Most website owners when undertaking keyword research and search engine optimization programs often make the mistake of concentrating on product or niche terms. Often the place to start is at your own front door. This also holds true when selecting your domain name.

If your bricks and mortar business is in the hardware sector, then selecting hardware keywords sounds quite logical. However, when it comes to attracting visitors to your site, using hardware keywords in your search engine optimization program may be ineffective. Incorporating the name of your town, region, state and or country into your keyword program may bring better quality visitors.

This is a strategy has been known for a long time and used to effect by many businesses. However, you can take the process one step further and use local jargon. Local or regional names have been hijacked in recent years to the extent that entering in a search term using the name of town may still return results from the other side of the country. The smart movers have worked every variation possible in their keywords.

Being a local, you have one advantage. You know the local jargon and you should use this to your advantage. Internet users are becoming sophisticated and will often try several different variations until they come across the site they are looking for. These variations often include regional jargon terms. This jargon also includes names often used for products. If the local term for a pocket knife is ‘whittler’, then it makes sense to use that term in your search engine optimization program. After all, who else but a local or ex local is going to search for that term.

Being aware of what is available outside your own front door can be an ideal way to gain traffic that is targeted to your region. Often, the best search engine optimization strategies can be the ones closest to home.

I just received an interesting notice in the mail from Domain Registry of America. It was real easy for me to identify these schmucks as scam artists, but the average consumer may not find it so easy.

In the top right corner of the mailing are the words “Domain Name Expiration Notice.” Then, below that, there is an 800 number and a web address (www.droa.com). It’s an official looking letter and arrives in an official looking envelope and a return envelope, addressed but not postage paid. The letter begins, “As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification of the domain name registrations that are due to expire in the next few months.”

Some people may not know when their domains expire, but I do. I also know who my domain registrars are and I have no interest in switching. The letter continues:

When you switch today to the Domain Registry of America, you can take advantage of our best savings.

Then the letter tells me when my domain names expire - several months away. But they want me to “Act today!”

First, if I did switch my domain registration to Domain Registry of America, I wouldn’t be saving any money. I’d be losing money; and that’s probably the case with anyone.

I currently pay $10 per year for domain name registration, the going rate. Some web hosts include this fee in their packages. Others offer registration for less than $10. In any case, I’d never pay more than $10. Domain Registry of America wants to charge me $30.00 for one year or $50.00 for two years. And in bright red letters next to the $50.00 price tag are the words “save $10.” Hmmm … by my calculations I’d be losing $15. Nice scam they have going there.

There are probably people who would fall for this. But I’d caution my readers to stay away from these people. After doing a little more research (like a Google search), I discovered that I was not the only person to have been solicited by these people.

Blog.Forret appears in Google as the No. 3 result for the company’s name. The No. 2 listing is the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). On the FTC website, I read:

The Federal Trade Commission has requested that a federal district court enjoin Domain Registry of America, Inc., an Internet domain name re-seller, from making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services and require it to pay redress to consumers.

That was 2003. Evidently, these guys have been around a long time. There are 58,400 results on the Google SERP for this company’s name inside quotes. Most of them are negative reactions to DROAs aggressive marketing tactics and its penchant for misrepresentation. The company’s response? They threatened to sue a blogger whose blog posts ranked highly for their company name.

After browsing through five pages of Google’s SERP for the company’s name, I didn’t find one single result that had a positive thing to say about Domain Registry of America. Most of the results are angry bloggers accusing the company of running a scam. Others are other domain registrars upset about DROAs tactics as well. A result from December 2002 shows that Register.com filed a lawsuit against DROA and the judged ruled in its favor.

To add insult to injury, in its letter to me, DROA threatened:

You must renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web, and now is the time to transfer and renew your names from your current Registrar to the Domain Registry of America. Failure to renew your domain name by the expiration date may result in a loss of your online identity making it difficult for your customers and friends to locate you on the Web.

This is blatantly misleading and incorrect. There are other considerations that affect domain name registrations. These considerations can include trademarks, registrar transfer issues, and other types of dispute resolutions where gray areas in the law are concerned or when there have been clear violations of an existing law, that can not help with your Search Engine Optimization efforts. For more information about domain name dispute resolution, you can visit the ICANN website.

I strongly encourage anyone who gets a letter from the Domain Registry of America to report the company to your country’s consumer advocacy agency. Most Western and industrialized countries have an arm of the government dedicated to consumer advocacy. Report them and don’t do business with Domain Registry of America.

Stay in a Search Engine Optimization chat room or forum long enough and the conversation is sure to turn to TLDs. Does it matter which TLD you have?

If you are a newbie and don’t know what a TLD is, it stands for top level domain. Those are the .com, .net, .org, etc. There are hundreds of them and many are specific to certain countries. For instance, co.uk is for websites that operate in the UK, .ca stands for Canada, .au is Australia.

