Direct Navigation / URL type-in

[Paddy]

Let's not forget that most (?) type-in domains are parked, and they don't necessarly encourage the visitor to type-in in similar domains again.

Agreed. In line with the posts in this thread, it seems that the best way to "popularize the direct navigation method to the public" is to provide real value on those domains, so that if a user types in credit.com and finds it very useful, they may get the impression that all other generic.com's will be equally as helpful in finding what they're looking for.

In this regard, many great minds & companies are working on a solution, and i do hope they succeed in bringing greater value to 'parked' generics than current parking pages do.

In terms of numbers, it'd be interesting to know what %tage of the (generic) direct nav market is controlled by the top 5-10 players.... Frank Shilling, Kev Ham, Marchex, Oversee, Communicate, NameMedia, Fabulous, Rick Schwartz & co

- Would their total holding be about 3m domains?
- Would their typeins be 15% of the total direct nav market? More?

If they're a significant share of the market, then what they do on their domains will affect the public and in turn the rest of the direct nav market.

Back to .... "Can we - as a community - do anything to popularize the direct navigation method to the public?"

Yes, as an identifiable first step which we can all do, perhaps we should start by turning off those annoying $0.01 popups. Its annoying to us, its annoying to the public and it must be one of the (main) things that ppl dislike about parked pages.

 

[besitos1909]

Hi,

Maybe the way to educate the public on direct navigation to have more of the Corporates own these names because they spend their advertising dollars advertising their "brand" - have them replace it with a generic domain name, which eventually resolves to the Corporate homepage. I mean, when people type in a generic domain name, are they expecting to see a particular brand? I dont think so.

Find a way to work with the Corporates, to sell generic domains, "educate" traffic value, prove to them they will make up for the purchase through the organic traffic it attracts.

Corporates view domains as IP assets. Show them otherwise.

 

[Prospecting]

Hi,

Maybe the way to educate the public on direct navigation to have more of the Corporates own these names because they spend their advertising dollars advertising their "brand" - have them replace it with a generic domain name, which eventually resolves to the Corporate homepage. I mean, when people type in a generic domain name, are they expecting to see a particular brand? I dont think so.

Find a way to work with the Corporates, to sell generic domains, "educate" traffic value, prove to them they will make up for the purchase through the organic traffic it attracts.

Corporates view domains as IP assets. Show them otherwise.

Agreed, I recommend a simple bilboard style website that offers a through link or links to major industry leaders website or sites. Drive all the traffic your direct navigation UV's directly to the industry leader(s) you have targeted with your generic.

I am personally migrating away from parking. The irritation of transparency becomes a non-issue, and you are already focusing all of your direct navigation towards who you perceive as the end user.

Know and verify that your direct navigation UV's benefit the industry leader you are forwarding to and either sell outright or work out a monthly PP agreement directly with them excluding the middle man-parking co.

 

[besitos1909]

The Problem is how do you even get the attention of these Corporates to understahd the traffic value to these names?

 

[Prospecting]

The Problem is how do you even get the attention of these Corporates to understahd the traffic value to these names?

They are already paying parking co's and are fully aware of their budget and the respective ROI for each search term they keep dumping their $$ down the drain on.

Communications with the right people in a target corp's marketing department is key

 

[besitos1909]

Hi,

Yes - the problem is Legal departments at Corporates generally makde the decisions on what the Portfolio should look like - given that domains, have taken on a role as IP assets, particularly more, since the UDRP came into play. I think marketing departments should have a larger say in how the Portfolio should look like. I agree with you that communications with the right people is key - BUT even within these companies/corporates, no one really knows who the "right' people are to make decisions on the company's domain name portfolio.

When you discuss domain names, the key people to have in the room are the key decision makers from marketing and legal.

Many don't understand the majority of Legal departments of Corporates make the decisions on domain name acqusitions - they are not THE right people especially when it comes to generic domain names, they should a PART of the decision making process, along with the Marketing folks.

Generic domain name holders, need to find a creative way to inform these corporates. getting to them is not the problem - getting THROUGH to them is your challenge.

 

[Prospecting]

Hi,

Yes - the problem is Legal departments at Corporates generally makde the decisions on what the Portfolio should look like - given that domains, have taken on a role as IP assets, particularly more, since the UDRP came into play. I think marketing departments should have a larger say in how the Portfolio should look like. I agree with you that communications with the right people is key - BUT even within these companies/corporates, no one really knows who the "right' people are to make decisions on the company's domain name portfolio.

When you discuss domain names, the key people to have in the room are the key decision makers from marketing and legal.

Many don't understand the majority of Legal departments of Corporates make the decisions on domain name acqusitions - they are not THE right people especially when it comes to generic domain names, they should a PART of the decision making process, along with the Marketing folks.

Generic domain name holders, need to find a creative way to inform these corporates. getting to them is not the problem - getting THROUGH to them is your challenge.

agreed, legal and others typically participate in the decisions that come with acquiring a domain, but regarding budgets for traffic generation, we find that the marketing department heads are responsible most of the time.

So, I recommend when you make your first communication, you don't actually go down the "I am selling a domain name road", but rather talk about the unique traffic your website offers and the benefits/corrolation to their products/service.

Come to a amicable agreement to sell your traffic to them just like they are already paying for through search engine / parking co's, explain the significant benefits of direct navigation conversion rates compared to the much less conversion rates experienced through search engines and parking co's. Once you show them the ROI after some time goes by, you will have the "proverbial" upper hand, for future sale or continued payment for traffic generation

 

[sashas]

Let me say just one thing: the only way you can increase direct traffic is to actually make strong, meaningful websites on the generic domains.

