viernes, 31 de julio de 2009

Sparta!!!!!

I'm not defeated yet.
But this time I shall let Mickey Mouse sleep for a couple of weeks and focus in the best CPC domains I currently own:
I also registered today these domain names in Argentina (.com.ar)
My goal this time is to play by the rules (Google's...) and to build 4 websites: 2 identical golf sites and 2 identical forex sites.

For the first group (golf) I will get content optimized for this keywords:
  • technique golf

  • golf swing technique(s)

  • disc golf technique(s)

  • proper golf swing technique(s)

  • golf putting technique(s)

  • golf driving technique(s)

  • golf grip technique(s)
For the second group (forex) the keywords will be:
  • forex historical

  • historical forex data

  • free forex historical data

  • forex historical rates

  • forex historical charts

  • forex historical data download

  • forex historical chart
I will build a simple structure for the sites: a one level tree sitemap, including one page for each keyword and standard pages like "about us", "contact us", etc.
No fancy javascript. Just plain html files.

When the first group is ready I shall beg Google to index the two sites (.com & .com.ar)
Then I will do the same for the second group.
In both cases I will also get the sites indexed by microsoft live search engine (bing.com).
If you are following this blog please leave a comment and let me know what you think about this plan. I would really appreciate any collaboration.

Oh, Google, please forgive my sins!

Google gives, Google takes.
That are the rules you must accept. Just after publishing my listing in eBay ($29 cost) I receive a msg from a friend asking me what had happened to my Google first page results.
Again vanished!
I promptly went to Webmaster Tools. I must admit that I failed following their guidelines (in fact I did it my way, trying to please a robot instead of publishing quality content)
My site was ugly and I was proud of it and bragging "Look How I got Google First Pages with this ugly site!"
Ok. I ended the auction. My reputation is more important than $29.
Back to work. The party is over...

DisneyShopOnline.com once more!






Today I listed this domain (see http://nt5.us/disney) with a Buy it Now option price of $2,000.



I payed for listing in 2 categories a lot of money, but I got 106 visitors, 10 bids (4 bidders) and a max bid of 127 $. I'm listing it again in an hour for tomorrow. If it doesn't sell I will probably take a second chance offer, but lets see what happens.








In the meantime, take a look at my new Amazon sale of today!




jueves, 30 de julio de 2009

DisneyShopOnline.com reindexed and... AMAZON sales!


Google heard my prayers and reindexed disneyshoponline.com today.
I keep 2nd place for exact keywords, but the new results display 2 results in first page.
But not only search results position is important. Guess what?
I've got Amazon.com Sales!!!


Google search results (USA) for this keywords: disney shop online keeps 2nd. place, but with a big difference: it displays 2 search results! check it here: http://nt5.us/google

New results:

disney shop online kindle keeps ** 1st place ** but now displays 2 search results!

new disney shop online video games 6th (another 1st page! )
new disney shop online software 7th (another 1st page! )
new disney shop online amazon 8th (another 1st page! )
new disney shop online pixar 14th (2nd page)
new disney shop online dvds 32th (3rd page)
new disney shop online books 43th (4th page)
new disney shop online books 53th (5th page)
new disney shop online games 64th (6th page)
new disney shop online games 75th (7th page)


The different main keyword combinations and results are:
online disney shop 3rd place no change
disney online shop 58th place (yesterday it was 56th ???)

So today I have 7 google search results in first page. Not bad, isn't it?
and check bing.com: 8th place! 1st page! WOW! Great day.

Alexa rank today is 20,037,431 (who understands them?)

martes, 28 de julio de 2009

Golf Domain Names

I have 5 pretty golf domain names that are getting some clicks in godaddy's parked pages.
These are:

The average CPC is high, today I got a single click from USA and its profit was $0.42!
Despite I got $13.44 in revenues from cashparking its cost was $20 for 2 months. I'm losing money...

My ForN97.com strategy

One of my first "rare gems" was http://forn97.com/ and I didn't find it among expired domains.
I created it myself because I have the theory that a ExactKeywordSubdomain.domain.com has better chances to be indexed by search engines than domain.com/ExactKeywordSubdomain.
I can't prove it right now but I would like to test it.
If the search engine results for both variants is the same, then all miths about domain name value related to exact keywords will collapse.
But as I have learned this past week, I may be the only one who believes this theory among eBay domain name buyers.
I listed $0.01 subdomain names on forn97.com 5 times and I got...