Obviously, if you have a country-specific domain name, that won’t hurt. I’d much rather have a .ca if I lived in Canada than a .biz. But if I owned a television station in Canada then I might prefer .tv. Or if I owned a business that catered entirely to mobile phone users within Alberta then I might prefer .mobi. Those TLDs are for web businesses that exist within the TV and mobile phone industries, respectively.

Branding is one thing. When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, however, there is not a lot of evidence to suggest that it is preferable to own a .com than it is to own a dot something else. Aside from the fact that there are more dot coms in circulation than dot bizzes or dot nets, there is no real distinct advantage to having a .com. It is more memorable perhaps than a .net or .biz, but branding and Search Engine Optimization are two separate things. They can - and should - work hand in hand, but from a technical Search Engine Optimization standpoint, the TLD doesn’t matter much.

There has been some speculation that having a .gov, .org, or .edu can be advantageous. Since only government entities can have a .gov TLD and only educational institutions can have a .edu TLD, that advantage is minuscule. The reality is that inbound links from those TLDs may be seen as more valuable to search engines because of the credibility associated with government and educational sites. But as far as owning the TLD is concerned, there is no real advantage for Search Engine Optimization. Keyphrase.edu and keyphrase.com will both be treated the same by the search engines and each ranking factor will still be given equal weight no matter what else the two websites have going for them. Whichever site is oldest will still have the age factor going in its favor, whichever one has more relevant, high value inbound links will still have that factor going in its favor, etc. TLD doesn’t matter.

When it comes to choosing a domain name, I’d put less emphasis on TLD than the actual phrase before the dot. That part of your URL is far more important for Search Engine Optimization, and for branding purposes. The only time the TLD could be a factor in branding, and I mean a major factor, is when you want your URL to spell a word that would end with the last two, or three letters, of your URL being your TLD. An example of this is with the widely popular social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Magnol.ia is another example. But in general, I’d put more thought into that part of your URL before the dot. Before the TLD. That’s what really matters.

Domain name registrar Network Solutions and ICANN are named as defendants in a lawsuit alleging the former is guilty of domain frontrunning, a practice that relies on monitoring what domain names have been searched for and registering those domain names only to raise the price and resell them for a profit. The practice is frowned upon by ICANN, but the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Chris McElroy, says that ICANN has done nothing to stop the practice.

Attorneys for McElroy, Kabateck Brown Kellner, are seeking to make the case a class action lawsuit and will bring anyone who has had this experience with Network Solutions in on the lawsuit. KBN is bringing ICANN into the lawsuit to dispute whether or not the agency is a government entity and has the authority to curb the practice. KBN says the agency is not a government entity and does not have such authority.

While this is an interesting lawsuit and there are plenty of people who will be glad to see Network Solutions be called into account over the practice of domain frontrunning, it will be a long time before anything is done about it. The lawsuit could take years to settle.

(Source) Last month, NetSol came under fire for automatically registering domains that customers had searched for on their site and then jacking up the price of the domains for a four-day period. NetSol defended the practice as protection against frontrunning, which is the practice of registering a domain someone is searching for and then jacking up the price.

Whenever someone says they are doing something for your own good, look out! You’re about to have your pocketbook stolen clean out of your pocket.

Network Solutions seems to be doing just that. By engaging in domain front running in order to prevent domain front running, the domain registrar is effectively circumventing good business ethics in the name of good business ethics. In order words, the ethics don’t apply to them.

But a lot of people disagree.

Domain tasting has been a problem for quite some time and ICANN has done nothing about it. It appears they’ll do just as much to curb the practice of front running. It looks like domain tasters, kiters, and front runners all get a free pass.

But the problem for Network Solutions is that is has an upper hand, even against other front runners, tasters, and kiters. Being in control of the domain querying process on its website, they are privy to information about what domain names people are querying before anyone else. That gives them a huge edge and could be the equivalent of inside trading, which is a serious crime, as homemaker celebrity Martha Stewart can attest to.

Domain front running, tasting, and kiting take good domain names away from people who will put them to good use and could be - and should be - considered anti-competitive business practices. Until ICANN and other industry authority figures see it that way they will likely not be able to put a stop to it.

Search engine optimization experts will tell you to pick your domain name based on your keyword research, but that’s getting more and more and difficult. You can do your research and identify 15 of your top keywords and when you go looking for that domain name you like so much - it’s taken. And that one’s taken too. Then the other one … yep, it’s taken. Darn, aren’t there any good ones left?

Some Web 2.0 converts are starting to follow the Flickr formula, which is to drop a vowel or misspell the keyword slightly. It boils down to acquiring a phonetic domain name, or “near misses.” Instead of Mechanics.com, you might see Mechanix.com or MyKanics.com, because we’re cute. But do such domain names work?

