Monday, July 28, 2008

Return of OpenSRS Announced: Was It Missing...?

Tucows Announces Return of OpenSRS Where Friendly, Reliable Service Comes First

Unsurpassed support and reseller satisfaction as top priority sets

OpenSRS apart

TORONTO and CHICAGO, HostingCon 2008, July 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Tucows Inc., (AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) a leading provider of
Internet services to web hosting companies and ISPs worldwide, announced today the return of the OpenSRS name for its wholesale reseller services group. Through its network of web hosting companies and Internet service providers, OpenSRS provides web and email addresses for millions of people worldwide.

In 1999, Tucows became the first domain name wholesaler to be accredited by ICANN and chose the name OpenSRS for its domain name service. Today, OpenSRS remains one of the world's largest wholesale domain registrars, and has expanded its offerings to include
hosted email and SSL certificates. Resellers' sustained loyalty to OpenSRS was one reason behind the decision to re-launch the brand, and key to that loyalty is the company's reputation as the most reseller-friendly among Internet services wholesalers.

"At OpenSRS, we really believe in
supporting our resellers because they've been incredibly supportive of us. That means not only making it easy to sell, provision and support the highest quality Internet services, but it also means being true to our word," said Ken Schafer, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Tucows. "We've made a commitment to being reseller friendly, so much so that we've included it in our new logo."

Over the past nine years, OpenSRS has grown steadily each year and today boasts over 9,000 active resellers on six continents. Those resellers, in turn, have the potential to reach millions of end users. OpenSRS resellers are fiercely loyal, 78% of the resellers who joined in 1999 are still using OpenSRS to sell services today.

OpenSRS is known for its work on registrant rights within the registrar community as well as making things simple and reliable for its resellers. It also differentiates itself through a deep commitment to its identity as a wholesale business. This runs in sharp contrast to competitors that frequently end up competing with their own
resellers for customers.

"We're a true Internet services wholesaler. You won't find our name or logo anywhere on our end-user interfaces and we don't talk to our reseller's customers, ever," said Schafer. "We stand by our promises and commitments and we work to earn our reseller's loyalty."

As part of the re-launch of OpenSRS, the company has established new brand marks and a logo consistent with a 1950s-era service company, aimed at recalling a time when
service mattered most. An iconic character has also been created to embody OpenSRS' core values - service, friendliness, willingness to help, community service and reliability.

To celebrate the re-launch of the OpenSRS brand and mark a return to the bygone days of
service with a smile, OpenSRS will be serving up treats from an old-fashioned soda fountain and ice cream stand in booth #626 at HostingCon 2008, at Navy Pier in Chicago from today through Wednesday.

About OpenSRS
OpenSRS is a global provider of wholesale
Internet services to web hosting companies and ISPs. Wholly owned by Tucows, Inc., OpenSRS provides wholesale services for hosted email, domain name registration, Personal Names, and SSL certificates. For more information, please visit http://opensrs.com.

About Tucows

Tucows provides Internet services for web hosting companies and ISPs.Through our
global network of over 9,000 service providers our OpenSRS group provides millions of email boxes and manages over eight million domains. Tucows is an accredited registrar with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). We hold a domain name portfolio of approximately 150,000 domain names that are available for sale, monetized through advertising and support our wholesale Personal Names Service. Our Retail division sells Tucows services to consumers and small business owners through Domain Direct, IYD (It's Your Domain) and NetIdentity. Tucows.com remains one of the most popular software download sites on the Internet. For more information please visit: http://tucowsinc.com.


If you are interested in becoming a domain reseller, check out OpenSRS, but start with their OpenSRS reseller pricing. It may save you from spending more time learning about their program only to realize you can get better pricing elsewhere. At first I thought maybe their non-refundable fee of $95 might not be to bad for a really nice domain reseller program, but when I saw that they add a "$3.00 OpenSRS Management fee" to most of the domains, I soon realized that their program was not for me...!

