00:01.72
Trygve Olsen
Dave what do you think the most important element of marketing is yeah, got have a nice website. Got it got it got have a nice website and email marketing email marketing's great right.

00:05.22
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Well, there's content and all kinds of other things but you you got to get found. Yeah, you read? Yeah yeah, absolutely all.

00:18.42
Trygve Olsen
Ah, that's actually incorrect all the way around the the most important thing is usually the cheapest and it's also the most secure and it's also the hardest to get right? and there's so many examples. Great examples of how people get it wrong that. We're going to dedicate ah an entire podcast to the the wily domain today and so I've locked into an amazing guest Andrew Allliman is the founder and editor of domain namewire.com.

00:39.40
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
2

00:50.37
Trygve Olsen
Ah, he found it in 2005 is the first daily news blog covering the domain name business. It's a news source for the entire domain name industry wordpress and web hosting written by industry expert and edited by domain name industry analysts. Ah, some of the great topics that you can find on there are for domain name owners intellectual property attorneys trademark lawyers domain registrar domain services companies and basically anybody interested in the domain name in the web presence industry. He has been cited in the wall street journal the Washington post. And on npr welcome Andrew I think that kind of kind of I'll target back this up a little our day job beyond just being devilishly handsome and and running a podcast is we run a marketing company and.

01:29.61
Andrew
Um, thanks, thanks for having me guys.

01:42.48
Andrew
Um.

01:45.98
Trygve Olsen
In 2023 and 2022 we actually got out of website hosting because there are so many bigger companies that are doing it at a more reasonable price that than we could we transferred all our clients and it was a painful experience and one of the things that we also did was sell domain names and. We kind of really want to get out of that but we also realize that it's incredibly hard. Once we get people in so I'm to to a domain. So um, first question how how did you get so excited about domain names that you started a website and started a whole business about it.

02:19.88
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny because I tell people what I do at a cocktail party in or like really that's pretty. That's a pretty niche career. So you know when I was in college I wanted to create a website this is back I guess the beginning to the end of the.comboom and I back then you could you could coke get a piece of software at the on-campus computer store which existed back then where you'd get your Cd -roms or disks and microsoft front page like yeah, exactly exactly.

02:47.96
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, it was it was it was down the hall from the computer lab.

02:57.63
Andrew
And so you get Microsoft front page at the time or hotdog was another one and I wanted to create a website and you needed a domain name so I registered a domain name and people were making some money selling domain names that were really good.

03:09.30
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
From here.

03:12.47
Andrew
But all the good names were taken. Everyone said back then even though there were just like single digit millions of domains registered as opposed to over 150000000 dot com domains registered now. But so I started I started registering some domain names and just from my websites at first and then moved on to.

03:20.19
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Wow.

03:31.33
Andrew
Other domains that might potentially sell for for money later on and so that's kind of how I get started and so that was the 90 s and then in 2005 I started writing about it on a daily level writing about the industry because. Leave it or not there is actually stuff you can write about every day about our business and the rest is history. Almost let's see it's 18 it'll be 19 years blogging this march

03:50.42
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, yeah.

03:57.19
Trygve Olsen
Wow, that's a that's amazing I don't think I've done I can't I've been married for 15 years I don't think I've ever done anything for 19 years in a row huh.

04:01.20
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Congratulations That's huge.

04:11.54
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Wow! So on domain it. So was it originally a speculation kind of ah a focused blog and is is that the is that the. Best use of like if if people are browsing the blog is that how how people review it is like going you and make some cool new things. Yeah right on.

04:29.97
Andrew
Well so I'd say a very a very large percentage of my audience are what we call domain name Investors. So These are people that buy domain names with the idea of selling them and in its that ecosystem as well though. So We also have intellectual property. People Lawyers and such to come read it to stay abreast of the policies around domain names right? So there's registering domain names to sell that are generic names that anyone can use and then there's registering trademarks which is a Big. No-no and is legal and cyber squatting and all that sort of stuff.

04:51.58
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Are.

05:00.23
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Great.

05:04.70
Andrew
So we have intellectual property managers that read it and then we have the domain name registarrs and by that I mean companies like Godaddy or tyna dot or network solutions that read it as well. Basically anyone in the ecosystem. But there's a heavy focus on the people that buy and sell domain names either.

05:14.50
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Okay.

05:24.26
Andrew
As a full time job or or as a hobby.

05:25.87
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Excellent. But yeah as we're talking about these one of the things that occurs to me is we're we're using very technical ish terms and we should probably set down a vocabulary for today. So can you tell us like what is a domain and I know that.

05:26.55
Trygve Olsen
How.

05:36.93
Andrew
Um, sure. Yeah.

05:44.29
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
We're going to get a little nerdy but you know like a records and Mx and all that stuff tlds um, can you kind of give us ah a breakdown of what a domain is about.

05:51.44
Andrew
Yeah, so I think the simplest place to start is there. There are 2 levels to a domain name. So I have domain namewire.com from my blog and domain name wire is what we call the second level domain. And dot com is what we call the top level domain. So think of the top level domain as the part to the right of the dot the second level domain is the part to the left of the dot. So when you when people talk about domain names. They're usually thinking about the second level domain right? because that's where well they're.

06:07.46
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, okay.

06:22.64
Andrew
Can talk later. There's actually a lot of choice in the top level domains now too. But that's what most people are thinking about right? their business name or what they want it to be in that second level domain name and then you know you mentioned a records mx records. So when people want to get.

06:24.48
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, yeah, um.

