This is the second part in a series on buying traffic domain names.

Once you’re comfortable that the legal side of the portfolio has been addressed then you really need to dive into the traffic numbers and do some research into where the traffic comes from.

So let’s get back to basics. You’re about to purchase a traffic portfolio. The first question that you should ask is, “Where does traffic come from?”

Traffic typically comes from the following sources:

1.    Direct type-in

Generic or short domain (eg. Beds.com, gx.com.au)

2.    Typos

Typo of a generic domain (eg. Fruit spelt fruit)

Typo of a weak trademark domain (eg. Joespizashop.com instead of Joespizzashop.com)

Typo of a brand (eg. Verison instead of Verizon)

3.    Link based traffic

4.    Purchased

5.    Hijacked traffic such as tool-bars and NXD traffic.

In the above list of places where traffic comes from I’m making no attempt to try and pontificate on whether they are appropriate traffic sources. I’m only indicating that they are sources of traffic. So please do not get upset at the mention of typo, trademark, purchased traffic etc.

Many years ago I purchased my second domain name and it failed miserably to provide any sort of return. Each and every year I faithfully registered the domain to remind myself to ALWAYS ask the question, “Where does the traffic come from?” In my case, the domain had a lot of Russian bot traffic that didn’t monetise at all. There’s nothing like a $10 annual learning course to remind you of an important lesson.

At long last I’ve finally returned from attending ICANN Los Angeles. So was the jetlag, long hours and sitting in a flying tin can for a day and half worth it?

I found that the main attraction for me was that there were a lot of domain owners at ICANN that were looking for a solution that ParkLogic provides. This was great news and we ended up doing a lot of business.

I spent the majority of my time either in meetings or hanging out in the lobby waiting for my next meeting. I think that we had about 30 scheduled meetings and many more that were impromptu while passing someone.

As always, I enjoyed catching up with the many, many friends that I’ve made over the years as well as making a bunch of new ones. Both Joe (from ParkLogic) and I have been working with many of the people that we met for years and putting a face to a skype voice was fantastic!

A real highlight for me was when a group of us hung around a fire pit at the Intercontinental hotel until about 2:30am. It was a chance to really get to know the .green team and hear about their passion for the extension. Dirk from .club was also there and it was great to hear his story and journey over the last few years. We sometimes forget that with all of these new gTLDs that there are real people with real lives behind them that have often put everything on the line to see the extension come alive.

Once again I find myself sitting in the Melbourne airport Qantas club. After a restless night’s sleep that was punctuated by dreams of perpetually trying to catch my flight, I finally groaned awake at about 5:54am.

When I say “groan” I really do mean the word in all its splendid definitions. I really did groan. Some people that are religiously minded say each morning, “Good morning Lord!” When my eyelids finally dragged themselves open I was more of a “Good Lord, its morning.”

So after packing the last of my things I then checked that I hadn’t unpacked anything by mistake. I’m always amazed at the number of times that I find my toothbrush wrested right next to my wife’s when it should be tucked away in my bag. Do you do this sort of thing as well?

In the end I find that I just give up and stop checking everything other than my credit card, passport and phone. If I have those then I’m all set.

Roselyn (my wife) drove me the forty minutes to the airport and for this I’m eternally grateful. Nothing against cabs but when you jump in one and ask the driver to take you to the airport and they respond with “Where’s that?” you know you’ve got a problem. Thankfully, Roselyn has done this journey many times and it wasn’t long before we’d said our good-byes and I find myself in the Qantas club.

The reason for putting my body through a 15 hour contortionist’s holiday (ie. QF 93 Plane flight) is that I’m heading off to ICANN in Los Angeles. My schedule is packed with meetings and it’s going to be great catching up with a whole lot of friends and making some new ones in the process.

In particular, after my series on a domain association I’m really looking forward to catching up with a director of the ICA and the CEO of thedna.org. It will be interesting to see if there is some way that we can all work towards bettering the domain industry.

I should add that the one good thing about the plane flight is that I will have a lot of time to work on my science fiction book….which is great! Sadly, I won’t have Internet connectivity over the middle of the Pacific ocean.

Back to business. If you’re at ICANN then please drop me a line here as I will be checking my blog regularly. In the meantime, I think that my flight was just called. Cheers!

