to hear the thoughts from some fellow domainers about this and maybe even form some sort of partnership to assist in bringing this idea to light. 

I can be contacted at: info(at)LogistikLabs.com

Cheers,

Rudy

You Might Be A Domainer If...

... you think .mobi is a whale.

... on your job application you list cybersquatting.

... you can recite GoDaddy promo codes from memory.

... you've named one of your kids Alexa.

... you think "tasting" has nothing to do with food.

... you've appraised your own name.

... your main source of income is Adsense revenue.

... your Sedo rep sends you holiday cards.

... you consider "traffic" a good thing.

... your company's CEO is not as important as it's SEO.

... you own a "Vint Cerf for Pres" shirt.

... you have a diverse portfolio, but don't own any stocks.

... you consider new visitors to your home as unique.

... you've registered a LLLL.com that doesn't even make sense.

... you'd rather register a domain than register for class.

... you consider Whois a social network.

... you still refer to Zuho as SwapNames.

... you're not a lawyer but can recite trademark laws from memory.

... you own some sort of iphone related domain name.

... your backlink quality is more important than your quality of friends.

... two words: ICANN

... you've ordered chips & Dotsauce.

... you knew GoDaddy before he was even a father.

... you've been in a fistfight because someone has dissed your Pagerank.

... you've registered a celebrity's name.

... you consider parking nothing to do with an automobile.

... you're favorite quote is "may the Rick Schwartz be with you."

... you've posted over 1,000 posts in any domain forum.

... you trust Estibot more than your girlfriend.

... you've registered a misspelled word...on purpose.

... you cried when all the LLLL's were gone.

... you don't know a country's capital, but you sure as hell know thier .cc

And the last reason You Might Be A Domainer is....

...you have a bracelet that says "What would Frank Schilling Do?"

Dermabrasion with eggs

Thanks in advance to everyone in the domain industry. This is the beginning of my new blog that is going to be dedicated to the pulse of the domain game. Please check back if you have time and keep up the great work!
Rudy