Make sure ResellerClub.com is on you list of places to check for reseller programs. Yes, you may not find them as easy as other programs, but the cost is lower.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Parked Domain Traffic Value

Exploring The Value Of Parked Domain Traffic

by Janel Landis , Friday, July 25, 2008

I have been reading about the lawsuit recently filed against Google that alleges traffic received from parked domain sites was low quality.  What is most interesting about this topic are the sharply conflicting viewpoints online marketers have concerning the value of traffic from these sites. 

The first perspective is that of savvy search marketers, who have analyzed referring URL traffic and know that the majority of traffic from these sites is unqualified.  What they have found is that the only instances of qualified traffic from parked domain sites occurs on domains that are typos of their own domain, their brand terms. 

Have you ever accidentally typed your search query into the domain address bar instead of the search box?  I am pretty sure everyone has done this before and often, simply out of habit, even followed the misplaced word with a ".com".  In a presentation I gave at a conference a few months ago, I used the examples www.homesecurity.com and www.bookkeepping.com as visuals of sites that contain no original content, just ads.  These are the types of sites that deliver the majority of parked domain traffic.  How often are people actually making this mistake?  According to Google's keyword tool, the keyword home security drove approximately 1 million searches on Google and its search network in June 2008. 

Let's move on to the much smaller segment of parked domain sites that actually will drive qualified traffic: the domain typos.  Unfortunately, many companies have not protected themselves by registering common misspellings of their domain -- so when returning customers mistype the URL in the address bar, they are delivered to parked domain sites.  An example of this is www.lininsandthings.com: Notice that linen is misspelled in the URL. In this instance, the searcher was already going to Linens-N-Things, and in this way they would be a highly qualified click.  However, Linens-N-Things would now have to pay for a click to get their customer, rather than connecting to them directly.

The second perspective is that of the domainers themselves.  They claim that address-bar-driven traffic is highly qualified; however, the click revenue generated from these types of sites is the sole source of revenue available from them.  Again, they contain no original content, no products and no value.  The backbone of their argument lies in statistics that show direct navigation traffic is the most qualified traffic to a site; however, what they fail to interpret is that this statistic does not pertain to an indirect or unintentional visit. 

As the industry has matured, the engines have provided marketers with better tools to exclude distribution of ads on these types of sites.  Google allows advertisers to block parked domain sites altogether from their campaigns, and Yahoo allows advertisere to exclude sites individually.  The most perplexing part of the recent lawsuit filing is that it only challenges Google, yet Yahoo's search network distribution is much more riddled with these types of sites than Google's.  The www.homesecurity.com and www.bookkeepping.com examples I used above both serve Yahoo ads.  If this is truly going to be a class action suit and it gains any traction, I anticipate it just may involve both companies.

Post your response to the public Search Insider blog.

See what others are saying on the Search Insider blog.


Janel Landis is senior director of search development and strategy at SendTec, Inc., a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based multichannel, integrated marketing firm specializing in search engine marketing, direct response television and lead generation.
 
Search Insider for Friday, July 25, 2008:
http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=839

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Property.com Unable to Resist Foreclosure

Property.com SOLD to Foreclosure.com

FORECLOSURE.COM OWNER TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY.COM

Brad Geisen continues to build online real estate empire to expand opportunities for future homebuyers and investors nationwide
Boca Raton, Fla. - July 22, 2008 Foreclosure.com Founder, President and CEO, Brad Geisen, announced today that he has reached an agreement with "Domain King" Rick Schwartz to acquire the domain name "Property.com," paving the way for his entry into a new market.

With Property.com Geisen intends to create a one-of-a-kind - and convenient - one-stop online real estate marketplace that is easy-to-use and navigate. The Web site will serve as an easy-accessible national real estate classified that is going to be free to all visitors, providing sellers, buyers and investors with a whole new concept of marketing and finding homes on the Web.

According to Geisen, the acquisition of Property.com will allow him to focus his efforts on a different and potentially much larger segment of the real estate market. In fact, in Geisen's opinion, the niche foreclosure market, which is Foreclosure.com's market, represents just 2 percent of all available real estate inventory.