06:38.51
Andrew
Technical they can go in and set their own Mx record which is their mail servers right? Where should mail for this domain name point to and a records and c names which is where the website points to but for the most part people just set what we call their name servers.

06:44.82
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yeah.

06:56.50
Andrew
And so if you go register a domain name at Godaddy you can? Well you can host it there but let's say you host it somewhere else then you just change your name servers to point to where it is hosted and so a name server. Usually it looks like ns one dot something dot. Com and Ns two dotsomething.com so a lot of people use Cloudflare. It might be cloudflare. Dot com n s one dot cloudflare dot com but I think for most people. Ah if you're using if you're registering a domain name at a registrar you might either host it there in which case.

07:18.82
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, yeah.

07:29.76
Andrew
You probably don't even touch the name servers because you just tell the registrar hey I want to set up hosting and they do all that in the background. But otherwise if you're hosting it somewhere else then you need to change those name servers.

07:42.28
Trygve Olsen
Andrew One of the things that you mentioned ah which I think is fascinating is that there's an entire industry around domain name investment and in purchasing and buying and selling how big can you qualify it at all how big of an industry. Is it.

07:54.26
Andrew
Yeah, it's it's really hard to quantify I guess I can give a couple data points. So Godaddy owns what we call an aftermarket which is where people buy and sell these domain names that is called after Nick and. Throughout the year they will transact $400000000 worth of domain names in their aftermarket and Godaddy after markete there's an escrow service that handles a lot of domain names called escrow.com and in any given year they. Hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions that they're handling on the backend just kind of the financial side and the transfer side of that. So as far as how many people buy and sell domain names. It's it's difficult to say because a lot of people just kind of do it on the side and a lot of people do it accidentally right? there. An entrepreneur they start registering domain names before they know it. They have 100 and someone wants to buy 1 so you know there are thousands of people like that out there really as far as fulltime people you know it's probably 10200 maybe 300 that do it full-time and.

09:04.99
Trygve Olsen
Okay, yeah, so is it is it kind of is it is it kind of like old timey.

09:07.68
Andrew
You know there are a lot of people that do it that you never hear about right? So it's really hard to quantify that as well.

09:19.12
Trygve Olsen
Gold speculation where you're buying and in hopes that somebody will find it or do you buy for us a reason.

09:23.90
Andrew
Yeah, so it's gotten pretty sophisticated and people register now based on a number of different metrics. So part of it is just do I think someone would buy this and what would they buy it for right? You need to envision what that ultimate buyer is. But there are lots of tools and metrics out there that people use now such as how many domain names is this second level domain registered in how many top level domains. So we talked earlier. So if a domain name if the second level domain is books.com is it registered in books dot net dot org dot. Us Dotinfo.wtf which is actually one of the options you have to the right of the dot there. Yeah is so thinking about how many domains that's registered in.

10:05.60
Trygve Olsen
Is it really.

10:08.33
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um.

10:14.98
Andrew
Ah, things like that. So. There are a bunch of different metrics that people use I mean truly hundreds of different metrics that people use in different ways. You know how old is the domain name. How how long has it been registered if it was registered very early. There is a presumption that maybe it's a better name. That's not always true. But so it's it's a pretty sophisticated business now people use Ai to figure this out. They use bots to grab these domain names when they expire. So it's a very sophisticated business now. But there's still opportunity I mean when you think about how many people are.

10:36.66
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Who.

10:50.57
Andrew
Involved in this on a daily basis I Think new people come in and figure out new ways to make money all the time which is part of what makes it exciting.

10:57.83
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Sure I do so as you're speculating and one of the things that we do for our customers at busy web is we help them procure domain names sometimes for their businesses. 1 of the biggest questions I get is do I need a dot com is that the most important thing.

11:13.80
Andrew
In.

11:17.90
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
While you know there is a W or Wtf domain. So should I get my company dot Wtf or should I go for dot Com or what's what's the best bet for and I know that it's different for everybody. But if you were coming to a business out of nowhere.

11:19.97
Andrew
Um, yeah.

11:34.10
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
What are you? What's your recommendation for what kinds of domains Tlds top level domains to get.

11:40.62
Andrew
Right? So the advice back in the day was always.com and ah with a caveat that in some countries you know we here in the us dot com that's that's.

11:42.79
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Earth.

11:51.93
Andrew
Primarily what you see right? But in some countries that's not the case so there are these things called country code top- level domains whenever you see something that ends in a 2 wo-letter top- level domain. That's a country code and so for example in parts of Europe like in Germany you're more likely to see their country code de at the end of a domain name that's being advertised than. Com and so if you were in one of those countries you might go with the country code domain instead but.com was king still is king still accounts for about half of all the domain names that are registered out there but starting around 2014 all of these new extensions came on so we had you always had calm net.

12:11.71
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Ah.

12:31.41
Andrew
Org in the early two thousand s you had info and dot biz is options as well and in around 2014 you started having options like wtf and dot club and dot plumber and all these interesting domain names come online and. I would say for the first seven eight years those didn't really catch on over the past few years I've noticed more and more businesses using them and more and more communities kind of adopting them. So there's a domain name that ends in Xyz which is really popular with crypto.

13:08.37
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh sure.

13:09.50
Andrew
Companies web 3 companies and so they kind of adopted that right? and I think you see it more and more and now you know you see ai which is actually a country code for a tiny island called angui and Guila I think that's how you pronounce it.

13:10.88
Trygve Olsen
Um.

