Why Multiple Domains are Mostly Bad for SEO

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By: Scott Smoot Date: January 5, 2011 

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It happens all the time, and causes me to scratch my head in complete confusion every time: Someone I’m working with on SEO will own multiple domains for the same business. I don’t mean that they have a couple related domains, I mean the same business and same offerings or services on more than one domain.

I usually find out about these domains in one of two ways: I find them through poking around and investigating the site (and the client usually acts like it’s some sort of dirty secret), or, they come to me about the domains and want more than one site to show up at the top of the search results.
I’ll be honest, I’m not usually a happy camper when I get this news; mostly because the secondary domains tend to have duplicate content (if you’re not aware, duplicate content is a bad thing). That being said, however, there is such thing as effectively using multiple domains (although I don’t recommend it). There are two main tactics commonly employed with owning multiple domains. Keep in mind that I’m going to keep an SEO perspective on these and only lightly touch on other marketing sectors.

The Defensive Domain Buyer

Some businesses are worried that competitors will buy keyword oriented domains thereby pushing their own site into obscurity. This can lead to a panic shopping spree of domains. The idea is that as long as they own the available domains, there is less chance of a competitor beating them in the rankings. While there is some merit to this tactic, it will have no effect on your SEO at all. Nor do I believe that it will really have much effect in blocking out your competitors. You can’t think of all the domain variations and buy them all, and if you buy too many, it can get expensive just to maintain them. Any competitor can rank better by offering better content and getting more links regardless of domain name.
As a side note, if you do this tactic, you had better make sure that all of your domains are redirected toward your main domain using a 301 redirect.

The First Page Domination Strategy

In buying multiple domains, some companies want to simply dominate the search results. Buy having multiple sites on the first page, you can get that much more traffic, right? In theory, yes, and it has on occasion happened. However, there are some fairly serious drawbacks to this:

• Doesn’t work on brick-and-mortar stores — If you have  a single physical location, it’s not a good idea to have multiple websites. You’ll confuse your visitors and customers, and I personally avoid having two websites with the same address. Google doesn’t want to have multiple sites from the same business (as it doesn’t provide good results) and I consider this to be one short step away from spam.
• Duplicate content woes — Because you can’t use the content from another site, you will have to write all new content. Considering how hard it is to write content for sites as it is, not to mention the allocation of resources to get it written, I wish luck to anyone writing content for a whole new site.
• Double branding all the way! — You have branding issues with two sites. Does one site become higher-end and the lower-end? Do you keep the prices the same? For that matter, what names are you even going to use on the site? If you have a phone number, how do you answer the phone? While there are certainly going to be exceptions (such as targeting different demographics), such a chaotic and divisive branding effort comes with a lot of risks and extra work.

Country Specific Domains

This is less of a tactic, and more of a “must do,” and is therefore my exception to multiple domains. It’s an exception because all of the problems above do not apply when you get into other countries. In fact, in order to have the best results in international SEO, you’ll need to have a country specific TLD (or top level domain). For example, if you’re doing business in England, you will have a hard time ranking without a .co.uk domain. You can still rank without a country level TLD, but it’s an uphill battle. And by uphill, I mean Rocky Mountains-type uphill.

SEO Resources and Indented Listings

One final (and big) point to that I would like to reiterate. If you really intend to own and run multiple domains and get these sites to show up in the search results, you will have to double your SEO work. There are no shortcuts, freebies, or quick rankings that you can get, even if you are already ranking well for your main domain. In fact, a new domain and site will be significantly harder to rank than a site that has history and some authority already built. I highly recommend that indented listings (or secondary pages for the same site showing up underneath the first main listing) be the primary goal before attempting to achieve multiple domains in the same search.

Backorder Domains today at www.BackorderZone.com

Buying Aged Domains

Buying Aged Domains

In this post I will discuss buying aged domains with page rank and the things you need to be aware of.
I have to give credit to my friend Terry Kyle (Terry’s product: Best SEO Course I’ve ever used – affiliate link) who has taught me how to do this the right way!
Before I discuss how to buy an aged domain with page rank, I first want to discuss why this could be useful.
The fact is that search engines trust domains with age and page rank, so if you have a domain like this then it can be easier and faster to rank in the search engines. This is especially true if the domain has a Yahoo and/or DMOZ listing.
I’ve bought domains for as little as $40 that are PR 3 and listed in DMOZ, so it’s not that expensive, but you do need to know what you are doing.
When buying a domain from someone, the most important thing to do is check that the domain has not been dropped. What this means is that the domain has not expired at some time in the past and not been renewed by the owner. If this has happened, most SEO experts will agree that the domain has lost a lot of its value.
The best way to check if a domain has been dropped is to head over to www.domaintools.com and use there free service to check the domain out. The image below is an example of what domaintools shows you when you find a dropped domain.