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) has just altered its membership structure and the way that board members can be elected. I must admit that I applaud the efforts of the incumbent board in trying to juggle the various stakeholders but let’s try and unpack what they’ve actually changed.

There are four classes of membership:
Platinum - $25K/year and an automatic board seat.
Gold - $10 to 24,999/year
Silver - $5,000 to $9,999/year
Bronze - $1,000 to $4,999/year

What’s interesting is the way in which new board seats are awarded. For every $25,000 in revenue a new board seat is created and the gold silver and bronze class members can nominate a member or non-member to the position. There is an election where Gold members have 5 votes, silver members 3 votes and bronze members 1 vote.

From what I see of this structure is that it rewards those with the cash. If you have money then you can effectively buy a board seat at the platinum level. This works well for a commercial organisation that has profit as the motivation but I do not believe that it is healthy for a non-profit association.

In an association the motivation needs to be for the common good of the industry. When it can be seen that members can buy seats then it can be construed by the wider domain community that the association can essentially be “out for hire”. If EVERY seat is up for election then this issue can never arise.

By tying the number of board seats to the revenue line of the association means that as the association becomes successful then it will either have a HUGE board or the $25K hurdle is increased. This will effectively enshrine the “board seat for money” ethos. What I believe it actually means is that the ICA is planning, at its core, to remain a small association. I don’t really understand why you would do this.

Just think about this. Let’s imagine that the association grows and the revenue line becomes $500K/year. This means there will be 20 board seats which in my opinion is way too large. Even Jesus had 12 disciples and one of those didn’t work out too well!

The converse to the situation is if the ICA contracts during the hard times does this mean that the board shrinks in size? This is crazy! This is the time when the board needs to become highly active to ensure that the existing and new members appreciate the value proposition. So just when the association needs the board it slashes the number of positions to reinforce the downward spiral. Why would any association do this????

Now let’s look at the voting structure. The first thought that I have is when a new board member is voted to the board who do they represent? The current structure doesn’t have a representative side to the voting system….it’s all money based. Wouldn’t it be good to have the monetisation, sales, development etc. constituencies rather than just platinum to bronze? Elected board members would then know whom they were elected to represent.

It doesn’t take too long to work out that I can get 10 votes for $10K at a bronze level 6 votes for $10K at silver and 5 votes for $10K at a gold level. How does this make sense? It doesn’t. As soon as you tie money back to number of votes then you no longer have a truly representative association.

What would have been better would be to have 3 board seats plus the CEO for all four classes. This would provide 12 board seats. Each class can vote for the nomination in THEIR class with ONE vote per member. As the association grows then the board seats will become more precious and even prestigious.

Since there are less members in the Platinum class then they are more likely to get voted onto the board. The competition would potentially be fierce at the Bronze level but they can still be nominated and still be elected to the seats allocated to their class.

This is democratic, representative and fair. It detangles the money from the number of votes and resolves the tying of the revenue line of the association to the number of board positions.

So what has really changed with the ICA announcement? I’m not really sure. There was nothing about vision, values or issues that are currently being tackled on behalf of the industry.

Unless I'm not clearly understanding the ICA boards decision, I don’t think that they have really thought about implications of what they have proposed. By putting this out in the public domain as a decision versus a discussion document the ICA board is now committed to a direction that in my opinion will not inspire the industry to get behind them.

As always, I’d be more than happy to discuss any of this with any ICA director.

I was reading a forum recently and another domain investor was asking about how to price and how to buy traffic domain portfolios. It was a really interesting question that caused me to think about how I price my own portfolios and what I look for when seeking to buy.

It should be stated right up front that everyone has a different risk/return appetite. Some people love to live on the edge and push the limits while others prefer to have a more sedate, stable investment profile. Whatever your risk/return ratio I’m sure that you will appreciate the following pointers.

Traffic domains are typically sold on multiples of months of revenue. So if a domain was earning $10 per month from being “parked” (ie. advertising revenue) then you may pay 24 months revenue for this domain. This would make the purchase price $240. Note that this equation inherently takes into consideration the registration cost of the domain for the two years.

The number of months that you pay for a traffic domain is greatly influenced by a number of factors that I will go through in this series. How much you are willing to pay will ultimately depend upon your risk profile. As a benchmark a domain traffic portfolio typically sells for 24 months revenue but like I said this can be dramatically influenced by your risk profile.