"I'm going after the 98 percent of the real estate market outside of the foreclosure business." said Geisen. "For the past several years, I've built and run one of, if not 'the,' most successful Internet foreclosure businesses, but the business was always exclusively distressed real estate. I've achieved in Foreclosure.com what I set out to accomplish and I am ready for a new challenge in a different market. I intend to shift my focus on developing my new ideas that will revolutionize how homes should be listed, viewed and purchased. I've developed the critical skills which I intend to apply to this new market," said Geisen.

Property.com will include all listing types, including those indexed the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), creating a database that could surpass more than 15 million homes, but not including distressed properties, which will remain the business of Foreclosure.com. The best part is that it will be totally free to search for potential buyers and visitors, and sellers will be able to upload and edit their own personal listings at no charge. It's a wide-open model that Geisen knows will create an invaluable resource for just about anyone interested in real estate.

"I'm raising the stakes and pushing all my chips to the center of the table," said Geisen. "Foreclosure.com and my related companies have been leaders in their spaces for nearly a decade. I've seen what's been wrong with the way things were done and I've developed the methods to fix them. I have the knowledge and resources to take this to a whole new level . and that's what I plan to do."

Geisen revealed the new Property.com will be unveiled sometime in 2009. The specific terms of the deal to acquire Property.com were not disclosed. However, Geisen indicated that the value of the deal is one of the largest URL purchases to date.
That's a deal that has the seller Rick Schwartz - who is known as the "Domain King" -- smiling from ear-to-ear. He purchased Property.com for $750,000 in 2005 and was recently introduced to Geisen through Kevin Leto of BigTicketDomains.com about a possible re-sale.

"My job is to acquire prime, industry specific domain names with large volumes of natural type in traffic and eventually develop them to their fullest potential by partnering with leading companies in their respective fields which I have been doing for more than a decade," said Schwartz," "Early on I saw the value in Property.com; however, I never had the resources to develop it so it could reach its maximum potential. Brad Geisen has the vision to truly get the most of Property.com for the benefit of so many people in every corner of the United States. I'm thrilled to be a part of this exciting new project with Brad."

Stay tuned for frequent updates and milestones for the new Property.com. Feel free to visit the Web site in its current form. However, as mentioned earlier, the complete re-launch will not be official until sometime in 2009.

About Brad Geisen and Foreclosure.com
Ten years ago, Brad Geisen founded Foreclosure.com and built it over time to a company with more than 1.8 million foreclosure, preforeclosure, bankruptcy, FSBO and tax lien listings in one place, Foreclosure.com delivers America's largest and most accurate searchable database of foreclosed homes and distressed property information to its customers and business partners. Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Brad Geisen and Foreclosure.com work with hundreds of top lending institutions and government agencies to list diverse property types on its Web site, including Real Estate Owned (REO); Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); Fannie Mae; and other government agency and financial institution properties; as well as listings from an extensive network of corporate sellers. On the Web: www.foreclosure.com.

About eRealEsate.com.
Rick Schwartz, aka "Domain King" and "Webfather," is the CEO, President and Cofounder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. found at TargetedTraffic.com-- the premiere domain conference for the domain industry. It is both the oldest and largest and attracts over 500 of the top professionals in the industry in a by invitation only event. As one of the early domain pioneers dating back to 1995, Rick has a knack for predicting big trends and getting it right. He may have been the first to recognize the value of "type in" traffic which is now commonly referred to as "direct navigation" -- the most potent and targeted traffic on the net. Rick has a prime portfolio of one and two word domains, and is considered by many to be among the leading experts on domain names, traffic, Web site flow and valuation. www.eRealestate.com

Media Contact
Thomas Myers
Foreclosure.com
tmyers@foreclosure.com
Tel: (561) 981-5337 ext. 381

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Google Now Provides Search Query Numbers!

Google Keyword Suggestion
I was checking some keywords with the keyword tool and was BLOWN AWAY to see actual numbers have replaced the green bar general indication of what the number of searches are. THIS IS AWESOME, since it gives us hard data on how many people are using any specific keyword phrase. This information is critical for web site optimization or blog optimization.