You can see in the blue circle that it reads, “3 drops”. This to me is a domain that I would not consider buying, as you run the risk of the domain losing it’s page rank on the next Google update.

Another thing you need to do is check that the page rank is valid, and you can do this by doing a quick Google search like this: info:http://www.domain.com

You replace the URL with the domain you are looking at buying, and also test it without the www. What you are looking for is that the first result that Google has is the actual domain itself and not some other domain.

The reason you would do this is because some dodgy domain sellers will redirect page rank from one domain they own to another, so it gives the domain it’s page rank, but then they remove it once you’ve bought it. This may leave you with a page rank zero domain!

Here’s an example of a fake page rank:

In the example above you can see that I searched for info:tacticnews.com, however the first result that Google has is for www.burninginfo.com. This shows me that tacticnews.com is a forged page rank domain, and one I would not buy.

The other thing to check is the quality of the backlinks that the domain has. You can do this with any link checking tool, or even Yahoo site explorer. But just make sure you search for good strong backlinks, and not a whole bunch of low quality garbage links. You want to aim for at least 2 or more links to the domain that are of higher or equal page rank.

The reason for this (again thanks Terry for pointing this out) is because if by chance one of the links was removed then your domain should still hold it’s page rank because there is another high page rank link still in place.

One more thing that you should do when deciding whether to buy a domain or not is check and see if any of the inner pages of the site have page rank too. You might be looking at a PR 4 domain, and find that there a several inner pages that also have PR 4. This is very handy, because all you need to do is recreate these pages and you can use them.

To check if inner pages have page rank, all you need to do is search for the domain in Google like this:

site:http://www…..

However you also need to have the free firefox plugin called SEO Quake installed and switched on. The reason for this is that it will show you the page rank of the results. In the example below I have shown a domain that has home page of PR 4 and an inner page of only PR 0, but it still illustrates my point.

Anyway I hope these lessons on buying aged domains was useful for you, I don’t have room in this post to go into detail about why and how you can use these domains, because there are many ways. However if you are truly serious about SEO, I can’ t stress enough how great Terry Kyles course on SEO is.

Visit http://www.BackorderZone.com to backorder your aged domain names today!

The Keyword Domain Trap – Avoid Generic Domain Names, Pick Something Unique and Brandable

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The Keyword Domain Trap – Avoid Generic Domain Names, Pick Something Unique and Brandable

January 22nd, 2010 → 9:58 am @ The Naming Dude

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Is Men.com a good domain name? How about Furniture.com? Or what about Cars.com? The market place seems to think these are valuable. Men.com sold for 1.3 million. But is it? Are any of these really brands? Has anyone ever said to you “Dude you gotta check out www.furniture.com, it rocks!” or “I just love Men.com…what a great place to go for like, uh, men and stuff!”
How in the world would you market these names and how would you distinguish yourself from the thousands of variants, copycats and hucksters that will inevitably pop up. You can’t trademark a generic word, so forget about taking your competitors to court. You could spend millions advertising the domain only to have people walk away wondering if they were supposed to check out Man.com or Men.com. These generic literal names also carry another layer of baggage and that is in their meaning, or lack of meaning. Is Men.com about the concept of men like in gender studies. Is it about men from a biological point of view? Is it for women looking to find men? Is it for gay men or straight men? Fashion? Sports? Who knows, the name tells us nothing.

Multi-Word Generic Domains Are Often Worse.

Are you looking for health insurance? Do you know the difference between Ehealthinsurance.com, Healthinsurance.org, Healthinsurance.com, Healthinsurancefinders.com, Healthinsuranceinfo.net, Usinsuranceonline.com, Healthinsurancesort.com, Healthinsurance.net, Healthinsurancebrokeronline.com,  Reliablehealthinsurance.net, Findhealthinsurancequotes.net, Healthinsuranceall.com, Newhealthinsurance.com, Healthinsurance.info, 1sthealthinsurancequotes.com, and Healthinsurancebible.com? Do you care? Probably not. And you’re definitely not interested in spending the next fours hours trying to find out. However you do know that Blue Cross and Blue Shield sell insurance. Sounds like a safer bet.
Ah-ha, you say, Google has the same problem. There’s Googlewatch.org , Googlefight.com, and Googlesux.com just to name a few. Well, it may look like the same problem but it’s not. Google variants are different. Google is a unique and proper name. It stands for something and there is only one Google. They basically own the public mind space for the word “search” just as surely Kleenex own “tissues” and Xerox owns “copies”. So much so that all three of these companies names have also become a common shorthand for anything in their category. So for Google, any derivative reference used by competitors, critics and jokesters just reinforces the Google brand. Even a shirt that says “Google Sucks Ass’ enhances the Google brand.
This is not the same for Furniture.com. Variants of the word furniture just dilute the Furniture.com brand, not enhance it. That’s because furniture is a generic word. It doesn’t reference anything but the literal meaning of the word. And a boring word at that. Say it ten times and you’ll probably start to doze off.
No matter how many times someone uses the word furniture it will do nothing to enhance Furniture.com. It is not a brand and never will be. In fact, if someone were to ask you where they should look online to buy furniture, I bet you’d say something  like Ikea, Amazon, Ebay or even Craisglist. But not Furniture.com.