13:28.33
Andrew
And so now when you see artificial intelligence companies. Your first guess is actually that they end in Ai their domain name. So my I guess the the way I frame this for people is if you do something other than.com you need to be prepared for some confusion.

13:34.19
Trygve Olsen
And.

13:46.89
Andrew
And so a lot of people will still type into dot com as someone who owns a dot com of websites that are developed in say.org I know I get a lot of traffic and a lot of confused people going to the dot com rather than the dot org or the dot net or whatever it is so. There is some confusion. There. The upside is that you can get some really good second level domain names in these extensions. So I say extensions in top- level domains interchangeably so while there are over one hundred and fifty million dot Com second level domains registered and some of these other top level domains. There might be.

14:11.86
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, is got it.

14:23.78
Andrew
Single digit thousands right? So there are lots more opportunities to get a high quality second level domain at usually at an affordable price. So sometimes they price those those higher which we could get into but don't want to go down that rabbit hole right away.

14:37.76
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Me.

14:40.30
Andrew
And but so when we're talking about Availability. There's a lot more availability there and you you can also have fun with it too right? So Some people will create something on the left of the dot that ah kind of flows into the the right of the dot. There's ah one of the bigger sales that casino I think it's dot Casino Nut. Casinos is speaking of confusion. But it's online casino right? So they kind of make it they make both of those you know, match up and so there are some fun things you can do there.

15:04.17
Trygve Olsen
Sure.

15:11.87
Andrew
Ah, think that people that choose those alternate extensions just need to understand that some people will be confused and potentially end up at another website so you want to think about how that how the.com is being used and if it's a competitor then you're potentially running an issues there.

15:18.95
Trygve Olsen
The dark half.

15:29.78
Trygve Olsen
I think my favorite second level domain because Dave and I live in Minnesota has always been Mongolia as a country code because ah because the the the 2 letter suffix is it? Yeah, that MN so you could buy like.

15:38.16
Andrew
Oh the the yeah the top level domain you're saying yeah.

15:46.28
Trygve Olsen
You know plumber dot m n for if you're a minnesota based business but usually when I explain to people how they should really be buying their domains from Mongolia then their eyes tend to glaze over and they.

15:48.87
Andrew
Right.

15:56.65
Andrew
You know you know ah dot l y which is really popular for a while is Libya and so you know Libya has not been super stable over the past Decade or 2 and you know there there are risks.

16:03.46
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Are oh.

16:04.18
Trygve Olsen
Um, ah.

16:11.61
Andrew
They're to using these domains that are cute or different like that that are country code domains.

16:16.31
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Can you explain a little bit about how all of that works because it it is so does Libya control that domain and how does all that work.

16:23.68
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, so almost all of the top level domains are fairly tightly regulated by a group called Ican Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers. But the country code domain names are not. And so they can be a little bit wild West They don't have rules. They don't have contracts in place with icon that regulates you know how they use them what they can do with them ensures their stability that sort of thing so they're they're a little bit different animal. That said some of them are.

16:49.90
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
M.

16:56.86
Andrew
You know, very popular and fairly well maintained like dot co for example is actually Columbia is you probably see a lot of that out there. Um dot me is Montenegro which is actually a fairly relatively new country in the grand scheme of things but that's. Fairly well managed because they're managing those for commercial purposes from the start right? They kind of commercialize them and so they don't want to shoot their golden goose. But yeah, it is something that those 2 letter domain name top level domain names are.

17:21.16
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
He.

17:33.20
Andrew
Much less regulated than anything else.

17:37.36
bizzyweb
I know the price for mongolian domain names is about $55 a year too. But ah one of the things I've always wondered is if you talked a little bit earlier about these these sort of new domains that are coming out like the XYZ or the dot plumber.

17:39.64
Andrew
A little bit pricer.

17:53.90
Trygve Olsen
Is that something that you can create and then make a lot of money off of so if I wanted to make to offer dot Trig V Domains is that something that I can do.

18:04.12
Andrew
Well so I can regulates the release of those and they did a round of expansion back I think applications were due in 2012 where you could apply anyone could apply. So yes, if you wanted to do trig v you could have applied for it. The application fee was one hundred and eighty five thousand dollars and then you were probably spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more in legal fees technology fees that sort of stuff so quite expensive. But then if you got that you could go out there and offer any 1 trigvi domain name and you could make money from that. So.

18:24.55
Trygve Olsen
E.

18:37.33
Trygve Olsen
Yeah.

18:41.61
Andrew
That's where all this expansion came from now it is over 10 years later I can does not move at a very fast speed and they're finally getting ready to potentially open up applications again probably in a couple years I said probably because these things always get delayed. So there might be another opportunity but it's not as simple as saying I want dot trick v I'm going to go set it up right now and so these companies that set those up. They're obviously in it for profit and you think they put a lot of money in it and and in some cases if more than 1 person applied. They had to. Go to auction against each other and so like what did Google pay for dotapp I think they paid about $25000000 to basically beat all the other companies to dotapp so it could get quite expensive and these are not nonprofit companies. You know they're for the most part they're trying to make money from it which is why in some cases these domains will be.

19:24.34
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, who is.

19:36.64
Andrew
Quite a bit more expensive than dot com. Um, also you'll find sometimes I mentioned earlier that you can get these great second level domains in some of these top level domains. But the registries as we call them these companies that applied for those names can set their own pricing and they could set it different for the better names. So you might find that. You know online Docasino was not one that you could go get for the same price as any other dot casino so they can kind of set a price there and in a lot of cases you pay that price every year right this more expensive price. So there. So that's a long way to answer your question. But yes, you can if you have a lot of money is kind of the answer and and it's not at any time you have to do it when these windows are open.