Rank Checking and Overture (Not Yahoo) Keyword Tool
Still tainted by people looking for rankings, this information may be as good or better than anything out there for keyword research. I loved Overture's keyword suggestion option and Yahoo was stupid to let it decline, in my opinion. WordTracker may be pretty good, but I never liked it and thought their fees were excessive. I think it's also over-kill for small business owners.

Global Search Query Data
What we really need is something that would take search query data from as many sources as possible, weight the results based on the probability that people are doing rank checking, and aggregate the data into something that would really represent global search query numbers. Now that would be cool! Just think about how much better your search engine optimization, SEO, and SEM would be with marketing data like that.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Can I Get A Little Privacy Please...?

Google's Privacy Policy Link: Too Little, Too Late?  

By Wendy Davis, Monday, July 7, 2008
Now that it's facing a genuine privacy crisis, Google has decided to quell a completely insignificant privacy dust-up. The search giant has finally placed a link to its privacy policy on the home page. Previously, users had to click on multiple links, or search on the terms "Google privacy policy," to reach the information.

This purely cosmetic change might placate some watchdogs, who argued that Google was violating California law by not including the link on its home page, but does nothing to solve the larger problem: Google stores too much information about its users.

Among other data, the company retains logs showing users' IP addresses and their search queries. Google contends that IP addresses don't usually reveal people's identities. But that assertion ignores the reality that examining all of a person's searches can in itself reveal identity. In other words, users' identities can be deduced whether the IP address is real or a made-up sequence of numbers -- as long as it's paired with all of the searches originating from a single computer.

Last week, a federal judge ordered Google to disclose to Viacom complete user logs for YouTube, including all users' IP addresses, screen names and which videos they watched. Google and Viacom have since tried to quell privacy concerns, with Google saying it will ask to "anonymize" IP addresses, even though that won't necessarily preserve users' privacy as long as all of their information is still paired with the same identifier. Viacom has also said it will handle all information confidentially.

As privacy advocates point out, Google wouldn't be facing this problem now if it hadn't compiled and stored these records in the first place.

Louis Stanton, the federal judge who issued the order in the YouTube lawsuit, wrote in his opinion that Google argues in its public policy blog that IP addresses aren't necessarily personally identifiable. "We have proposed broad global privacy standards, and are strong supporters of the idea that data protection laws should apply to any data that could identify you. The reality is though that in most cases, an IP address without additional information cannot," the blog states.

But, on other sections of its site, Google equates IP addresses with personally identifiable information. "Due to user privacy concerns, Google Analytics doesn't report on personally identifiable information, including a visitor's IP address," the company states on a site about Google's analytics tool.

In other words, even Google realizes that, for all practical purposes, IP addresses should be treated as personally identifiable information. Given the events of last week, the company should rethink the wisdom of retaining such data.

Post your response to the public Online Examiner blog.
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From what I've seen the IP address can provide very specific information that can track people. This is especially true if a time and date stamp is included with the log informaiton, which it generally is. you may need a court order to get the information from the person's ISP, but that's not all that hard if you have a reason to request it. I think we need this. While tracking people can be as benign but annoying as showing you ads based on past activity, it can also be abused on a more serious level. On the other hand if everyone can mess around on the web with little or no chance of being identified or tracked..., well, we already have enough spammers, hackers, crackers, and Turkish script kiddies to keep us busy.

Perhaps Google should encrypt the IP address and some of the other information to keep it from being abused, well abused by anyone except them. Of course if we saw signs of abuse then we would know it was them, wouldn't we...?



