Frank Schilling on domain tasting

[sasquatch]

The Closing Window: A Historical Analysis of Domain Tasting
Dec 20, 2006
By Frank Schilling

"Present day “Domain Tasting” has its roots in 2001 and 2002 when a small group of ambitious domain registrants persuaded two registrars (IAregistry.com [now Spirit Telecom]) and DotRegistrar.com) to allow them to register large blocks of domain names for the purpose of establishing which names garnered type-in traffic and then subsequently deleting those which didn’t. These registrants were motivated to locate generic, defensible domain names with resonance; names which were compelling and obvious that people would use to navigate the web and to then monetize the traffic those names generated through paid-search advertising. It is important to note that old traffic from a former web site (link popularity) or traffic from a company trademark is entirely different from organic type-in traffic which comes to “generic names” for the keyword weight or gravity of the name alone. Names such as spacepictures.com or pandabears.com contain generic intent type-in traffic which could be sold to the first generation paid-search monetization companies of the day (Overture.com [now Yahoo.com] and AppliedSemantics.com [now Google.com Adsense for domains]).

The time-frame was immediately following the “.com bust” and stock crash of 2000/2001 when domain names (and anything Internet related for that matter) were perceived to be worthless..."

http://www.circleid.com/posts/historical_analysis_domain_tasting/

 

[smashfactory]

please forgive my ignorance- but who is Frank Schilling - is he some domain god or something?

 

[ctc]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a domain..is it a food?

 

[smashfactory]

i guess that is supposed to be funny ;-(

 

[acesfull]

please forgive my ignorance- but who is Frank Schilling - is he some domain god or something?

Yes.

 

[smashfactory]

thanks aces- will do some reseach on him

 

[sasquatch]

thanks aces- will do some reseach on him

With the lowering of domain registration prices, and advent of ppc advertising, he's the guy who started registering every freaking term/phrase people searched for in search engines by data mining various providers of such free info (suckers).

He's the guy who spends about 3 million a year on renewal fees alone (he also spends millions per year buying mostly generically lame names in drops (that most end-users would never even dream of buying, especially not for the prices he would want from them) and would rather spent 5,000 bucks on a name in some drop then pay 50-100 bucks for the same name here on this forum,) but makes up 8-10 times that much (in total annual income).

In all his mindless (some would call it "dedicated") pursuit of anything generic (or as people like him refer to as "defendable names" he went on amassing over 300,000 of them. And when one has 300,000+ domains many of them are trademarked names, typos, porn-oriented or are completely non-sensical or generally speaking not very useful in all their perceived generic-ness (like GondolaRide.com, BakeryDenver.com or PenisWidth.com)

Frank Schilling's strategy of registering exact domains that exactly matched average user's ("Billy Bob") search engine queries (thus benefiting from SE results, and to much lesser degree type-ins) proved to be simple, brilliant and eventually very lucrative. Apparently he even refused to sell his portofolio for 100 millions (imagine having such power to refuse 100 million offer?) for three different reasons: a) didn't have to (was already rich alright), b) because he liked what he was doing (and I mean who wouldn't? Sitting reclusively on some Cayman beach, drinking Rum Runners, and calling yourself "media company" c) because he believed his portfolio would fetch even bigger offer than that in few years (imo, very likely so).

For that reason, in my book, he is the greatest pure domaineer of all time, bigger than any original pioneers, or even Yun Yee.

Now, you do know who Yun Yee is do you?

 

[smashfactory]

wow! a man to be reckoned with! thanks for all that info sasq- i am sure it will enlighten many readers out there!

 

[jasdon11]

Apparently he even refused to sell his portofolio for 100 millions (imagine having such power to refuse 100 million offer?) for three different reasons: a) didn't have to (was already rich alright), b) because he liked what he was doing (and I mean who wouldn't? Sitting reclusively on some Cayman beach, drinking Rum Runners, and calling yourself "media company" c) because he believed his portfolio would fetch even bigger offer than that in few years (imo, very likely so).

For that reason, in my book, he is the greatest pure domaineer of all time, bigger than any original pioneers, or even Yun Yee.

Now, you do know who Yun Yee is do you?

The way I understand it, when he refused 100 million, he 'only' had about 100k names - he's since added 200k to that...Godesque is about right, yeah...and a nice bloke to boot by all accounts!

 

[Devil Dog]

For that reason, in my book, he is the greatest pure domaineer of all time, bigger than any original pioneers, or even Yun Yee.

Now, you do know who Yun Yee is do you?

Concur 100%. I obviously missed the boat in 02 but he sure didn't.

I've come across literally 1,000's of names through whois search that name admin has owned that seriously, you think, wtf? But obviously, it's working.

 

[Chaiki]

he has a blog www.frankschilling.com

 

[petrosc]

sassy seems to know the story behind every successful domainer out there, you surprised me many times when you posted details on many of them

 

[sasquatch]

sassy seems to know the story behind every successful domainer out there, you surprised me many times when you posted details on many of them

I only know from what I accumulated from my observations here and there. As somebody said before me all this is matter of public info, except when I ad some of my own interperations (like those three reasons for not selling for 100M listed above, I came up with that because to me they are painfully logical once you know the business profile of the person in question).

There are people on this board who can tell you some amazing stories and things in great details about people like this but they won't for different reasons. Too bad because I'm "real life success" infojunkie and would pay hundred bucks for Frank's or Ult's biography or Digimedia's "case study"

 

[Theo]

Yes, you are an authority in:

1. Misinformation
2. Bashing of public figures
3. Provocation without proof
4. Bending facts and figures based on personal interpretations (e.g. fantasies)

A wonderful snippet of such paranoia gravis can be found in this thread.

 

[petrosc]

Too bad because I'm "real life success" infojunkie and would pay hundred bucks for Frank's or Ult's biography or Digimedia's "case study"

my thoughts exactly

 

[NURCA]

interesting if not envyworthy news there.

 

[petrosc]

Yes, you are an authority in:

1. Misinformation
2. Bashing of public figures
3. Provocation without proof
4. Bending facts and figures based on personal interpretations (e.g. fantasies)

A wonderful snippet of such paranoia gravis can be found in this thread.

Theodore forgive me as I'd hate to disagree with a fellow Greek, but sasq always justifies his posts, now on the other hand it's everyone's right to disagree if he chooses to. On that thread, he is being attacked for more than one reason. One is for accusing a fellow domainer with no solid proof, just based on assumptions(an assumption that many would make based on the given chain of events). The reaction against sasq at that point is understandable. But then he is being also attacked for standing up for his theory of registrars selling queries. Why is that so far from truth? Yes, I agree that dynadot was probably never involved in this but to insist that no registrar ever sells his queries and to call someone crazy for thinking that is a bit far fetched...

 

[Theo]

Speculation - not facts.
Assumption - not facts.
Personal interpretation - not facts.

 

[Chaiki]

Now video, good actually:

http://frankschilling.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/dratt_ive_been_.html