Just over a week ago I’d published an article, went to bed and enjoyed the peace that only comes when everything seems to be good. The next morning I awoke to discover that two things had happened in a perfect storm.

The first was that my personal server had been hacked and with laser precision all of my websites, backups, configuration files and system had been eradicated. Trust me when I say that I had a LOT of protections in place but seriously, this was like a guided missile.

The second thing that happened was that the primary hard drive in my server began to fail. I say began to because sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn’t. I have a second physical hard disk in my server that I keep all my backups on and that was working just fine except this was hit by the hackers.

Some people have asked me about offsite backups and I answer this in two ways. It’s a personal server….and have you ever had to restore a 500 Gig backup over the wire from your home? It will take about 3 weeks just to transmit the data. Needless to say, I’m exploring “other options”.

So what was the end result of all of this? I lost everything on my blog from about February onwards. I would like to apologise to all of you that have signed up and have to do so again…..sorry about that. I would like to appeal to anyone that has any of the articles on either the “Domain Association” OR “Selling high value domains” as I would love to get them back up as I think that they were really ground breaking.

So what else have I done? I’ve reworked the site, updated the look and feel and I’m in the process of adding a lot more features. Despite the amount of work involved I’ve had a lot of fun rebuilding Whizzbang’s blog from scratch. I’ve also enjoyed learning about security, setting mail servers, database integrity, apache and PHP configurations. There’s nothing like getting your hands back on the tools. :-)

So thank-you to everyone that has been patient with me over the past ten days. If you notice anything not working then please let me know. In particular I would like to thank all of the sponsors. Each of you have been outstanding in your support.

Right now, I think that I’m going to take a rest and get back to finishing my science fiction novel…..it’s up to the fifth rewrite!

Over the last few months I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the topic of establishing a domain industry association for everyone. The domain industry is being rocked by forces that as individuals we have little control over but as a corporate body we could directly influence.

In the following series of articles I would like to tackle the topic in the following manner:
1.    The associations vision and overarching principles
2.    Constitution, board and elections
3.    Purpose of the executive
4.    Benefits to members

I welcome any and all feedback on the topic as I personally believe that it is critical that we work together to achieve a better outcome for us all. I should also state up front that I don’t believe that I have all of the answers but that I am prepared to kick the ball into play.

Principles and Vision

When you think of successful associations they have a number of guiding principles that underpin the ethos of how the organisation functions, makes decisions and interacts with members. The following are proposed as the principles that should be central to a domain association:
1.    Inclusive
2.    Representative
3.    Transparent

Inclusive
The association should embrace all stakeholders from within the domain industry. Everyone from the end-user wishing to protect their intellectual property rights through to registries, registrars and monetisation partners. Policies ratified by the board need to be for the betterment of the future of the majority of the stakeholders – note that this doesn’t necessary mean all stakeholders.

Being inclusive also means that the association must be truly global. Although the USA founded the Internet, amidst the pressures of the cold war, it has now become a global utility for all of humanity. The structure and foundation of the association needs to reflect this migration.

Representative
As much as the association is inclusive it must also be representative. This means that the board must reflect all the stakeholders from all the geographic regions and not just the members with the biggest pockets. A truly representative board would reflect the structure of the membership and also be a hotbed of innovation solutions to what are sometimes intractable problems.
A lot more on the board later.

Transparent
One of the major problems with the domain industry is the lack of transparency. The association needs to be transparent in the manner in which it operates and as a matter of policy work with the key stakeholders to help change the way the industry behaves so that the industry can grow.

Vision

So what is the vision for the association? First of all it needs to be something that all stakeholders can embrace to a greater or lesser degree. Something simple such as:

“The freedom to be innovative in the development of online destinations with domain names.”

         
A key word in the vision is innovation. One of the many problems in the domain monetisation industry is that Google has sought to block innovation through legal means, ultimately control of the pages themselves and a lack of transparency of payments. The stifling of innovative approaches to monetisation needs to be urgently addressed.

I initially had the word business rather than destination but I believe that the internet is bigger than business. It’s about places that people want to find and explore. It’s about people that help other people and where everyone can have a voice….therefore they are destinations.

As I said in the introductory article, this will be a series that I hope provokes a lot of discussion….so feel free to contribute!

With the all-pervasive hysteria about the new gTLDs I feel like I’m going a bit against the flow. So why aren’t I getting into a buying frenzy and forking out wads of cash?

In a previous blog I talked about having a business model for each domain name that I own, the problem is I can’t see a business model with the new gTLDs.

Let’s just think about it for a second; they won’t have any traffic, with the glut of opportunities available they won’t really be that sellable and I don’t need another domain to build into business (I’ve got enough to last a lifetime!). Hmmm…..so what is the business model? How am I going to get my return on my investment? I’m not…plain and simple.

On top of there not being a business model I find that it’s also all about focus. Since 2014 started ParkLogic is has been going through a massive growth spurt and we’re in the middle of a major developmental project. We hope to have this ready for release at DomainFest at the end of March. I don’t want to lose my focus from ParkLogic on something that is more of a gamble playing the lottery.

So when you place your hard earned cash on the table ask yourself two simple questions:
1.    What is my return on my investment?
2.    When will this happen?

If you can’t ask these questions then I suggest that you attend TRAFFIC in Las Vegas and put your money on the roulette wheel. At least you may have some fun!

I’m hosting a webinar this week that discusses many of the aspects of traffic monetisation. Sounds pretty boring until I put it this way…..putting more in your pocket!

Who Should Attend?
If you’re wanting to increase the revenue from your domain name traffic then you’ve just got take the time to attend. If you’ve thought about investing further into traffic domain names then you will increase your ROI dramatically with the information that will be provided in the session.

Some of the topics that will be covered include:
1.    How to get the most from your traffic domains
2.    Should I place all my domains with a single provider?
3.    Rotating traffic versus intelligent switching
4.    How should I measure success?
5.    What’s it going to mean to my bottom line?
6.    There will also be a time for questions and answers so make sure that you have all of those really difficult ones ready.

Over the years I’ve found that many people think that they understand how to monetise their traffic but the reality is they just don’t. I’ve spent the last decade refining, research and analysing traffic and how to squeeze every last cent out of it.

It is very important that you understand that there are LIMITED placed available so after first signing up at whizzbangsblog.com (the linkedin of the domain industry) make sure that you indicate that you will be attending by clicking on the following link.

When: 5th Feb
Time: 5pm Pacific
Location: Details on the event

Click here to view further details on the Traffic Monetisation webinar.

It’s critical that every one of your domains has a business model associated with it so that you can make appropriate decisions about how to best increase their value or realise there value.

So what are the business models that I use?

Traffic domains – these domains are those that receive traffic and are monetised. The key is to extract the maximum value out of the traffic each and every day.

High Value domains – These are more often than not two letter or single word domains – for example, ab.com or vodka.com. These are the “rainbow” domains….in other words, if a large corporate decides to buy one then you’ll get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I would highly recommend that you outsource these domains to a qualified good broker who knows how to create a market.

Stock Items – These domains are often multi-word domains and should all be priced and ready to sell at sub $1,500. You may get more…..which is great but it’s all about moving the stock. The ultimate goal here is to sell around 3% of your domains per year.

Development – You can’t develop everything….you just don’t have the time to impact thousands of domains in a meaningful manner but you do have the time to build a business on a few. My advice would be to build some domains into profitable businesses and then sell them off…..then repeat.

We could refine these categories a bit further but the message should be clear that every domain needs a business model. So take a look at your domains and ask yourself, what business model am I applying to it? In future blogs I'll see if I can unpack the different categories a bit further.