Tell me one thing: Why in the world would I go to Boats.com if all it shows me is a parking page with some ads? In the same vein, since I know that Boats.com shows me irrelevant content, I wouldn't type in Yachts.com, suspecting it to have the same irrelevant content as Boats.com

Parking is killing direct navigation traffic. The more generic names the public sees as developed sites, the more likely it is to type in generic names into the address bar. I would be way more inclined to type in UsedCars.com after knowing the kind of web experience a developed site like Cars.com offers

 

[Prospecting]

Let me say just one thing: the only way you can increase direct traffic is to actually make strong, meaningful websites on the generic domains.

Tell me one thing: Why in the world would I go to Boats.com if all it shows me is a parking page with some ads? In the same vein, since I know that Boats.com shows me irrelevant content, I wouldn't type in Yachts.com, suspecting it to have the same irrelevant content as Boats.com

Parking is killing direct navigation traffic. The more generic names the public sees as developed sites, the more likely it is to type in generic names into the address bar. I would be way more inclined to type in UsedCars.com after knowing the kind of web experience a developed site like Cars.com offers

Agreed, content is key for direct navigation. All of the domains that we do maintain solid content have experienced 75+ % gain in direct nav traffic over the past 12-18 months compared to the previous 18-months.

We are experiencing 35% direct navigation url type-in traffic with all of our industry specific domain names with content.

I have also been told by numerous others whom have focused on content websites in lieu of parking, they too are experiencing 30+ % direct navigation url type-in traffic.

I believe it is inevitable, the percentage of direct navigation traffic will increase exponentially as the owners of key industry domain names migrate away from parking co's and make arrangements directly with their corrolating industry leaders that provide those products or services. These companies are already paying for the poor ROI that parking Co's provide, its just a matter of communicating with the marketing leaders of the company(s) you are targeting.

This has already been happening the past 4-5 yrs in leaps and bounds, 5yrs ago, typical direct nav rates were in the 5% range, but the most recent 2-3 years, we are seeing 30% as a minimum for those with viable corrolating content.

 

[besitos1909]

Agreed with this approach - "Come to a amicable agreement to sell your traffic to them just like they are already paying for through search engine / parking co's, explain the significant benefits of direct navigation conversion rates compared to the much less conversion rates experienced through search engines and parking co's. Once you show them the ROI after some time goes by, you will have the "proverbial" upper hand, for future sale or continued payment for traffic generation"

The challenge is putting a good pitch across to Marketing department who won't delegate the decision making to the Legal dept.

 

[Prospecting]

/Quote: The challenge is putting a good pitch across to Marketing department who won't delegate the decision making to the Legal dept. [/quote]

Agreed, It's tough identifying the right marketing people, we have found that mid-size Co's are much easier to do so. Try to identify the mid-size co's in respective industry that are already dumping $$ into parked pay-per-click advertising.

An example where we have made progress with this concept is with our muzzleloader.com website. Started out targeting mid size companies and once we made agreements with them, we contacted major industry leaders.

 

[besitos1909]

Yes - agreed mid-size companies are easier to deal with, all around.

Anyways, the whole point of my posting is that I'd love the opportunity to deal with generic domain name portfolio holders who are looking to work with TM holders/Brands (small, medium and large) to sell generic domains.

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

Most likely direct navigation will increase but I think there is a real risk that the more end users type in a domain and find a parked page, the more they will think twice about typing in another direct nav domain.

I'm a firm believer that development always trumps direct navigation for type ins. Do you go to books.com or amazon.com, auction.com or ebay.com. Then you have hotels.com and the development WITH generic domain equals a homerun.

I pretty much gave up on typing in names because I am 85% sure that when I land there it will be ads. This type of thinking is a threat to type ins and I don't see great generic domains being developed in lieu of parking.

But, the power of the direct nav names is that the people typing in the domain is a pre-qualified lead. If they typed in buyusedpencils.com, chances are pretty good that they are looking to buy used pencils and that is very powerful.

 

[Prospecting]

I pretty much gave up on typing in names because I am 85% sure that when I land there it will be ads. This type of thinking is a threat to type ins and I don't see great generic domains being developed in lieu of parking.

Development compliments direct navigation. We have seen 500+ % increase in direct navigations UV's over the last 4-5 years. Five years ago, our content rich websites were experiencing 5-10 % direct navigation with first time UV's, the most recent 12-months, we have been experiencing continued growth with direct navigation of first time UV of 35-40%. We have no reason to believe direct navigation rates will decrease. Total UV's have increased approximately 10% the past 5yrs.

This direct navigation increase has been triple the overall website % of UV increase, this proves direct navigations has been the big growth the past 5yrs and we anticipate it to be the way of the future. Especially as more and more domain owners realize the much higher ROI compared to parking. Most of the parked generics are part of major portfolios, most major portfolio holders are focused on selling their generics for hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dolllars each.

Parking industry will diminish significantly over the next five years as more and more key industry domains are acquired for exclusive promotional tools, it is inevitable.

 

[rodash]

I think the main issue to tackle and immediately, is turning parked pages into quality, unique, content-filled pages.

This is absolutely right. And that content - regardless of whether it's editorial or advertising content - has to be 100% relevant to the domain name.

In fact, I don't see a problem with parked pages that are completely relevant to a domain name. Say you have a name called pianoaccordions.com, and it is parked with 15 ad links on the page. That in itself is not a problem - as long as each of those links goes to a website that is totally relevant to piano accordions.

The problem with most parked pages is that they are NOT relevant to the context of the domain name, and that comes about through people dumping bulk quantities of names with parking companies and letting them auto optimize the names for parking. That, and typos, have done a lot to erode the value in parking. If names are going to be parked, they need to be individually customised to reflect relevance.

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