The Proof is in The Branding

Here’s a list of the highest priced domains of all time ( list provided by Fka200.com). How many of these own their category or are even a market leader? Almost none. When’s the last time someone sent you a link to one of these sites telling you gotta check it out? You probably can’t remember. Read each name and tell me the first thing that pops in your head. Except for AsSeenOnTV.com, HolidayInn.com, and iPhone.com which were already established brands, I bet the domain in question isn’t even in the top ten URLs you think of.

Insure.com – Sold for $16,000,000 (16 million dollars) in October 2009 to QuinStreet

Sex.com – Sold for: $14 million on January 19th, 2006

Fund.com – $9,999,950 – Sold in 2008

Porn.com – Sold for $9,000,000 sometime in 2007

Business.com – Sold for $7,500,000 in 1999 (This was pretty much a “business” sale with a developed name)

Diamonds.com – Sold for $7,500,000

Beer.com – Sold for $7,000,000

Casino.com – $5,500,000 – Sold to a private company in 2003

Toys.com $5.1M sold to Toys R Us

AsSeenOnTV.com – Sold for $5,100,000 in January of 2000

Korea.com – $5,000,000 – Sold in January of 2000

SEO.com – $5,000,000 – Sold in 2007

FreePorn.com – $4,000,000 – Sold in February 2008

YP.com – $3,850,000 – Sold to YellowPages.com

Shop.com – Sold for $3,500,000 in 2001

WorldWideWeb.com – $3,500,000 in 1996

AltaVista.com – $3,250,000

Software.com – $3,200,000

Candy.com – $3,000,000 Sold in March 2009 by Rich Schwartz. Deal was $3M + % sales.

CreditCheck.com – $3,000,000 -Sold in June 2007

Loans.com – $3,000,000

eShow.com – $3,000,000

Vodka.com – $3,000,000 Sold December 2006

HolidayInn.com – $3,000,000 Sold in 1995

Wine.com – Sold for $2,900,000 in September of 1999

Wines.com – $2,900,000

CreditCards.com – Sold for $2,750,000 in July 2004

Pizza.com – $2,605,000 April 3, 2008

Tom.com – $2,500,000

Dotnology.com – $2.5 million (2000)

Autos.com – $2,200,000

Computer.com – $2,200,000

Coupons.com – $2,200,000

England.com – $2,000,000

Celebrities.com – $2.0 million (1999)

Telephone.com – $2,000,000

Express.com – $2,000,000

Savings.com – $1,900,000

Mortgage.com – $1,800,000

Seniors.com – $1.8 million (2007)

DataRecovery.com – $1,659,000  Sold in 2008

Branson.com – $1,600,000

SolarEnergy.com – $1,600,000

Cameras.com – $1,500,000

TandBerg.com – $1,500,000

MarketingToday.com – $1,500,000

Deposit.com – $1,500,000

Russia.com – $1,500,000 November 26, 2009

Fly.com – $1,500,000 – RESOLD FOR $1,800,000 (January 2009)

VIP.com – Sold for $1,400,000 in September of 2005

Ad.com – Sold for $1,400,000 April 29, 2009 in TRAFFIC auction

Men.com – $1,320,000

Vista.com – $1,250,000

Ticket.com – Sold for $1,525,000 on Afternic

Feedback.com – $1,230,000

Phone.com – $1,200,000

Find.com – $1,200,000

Scores.com – $1.2 million (2007)

Kredit.de – $1,169,175

Call.com – $1,100,000 – Sold on August 31, 2009

Bingo.com – $1,100,000

Mercury.com – $1,100,000

Cruises.co.uk – $1,099,798 Sold in 2008

Chinese.com – $1,090,504 – Sold July 2007

WallStreet.com – $1,030,000

Rock.com – $1.03 million

Invest.com – $1,015,000  Sold in 2008

WebCam.com – $1,020,000 Sold April 2009 in Rick Latona auction

Vibrators.com – $1,000,000 Sold in 2008

Britain.com – $1,000,000

Fish.com – $1,000,000

Topix.com – $1,000,000

Sky.com – $1,000,000

If.com – $1,000,000

iPhone.com – $1.0 million (2007)