20:12.30
Trygve Olsen
Um, yeah, okay, okay.

20:19.55
Trygve Olsen
Okay, so let's take a quick break and while I go check the couch cushions. So I can realize the doctor trigby dream and then we'll be right back right? after this all right? We're back with Andrew the domain expert. So we're just. He crushed my dream of not being able to have the dot trigby domains but up and when when people are ah trying to buy a domain ah for their business. What are what are some key factors should they consider.

20:53.95
Andrew
Right? Well I think one of the easiest and most basic things is you want something? That's easy to remember so you want people to remember the domain name if they've been to it before if they hear about it at ah. Party. You just want them to be able to find you right? and so something that's easy to to remember is important there and 1 thing that comes along that usually it's going to be on a shorter end domain name wire isn't particularly short. But I think it's fairly memorable to people that have been there right? It's about domain names and I put wire on it just like a lot of. Publications do um and then you want something that we we call that this is a key one that a lot of people miss we call it passing the radio test and that is that if I say it aloud if I say it out loud here to you guys? Can you Can you understand what I'm saying and then go remember it and type it in right? So some domain names don't sound like how they might type it in. So for example, if you put a digit in your domain names like homes for minnesota.com and you're actually using the digit four rather than fo u r um, or if it's something that can be spelled in multiple ways that won't pass the radio test as well. So one of the things I recommend to people is when you come up with that great name for your business and you're like this is it before you register to go buy it.

22:05.95
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh.

22:23.56
Andrew
Call 5 people on the phone people still occasionally call people on the phone but make sure you do it verbally and say hey I'm thinking about this domain name for my business and say the domain name and then you know twenty thirty seconds later say so what was that domain name and then how how would you spell it. How would you type that in if you were at your browser if you were on Chrome right now typing this in and so I think that's kind of a critical test to do which is kind of doing this verbally to people maybe not in ah you know, even asking them out in public or maybe it's a little noisy that sort of thing can they remember it. Can they spell it so will they actually be able to go type it in and visit your website. So I think those are kind of the the high level factors that I tell people whenever it comes to choosing a domain name. There are other things to consider 2 which is kind of. Pigeonholing yourself in by making it too specific at the same time you might want it to be specific if your business is specific and so I think that you know an example I always give is if Amazon had been called Books.com that would have been a problem once they moved past past selling books right.

23:37.72
Trygve Olsen
And.

23:38.92
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

23:41.39
Andrew
Um, so but Amazon passes the radio test. It's easy to remember and it's a brand that they were able to use to expand to lots of different things right? and it has this connotation of this big expanse long river all this sort of stuff. That works well for them whereas Books.com would not have been a great long term domain name for them.

24:04.64
Trygve Olsen
Somebody told me the other day that Amazon is now something that generationally people think of differently like we think of Amazon as a bookseller that has now changed into a much larger behemoth goliath. Type thing but people under the age of 30 they think of Amazon as a delivery service as as something complete, it's something completely different. 1 of the things that I think I wanted to throw in that I I usually tell people is um.

24:28.62
Andrew
Um, yeah, that would make sense that would make sense. Yeah.

24:40.60
Trygve Olsen
You need to make sure that if you have more than 1 word in your domain it you can't spell an inadvertent other word and we have a number of examples on that we'll get. We'll get to that in a bit but putting smashing 2 words together the the naked eye tends to um.

24:45.86
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh yes, that could be dangerous.

24:45.95
Andrew
Um, yes, yeah.

24:59.94
Trygve Olsen
Make the third word that you don't always necessarily want to to get.

25:02.46
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right? And like dashes would definitely break the radio test right.

25:06.30
Andrew
Yeah I don't recommend hyphen you know it's it's odd and in Germany people for some reason are accepting of of hyphens in your domains more than elsewhere. But yeah, you don't want hyphens in general if you have a number in there. You'd like to have it as both you know the digit. As well as spelled out just for protective reasons. So yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So so sometimes sometimes you want to register some variations if it is difficult to sell to spell then you might want to register a lot of those misspellings I remember back in the dotcom boom there was it.

25:27.11
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
So book. Both domains is what you're saying got it.

25:44.37
Andrew
Company called like guzun tight. You know like the sneeze and you know nobody can spell that and they've registered so many different variations of that to try to capture everyone. But in general you just don't want to go down that route if if you can avoid it.

25:46.17
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Share it.

25:46.20
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, yeah.

25:59.36
Trygve Olsen
So if I'm online and I'm picking my domain name and I just want to put in my company name and it's not available. What do I do then is it can I get can I get it.

26:07.20
Andrew
Um.

26:09.91
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, so I think 1 mistake people make is they type it in and it's not available and they're like well got to move on to something else, but a lot of these domains are available for sale millions of them are available for sale and they aren't necessarily that expensive so typically. A domain name that's for sale will sell for somewhere between two and five thousand dollars which I know a lot of people say hey that's that's a lot of money but when you think about it being your storefront and you think about the fact that your storefront is going to be around for years. It's really not that much I mean how much do you spend on other marketing How much do you spend on on ads how much do you spend on your website and that sort of thing when you amortize that cost out. It's really not that much and in some cases you can get it for for a lot less obviously great names are actually even marginally good names cost more than $5000 but you can get a perfectly good domain name for under $5000 and and get the right name the best possible domain name for your business sometimes when you type that domain name in you'll even see that the domain registrar which are companies like Godaddy and dyna dot that I mentioned earlier network solutions. They'll say that that domain name is for sale and for how much and you can actually just click a button and buy it just like you would any other domain name you just pay more and then within a minute or two. It's in your account at that domain name Registrar. You don't only have to deal with transfers or anything like that and you can start using it.