They can, but you have to work extra hard at branding them. Unless you pick a domain name that plays off of a popular misspelling, chances are people will not find your domain name by misspelling the correct keyword. You’ll have to use the misspelled word in all of your anchor text instances and, quite frankly, that could lead to other difficulties, especially when it comes to article marketing and buying paid links.

Some people claim that if you don’t have a .com or .org TLD then you’re screwed. I don’t think so. I’ve seen .biz, .net., and other TLDs rank high in the SERPs. It really boils down to how you do your marketing. For now, keep doing the keyword research and pick a domain name that makes sense for your business, one that is easily brandable, and, yes, one that is at least somewhat close to your primary keyword. Search engine optimization is still Search engine optimization.

Adam Senour had an excellent blog post yesterday on cybersquatting. The sad thing about this practice is that, in a lot of cases, it is preventable. Probably in just as many, it isn’t. But Adam admits that he himself has allowed his domains to expire and fall victim to cybersquatting. The registrants who take these domain names are unscrupulous at best. The Web community needs to figure out a way to put a stop to this.

But aside from the politics, one other way that cybersquatting occurs is when a popular domain name is mirrored by a domain name that is close, but not quite. In other words, if you own www.thisismydomain.com then the cybersquatter may register www.this-is-my-domain.com. Usually, however, it happens in the reverse. A domain name owner will register the hyphenated version of the domain name and the cybersquatter will register the unhyphenated version. Unwitting searchers who can’t remember to put the dashes in the domain will type in what they think is the domain name into their browser windows and go to the wrong website.

This type of cybersquatting can be prevented by the domain name owner purchasing all domain names that are similar enough to be confused with the one they own. Hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the domain name, plural and singular versions of the name (ie. www.mydomain.com and www.mydomains.com), etc. If there is any way that a visitor might confuse your domain name then you should purchase the alternative version before a cybersquatter does then point that domain name to your actual Web URL. It could save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

So far it’s just a rumor, but WebProNews is saying that Google is considering a move that will restrict sites less than 5 days old from publishing AdSense ads. I think that would be a good move.

Google has always maintained that it’s function is to keep the search results pure. Well, that isn’t happening, and domain tasting is one reason why.

Domain tasting is the practice of purchasing a domain name for the purpose of testing its ability to earn income by throwing AdSense ads on it. Domain tasters will place ads on new domains within that five-day period and if they make enough money to make it worth their while then, and only then, will they keep the domain for long-term sustainability. If the domain name fails to meet their test for income potential then they drop it. Current rules for domain name registration allow purchasers a five-day grace period in making a decision to keep a domain. That means, effectively, that domain tasters can invest in new domains with “no money down.” If a domain isn’t any good, they’ve invested nothing but the time it takes to throw up AdSense ads and drive traffic to the site.

The practice is controversial and has drawn the ire of many legitimate content producers. If Google does pass the measure it would mean a loss of revenue for the search giant, although a relatively small loss compared to its entire asset portfolio. I for one believe Google should stop funding domain tasters and further would encourage the company to stop allowing AdSense to run on web pages that contain no original content.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with SEO, consider this: It gives love a bad name.

Before you register a new domain name there are a few tests you should run before you just jump in. These domain testing strategies should help prevent you from making a huge mistake you’ll regret later:

• Look for singular and plural versions of the domain name you are interested in
• See if hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions are available
• Google your desired domain name to see if there are potential misspellings that might hinder your brand
• Check for popular misspellings and look to see if those domain names are available as well

Any domain name is close to the one you actually want that could be a landing place for a visitor trying to find you should be purchased along with your primary domain name and redirected to the actual site your content will live on. This is a precautionary measure. Many people do type URLs directly into the browser. Misspellings, plural versions, and other “close-but-no-cigar” URLs will frustrate visitors trying to find your website and they may not realize that they’ve made an error. You could lose a customer for life and it’s such a relatively small expense that it could cost you more not to do it.

One thing I like to do when I go into a new site development for my own websites is to register as many similar domain names as I possibly can. Over a period of time, I will research domains that apply to the concept that I have conceived. Depending on the website, there may be half a dozen or a lot more. Next, I cull that list of domain names according to my budget and pick out what I believe are the core domain names that can help to build the brand.

How many domain names you need depends largely on what the goals are with your site and your brand and just as importantly, on your budget. Truly massive sites might register hundreds of domains, but when you are starting out, one good one will suffice. Once you have your core domains registered, you can start working on others and setting up redirects or landing pages later.