CyberWorks.com – $1.0 million

WhiteHouseCrisis.com – $1.0 million

eFlowers.com – $1.0 million

Beauty.cc – $1.0 million

Most of  these names are so dull, so forgettable, so uninspired, that it’s hard to believe they fetch the money they do. Sure, some were high traffic profitable sites when they sold, but many of these were simply parked domains with nothing but a coming soon page.

Another Perspective on Domain Names

Now let’s do another exercise. Here’s a list of categories and you pick the domain that best matches your perceptions as the proper place to go to.
Buy Books
A. www.buybooksontheweb.com
B. www.cheapbooks.com
C. www.amazon.com

Online Classifieds

A. www.onlineclassifieds.com
B. www.bestwayclassifieds.com
C. www.craigslist.com

Office Supplies

A. www.cheapofficesupplies.com
B. www.discountedofficesupply.com
C. www.staples.com

So was my test fair? Not really. I was obviously highly selective in the categories I used and the samples I picked. I did this to make a dramatic point about generic domains. Even if there were no Amazon, Borders or Powells on the web, do you think there’s any chance that www.buybooksontheweb.com could ever be a category leader? Of course not. Their completely literal, generic, keyword-rich domain name doomed them to an also ran from the get go. They could never be the leading online book seller under any circumstances. Not with a name like that.
Now how about the market leaders, are their names really so brilliant. Not necessarily brilliant, but most definitely better. Staples is a double meaning (staples as in a stapler and staples as in a basic supply). Craigslist is a proper name and highly relevant to its origins (it really was Craig’s List). Amazon was the riskiest name as it was already loaded with meaning. But it was also an exotic abstraction. The Amazon is big and holds the widest variety of plants and animals on the planet. To Americans, who don’t live near it and will probably never visit it in person, it’s mystical place far, far, away.
Could they have succeeded if they picked “Grand Canyon” or “Lake Tahoe” instead? Probably not. Those are very literal and require too great of a cognitive leap to map the idea “Grand Canyon” or “Lake Tahoe” to the biggest selection of  books in the world. Amazon was a risky choice but exponentially better and far more brandable than say Buybooksontheweb.com.

The 4 Exceptions to The “No Generic Keyword” Domain Name Rule

Making a Unique Name by Combining Two Generics

This first exception must be done with intelligence and an ear for the poetic. It’s highly effective and some of the best named and well branded web companies have used this naming device. And that is to combine two generic words in a way that is startling, evocative and original. Photobucket.com is a good example. By themselves the word photo and the word bucket are about as dull and generic as can be. Ah, but put them together and we not only have an original name now, but one that creates a deeper meaning. It immediately engages the mind as you envision first a literal bucket filled with photos and secondly the abstraction of a bucket of photos. On a symbolic level Photobucket is an easy way to gather all your photos. YouTube is a classic example. By themselves the words you and tube are nearly meaningless. Put them together and it not only has a great rhyming quality but it creates an instantly understandable, relatable word pairing loaded with meaning. It’s you (as in the everyday person, joe average) on the tube (television). Television that is about you. Brilliant. Other  good examples are LinkedIn, StubHub, FeedBurner and FaceBook. All pairings of generic words that take on a new meaning when combined.

Your Real Business Name is Already Generic So You’re Stuck With It

The second exception is that your brand name really is a generic. If your business really is called AAA Electrical then by all means, grab that domain if you can. Always get your business name when possible even if your business name is painfully generic. It would have been better if you never called yourself AAA Electrical in the first place, but the damage is done so you might as well go with it.

You’re a First Mover or Occupy an Obscure Niche Market

The third exception is being a first mover. If you invented something that didn’t exist before, something that people would probably like but don’t know it’s available, a generic may be a good strategy. A new client of mine invented or at least perfected the gopher basket. When people go to a garden shop they ask for gopher baskets. They don’t know who the market leader is and they don’t care. They just don’t want gophers killing their plants. His company name is actually Diggers and his unique design is called Root Guard. He’s an  industry leader and I bought and used his product years before meeting him. However his website is GopherBasket.com. It works because it’s a niche market, you may only purchase these once in a lifetime, and his brand name will probably never own the public mind space for that term. It’s just too oddball of a product. However, doing this with orange juice would be a mistake. People buy orange juice weekly. We’re surrounded by it. It’s almost a staple, everyone has an opinion about it, and it’s a highly contested field. So if your company is Minute Maid (a good name with a clever pun) then you should own and market MinuteMaid.com, not OrangeJuice.com which is completely useless and unbrandable but available for only $65,000.

