In our last episode, I’d helped (with help from Andrew Warner) Sal and KhanAcademy.org acquire their dot com. We traveled down a murky road that left a lot of basic questions unanswered. We discovered a web of companies inside of companies that led back to Demand Media (DMD) and wondered if the IPO had anything to do with how “only solid six figure offers” suddenly turned into an auction at Namejet where we won KhanAcademy.com for $2,988.

In the Ustream chat of Sal’s This Week In Startups interview with Jason Calacanis, someone asked if it was spelled ConAcademy and I was shocked to realize I’d never checked the obvious typo! ConAcademy.org was available, but the .com led me down another path I’m happy to share with you today.

This is a classic example of ‘parked’ page. The owner of this domain is hoping someone who had typed conacademy.com into their browser bar, not finding what they were looking for, will then click on one of the links. When that happens, the owner of the domain will earn a rev share of whatever the advertiser is paying for a click. Seeing as this (online education) market is quite competitive, a click (there may be a secondary click required after this first one) can cost an advertiser anywhere from $3-$20 for some of the keywords listed on this page. Usually the clicks are monetized through Google or Bing. The business model has been very lucrative. While parking income is ‘down’, it’s probably the main reason we have large, publicly traded companies owning hundreds of thousands of domains. Not to mention individual domainers with 10s of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of domain names. I should mention now that I don’t have a problem with parking per se. If you were early enough and clever enough to register valuable generic keyword domains when that was still a risky business model, congratulations. (I will say though how grateful I am for my AdBlockPlus plugin.)

In fact ConAcademy.com was owned by Oversee.net.

Oversee.net owns one of the largest portfolios of domain names in the world–more than 1 million names.
Monetizing domain “real-estate”
For owners seeking ways to monetize undeveloped domain “real-estate”, Oversee is a pioneer in offering landing page optimization technology that renders highly relevant keywords, PPC ads, and layout configurations customized for each domain.

Oversee’s entire business model is built around technology that populates domain landing pages with ads to click on. They also own a registrar- Moniker.com,  a domain buy-sell auction platform- SnapNames.com, and run an annual high-ticket domain auction conference called DomainFest. They are a major player in the world of domaining.

But why ConAcademy.com?
According to the Whois info, ConAcademy.com was registered October 28, 2010. That’s only a few weeks after Google announced a $2M prize to Khan Academy as part of their Project 10^100 and about a month and half after Sal’s Fortune article.

The registrar for ConAcademy listed on the Whois, was NameKing.com. NameKing is a landing page for domain inquiries. The form led eventually to a quote from someone at Moniker who informed me that the ‘owner’ was willing to except an offer of $2500 for the domain name.

In our previous example, KhanAcademy.com, there was the possibility that a prior customer had registered KhanAcademy.com, that it had eventually dropped, that Enom noticed the traffic, and so rather than releasing it, they kept it for themselves. But in this case ConAcademy.com was registered after a lot of attention was being paid to Sal and KhanAcademy.org. So it makes me wonder if some of this “optimization technology” Oversee is talking about isn’t actually programmed to find available misspelled dot com domains of trending searches and register them! [This just in 4/18/11! Recent UDRP decision confirms Oversee using automated domain registration process! Story from DomainNameWire, WIPO decision. That Oversee is ALSO auto-registering typos of trending search terms wasn't mentioned in the WIPO decision.]

So there’s the why of it, sort of.  It’s profitable to own these kind of typo domains where type-in traffic generates income through clicks on ads. This, in the case of ConAcademy.com, in my layman’s opinion, was a classic example of typosquatting – benefiting financially from misspellings of someone else’s brand. IF a case could be made that ConAcademy had ANY generic value, I would be forced to concede that Oversee had every right to own it and offer it for sale. But it’s ONLY value derives from Sal’s IP. So I determined I would fight for this one.

I worked on this for months. People were busy, out of town, the conference, the wrong person, that person lost my email, and forwarded it to her who passed it on to legal who wanted documentation of the Trademark etc. Sometimes I knew the person’s name and other times it was ‘Admin’. My point here is that there was obviously no point-person to handle this kind of situation. I was trying to be patient, but when weeks went by without a response I decided to see if I couldn’t acquire some leverage, in a way I knew these people would understand. I was surprised to see, considering they own over a million domains, that OverseeSucks.com was available. With that in my subject line, someone got back to my email within a day and things started to move in earnest.

Let me state here- I do not hate Oversee (and want to thank Howard for his help). I do not think that automated registration algorithms are necessarily evil. I AM saying that if you’re going to own a million names you better have a system in place for promptly giving back domains you have no business owning! It took me FIVE MONTHS to get ConAcademy. Meanwhile Sal spoke at TED and the press hit the fan.

I think my mission is mostly accomplished now. KhanAcademy.com, ConAcademy.org, and ConAcademy.com all point to KhanAcademy.org. We now pass the ‘radio test’.  It’s a pleasure to have been of service to such a great cause. Go Sal!

FRANK: Well, the sellers aren’t going around now and saying the metrics don’t work, I’ll just lower my price. That’s just not happening. We’ve gone from 10X to 100X on the sell side. There are no big buyers anymore. But it really doesn’t matter. The good names are being renewed and the bad names will always be the bad names, and they will cycle in a boulevard of broken dreams to come.