27:45.31
Andrew
Other times you might have to find a domain name for sale somewhere if you type in the domain name a lot of times. It'll result to a page and I'm sure everyone here is seen that says this domain is for sale. You know this is the price or contact is here to find out more and in some cases if if. Neither of those are in place you might hire a domain broker to go out there and try to acquire it for you. Of course then you're talking about added expense so it depends on how important it is to you. But yeah I definitely wouldn't stop there if the domain you want is is taken and then. You know of course another option is going to some of those other top level domain names and so you want to think about is there a top level domain that has the right connotation for what I'm doing or do I want a generic one like dot online or site as an option there that that you can certainly do. And as I mentioned there are drawbacks to that and there are There's an upside too right? It can be. You can have a fun extension. You can have a more memorable second level domain name because there are more domains available. But then there's the the confusion factor of having something other than dot com or your. Dominant country code to the right of the dot.

28:57.42
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
And 1 thing that we should probably understate here is you can have multiple domain names all pointing to the same website right.

29:05.94
Andrew
Absolutely absolutely even for domain name wire I have dnw.com which I acquired much later and I point that to domain namewire.com so people domain name wire is a little bit long if people are typing it in on their mobile phone or something like that they can just type DNwDotCom in it. Automatically Forwards there and so you can absolutely do that I think most people do variations or shortened versions of their name and afford or they start it with a domain name that they didn't love but they could afford and then later on they can afford.

29:33.76
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Ah.

29:41.33
Andrew
The better name that they want and then so they could just forward it there and tell people that name.

29:44.90
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Do you think as a best practice if you do upgrade your domain name should you change your email address and all of those things that go with it.

29:53.84
Andrew
Right? Yes, but this is this is challenging and and this is why if you can afford the right domain right? off the bat. You want to go for it switching switching email is 1 thing right? That's that's. That's fairly doable the challenge to switching your actual domain name is Seo in Google and it can take a while for Google to catch up to a name change. You've got all these links pointing to your old domain.

30:25.16
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um.

30:25.29
Andrew
And yeah, you're forwarding it over but you have to meticulously forward each domain with a different type of redirect and there there are a lot of case studies of big companies that have done this and for a while it dramatically hits the amount of traffic and and thus the bottom line that they get from making that change. So It's something that needs to be done with a good plan probably with the help of an outside consultant that knows what they're doing if you're just you know business owner that doesn't deal with domains all day and websites and so in an ideal World. You get that one that you you want to start Now. Sometimes people get the ideal domain later and they'll actually just forward it to the longer domain name but kind of like I do with dnw.com right? I couldn't get it originally and then it became for sale and I could afford it at that point so I was able to get that and I don't you know, use it for some things but i.

31:07.80
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Church.

31:21.74
Andrew
Still use domainnamewire dot com as my main to domain name.

31:25.79
Trygve Olsen
Dave what's the most you've ever heard somebody spending on a domain.

31:28.18
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Well, there's a 2 wo-parter on that right? So the first thing is the the most that we've ever worked with and so I think that one was a construction client of ours and they wound up spending just south of $10000

31:46.81
Trygve Olsen
Wow.

31:47.80
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
For the website domain and they were they were rebranding and it was it was a big deal and we count we counseled them about the Seo drawbacks of completely changing but we did a redirect but then man I think the the dot app one that's for the entire.

31:56.51
Andrew
Um, yeah.

32:06.24
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Tld or the top level domain but wasn't it like it was a big thing about like X X X or something that I read in the news that was.

32:14.93
Andrew
Um, well for a long time. The the most anyone I pay publicly for a domain name where it was revealed was sex.com which might be what you're thinking about um and I think that was 13000000

32:21.70
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
There It is. Yeah yeah, wow.

32:28.11
Andrew
The most expensive domain name that was ever publicly revealed being purchased was voice.com for $30000000 and this is one. This is one that a a web 3 crypto company bought from a.

32:35.85
Trygve Olsen
Wow.

32:46.80
Andrew
Another public company and they they aren't even really using the domain anymore they changed the use they had for it was kind of a perfect storm. You know I mean this is a web 3 company that like was able to get billions of dollars through an initial coin offering or whatever they were back in the heyday of. Cryptocurrency and that sort of thing but we do have domains that sell for 8 figures. So $10000000 or more every year. In fact, last year ah let me why I'm blanking it. Let's see.

33:18.98
Trygve Olsen
Well I think I know the one you're talking about it's that the the the chief technical officer at Hubspot but he he bought something and then he sold it again.

33:25.88
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, darmesh I'm blanking I think it was chat it was chat.com actually yeah so so I was ah.

33:28.96
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
He bought um a I Yeah it was chat dot a I Oh was it? Okay, it's a big. Yeah.

33:41.30
Andrew
Blanking there. But um, yeah, so chat he bought chat dot com for over $10000000 and then he sold it pretty quickly for over $10000000 and that was just last year and so you know these names can sell for quite a bit of money.

33:58.58
Andrew
You know we often see domains itself for millions of dollars I say often I mean a lot of times those big sales like that don't go reported neither the buyer nor the seller wants people to know about it and and how much they spend for it. In fact, hubspot bought a domain name for $10000000 as well. They bought connect dotcom

34:08.47
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
He.

