closed Links.com

[tristanperry]

Good luck with however you choose to develop it

I'd personally be patient and develop it awesomely. It has real $x,xxx,xxx potential IMO.

 

[richrf]

Good luck with however you choose to develop it

I'd personally be patient and develop it awesomely. It has real $x,xxx,xxx potential IMO.

Thanks for the advice and the well wishes. Yes, I am going to keep developing the site and hope one of the ideas works. Appreciate your appraisal.

Rich

 

[steveatvillas]

Hey Rich:

Here's a benchmark you can use: I sold villas.com, with a dorky parked page earning 1-2k a month, a little over a year ago for 478k. BUT, it took me a year of hard work to find the right buyer.

Now, look, if "villas" made this, "links" is going to sell with NO development for substantially more. $750k is a reasonable starting point to the right buyer, if you're patient. Do you follow the sales reports on Domain Name Journal? here:

http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

You sound like an intelligent guy, and I think I read that you're retired. So if you don't need the funds, it's your ace in the hole, and a classic like yours is only going to increase in value.

Let's say that you go the development route; and from what I can understand, you haven't found the right formula. So, look at discounted cash flow analysis. How much time and money are you going to spend to create a business, the selling value of which is, say, 750k? Selling a business is not the same as selling a domain name. With a business, an investor looking to get a 10% Return on Investment is going to want to see 75k NET per annum to justify 750k — audited books, man, not cooked log files — 37.5k per annum if they are looking at 5% ROI, and so forth. What are you, or your son, going to have to do to NET 75k a year from this one domain name? Ponder this.

I agree with most on this thread that this is a marvelous, classic domain. When you reg'd the name is completely irrelevant...who cares if it was 1996, or 1998, or last week? It's yours. I'd switch Registrars and privatize, though...NetSol is dangerous and expensive.

It is marketing Rhodium (forget gold and platinum!) as the domain says what it is...no thinking required.

Forget golf, "links" only applies to golf courses adjacent to the ocean or sea. Not as many in the world as you would think, development is going to be a real grunt, and if you're not a golfer you're an outsider and a whole new business paradigm to learn. God, I'm just thinking of the expense of the phone calls, the travel, the personal sales calls you're going to have to make to make the website work. And golf course owners are a tough nut to crack, because they've heard it all before. Trust me, I have first-hand knowledge.

Now, website links... a gold mine if you do it right. But getting it right is the magic castle at Disneyland. Have you approached Craig's List to discuss an OEM or White Label arrangement? How about newspapers, all of which are dying on the vine and desperate for advertising revenues. Make a global portal for advertising links to the newspapers' clients? Which genre of the Internet are you going to make your own, or with which to start your venture?

Have you got a software system to drive the backend? Got a host that isn't going to crash if you get "digged" or "twittered" and all of a sudden you get 100,000 page views an hour? If you start with some BS off-the-shelf package that won't handle the weight, get ready to spend some hard cash (10k++) to have a scalable backend engineered correctly. Because to do this right, you're going to need a powerful CMS (Content Management System) beneath a über-functional series of website skins to handle clients, their listings, payments, etc. — and your own management system. PHP, MySQL, Drupal and Joomla (the Open Source programming languages you'll want to use for this) are free; but the hosting service and hostmaster, programmers and engineers ain't, my friend.

So, you've got the coolest of cool domains that is screaming to be developed into a world class portal. This is real type-in candy. But, if the visitor comes into a BS website that's clunky, cheap looking, reeks of scam... you're dead. How are you going to thrill them once they get there? What differentiates you from all the other Internet dross? How are you going to compete against Craig's List, the default benchmark?

Enough, my dogs want to go for a walk. PM me if ya want.

Steve

 

[richrf]

Hey Rich:

Here's a benchmark you can use: I sold villas.com, with a dorky parked page earning 1-2k a month, a little over a year ago for 478k. BUT, it took me a year of hard work to find the right buyer.

Thanks for the benchmark Steve. Would you care to discuss how you found the right buyer? I can PM if you wish.

Do you follow the sales reports on Domain Name Journal? here:

Yes, thanks for the link. I also follow many domain journals using RSS and Google Reader.

So if you don't need the funds, it's your ace in the hole, and a classic like yours is only going to increase in value.

Yes, at this time I am not in need of the funds and would like to increase the value of Links.com.

What are you, or your son, going to have to do to NET 75k a year from this one domain name? Ponder this.

This is true. Whatever we do has to be very simple in concept so as not to have overbearing time and material overhead costs.