 

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Growing Interest In Search Engine Marketing Confused With SEO And PPC

SEMPO Institute To Present "Generating Leads with Practical Search Engine Marketing" Session at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, TX

Session will provide strategy and best practices in SEO and PPC

WAKEFIELD, Mass.-- July 02, 2008 --Thousands of Microsoft partners attend the annual Worldwide Partner Conference to network and tap into the latest business-growth opportunities each year. One area of growing interest is search engine marketing, also known as SEO and PPC. Microsoft has invited SEMPO Institute to present a session on search engine marketing at this year's conference, which is being held in Houston, TX from July 7-10. Cindy Turrietta, a contributing author for two of SEMPO Institute's online courses, and Katie Donovan, SEMPO Institute's Business Development Manager, will highlight the current marketing environment that benefits small, medium and large companies with search engine marketing strategies. The session will blend strategy with best practices to ensure attendees have the ability to act on what they learn. "Generating Leads with Practical Search Engine Marketing" will be presented on Thursday July 10th from 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM Central Time in Grand Ballroom B at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Over the past few months, SEMPO Institute and Microsoft Worldwide Partners have been working on new instructional tools for partners. This session is the first to be rolled out. "Search Engine Marketing is a critical business tool for our partners," states Jennifer Siddall, Microsoft Senior Marketing Manager Worldwide Partner Marketing. "We anticipate great business benefits for our partners as they further incorporate SEO and PPC into their marketing efforts."

About SEMPO Institute

SEMPO Institute is a non-profit, online career development organization, whose purpose is to educate and train professionals in the growing field of search engine marketing. Suppo  rted by SEMPO, SEMPO Institute's courses are developed by experts in search marketing and then peer-reviewed for accuracy and best practices. Since its first course in January, 2007, SEMPO Institute has educated more than 800 individuals in search marketing. SEMPO Institute's courses are available to SEMPO members and the general public. For more information, please visit www.SEMPOInstitute.com or call +1 (781) 876-6214.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Contacts

SEMPO Institute
Katie Donovan, 781-876-6214
Business Development Manager
kdonovan@sempoinstitute.com

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Really, It's Not You, It's ME!

First-Come. First-Served Registration for .ME Coming Soon!

Web's Newest Domain Name Extension Set for Open Registration July 17


PODGORICA, Montenegro-- July 01, 2008 --The .ME Registry is about to open domain name registrations on a first-come, first-served basis, and if initial indicators are accurate, the .ME domain names will move quickly. Open Registration officially begins July 17.

The .ME Registry concluded its Landrush Period June 26. The 20-day time span was the first opportunity for the public to apply for .ME domain names. More than 80 different accredited registrars from 24 countries are offering the catchy domain extension.

"In the Landrush already, applicants from around the world will be receiving some excellent domain names such as Click-On.ME, ChatWith.ME and Optimize.ME - illustrating just a few of the catchy names being awarded," said Predrag Lesic, the registry's executive director. "This extension really does lend itself to creative and attractive names whether for business or personal use."

Right now, the official Quiet Period is in effect. During this Quiet Period, the .ME Registry will be making domain awards, and in cases where multiple applications for the same name were received, auctions will be held. To date, through Sunrise and Landrush, the .ME Registry has received more than 30,000 .ME applications.

"This has been one of the quickest, most efficient contract-to-market timelines for any domain name extension," said Lesic. "Open Registration is a prime time to secure your dotME."

Two-year minimums are required on all .ME domain names registered during the Landrush and initial Open Registration periods.

For more information, or to apply to be a .ME Registrar, visit: www.Domain.ME.

About the .ME Registry:

.ME Registry (the d.b.a. of doMEn, d.o.o.) was chosen by the government of Montenegro to operate the new .ME domain name extension. The domain extension will be available to the general public worldwide in mid-July. .ME Registry partners include ME-net, GoDaddy.com and Afilias Limited. Me-Net is located in Montenegro, and its principals have been leaders in the ICT sector in Montenegro, including the privatization of its largest ISP. GoDaddy.com is located in the USA and is the world's largest domain name registrar and the largest paid hostname provider in the world, according to Netcraft Ltd. Afilias Limited is headquartered in Ireland and is a leading registry services provider, supporting more than 13 million domains worldwide.

Contacts

.ME Registry
Telephone: 382.281.601.303
Info@Domain.me