You Don’t Have or Even Want a Brand Because You’re Just Trying Sell Commodities in a Saturated Market

The fourth exception is for the serial entrepreneur. Some people just don’t care. They just want to sell stuff and make money. Anything really. It doesn’t matter. If it doesn’t work out, they’ll just close shop and sell something else. If this is you then by all means go get a really long keyword rich domain. It will give you a little boost in the search engines and anyone who links to your URL is also simultaneously using your keywords in the anchor text. But if you have any aspirations to being a market leader, then skip the generic keyword domain.
File Under: Picking a Good Domain Name – Avoiding Generic Keyword Domain Names – Domain Naming Tips – Why Keyword Rich Domain Names Should be Avoided – Keyword Domain Names Suck


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Start Integrating Your SEO and Social, A Blueprint

Start Integrating Your SEO and Social, A Blueprint

  by Edwin Huertas on Dec 29, 2011

 

It wasn’t long ago that my focus was aimed entirely on search engine optimization, but in the last few years that view has shifted to include social media and how it works in combination with your SEO efforts. SEO and social media continue to work together more and more.
Can social media improve SEO, and vice versa?
The short answer is “yes.”
But, combining the traction of social media with the power of search marketing is a bit more complicated than it looks, and will require a bit of work on your part.
Let’s dive in.

2011 Overall Ranking Algorithm

Source: SEOmoz Ranking Factors

Search Engines Have Endorsed Social

In December 2010 both Google and Bing announced that they would now factor in social media influence into their search algorithms. This is important to you and me because search engines now know when our websites are a hot topic on Facebook and other social media sites.
In addition, they can now monitor traffic from those websites, including links to your site found within their content, in order to gather more information about your website.
Considering the speed with which content and news is constantly updating on social media sites, it was just a matter of time before Google made these changes.
Google introduced one of the largest algorithm makeovers in their history when they gave us the “Caffeine” update (this was pre “Panda”). This update was created to help Google keep up with today’s ever changing content at a much faster clip. I believe social media played the lead role here.
With that said, search is still the bedrock of internet marketing, spawning a multi-billion dollar industry from which Google has made its fortune. Even with the press and pundits insisting that search’s days are numbered and that it will soon be replaced by a new economic model anchored on social media, search really isn’t going anywhere soon. In fact it remains the core tool in the toolbox of most internet marketers.

But search is not engaging; social media is engaging

It takes off where search’s immense usefulness ends. It draws in audiences to participate in sustained conversations and compelling content.
In effect, if you want to get great results for your online business, it makes a lot of sense to combine the strengths of these two platforms.
Search will get you found, and social media will keep your audiences riveted. Search and social media make a natural, synergistic pair that complement each other’s strengths. Using just one will give you pretty good results, if done properly.
But, combining them can take your marketing to the next level.
How does it all work together?
Not all links and content within social media sites are indexed by search engines, but, the major social media networks are indexed by Google to some extent.
Take note that this, too, may change, as operational strategies and business relationships evolve. What is indexed now may not be indexed in the future, and what Google doesn’t index now may end up being indexed later on.
For instance, Google’s relationship with Twitter is a monetary one, meaning it could end abruptly and the indexing of Tweets could greatly reduce. And just recently Google+ entered the equation and is being indexed in Google search results at an increasing rate.

Here is a summary of top-tier social networks and how much is indexed by Google.

• LinkedIn
  • Profile
  • Job postings
  • Answers
  • Company page
• Facebook
  • Profile
  • Page
  • Groups
  • Comments (recently added)
• Twitter
  • Tweets
• YouTube
  • Video
  • Channel
  • Groups
• Google+
  • Google+ status updates are already being indexed by Google and they will clearly index or factor in everything they can within their own social network. Businesses can connect Google+ pages to search results manually.
• Flickr
• • Profile
  • Photos/videos
  • Groups
  • Applications
• Slideshare
• • Slidedeck titles and descriptions
  • Transcribed slide text and notes
• Quora
• • Questions
  • Answers
  • Comments

How to use this knowledge
Knowing what Google tracks is extremely helpful because it allows us to focus on optimizing these sections of our social media accounts. The next step will be to seed these sections with strategic keywords and get other sites to share the link to your page. These are the two most important things you will need to work on.
Search is unilaterally keyword-driven. When the Google spiders crawl onto your Facebook profile, for example, it records all the keywords it finds on that page and stores the results in its massive databases. That is why blogs and other such pages that contain a lot of keyword-rich content fare much better at search.