It's yours. I'd switch Registrars and privatize, though...NetSol is dangerous and expensive.

Thanks for the suggestion. Which registrar would you recommend? I have not noticed any Network Solutions issues recently that would make it dangerous. Have you any that you can point me to? Thanks if you can.


Now, website links... a gold mine if you do it right. But getting it right is the magic castle at Disneyland. Have you approached Craig's List to discuss an OEM or White Label arrangement? How about newspapers, all of which are dying on the vine and desperate for advertising revenues. Make a global portal for advertising links to the newspapers' clients? Which genre of the Internet are you going to make your own, or with which to start your venture?

Have you got a software system to drive the backend? Got a host that isn't going to crash if you get "digged" or "twittered" and all of a sudden you get 100,000 page views an hour? If you start with some BS off-the-shelf package that won't handle the weight, get ready to spend some hard cash (10k++) to have a scalable backend engineered correctly. Because to do this right, you're going to need a powerful CMS (Content Management System) beneath a über-functional series of website skins to handle clients, their listings, payments, etc. — and your own management system. PHP, MySQL, Drupal and Joomla (the Open Source programming languages you'll want to use for this) are free; but the hosting service and hostmaster, programmers and engineers ain't, my friend.

Yes, I agree all of these can become issues. My challenge is to maintain simplicity in the website so that the application does not become overwhelming expensive in money and time. It is tough.

But, if the visitor comes into a BS website that's clunky, cheap looking, reeks of scam... you're dead. How are you going to thrill them once they get there? What differentiates you from all the other Internet dross? How are you going to compete against Craig's List, the default benchmark?

Yes these are the challenges. There must be something on the site to create stickiness. So far, I have not found it.

Enough, my dogs want to go for a walk. PM me if ya want.

Thanks much for the advice and insights. I'll PM you if I have any further questions or ideas. Appreciate the offer.

Rich

 

[steveatvillas]

Thanks for the benchmark Steve. Would you care to discuss how you found the right buyer? I can PM if you wish.

No need for PM. This is free advice, take it as you wish.

After messing around and being messed around here on DNF, I hit the domainer show auctions and got messed around some more. Save yourself some time with these auctions; most Domainers don't pay retail, and even dislike paying wholesale — you need a buyer with the balls and deep pockets to develop links.com into what it could and should be. And this type of buyer isn't necessarily trolling DNF because few outside of our industry even know it exists. Anyway, after 6 months of back and forth negotiation and haggling with SEDO about reserve price, I went with them on their Great Domains Auction:

http://www.greatdomains.com/

I can hook you up with the right person to speak with there, if you want. They have a deep portfolio of bona-fide whales.

Yes, at this time I am not in need of the funds and would like to increase the value of Links.com. ... Whatever we do has to be very simple in concept so as not to have overbearing time and material overhead costs.

My challenge is to maintain simplicity in the website so that the application does not become overwhelming expensive in money and time.

There must be something on the site to create stickiness. So far, I have not found it.

Well, I think your approach is unrealistic. Stickiness means an incredible visitor experience; and IMHO, you haven't found "it" because you don't want to expend the time and money to look for and develop "it". You've got to realize that the days of banging together a website on the cheap, and watching TV while the money rolls in are long gone. In terms of having a successful website, the Internet is a jungle.

If you're not willing to put in hard work and hard cash — and compete — you really should consider selling, because the money is not going to drop into your lap. You will not find the stickiness, or the groove, or whatever you want to call it without a solid plan, a superlative visitor experience and the effort, man.

That's my $0.02, and don't mean to sound snarky, but this is my formula for success...and it works for me.

All the best,

Steve

 

[Bionic]

I'll just put in my vote again for a link directory.

I hope Albert doesn't mind me using his site as an example.

http://simplynotboring.com/

Vanilla domain, basic site - script with a logo, gets 300 uniques/day and has 2000 links.

There's thousands of sites like it. If you owned Search.com would you develop anything other than a search engine? Same with Links.com, it's a link directory domain.

 

[steveatvillas]

Absolutely, Bionic, a great example of what Rich could do with some elbow grease and a bit of $$. And, I'd imagine your bud Albert had to spend some time and at least some $$ putting this together.

I guess my question is: Does Albert make a living at this? I didn't see any 3rd party advertising. And even if all the 2,181 links were featured ones (at $5 per) that's only 10.5k in non-recurring income.