0 bids
I thought that despite of the potential buyer doubts about a subdomain name value, the starting bid was absurd so there is no risk to try and see what comes next and always get a +feedback.
Nobody thought the same. But I learned a lesson.
Remember that tale about two shoe salesmen in Africa?
I have a new strategy.

lunes, 27 de julio de 2009

DisneyShopOnline.com again!

disneyshoponline.com is back. It came to the first position in June 26 (read entry), then it disappeared (read entry) and now it's alive again. Lazarus Domain Name?

Google search results (USA) for this keywords: disney shop online 2nd. place!

I tried different combinations and the results are:
online disney shop 3rd place
disney online shop 56th place

and just for the record, disney shop online kindle 1st place!
I published more than 1800 pages with data related to amazon items sold in 6 categories, but this was done less than 24 hours ago, so I don't expect to find results with other keyword combinations.

Alexa rank today is 20,009,879

This is estibot appraisal, saying that disneyshoponline.com is available (obviously outdated!)


Detected keywords: "disney shop online"

Domain:
DisneyShopOnline.com
Keywords
disney shop online
Frequency (Google) 839
in Anchor Text 2778
in Title 916
in URL 14200000
Backlinks 1
PageRank 0
Alexa Rank Not Ranked
Traffic (Visits / Day) N/A
PPC Ads # 5
Max PPC Bid $0.20
Overture/mo 5
Wordtracker/day 6

New! Estibot
TotalSearch™ Data:
TotalSearches™ 240 /mo
TotalCompetition™ 6/10 ads
TotalCPC™ $0.00 MaxBid
http://EstiBot.com Domain Appraisal USD 1,800


This results are the same that I got when I first appraised this domain. I remember that I felt the luckiest man in the world: A rare gem found! $1,800! WOW!
But now it looks different. I've spent more than 100 hours researching how to make this domain something valuable. Let's see if it's worth the effort.

sábado, 25 de julio de 2009

Back to ClickBank

ClickBank has been one of my most frustrating Internet adventures.
I thought it was easy:
  1. Signup as an affiliate
  2. Choose one of their 30,000 products to promote
  3. Start advertising in Google
  4. Get traffic through your affiliate link
  5. Make a sale
  6. Earn a comission
  7. Pay advertising
  8. Go To 1. and repeat many, many times

I've made $169 from 5 sales of a book about solar panels in less than 1 month. Great!

But wait... My Google Adwords campaign cost was more than $400!

Ok, I lost. Clickbank, please show me the money! NOPE, sir, they said. We'll keep your money until you have made 5 sells to different credit cards (no Paypal sales to take into account).

A dark nightmare! I've been thinking about forgetting all this BS and sell fried potatos in the streets of Calcuta.

Until today.

I found a simple guide that could have changed the story, and best of all it's FREE!

Please grab your copy here: http://nt5.us/supertips

Is this and ad? Of course it is! But please give me a chance to test my marketing strategy. You don't have to pay a dime. And you'll thank me for sharing this little book with you some day.


This is Clickbank for Newbies index:

Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. ClickBank basics
Chapter 3. How to succeed with ClickBank
Chapter 4. The problem - why most ClickBank affiliates fail
Chapter 5. The solution
Chapter 6. An irresistible offer

Of course the irresistible offer is the place where you end up buying something, but I dare you to try to resist. If you know Clickbank you'll understand what I'm talking about.

miércoles, 22 de julio de 2009

I am awaiting payment for 3 items

I know that I should be patient, but I don't understand how people that participate in an auction can win and then delay payment. I always pay right away. It feels good to win and paying is part of the experience I enjoy.
I should consider eBay's restriction settings in my next listings...

jueves, 16 de julio de 2009

Sold a pretty domain name

Yesterday was a lucky day: I sold downloadmetatrader.com

But the buyer contacted my with an offer via whois service, not eBay.
This domain name looks nice for forex websites. I was planning to list it on eBay next week, but its gone now.
However I have two nice domains about metatrader I'll keep for now:

http://metatraderexpertadvisor.com/
http://metatraderexpertadvisor.info/

The park pages suck. Godaddy doesn't know what the websites should be about.
Expert advisors are scripts written in Metatrader script language. You must have some programming skills to develop an expert advisor, but you can find hundreds of them free if you search.

sábado, 11 de julio de 2009

nt5.us: A Short Domain Name to Shorten URLs

Today I bought a very short domain name: http://nt5.us
I don't know yet if this 3 character .us domain is valuable, but I am going to use it to draw traffic.