Not all extensions are equal, half the domain extensions are worthless when it comes to SEO. If you are registering domain names then you ought to be aiming for any of the following in the order that they appear:

1. dot com
2. dot net
3. dot org

I prefer to run a dot info in preference to a sub domain. Dot info sites are great for hosting blogs or support forums. Nothing looks worse than a crumby /blog or blog.domainname.com. Putting in the parent directory of a .info that is linked to from your main site seems to have a little bit more class. .info is worthless as a commercial domain extension on its own, but in conjunction with any of the big three is very good.

The dot us and dot biz extensions are not worth your efforts unless you can manage something clever like del.icio.us. When it comes time to register domain names, Go Daddy offers some of the best registration deals on the Internet and handles multiple domain registrations better than any other registry I have come across.

Domain names are one of the most important parts of your brand. If you don’t think that is true, just think about the last time that you looked for a product that you were interested in last time. Did you search for it, or did you just enter the company name in the location bar and hit enter?

When it comes to computer peripherals, I have a favorite company. The company’s name is Razer and they produce a range of performance keyboards and mice. They are generally geared towards gaming and or professional applications. The trouble is that the company is remarkably difficult to find. Type in: “www.razer.com” and you will get an error page. The domain is not owned by the company. The odd thing is that Razer is a pretty big company, so you would think that they would have taken some steps to protect their brand. Razer can be found at “www.razerzone.com” which is close enough to the company name, but still not the same.

Acquiring domain names that are relevant to your business should be one of your primary goals. Pick up keywords and key phrases that you think would make good domains. The best domain names are short and catchy. Many good two words combinations have been taken now, so you might have to go for three word combinations. If you have the resources, you can always look to purchase domain names that are already in use. Boost your brand and you will boost your sales.

If you are looking for an easy way to register up to 500 domain names in one hit, go to Go Daddy. At Brick Marketing, we use Go Daddy for a lot of our domain name registrations and are happy to recommend them to all of our customers. You get great rates, excellent discounts for bulk registrations and they are remarkably simple to use.

Saturday I posted about Matt Cutts commenting on subdomains. I wasn’t the only one, but it appeared to me that he was saying sudomains were going to be effected in a big way. As it turns out, it was really subtle change and it had already taken place. Nobody noticed. Including me.

Cutts explained himself a little more in detail today on his blog. It makes more sense now.

The real gist of the change has to do with making certain searches more relevant. In his own words:

This change doesn’t apply across the board; if a particular domain is really relevant, we may still return several results from that domain. For example, with a search query like [ibm] the user probably likes/wants to see several results from ibm.com. Note that this is a pretty subtle change, and it doesn’t affect a majority of our queries.

What it appears like Google is trying to do with this change is to prevent several results from the same domain appearing in SERPs when those results are similar in nature. In other words, it might not be duplicate content but the content is close enough in nature that one or more of the results really doesn’t add any value for the searcher. If I’m understanding this change correctly, then that’s how I’d interpret it.

(Blue Hat) I’m curious with all their previous backlinks and such why did those exact domains take longer than the others to get reindexed. Any ideas of why that was?

I still don’t know. I don’t have the attention span long enough to buy some control domains and wait a year to expire them out and hope I manage to get them back in order to do any tests and figure it out. Anyone else experienced this by chance?

Either way I see buying expired domains for SEO reasons as having the following benefits.
1. Established inbound links
2. Aged inbound links

Other than that your still starting from scratch. So my philosophy is, unless the domain is a gem, such as either a good name or it having phenomenal unique backlinks (ie lots of links or saturation like you mentioned) than its easier and more predictable to just work with new domains.

First, a warning: Blut Hat SEO provides some questionable SEO tactics from the search engine perspective. Of course, the old argument that a webmaster has a right to do whatever he wants on his own website is hard to argue against. But then, that also applies to Google, and if you don’t mind running afoul of search engine policies then go ahead and try these things. But I didn’t want to talk about questionable SEO tactics today.

The purpose of this discussion is to shed some light on expired domain names. I don’t see any reason to invest in them for the purpose of getting the benefits they used to have. Whatever they were before you bought them, you’ll have to start building them from scratch. Aaron Wall has talked about a similar experience himself. It didn’t fare too well for him.

If you buy an expired domain name expecting to get the same benefits that the business that owned it before had then you are in for a bid disappointment. It’s a lot like buying an empty building that used to be the home of a thriving business in the brick and mortar world. You wouldn’t expect to get any of the benefits of that previous business, would you? It’s just an empty building. That’s what an expired domain is - an empty building.

Buying an existing Web business, domain name and all, is different. In that case, you are taking an existing business and growing it from the point it is at when you buy it. It could go up or it could go down in value, depending on how well you manage it. But it has built in value. There is no reason to expect that expired domain names have built in value. If you get one that does then consider it a gift, but there is no reason to expect that one will. If you invest in expired domain names expecting built in SEO benefit then you are taking a huge risk. You’re free to do that, of course, but you should know the risk before you get in.