34:15.12
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, yeah.

34:16.97
Trygve Olsen
Yep.

34:17.90
Andrew
Which they're using for like a social media type company and so.

34:21.75
Trygve Olsen
They haven't really figured out it out yet. It's kind of like ah it's kind of like a bullet and board. But now they have some chat function on it and.

34:26.48
Andrew
Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm not sure to I haven't played around with it. But you know tart. Okay, yeah, yeah, so.

34:31.51
Trygve Olsen
Oh I've been on it. It's because we're hubspot people here. So where're we we're deep into the orange koolaid here at busyzzywe.

34:32.90
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Um, grant.

34:43.90
Andrew
Um, but yeah, so these names can sell for a lot. But again those are the outliers and most most names are going to sell for 2 to $ 5000 if it's a onewward dot com. It's not going to sell or you know it's going to sell for a lot more but but yeah, so they can they can certainly sell for a lot of money. But. For the typical person getting a domain name. You're not going to choose something like connect.com or voice dot com because it's going to be out of your price range right? So buying something I I absolutely encourage people to think about them as a long-term investment for their business.

35:06.75
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

35:15.30
Andrew
Think of it as a marketing expense and think about the added marketing you're going to have to do if you have the wrong domain name right? So if people are ending up at a competitor or they can't find your site those sorts of things Those are very very costly mistakes.

35:20.90
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

35:23.47
Trygve Olsen
That's a great point.

35:33.70
Trygve Olsen
I think the classic example of that that ah a politician kind of blew a stack over the last year was that ah the white house is white house dot gov. But then whoever owns white house dotcom I think sells white house merch. Ah or there even was a porn site version back in the 90 s that night for.

35:50.99
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh now. Yeah, or.

35:52.20
Andrew
Um, so yeah, going to say the the biggest Well now it's looks like it's set up as a free election betting site. But ah yeah.

36:01.64
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, even better.

36:07.23
Andrew
So who's going to win the next election that sort of thing. It seems like more republicans are voting than than Democrats but ah, it looks like there are only a few votes anyway here if if I were to look at this. But but yeah it was. That's a pretty famous example because it was used for porn in the early days

36:18.34
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
That's funny.

36:25.36
Andrew
Um, and so you know you'd had kids doing research for you know school projects and and they land on this page so it wasn't wasn't a good look.

36:34.10
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

36:34.60
Trygve Olsen
That there was an unfortunate just juxtaposition of that happening during the Clinton administration too. So it just got weird. It got weird quick.

36:42.70
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right on theres ah this happened very recently as well with a one of the domains that's listed on I want to say Washington State's license plates needs to. Okay, yeah.

36:53.42
Andrew
Um, yeah, it wasn't Washington because I'm there but I remember this story. Yeah.

36:57.72
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
But it it wound up going to because they let the domain expire and it it wound up going to some very naughty site.

37:01.73
Andrew
Um, right.

37:04.25
Andrew
Right? And it was on the back of I think it was on the back of a bunch of license plates right? or something like that so people were typing this name that was on the back of these hundreds of thousands of license plates or whatever and and going to a site. They didn't want to go to and that happens.

37:09.34
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yeah, yep, yeah here.

37:24.70
Andrew
There There are quite a few examples of that There was one recently I forgot the name but it was a name printed on the side of a bunch of like serial boxes or snack boxes. It was some some domain that a snack company had used for marketing purposes for a while they were no longer really using it and they let it expire and so that's why there are.

37:31.26
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
3

37:42.95
Andrew
Companies that specialize in just helping corporations not mess up like that so and keeping track of their name.

37:46.62
Trygve Olsen
I think I think that begs an interesting question so you don't own a domain right? You license it. So.

37:48.57
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Brian.

37:54.57
Andrew
Yeah, so yeah, and you have to keep paying your fees for it which are typically annually in order to retain that domain name and so there's a huge market for these domain names that expire In fact, that's where. I would say the majority of the activity takes place with domain investors like myself as we wait for domain names to expire that were registered a while ago that are really good and then we snap those up now we're not doing it because we want to take advantage of the previous owner and we're not doing it to afford it to.

38:27.23
Trygve Olsen
Right.

38:27.31
Andrew
Improper content and you know we're doing it because we think it's a great name that was registered a long time ago that some business might want to use and in the future.

38:34.16
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Sure.

38:36.14
Trygve Olsen
I Tell I tell I tell people it's like um, it's like getting married to a woman. It's she's not yours, but you go through the process. So it's nobody else's yeah well.

38:46.87
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
I.

38:47.27
Andrew
That's one way of looking at it I'm not gonna I'm not going to advocate for using that. But yes.

38:53.13
Trygve Olsen
It's it's ah it's a deep cut and in my humor bag and it it doesn't always it doesn't always hit if if if your domain does expire. It doesn't automatically get picked up right? It does go into sort of like a quarantine.

38:56.54
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Fit this.

39:04.79
Andrew
Yeah, so so there's this grace period right? where you can renew it with your registrar. So at some point in that Grace period usually you have to pay an additional fee to do it if you wait too long.

39:14.13
Trygve Olsen
Yeah.

39:17.69
Andrew
But I think 1 thing people need to understand is that when it goes through that expiration process. You might think that no one in the right mind would ever want this domain name but it gets added attention because it's going through this process and there's a pretty good chance that someone else is going to pick up that name so think about even if you don't really. Want to keep paying for the domain name is it worth having someone else own. It. How would you feel someone else owned it and and what they might do with it too. For example, that license plate you know pointing to porn or something like that right? because there are you know.