My own URL Forwarding Service!
I plan to test some strategic advertising project in Tweeter and I need short URLs, but why should I use any existing service when I can create my own and get all the traffic and backlinks to my domain?
Who needs short url's? Everybody. If you must send an SMS or write a Tweet (140 characters) you dont' have space for a full URL.
By now it should be working.
Examples:

  • My eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Amazing-Domain-Deals
    Its short version: http://nt5.us/a

  • This blog's URL: http://amazingdomaindeals.blogspot.com
    Its short version: http://nt5.us/b

  • KissMp3.com listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/Kiss-Mp3-com-PREMIUM-25-000-Appraised-Domain-Name_W0QQitemZ170357445892QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27aa185504&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262&_trkparms=%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A30
    Its short version: http://nt5.us/a1

Nice, isn't it? Of course this service should be free!
If a user requires to claim ownership of the short URL to edit the link or to delete it an email address should be provided when he creates a tag.
Do you realize how useful this could be?

Lets say I want to send this small msg:
  • Hi xxxxx, I have a great domain for sale this week: kissmp3.com
    Visit my eBay listing! Go to eBay and search for this name in .com category

Of course this could be improved if I send the link to my listing. Get the point?
  • Hi xxxxx, I have a great domain for sale this week: kissmp3.com
    Visit my eBay listing! click here http://nt5.us/a1

The second msg is green. The first msg is blue (i.e. it sucks).
Another idea is to use this service to hide affiliate links. Please try this example:


Move the cursor over this links and look at the URLs displayed. Let's see what happens.

jueves, 9 de julio de 2009

HowToTongueKiss.com or Godaddy's customer support thinks I'm stupid?

Update [Incident ID: 6964320] - Re: HOWTOTONGUEKISS.COM

This is a transcript of the mails between godaddy's support and me regarding a very unpleasant issue: I bought this domain name on July,7 and got an unsolicited refund on July,9. I understand what happened, but I don't accept that godaddy is not responsible for a 2 day delay and all they pretend to do is to offer an apology.
This domain business sucks. In Argentina many poor people work as "cartoneros". They are a sort of 3rd world junk recyclers. Today I feel like one of them. Expired domains that have some value are immediately taken by big companies. We are dealing with the junk, struggling to find what they discard (estibot appraisal >10000$ is hardly ever found). This is how HowToTongueKiss.com is appraised:
Domain: HowToTongueKiss.com
Keywords how to tongue kiss
Frequency (Google) 1070
in Anchor Text 659620
in Title 1350
in URL 7250000
Backlinks 0
PageRank 0
Alexa Rank Not Ranked
Traffic (Visits / Day) N/A
PPC Ads # 0
Max PPC Bid $0.20
Overture/mo 10
Wordtracker/day 13
New! Estibot TotalSearch™ Data:
TotalSearches™ 2190 /mo
TotalCompetition™ 4/10 ads
TotalCPC™ $0.00 MaxBid

http://EstiBot.com Domain Appraisal USD 7,000

And this is what I got today (July,9) from godaddy:

Dear Ricardo del Rosal,

An error occurred when you placed your order, so we will be
refunding your cost. Please contact us at support@godaddy.com
for additional assistance.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you for your business.

Domain Services
GoDaddy.com, Inc.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Copyright (c) 2009 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
**************************************************************
My response:
Dear sirs,

I placed my order for this domain name using your site forms.
I made my payment and 2 days later I get a refund?
Do you expect me to accept an apology without any explanation when I'm loosing time and money?
I've spent hours searching for a recently expired domain name with specific keywords and search engine traffic, and when I bought it I started a website project for this name. I have web pages, database and images work done. You should realize my cost has not been $7.19.
This is serious. If the error was mine, please send me a detailed description and tell me what should I do to avoid this situations in the future.
But if the error was yours and you care about your customers this case should not be closed this way.
Thank you

Ricardo del Rosal

**************************************************************
Godaddy's support:

Our support staff has responded to your request, details of which are described below:

Dear Ricardo del Rosal,

Thank you for contacting online support.