But, it seems that even blogs may one day take a backseat to social media content.

When people search for information on any of these keywords found on your Facebook profile, your page could be among the list of search results Google presents to a searcher.
However, your rank on this list depends on a number of factors, including:

1. How people engage with your social media content. For instance, if your post gets more “Likes” – it will move up higher in Facebook’s own search results and your friends feeds.
2. How your account stands out against others. Companies with a larger following tend to show up more in social media site feeds/results and they get more traffic than those with smaller lists of friends/follows/connections etc.
3. The number of external websites that link back to your Facebook profile page. Links from other sites are like votes of confidence or affirmations of your credibility. I personally try to link back to my social media accounts on every page of my site.

Search engines also seem to have a higher level of trust in many social media sites. Pages from social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, HubPages and Squidoo, among others, receive high PageRank scores from Google. Google also seems to index these sites at a higher frequency than other sites.
When you update your LinkedIn profile, for example, the changes tend to reflect on Google’s search results in only a few hours. It may take days, or even longer for changes to your corporate site to be updated on Google. It makes much strategic sense for you to take advantage of this preferential treatment to drive traffic into your social media sites.

This is just another example of how important social media content is to Google – and why they’re always scanning this content.

One way to leverage social media to boost your SEO is by building multiple social media accounts that you can (realistically) manage. Optimize the key sections of each account while you concurrently build your communities around them. This two-pronged approach is the catalyst that can take your online business to the next level.
Building up your social network by engaging others on a social site generates keyword rich content – from status posts, re-posts, comments and sharing – as well as the high level of inter-linking and link-backs that Google is keen on discovering.
Many social media sites insert a “nofollow” tag on their links, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t get SEO value from your social media accounts.
As the name implies, tagging a link with nofollow tells a search engine to NOT follow that link (meaning no “link juice” for you). However, many social media sites allow a user to have an RSS feed of their social media content which is NOT tagged with the “nofollow” rule.
One way or another – search engines WILL find links back to your site so write well and write often.
Whether they nofollow your link or not, links from social media sites help increase your website traffic. People will click on the link which generates great traffic to your site, but there is also a good chance that people in your social network will link to your page too (if the content is good).

1. Your social media network creates content and keywords;
2. Search engines pick up the keywords, links and activities and drive your pages up the SERPs based on relevant keyword searches;
3. You get more traffic to your social media sites with a greater chance of getting people to join your network;
4. Rinse and repeat the process for as long as it continues to give you results.

When you get this level of virality, you can fold your arms, sit back, relax and let the system run itself.

Visit http://www.BackorderZone.com to Backorder your Domain Names Today!! FREE to join and the results are priceless!!

Social Networking Websites Review by toptenreviews

Social Networking Websites Review

Why Social Networking?

Through social networking, people can use networks of online friends and group memberships to keep in touch with current friends, reconnect with old friends or create real–life friendships through similar interests or groups. Besides establishing important social relationships, social networking members can share their interests with other like–minded members by joining groups and forums. Some networking can also help members find a job or establish business contacts.
Most social networking websites also offer additional features. In addition to blogs and forums, members can express themselves by designing their profile page to reflect their personality. The most popular extra features include music and video sections. Members can read bios of their favorite music artists from the artist's profile page as well as listen to their favorite songs and watch music videos. The video section can include everything from member–generated videos from hundreds of subjects to TV clips and movie trailers.

What to Look for in Social Networking

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The phenomenon of online social networking—made extremely popular by MySpace.com , has evolved to include more than the teenage stereotype looking to expand his/her network of online friends. People of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that they can enrich their lives through the contacts they make on a social networking website.Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate Social Networking websites.

Profiles
The heart and soul of social networking sites are user’s personal profiles. It’s like their own Internet sanctuary, a place where they can express their thoughts and feelings, post photographs and show off their network of friends. The most popular social network websites put a strong emphasis on the user’s profile, making it easy to use yet still reflective of the user’s personality.

Security
The Internet can be a dangerous place to post personal information. All social networks should provide the ability to set profiles to private in some way or another. Additionally they should have the ability to report and block users.

Networking Features
A good social network goes above and beyond just allowing users to post profiles and update pictures. Additional features should include music sections, video uploads, groups and more.

Search
The object of a social network is to find friends and expand relationships. Top social networking websites allows members to search for other members in a safe and easy to use environment. Common search functions include search by name, city, school and email address.