39:44.80
Trygve Olsen
And.

39:49.20
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right? Grant who.

39:55.95
Andrew
Companies that are in the online gambling and the adult entertainment space. That's one of their models right is to get these expiring domains that people might still be typing in or going into because they're in Google and that sort of thing and and landing on it. So I would think about that before letting a domain expire and I would stay on top of. Your domain names. You always want to set them up for auto renew which means that they'll automatically renew usually on expiration date. But you also need to make sure your credit card on file is still up-to-date and in an ideal world.

40:22.21
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Who. Yeah.

40:29.54
Trygve Olsen
That's great.

40:31.50
Andrew
You have the keys to all your domain names. But a loved one also has that login information in case, something happens to you? Um, you're incapacitated for some reason something like that so that you can protect those domain names as well. My advice is to renew them early. Not wait for that Auto renewal.

40:36.86
Trygve Olsen
Ask.

40:41.25
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Here.

40:48.56
Trygve Olsen
Yeah.

40:51.13
Andrew
And we're taught I mean the renewal fees on dotcom domains depending on where you have them? are you know ten twelve dollars I mean what? what? you just go ahead and do it for 10 years you know pay the hundred dollars

40:53.76
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Ten fifteen bucks yeah is that more is that a better idea like I've heard people say you know it's better for Seo if you book for 1010 years out does that have any like real impact.

40:53.88
Trygve Olsen
Um, that that yeah yeah.

41:07.12
Andrew
Um, so there are 2 things that seos might tell you one is that an older domain is viewed more favorably by Google so a domain that was registered twenty years ago and then. If you register it. Yeah 10 years out they know that you're not just a spammer setting up a site that you're going to turn anywhere Google is kind of denied that but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not a factor right? You know there's there's some obfuscation there that that goes on but they've said it doesn't matter.

41:31.97
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right? um.

41:37.98
Andrew
Um, whether or not it does I'll let seos debate about that. That's not really my place.

41:40.25
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Sure.

41:44.76
Trygve Olsen
I had a great question and I completely forgot what it was now so Buffy. Let's cut that part out. Um.

41:46.19
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Well I know what we're building toward and in our in our prep for for this call I know Trig V we were looking at some interesting domains. So let's let's get a little bit into the weeds on some baddies.

42:00.99
Trygve Olsen
I Found a list but I'm kind of curious from from Andrew standpoint if he's got any good schadenfreude ah domain schadenfreude ah that he can share.

42:04.48
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yeah.

42:07.86
Andrew
So There was actually an entire book written about these names that that mean mean, well they could mean different things if you put Capital letters in different places and one of them that actually just came. Ah, just expire recently and was auctioned off so it came on my radar radar again was therapistfinder.com So so therapist Finder seems like a great site to go find a therapist which we all need right now right? Crazy world out there and so it actually just expire and someone else picked it up.

42:30.88
Trygve Olsen
Um, ah yes.

42:35.97
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
And yeah.

42:38.45
Trygve Olsen
Yes, there's.

42:44.48
Andrew
And ah is someone I actually bought therapist finder.net 2 recently and so they're creating a side to find therapists and if you put if you capitalize the t in the f it looks like therapist finer. But if you capitalize the t in the. Are any f then you have a totally different meaning to the okay, okay, the rapist finder yeah, which is absolutely not what you want when you're talking about therapy and so they're there. Yeah yeah, well.

43:03.52
bizzyweb
You can say it. It's a safe space. It's it spells the rapist finder if you don't.

43:10.35
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yikes! yes.

43:13.32
Trygve Olsen
Because I yeah I've got a list and it's going to get a whole lot worse than the rapist finder.

43:20.94
Andrew
That's the one that's fresh on my mind but I'm yeah I'm sure you have many others. So.

43:21.37
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
All you I.

43:23.29
Trygve Olsen
Well let's let's see let's see if I can do there so guys when you know obviously you guys we're all tech guys. We all love our tech. So as you're cycling out of your tech. What do you? How what do you do with it. You obviously want to be responsible citizens right? right? so.

43:38.52
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yes.

43:42.43
Trygve Olsen
Ah, what you can do is you can go to ITScrapDotCom to find a place to recycle your old technology. Yep.

43:45.35
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Okay, okay I T S C R A P yep that could that could be a naughty one technically works both ways. Yeah.

43:52.93
Andrew
Well, you know at that point it is or or it's crap.

43:59.88
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, so at at that point it's it's It's also literal because it could spell its crap dot Com Yeah ah but ah boy you know a lot of times. Ah, if you're in the entertainment industry and you're wanting to get in touch with somebody.

44:04.50
Andrew
Yeah.

44:04.97
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

44:17.37
Trygve Olsen
Ah, you can't get in touch with the person but you can get in touch with their agent but who really is their agent wouldn't it be a great website if you could find out who somebody's representation is don't you think so Andrew.

44:30.10
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Here.

44:31.30
Andrew
Who who yeah like who who represents is that or.

44:35.85
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, yeah, who wrote who represents dot com as a well yeah.

44:36.17
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Yeah, you know that's important to have the R in the right spot are the capital are yes.

44:40.95
Andrew
Who who? yeah, so HORE I see where we're running into a problem here.

44:49.59
Trygve Olsen
Yep, so that that if you read it wrong. It would be horrorpresence dot Com Ah oh the classic one I think everybody sort of knows this is if you do anything Internet related is the company that decided that they wanted to.

44:55.20
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Aha.