In order to properly support this issue we will need to reveal account specific information. Before we can give out any information on the account, we will need to verify the last 4 digits of a credit card, PayPal Billing Agreement/Account Number, or Support PIN on the account. Payment information on the account can be found under ‘Credit Card & Payment Info’ from the ‘Customer Info & More’ dropdown. We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

Please let us know if we are able to assist you in any other way.

Regards,

Mike A.
Online Support Technician

**************************************************************
My response: I send the PIN (don't they have my email?)

**************************************************************
Godaddy's support:

Dear Ricardo del Rosal:

Thank you for your reply.

Your registration for the domain did not process completely with the Domain Registry. This can happen for various reasons. This is why you received a full refund for the registration fee to the payment method it was purchased with.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Sincerely,

Deirdre K.
Online Support
**************************************************************
My response:

Dear Deirdre,

This is not what I expected when I requested an explanation.
You are no addressing any of my points! You just re-sent the original mail with this slight variation:

Your registration for the domain did not process completely with the Domain Registry. This can happen for various reasons. ????

Does your customer support always proceed this way?
Please answer this questions or be so kind to submit my request to your supervisor in case you can't.

1. Was this error caused by me?
2. If the answer is YES, what should I do to prevent future errors like this?
3. If the answer is NO, why have you waited 2 days to inform this to me?
4. Do you expect me to accept an apology without any explanation when I'm loosing time and money?

This is serious. If the error was mine, please send me a detailed description and tell me what should I do to avoid this situations in the
future. But if the error was yours and you care about your customers this case should not be closed this way.
Thank you

Ricardo del Rosal
**************************************************************
Godaddy's support:

Dear Ricardo del Rosal,

In regards to your domain registration issue, all registrars, including GoDaddy, rely upon communication from the Registry's servers. If there are any technical problems between the Registry's servers or ours, it can cause a false positive result to occur where a domain shows as available when it is not. This is a matter beyond our control. We appreciate your understanding in this matter. Our system automatically attempts to re-register the domain, and when it is not able to after multiple attempts, you are notified. We regret any inconvenience you may have encountered as a result of the failed registration.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.

Sincerely,

Mick P.
Online Support Technician
**************************************************************
My response:

I don't know what to do. Are they dumb? Or could it be that anything out of the script could mean a legal threaten to them (any economic responsibility?)
Should I insist? I'm not in the mood right now. Let's see tomorrow...

PS: I tried to register KissMyAss.com ($38000 appraisal) but (helas!) it was taken.

martes, 7 de julio de 2009

247cashfor.me lives!

Today I got a surprise: a $37 Paypal payment!
First I thought it was a mistake. I'm not selling stuff for $37 on eBay.
But then I realized that before entering eBay, on May 19, I bought an eBook about how to make money online. I payed $37 to someone, but the real seller was a woman called Lauryn Herbert.
I bought a domain name (247cashfor.me sucks, I know, but I thought I was being clever choosing 247 and cash and for me!).
I payed goddady a lot of money (didn't know about the coupons) and got a free page (nothing is free with godaddy: they insert ads at the top of your page)
See this: http://247CashFor.me/
Awful page, ads, old design, but it was working.
First I started an adword campaing to test it. I'm embarrased to admit I didn't sell a single book. Money lost. Ok, but it was my fault: all recomendations in the book are about free advertising.
I decided to forget this project and move on.
But I got a payment from someone who later sent me this mail
  • To whom it may concern,
    I just purchased this program using my paypal account
    xxxx@yyyy.com and did not know that paying with an e-check delays the process 3 to 5 days. I was advised by Lauryn to contact you and cancel my order I had made so I can re-order with a cc so there won't be any delays and I can start asap. My transaction number is 5P282566U5630242S. If you can help me I really appreciate it so much. Thank you, Kim C***m

I was happy: my first sale! And I honored the request, cancelled the transaction and waited with anxiety for my buyer's response. It never came. I was discouraged.

So I forgot about this site. Finito, Kaput, Bye! Until today: Cha Ching! Cash!