Stickiness: There's little in the way of visitor experience, however. For instance, the top hierarchy of categories, etc., lets you drill down to find actual entries. But, once you get to what I call the "Magic Castle", that is, the place where there are supposed to be articles and links to websites, all I find are a whole lot of empty sections. It's as if Albert just dug around in DMOZ and got their hierarchy. But there's nothing in the end. I left the site in about a minute, 'cuz there's no real content, no information I was looking for, nothing for me to do!

It's as if he made the effort to create the structure, and now he's expecting the world of website owners to beat a path to his door. Yet, he's "closed" his article submission process...effectively slamming that very same door he wants content providers to enter.

Maybe because he's got a bunch of submissions to go through and he's swamped. HEY RICH...are you reading this? Are you ready to hire staff — or take your son away from his studies, that you're paying for in college tuition, dad, — to work this thing?

Marketing & Value Proposition: OK, the domain name is "Simply Not Boring", that's the owner's promise to me, a web surfer, that I'm not going to be bored. When I hit the home page, I'm getting excited because I've found a resource to get stuff. I take the bait. But then when I finally drill down, ready for cake and ice cream, there's nothing there! Waaaa, I want my mommy! Dead end...all my excitement has been dashed on the rocks. And the worst thing is: I'm never coming back to that site; you had me, and you let me down.

A great idea, that SimplyNotBoring thing...but it's gonna take a lot more work to get it to be not boring and a great visitor experience.

Still, like a busload of lawyers going over a cliff, "It's a good start!"

Steve

 

[adonivideo]

a natural keyword

a little SEO and content

you're top of page one for 'links'

then you can move it to a major net company

or partner with a major seo firm

do some content for sub domains

lawyer.links.com
doctor.links.com
finance.links.com
google.links.com
seo.links.com

you can be page one for any major SEO link term there is with this root keyword

anyway, it's a great SEO domain and if you do a little content and get natural serp position which such a keyword can get easily

it's worth 500K range with serp position, which means you would have traffic then

undeveloped...

100K

10K to 20K wholesale

I doubt it's a 1M range domain, but it may be

 

[Big P]

10 to 20 k wholesale??? lol

 

[dominator]

10 to 20 k wholesale??? lol

wholesale or reseller prices in domaining is non sense

wholesalers sell identical products in larger quantities

there is only one domain links.com, so you cannot sell 10 of them

no wholesale is possible

 

[adonivideo]

wholesale = sale to domain speculator with no development, valuable names trade at fractions of values in that market all day

end user value is what ever one is throwing around

500K with traffic

very easy to make traffic for a keyword

anyway, this is an appraisal thread and I see a ton of posts but few appraisals

anyway, end user as is, low nnnK

end user with minor traffic mid nnnK maybe low nM

domains are domains, it's one of many with a decent value, now casino.com or bank.com or travel.com would have end users lining up for a keyword, and they did 10+ years ago, when this gem should have been sold

It wasn't, so now you have a nice seo related keyword, I don't see an SEO company coming up with big bucks for it

Anyway, it's a valuable domain name, but, it's 10+ years after the boom, and if you put it on page one, it has value to many companies on the net, maybe, try to get cash for just a domain name from a public company today, it's hard to get it.

Now, what would some domain speculator part with? 10K to 20K very quick, probably 50K, with time maybe 100K

Anyway, that's what wholesale means, fire sale to a domain speculator, and I don't see a domain speculator shelling out huge bucks for a 'links' keyword, even if it is links.com

just my opinion, but, you know the saying, hahaha, about opinions, everyone has one

anyway, it's a huge keyword, but not in the range of mega money keywords

who is in the 'links' industry, enough said

now who is in

travel
medical
money/banks/finance
casinos
stocks
etc

there's mega money keywords and 'links' is not one of them

but, it's one heck of a domain

now, who can make money for someone searching for 'links'?

no big bucks there, but, a nice domain none the less, that's why it's still around in 2009 and not making big money doing something

Now name a big bucks industry that would want it?

NONE

A few big bucks companies may want it, but they're not 'links' companies

anyway, the low end on this is wide, the top end is not as wide

let's say you have 100K to throw into a spec domain name, you gonna buy links.com with that 100k? not me

too many other domains worth more to spec on, in my opinion

I buy spec and development domains all the time, often for clients, so I know what I deal in and I know how to define who can use a keyword, links has no 'major' industry connected to it, not in the way bank.com or casino.com has natural end users

Yet, 'links' is the net, to some degree, let's see, google and yahoo, that shows you what 'net companies' think of 'keywords', they know they can brand any nonsense word and not use 'keywords', yet both companies are essentially 'link' companies aren't they

Yet 'links' is not how you define a yahoo or google, they're SE's search engines

Now search.com compared to links.com, which one has a higher natural keyword value?