45:05.70
Trygve Olsen
Ah, create an office supply store but make it caribbean theme and they opened up Pen Island Dot Net right which are.

45:10.20
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh right right? We got to be careful with some of these so we don't get flagged in in our inappropriate language.

45:19.42
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, well I mean this is fact it's not so you know the the way you read that wrong is ah penis Penis Land Dot net. Ah, let's see what what else? Um, um.

45:25.70
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh yes, yes I like experts exchange.

45:35.40
Trygve Olsen
That's a good one. Yeah because you obviously if you want to find an expert you want to go somewhere like Angie's list and you want to make sure you're hiring somebody who's you know, really knows their stuff but um.

45:47.99
Trygve Olsen
Boy if you read that wrong if you capitalize that wrong. It would also be expert sexchange.com wow

45:50.85
Dave Meyer_BizzyWeb
Oh yeah, yeah, see Ah so it's it's important to be careful and I think that the radio test is really important documents and you know Wow the.

46:00.76
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, the radio tests the great example. Yeah yeah I think I think my favorite too that um that that that I was able to find um.

46:00.83
Andrew
And the radio test and then there's the visual test here right? Which is what we're kind of getting to at the end.

46:16.64
Trygve Olsen
Was ah, an art gallery that was known as the speed of art that if you read it as the as the domain it's ah speedofart.com ah but I think my favorite 1

46:21.89
Andrew
Um, yeah.

46:27.61
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

46:33.28
Trygve Olsen
Ah, of all time was I mean there's also sorts set there. You know the lake tahoe convention and visitors bureau did go tahoe northnorth.com but um, which then shortened to gadaho north.com right yeah yeah

46:47.79
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Black. Oh no.

46:52.73
Trygve Olsen
Um, but ah, you know if you live in Boston and you're jewish and if you're of a certain age obviously dating is hard right? You guys know that being jewish and not living in Boston right? So ah there there was ah a company that ah built a great dating website for ah.

47:00.25
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
M.

47:10.76
Trygve Olsen
Boston ah jewish singles over the age of 40 and it was north of Boston jewish singles was the name of the company that they did the initials so it was no bjs.org that that I think was met.

47:24.25
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Oh now that that just seems like a yeah.

47:29.60
Trygve Olsen
That I think was my favorite. The the 1 thing that I want to add at the end is here is and 1 of the things that we do as because we're in and out of domain work. All the time is if you're gonna building a website. You should absolutely the the 1 thing that Andrew didn't mention that. I think is critical in the life of the business dave is you absolutely have to own your own domain. Do not do not do not let somebody else, buy a domain on your behalf or if they do immediately do the work to transfer ownership.

47:59.24
Andrew
Um.

48:01.40
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Ah, right.

48:02.30
Andrew
Yep yep, and.

48:05.42
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
We hear.

48:06.41
Andrew
Um, that's right? yeah.

48:08.28
Trygve Olsen
So We did something where one of our best customers called and said hey I need this domain bi for me I'll pay you and we did and then we transferred it was fine but you if you don't own your own and own your own domain then you have a. Potential to be held hostage later as as you're trying to break up with a vendor.

48:25.24
Andrew
And unfortunately it happens you know a lot of website developers will register to domain on behalf of their clients and then if there's any sort of dispute rightly or wrongly they they can hold that company hostage right? And so.

48:38.78
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Or yeah or just like more even more likely. Yeah, the the developer the designer just stops doing that anymore and they stop paying attention to it and then all of a sudden your domain is up for auction somewhere.

48:39.12
Trygve Olsen
Yeah, yeah.

48:51.40
Andrew
Um, yeah.

48:54.47
Andrew
Yeah, you need to have it and you don't want to delegate this. Let's say you're a small business fifteen twenty employees you don't want to delegate this to an employee you as the owner of the business at that point want to have the the control there I see oftentimes where.

48:56.87
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
And you're being held out.

49:12.69
Andrew
There's a dispute where it's an ex-employ did something or you know an ex-employ still had the keys to the domain registrar still had the credentials that sort of thing and they do something and maybe they're mad or something like that. So absolutely you want to control that you know.

49:15.91
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Ah.

49:18.89
Trygve Olsen
Yeah.

49:26.16
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Redirect it somewhere.

49:32.12
Andrew
Only if your business gets very very big is that something you want to want to hand over to to someone else is their responsibility. Yep, Absolutely absolutely.

49:36.26
Trygve Olsen
But never a vendor it. It should always be in-house and and owned on at the root level by the company by by sure. So Andrew this has been illuminating and certainly fascinating and a lot of fun.

49:36.52
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
Right.

49:51.50
Trygve Olsen
And you know obviously the therapist finders is something that we're going to have to continually work through but much like ah, um, you know the thechoosepane.com is a good one too So where can ah um. Ah, if if people want to learn more about domains work. What? what's your website and how can people find you.

50:09.21
Andrew
Yeah, domain namewire.com you'll also find my podcast there as well as on your podcast app. It's just the domain name wire podcast and I'll warn you this is where we get into the weeds about domain names. So It's a place you want to go if you're like hey this is really interesting I have a lot of names. Can I do with them. How can I sell them that that sort of thing or maybe I want to start investing in names then then it's for you. But it's definitely gets into the into the weeds. Awesome My pleasure Thanks for having me guys.

50:36.70
bizzyweb
Yeah, me too. Edward thank you so much pleasure to have you.

50:36.51
Dave Meyer_ BizzyWeb
I'm subscribing. That's brilliant. Thanks Andrew.