Help/Support
Most social network sites are self-explanatory. However, in the off-chance a user needs help there needs to be some way to contact the webmaster or answers in an FAQs section.

Legitimate Friend Focus
The growing trend for social networks is to communicate and keep in touch with people you already know. No one wants to be inundated with unsolicited spam friend requests. The best social network sites keep profiles and search options private enough that the only people that can find you are the ones actually looking for users in their own school or neighborhood networks. Even with a completely public profile, users shouldn’t be bothered with more than a couple of unsolicited comments or messages.

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SEO and SEM: Two Names for the Same Thing? by RaiseMyRank

 SEO and SEM: Two Names for the Same Thing? by RaiseMyRank.com

By most people's standards, the internet is still very young. New technologies and developments in existing technologies are appearing at an extraordinary rate. As technologies change, so does the terminology used to describe them.
I worked for three years as a webmaster. Ask a dozen people to define that term, and you'll get a lot of different answers. A webmaster may be the leader of a large team, including developers, writers, marketers, designers, usability experts, technical support people, and yes, search engine optimizers. Or s/he may perform all or some of those duties alone.
The same is true for search engine optimization. For many people, the term is a new one, and they have no idea what it is an SEO does. To others, SEO is synonymous with SEM -- search engine marketing. In my opinion, there is a big difference between the two.

Search Engine Marketing

I see SEM as a rather broad term. It's everything that can be done to utilize the technology of search engines with the goal of promoting a web site and increasing its traffic, its "stickiness," and, in the case of sites that promote a business (or are a business), increase profits. SEO, therefore, would be a subset of SEM.
Aspects of search engine marketing which I would consider to be outside the realm of search engine optimization include the following:

Paid Inclusion

This is simply the practice of paying a search engine or a directory to add a site to its database immediately, rather than setting up that site so that it will be found by the search engine spiders on its own. In the case of some search engines and directories, paid inclusion is the only way to get listed. For others, it's presented as an option. If you're willing to pay, your site will be listed sooner. It's also a useful practice if you wish to make frequent changes to your content, because your site will be spidered more often and you will be able to test how changes affect your ranking.

Traditional Ads

This involves placing paid advertising on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Normally, these ads appear based on the keywords entered into the search engines, and one is charged based on the number of impressions, i.e. appearances, of the ad. In other words, you pay whether the ad sends anyone to your web site or not.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC ads are simple enough to look at. They're text-only. PPC ad campaigns are completely controlled by the advertiser. You decide which keywords should bring up your ads, you write the copy, and you decide how much you want to pay. And, as the name indicates, you only pay for an ad when someone clicks it and is brought to your site. There are two main networks of PPC ads, run by Google and Overture, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in both cases, one should be prepared to spend a great deal of time (and money) monitoring and adjusting such a campaign.

The Advantages of These Practices

In contrast to pure SEO, these SEM practices offer the advantage of immediacy. If you need to increase your traffic and your visibility right away, and you don't have a problem with spending a lot of money, this may be the way to go.

The Disadvantages

You knew this was coming, didn't you? Think about it this way: you've spent your time and money to bring people to your web site. What will they see when they get there? You've convinced them, at least for the moment, that your site is worth visiting, so they're expecting to find exactly the information they were seeking. Is it easy to find? Is it there at all? You only have a few seconds to convince them that your site can deliver what they want. Will your visitors, failing to find what they're looking for, click their browser's back button and try another site?
Your site has to be ready for your visitors. It needs to be written, structured, and coded in such a way that the information is clearly laid out and easy to find. If it isn't, your site will either be immediately forgotten by visitors, or worse, it will be remembered as one that fails to deliver.

SEO First

No SEM campaign is complete without SEO. Moreover, since the purpose of SEO is to make the site better for both search engines and users, you may find that it will suffice on its own. In any case, the advantages of SEO over the other aspects of SEM make it clear that, even if you are going to spend additional money on advertising and paid placement, SEO must be your first step in promoting your site.

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Domain registry chart - amount of registered domains per extention

The following chart represents current statistics for many of the worlds most popular domains. Updated February 2008.

