Domain Trading Post Launches
July 29, 2008 · Filed Under Domains
Richard from DDNS has just launched Domain Trading Post, in my opinion it is the best designed of all the .au aftermarket sites so far. Its visually appealing, easy to read and navigate. I wish Richard the best of luck with his new site.
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13 Responses to “Domain Trading Post Launches”
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Its a good site but NOONE smart enough will waste money on .net.au , numbers in domain names or hyphens.
Only 1 word and 2 word generic .com.au names are worth investing in or using.
Anyone telling you different is either a registrar trying to sell more names or someone who bought the .net au etc thinking they could get rich from google searches by luck. Impossible!
I completely agree.
Thanks for the feedback, i’ve heard this from a few different sources and will be making some changes soon to increase the emphasis on the 1 and 2 word generic .com.au’s
Personally as someone who works as a SEO/SEM, the domains i purchase for my personal portfolio are for their search engine friendlyness and not for type in traffic, memorability or resale value. But thats just me, i’m not a domainer.
In terms of SEO, i’d say keywords in the domain is the 5th most important ON SITE factor for good SEO (after title tag, body text, topic analysis and h1 tag), although I don’t think there is much, if any value if the keyword is one of 20 hyphenated words with a .net.au.
So surely good keywords must increase the value of a .net.au some what, if only a little more than the reg fee
One of the problems I see with .net.au is that there are still so many comparable .com.au’s available for reg fee.
Ok I have sat back and watched you guys poo poo .net.au and hyphened domains, but don’t forget guys most of the best domains are taken, if your lucky and have the best extention, good luck to you. But don’t have a go at net.au or hyphened domains if you just park your domains or have never tried to develop the poorer extention, this is not a fair comparison, if you put the time and effort into the poorer versions, they can perform as good as any com.au website on search engines. I have found from my experience that.com.au’s are slightly better on Google than the poorer extentions, but not by much. So if someone is selling a .com.au for 100k and the .net.au is availble for say $1k , what would you do? Some .com.au prices floating around are just rediculous, when for a small outlay and a bit of extra work, you can get the same result on search engines. Just my 2 cents worth
Hi Don,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
My main concern with .net.au is that beyond some seo value its quality drops off quickly, type in traffic is close to non existant, branding becomes challenging as you will lose traffic to the .com.au, and then the perceived value in the resale market is low. The market is having enough trouble determining value for the .com.au let alone the poor cousin .net.au
If you are developing sites and putting in all the hard work the domain name becomes secondary to the other inputs, its then the website that generates income and has value, not the domain.
Using your 100k .com.au VS 1k .net.au example, assuming the domain is a 1 word generic with considerable type in traffic I would take the .com.au and pay the premium.
Its all very well to hype up the SEO potential, but with the right content, on page optimisation and links you can rank well with almost any domain, particularly if you are targetting something fairly uncompetetive or in an uncompetetive market like Australia compared to the US. The domain gives you a competetive edge but it is not the be all and end all.
The premium is being paid for the type in traffic, some of the top .com.au domains receive 100’s of free unique visitors every day from typeins, reliable and consistent visitors who buy products and services, something you can not get from a .net.au. I know you have a lot of premium .com.au names, so surely you appreciate this.
Bottom line, seo is just 1 piece of the puzzle, I’m sure .net.au is fine if you just want to do made for ad sense sites, but if its a serious business then you are shooting yourself in the foot not getting the .com.au as you will lose business.
Plus if someone is prepared to pay 100k for a .com.au, it suggests they intend to invest even more into the business itself, if you are going to spend anything on marketing its money down the drain if you are advertising a .net.au and you do not own the corresponding .com.au
Hi Wade, All fair points, I have just left some comments on domain trading post blog, my main concern is the .net.au market is getting some bad remarks from forums and blogs. I think what the problem is some people are expecting large prices for .net.au domains, I have never thought this the case myself. I personally think the .net.au market is a great secondry market to the .com.au domains, so all I ask is we all wait and see how the market pans out.I sold http://www.lessons.net.au on Ebay for $550.00 recently, so to all the forums with sold au domains who may read this how about we put a lessons.net.au up as sold.
Congrats on the sale Don! I think $550 is a reasonable price for lessons.net.au
Thanks Richard, Only wish the buyer would transfer it into his name, been over a month and still has not changed ownership. Funny I have sold some Australian geo domains with overseas extentions and I had one buyer pay me, exchanged all necessary imformation and 3 months later its still in my name and you have to remind them by email to tranfer the name over. Probably have to do the same with this guy. By the way Wade I ment to say good luck with this blog, good to have a few domainers exchange there view on the industry.
http://www.holidaystays.com.au
http://www.moretonisland.com.au
http://www.goldcoastairport.com
Thanks Don, congrats on the sale, thats a good price, would be great to see a few more .net.au sale prices to get a better idea of the current market value.
Some of the domains I’ve sold still have not transferred either, and some that have transferred still show my email and name servers, from my experience so far the buyers and the registrars are both slow to take care of transfers.
Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated.
I don’t think any domain name should be knocked back or slated. A domain is only worth something if a there is someone out there to buy it. It is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
A business owner who isn’t technically or internet savvy may think that xxx-xx.net.au suits their business or need and is willing to pay top dollar for it. Aside from SEO, the name itself may suit someones need.
I think the mistake of many domainers is that domain names are only going to be brought by fellow domainers so they only purchase domains that they think domainers might find appealing.
If a name suits a business need or someones company, hobby, etc etc then any domain name, whether it is a .net.au or com.au is potentially worth something.
I think it depends on the domain/s in question, a domain of great quality is going to appeal to both domainers and end users, and its that level of interest which helps drive the price up.
If you have blah-blah.net.au and someone makes an offer, it might be the only offer you ever get.
Its nice to hope someone might come and offer a lot for a name, but its unrealistic as a business model.
Having the option to sell to domainers is an important part of the industry, they provide liquidity, if the end user never comes along, the domainers are on the side lines cheque book in hand. As such, its important to have names that appeal to a winde audience, whether that be for re-sale or development.
There are people buying quality 1 and 2 word generic domains, on the other hand there is little evidence to suggest hyphenated .net.au’s have sold or will sell in the future.
The other problem with .net.au is only around 100k have ever been registered, compared to over 1mil .com.au domains, in other words there are still too many .net.au names you can get for reg fee.
Hi there,
Don makes some very good points and so too I believe does Daniel. In saying that I realise that everything you are saying about the resale/auction value is highly accurate for all but a few exceptions.
I have purchased a very select few (single generic word in highly marketed niches) .net.au’s that I intend to hold onto for quite a while but expect them to certainly profit from reg fee.
Can I ask about clever or cliche type short phrases in com.au domain names and their value and if you have time the comparison to .net.au? I find myself attracted to these kind of purchases because I see so much potential (like Don probably) in them.
An example:
astonesthrow.com.au
vs
beachhotels.net.au
Regards,
Robyn