I will not draw any conclusions now. But maybe if I had followed the book's instructions I would have earned some bux...

sábado, 4 de julio de 2009

A good deal: How to Kiss Good .com

Yesterday I was payed $230 for this domain.
My cost (not including work time) was $7.16 registration and $43 eBay listing with plus pack.
Not bad. $180 profit!
But I found an article about what I'd like to do in this business:
Sensible expired domain traders always realize the immense value of expired domain traffic and they also understand how expired domain traffic can supplement the overall value of the domain in providing a premium value that eventually helps them in getting the best possible monetary gains. You can make your expired domains prosperous, richer and healthier, when you import and supplement additional traffic to your domain; quality links and an organic type of traffic can help your domain automatically add better value and a premium tag. An expired domain with a big list of quality traffic and inbound links could be a big asset to your domain trading business. However, to make your ambitions a big reality, you may wish to find a practical way to pool traffic and links to enrich the expired domain.

Now, the big question is how you propose to bring quality traffic to your web domain Expired domain traffic will not just come trickling down to your web domain. To make it happen, you will need to create a solid action plan that aims at making people come visiting your web domain. There are several strategies and techniques that help you add traffic and links to your web domain. Here are some of the proven strategies and methods that empower you to import better quality traffic to your expired domain:

Approach Number 1: Buying an expired domain that already has some amount of traffic and inbound links is a viable option. However, finding such a domain is actually a tough task because of the intensive competition surrounding that domain. To ensure that you are buying a good expired domain, you can request for an expired domain appraisal report from the owner. In many cases, an expired domain name may have little amount of traffic attached to it; under such a scenario, you will need to look and examine closely at the uniqueness and specialty of the domain.

Approach Number 2: This is a roundabout way of developing expired domain traffic that needs some amount of time and money. It is also quite tedious and complicated task to add traffic and links to your expired domain. Domain parking is possibly one of the easiest methods to bring good quality traffic to your expired domain. The most beneficial aspect of this approach is the low cost involved in the exercise. Web portals like Sedo offers cheaper domain parking services that also provide a simple web template to make your prospective visitors to click on the page and lead them to another web site.

Approach Number 3: However, the quality of traffic generated here is quite inferior and many search engines may never rate this type of traffic. To bring high quality expired-domain traffic to your domain, you may also wish to set up a well designed and well conceived web portal. When you promote your web portal in a systematic and organized manner, people will come flocking to visit your web site, by typing the actual URL on the address bar of the web site; this type of traffic is true and real and it is highly organic in its nature. An effective Pay per lead program is another additional and lucrative program that could be a potentially powerful formula to create domain traffic as well as a small amount of income.

Approach Number 4: If you are short of good quality traffic, you can even buy a pack of quality expired domain traffic from a seller. However, you are never sure of the inherent quality of traffic purchased by you. In many cases, it may not even work to your benefit and expectations.

Adding value to your domain by importing high quality expired domain traffic means:
  • Creating a premium web domain that carries a top of the class commercial rating.
  • Setting up a well coordinated business opportunity that can provide you lucrative gains.
  • Learn and understand the insider secrets of using the expired domain traffic to its fullest possible extent.
The author is John Khu and the original post is here.

viernes, 3 de julio de 2009

Books On Diabetes indexed by Google!

Wow! http://BooksOnDiabetes.com has been indexed by google robot today!
I tried searching booksondiabetes.com and I found my website on the first page! try it
Ok, that's a start. Less than 2 weeks to get indexed.
I searched books on diabetes and it's gone (not in the first 100 results...)
I searched "books on diabetes" and its position is 68! try it and navigate to the 6th page
Now I'm developing a test to see how long it takes to google robot to refresh new contents.

miércoles, 1 de julio de 2009

Google top position vanished!

Bad news. Today my google top position for "disney shop online" is gone.
It had been so easy until now. I bought the domain name. I set up an Amazon store. In a couple of weeks, surprise!
But now...
I don't know much about SEO. But I imagine that a page consisting in just an IFRAME tag can never be indexed.
Today I will upload 1800 pages of real content to my original website. Let's see if Google likes me.

I found that if I login to my google account and perform the same search, I'm back at the top. Log out, it's gone.
It sucks. How does Google know how to display this for my eyes only?

Keep on testing, man.