Domain Amount Registered Country
.com 71.619.962 Global Generic
.de 11.673.388 Germany
.net 10.623.637 Global Generic
.cn 9.001.993 China
.uk 6.486.829 United Kingdom
.org 6.373.837 Global Generic
.info 4.948.539 Global Generic
.eu 2.715.101 European Union
.nl 2.695.568 Netherlands
.biz 1.903.406 Global Generic
.it 1.456.787 Italy
.us 1.375.779 United States
.br 1.230.870 Brazil
.ch 1.056.751 Switzerland
.ru 1.030.951 Russia
.au 1.007.458 Australia
.jp 988.886 Japan
.fr 988.421 France
.ca 943.341 Canada
.kr 930.485 Korea
.dk 864.845 Denmark
.es 805.327 Spain
.mobi 799.551 Global Generic
.pl 762.503 Poland
.be 736.499 Belgium
.at 722.193 Austria
.se 702.199 Sweden
.cz 370.642 Czech
.no 361.118 Norway
.nz 314.053 New Zealand
.mx 231.047 Mexico
.pt 184.650 Portugal
.fi 165.252 Finland
.hk 152.405 Hong Kong
.tr 146.083 Turkey
.sk 140.319 Slovakia
.ie 91.353 Ireland
.lt 65.944 Lithuania

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Domain Names - To Hyphen or Not ?

Domain Names - To Hyphen or Not ?

A question in internet marketing often comes up regarding the use of hyphens in a domain name. Here are a few considerations when planning your sight.

When being interviewed for a local radio show, invariably the host will entertain questions from the listening audience. Most of the time, the host will plug your book, your product, your event or your cause. Many times a website or url is associated with this. Spouting off a long url will annoy hosts and producers everywhere not to mention scrambling audiences trying to record what you are saying. If you have a hyphenated url make sure you are clear as to the hyphen being included and don't make the url too long. Bill Clinton hyphen my life. Com (www.billclinton-mylife.com) is short enough that the hyphen can be used, can be emphasized with no traffic risk occurring.
Using the above example, it is also wise to reverse the wording before and after the hyphen. Listeners, readers and browsers think what they want in the order that they want. In the example above, www.billclinton-mylife.com <http://www.billclinton-mylife.com/> might be remembered by your reader as www.mylife-billclinton.com <http://www.mylife-billclinton.com/> . When purchasing domain names it is wise to purchase both just to assure your targeted traffic.
People make up urls when searching the internet. Stream of consciousness enters the browsers mind. In other words they they type what they are thinking at the time. If a browser is looking for The Davinci Code book they may make up their own url for searching purposes and type in www.thedavinci-code.com <http://www.thedavinci-code.com/> . In this case they inserted a hyphen after what they think a main phrase is regarding the searched subject. While this type of traffic is low compared to the primary url without the hyphens, the hyphens assures the capture of intended traffic. With the cost of domain names today, buying variations of your domain is considered inexpensive "traffic insurance".
Url's without hyphens do look more professional. Hyphens are typically ok in certain contexts but when you start stringing them out with more than three words or three phrases it can get cumbersome. And we all know the attention span of an internet browser. Hyphenated domain names work with targeted key word campaigns and search engine spiders. If that is the purpose of the sight or domain then the hyphens are fine. If your marketing intention is to create a brand, a remembered domain name, top of mind awareness with the domain then hyphenless domains work best.
Many times it doesn't matter what a domain name is if you are promoting it with links, and offline promotion. If I have on the back of my business card, visit www.billclinton-mylife.com <http://www.billclinton-mylife.com/> then someone who is interested in Clinton's autobiography will literally read my card and type the name into a browser because I suggested it to them. This is with or without the hyphens. If I printed on the back of my card, visit www.hyphen-hyphen-hyphen.com <http://www.hyphen-hyphen-hyphen.com/> then if there was interested this suggestion would guide the browser. As these directed domains show up in offline marketing pieces and promotion, hyphens don't matter.
When it comes to underscores, many times the general public will interpret them as hyphens. Since hyphenated domain names are becoming more and more common that is the general notion of the average browser. Underscores also can get lost when a url or domain is underlined as many hyperlink commands do in word processor software programs.
The general rule of thumb is to not use hyphens between words if possible. A domain name with hyphens is harder to describe when said aloud as in our radio commercial. It is commonly accepted that a domain name with multiple words does not include hyphens. But there are exceptions to the rule. With some popular domain names not being available, sometimes a hyphenated url will be and will be used.
Another reason to use hyphenated domain names is when two words joined together like in a domain name could imply or even state a different meaning or unintentional phrases. The following is an example: <http://www.basketballshopping.com/> www.basketballshopping.com could be read as basketball shopping or basketballs hopping, two completely different thoughts and contexts. Avoid confusing phrases altogether or use hyphens to separate the words.
It all boils down to what your purpose is with your domain name, website and how you will market it to those interested. Interested parties like to be marketed to and told where to look; uninterested parties will ignore your domain with or without hyphens.

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About the Author Al Lautenslager is a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and the co-author with Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing, of the next book in the guerrilla marketing series, entitled, "Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days." He can be reached at al@market-for-profits.com or through the website: http://www.guerrillamarketingin30days.com

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