Search .com not Links .com

Again, it's a fine name, but not a mega name and if the owner needed CASH now, it could easily sell for 10 or 20K or 50K or 100K

Now, what keywords are being bought by 'wholesalers' for more than 100K?

That means speculators and not end users or developers

Not much and links.com won't fetch 100K from most speculators (wholesalers)

IMHO

 

[Leading Names]

Hey Rich:

Here's a benchmark you can use: I sold villas.com, with a dorky parked page earning 1-2k a month, a little over a year ago for 478k. BUT, it took me a year of hard work to find the right buyer.

Now, look, if "villas" made this, "links" is going to sell with NO development for substantially more. $750k is a reasonable starting point to the right buyer, if you're patient.

You think links.com is a better name than Villas.com? IMO, Villas.com is VASTLY superior.

Personally, I'd be happy with $120-$160k for links.com, in today's climate. I might even be tempted by an offer lower than this.

- Rob

 

[dominator]

wholesale = sale to...

who cares who the buyer is?

i have to use my favorite quote:

At the end of the day the goal is to sell domains for as much as possible, regardless of some foolish analytics, formulas, fmv guesses, ppc multipliers and other metrics.

buyer's intentions are not relevant

 

[adonivideo]

there's really 3 markets for keywords, well four

end user is top market, lucky to get an end user
developer market, some companies do acquire keywords for 'development' not end use
wholesale market, speculators

now the wholesale market is divided into two types

major wholesale dealers who pay 10K to 100K for spec domains
minor wholesale speculators who pay under 10K for spec domains

so 10K to 100K is range, 120K was already put on the name by the owner, leading names is the owner right?

So I was right on, 100K is top end of wholesale spec market

the fact the owner says 120K or MAYBE LOWER, shows you all the real value of this very nice domain name

now, if you view domains as only what an 'end user' will pay, that's fine, but the real life market has 4 major potential buyers for keywords

IMHO

I see richrf is the owner, so leading names is not the owner, okay, well, the market is still speculators shell out very rarely over 100K

so wholesale is a wide range 10K to 100K max IMHO

 

[dominator]

there's really 3 markets for keywords, well four...

yeah, it's funny

there's even a word for it: pseudoscience

 

[Leading Names]

Adonivideo: I'm not the owner

 

[Bionic]

anyway, it's a huge keyword, but not in the range of mega money keywords

who is in the 'links' industry, enough said

now who is in

travel
medical
money/banks/finance
casinos
stocks
etc

there's mega money keywords and 'links' is not one of them

True it's not a MEGA money keyword, but links are big industry on the net and its a service you can sell.

What makes it worth more is the viral growth from selling (reciprocal) links

 

[adonivideo]

very few of you deal with end users, I do all day long, in many industries, businesses do not look for 'links' per se, so the name has very little value to anyone really in the industry of seo/sem/web-development

the last thing on the list of what a business looks for is 'links' and in the overall seo game, so called 'links' have little impact on page one

while some here may know to some degree 'domains', that's one of seven major things we do for a business in putting them on page one of the big sites, google, yahoo, youtube

you know what's the number one thing to hit page one for a business? a keyword, there's root keywords and geokeywords, that's the number one thing a business needs to acquire to dominate page one, links is the last thing

anyway, the end users who would want to acquire 'links' as a keyword, all know it has little value, and there are other major keywords more important in the overall web development game that potential clients look for

anyway, someone selling 'links' to help clients achieve serp position knows they can get pageone with almost no links, other things are more important, so overall, 'links' is relative only to a player in seo/sem/development

why?

it's one of the keywords you may buy to find businesses looking for what we do, that is put businesses on page one

so, as someone who actually gets paid thousands of dollars from business owners to dominate pageone for them, I know how business owners 'think' in regards to how they look for companies that would be interested in the name, I know how my clients find me, and it isn't off of searches for 'links'

as to 'reciprocal links', there's no money in such an industry, all the money is in selling links to end users from content sites that are relative to their industry with some PR so they get a minor bump at google

you think a company giving links away for 'free' has money to buy links.com

they don't

so you're looking at this domain name as having value to someone involved in the seo/sem/development game

people who really put sites ON PAGE ONE know, links have very little to do with it, in other words throw out all the seo books you read, they're wrong

now, the main thing to control page one is the keyword, look who is buying links at google

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...&q=links&aq=f&aqi=g10&oq=&fp=3aa7f458acaa2672

that serp has NOT ONE BUYER of links

what does that mean? the name is nothing to people who pay a lot for terms like SEO and SEM etc

you know what SEO sells for? hahaha a lot, 20 bucks some times per click

so the guys that can sell a business 'links' as in 'paid links' not 'reciprocal links' think so little of the word 'links' that none of us buy it

now this thread isn't supposed to be a platform for me to educate you all, it's an appraisal thread, I'm one of the few people that gave a legit appraisal and then some had to comment on my appraisal, now I've explained it enough, it's a 'nice keyword' but it has little value in the big picture to guys that actually make money from the net by developing sites for clients that want PAGE ONE, and that is why someone would want to buy links.com to use it in the seo/sem/development game, and we all know business owners don't look for 'links' when they're thinking about page one development or seo/sem/pageone etc

anyway, it's all 'opinions' and if you put in a real appraisal value, then I guess your opinion is based on something, I gave my appraisal and now I explained numerous times why the name is not a mega keyword, I'm one of the companies that could use it, and it's nothing I'd invest any major money into

now, a links exchange could use it, but they have no business model to make money

so the real 'industry' links exchanges is a nothing industry that can't produce revenues so they will never raise major money to buy that name, so that means only players in seo/sem/development may take a shot at it, since you make money in seo/sem/development

but the companies that actually buy keywords for that industry know, end users with checks for seo/sem/development don't look for 'links' so none of us buy links usually

 

[Theo]

And here's the challenge: change the paradigm.
Buy the "links" keyword the SEO gurus despise so much.
Play your own game.

 

[adonivideo]

links.com isn't worth much to 'me', but combos like paidlinks.com or doctorlinks.com or seolinks.com etc, may have some value, more than links.com as to using it for leads for seo/sem/web-development

overall, we find direct marketing the best way to find our clients, overall, the decision makers running old businesses aren't really looking around for major seo and sem projects, but when you explain it to them, then they're interested,

the net works very well for producing leads for most old fashioned businesses, if you are a lawyer or doctor or a mechanic, then people look for you all day via google and yahoo

business owners mostly have a web page that no one sees, a few look for 'seo and sem' but our marketing now involves mostly direct contact with decision makers

our pitch is simple

Mr. Business Owner you want PAGE ONE for ' their keyword and geo location' the answer is YES

We show them a few clients serps and bingo, we have a new client

So for seo/sem the net produces low quality leads

Direct marketing has proven over and over to be how we find clients, then referrals, then people from the net

So knowing my business and how we actually find clients, the net has little value to me, as to finding 'new clients', I use it to show off our work, and our clients end up getting lots of new clients from it

People now use goole and yahoo like they used the yellow page phone books for decades

So traditional businesses must have relevant serp position

Sure, if someone looks for page one yahoo or google or youtube we're there, but our clients come from direct sales efforts and referrals

Business owners may look for stuff on google, like supplies, but most aren't up on the keywords to find exactly what we do

That's why we switched over to PAGE ONE this and that the past 6 months, we found that the BUZZ WORD business owners UNDERSTOOD was do you want PAGE ONE at X (google, yahoo or youtube) very few old world business owners have a clue as to what SEO or SEM is, sure they heard it to some degree, they know PAGE ONE, I want PAGE ONE

hahaha

We've bought up some pageone domains recently, so that's where I'd put my 'money', not into 'links', low priority for me, my clients all want PAGE ONE, so that's how we trade now, we're PAGE ONE, how we get it, is irrelevant to users, they only care CAN YOU GET ME PAGE ONE

they dont' want to hear about seo, sem, back links, etc

they want to see PAGE ONE, who you got on PAGE ONE

anyway, every business owner pays attention when you start to talk about PAGE ONE, they equate it into MONEY, I get page one I get calls, I make money

you start talking about links and seo and sem, they fall asleep

PAGE ONE is all they care about, but, links.com is a nice name, but in the real world, what end user can MAKE MONEY from it?

I don't see a major user for it, yet, some company may want it, if you put it on PAGE ONE for 'links'

yes, the net revolves around 'links'

but serp's is the main thing, that drives traffic

you can have a million 'links' and if none are on page one for major terms, so what, links mean NOTHING, it's all about serp position for keyword searches