That really hit home last night. I had to take care of my September and October renewals and it’s finally dawning on me how much crap I own. I guess because I have one of those runaway imaginations, it’s easy for me to get caught up in the possibilities of a domain. I also seem to become attached to domains I’ve owned for a few years. Even though the parking / WhyPark  stats barely dip into double digits a month, there’s something about owning a domain name that leads me to become fond of it!  But no more. Many will drop. I need to get leaner. These ideas didn’t ‘work’. Here’s the list of what’s going and in some cases, what I was thinking when I picked them up in the first place.

First off, my ‘click-alikes’. These are domains who because of clever letter configuration, appear to be other than what they are actually. Like an l/L representing a capital i/I or the one I was fond of, the letter m/M representing rn/RN. I guess this is similar to what Typosquatters do, but I was targeting generic keywords. I’m still convinced they could be very useful to someone, especially someone who already had a bunch of traffic but just wanted to move it around. I also think they might do well in a Google Adwords campaign, because they would appear to be authoritative keyword domains. If you built out around these names they might also be very effective. But developing click-alikes to compete with multi-million dollar companies, was more than I was up for. I think in the back of my mind somewhere was a get-rich-quick scheme that never materialized.  I want to state that I do not think there is anything ‘shady’ about these names! Words convey meaning. These click-alikes represent words whose meanings are worth millions of dollars – same meaning!

dornainnames.com    10/28/09 0:27
websltes.com    10/28/09 0:32
webslte.com    10/28/09 0:35
internetrnarketing.com    10/28/09 0:39
affiliaternarketing.com    10/28/09 0:43
rnassage.com    10/28/09 0:47
glfts.com    10/28/09 0:51
plurnbing.com    10/28/09 1:06
rnovlng.com    10/28/09 1:06
carnping.com    10/28/09 1:06
savlngs.com    10/28/09 1:06
freernusic.com    10/28/09 1:06
rnp3players.com    10/28/09 1:06
dornainname.com    10/28/09 4:16
hornevalue.com    10/28/09 4:16
apartrnent.com    10/28/09 4:16
horneforsale.com    10/28/09 4:16
rnoving.com    10/28/09 4:16
asianpom.com    10/31/09 3:25
bdsrn.com    10/31/09 3:25
bigtlt.com    10/31/09 3:25
freepommovie.com    10/31/09 3:25
freepommovies.com    10/31/09 3:25
freepomvideo.com    10/31/09 3:25
freepomvideos.com    10/31/09 3:25
latinapom.com    10/31/09 3:25
lesbianpom.com    10/31/09 3:25
shernale.com    10/31/09 3:25
shernales.com    10/31/09 3:25
amateurpom.com    10/31/09 3:25
hardcorepom.com    10/31/09 3:25
teenpom.com    10/31/09 3:25
attomeys.com    10/31/09 4:14
casinogarnes.com    10/31/09 4:14
rnusicvideo.com    10/31/09 4:14
rnutualfunds.com    10/31/09 4:14
freernp3.com    10/31/09 4:14
intemetdating.com    10/31/09 4:14
televislons.com    10/31/09 4:14
casinogarne.com    10/31/09 4:14
freegarnes.com    10/31/09 4:14
rnusicvideos.com    10/31/09 4:14
rnutualfund.com    10/31/09 4:14
unlverslty.com    10/31/09 4:14
homeirnprovement.com    10/31/09 4:14
rnaps.com    10/31/09 4:14
shopplngcart.com    10/31/09 4:14
covvboys.com    10/31/09 16:03 Remember?
covvboy.com    10/31/09 16:03
businesslnsurance.com    10/31/09 16:03
cheapautolnsurance.com    10/31/09 16:03
automobilelnsurance.com    10/31/09 16:03

Then there was the iTeachMusic directory business idea. Only iTeachMusic.com is taken, and he wasn’t selling for the few $k I could scrape together to offer him. Somehow I convinced myself to go ahead and purchase a network of iTeach domains anyway. “Yeah, they’ll all funnel into the main site!” Because music and teaching music is my background, I could do this, I do know the business.
ITEACHCLASSICALGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHPERCUSSION.COM    9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHVOCALS.COM    9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHACOUSTICGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHBASS.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHJAZZGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHKEYBOARDS.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHBLUESGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHROCKGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSHREDGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSLIDEGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHVOICE.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHCOUNTRYGUITAR.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSONGWRITING.COM    9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHMUSIC.ORG    9/19/09 22:46

And related keyword domains that would be easy to build mini-sites on to funnel traffic back to the hub. (Now which podcast did I get that from?)
BLUESSTANDARDS.COM    10/6/09 1:30
JAZZSOLOING.COM    10/6/09 1:30
BLUESSOLOING.COM    10/6/09 1:30
ROCKSOLOING.COM    10/6/09 1:30
BASSSOLOING.COM    10/6/09 1:31
CHORDTONESOLOING.COM    10/6/09 1:31
Not a bad idea right? Except that because I’ve been involved with it for so long I have absolutely no passion left for it whatsoever!

Then there were the ‘clever business idea domain names’ (and to be honest I have kept quite a few of these). Some of these were the result of trying my hand at PickyDomains.com where clients are looking for a domain name to match a business idea and you get a finder’s fee if they like yours (in theory).
MALALATETE.NET    9/17/09 21:07 Nice ring to it for a French health-related site, only they’d probably want to use .fr
MATCHSET.NET    9/17/09 21:59 Still think this is a great domain for a tennis site.
SICKPET.NET    9/17/09 21:59 This one actually gets enough traffic at WhyPark to pay for itself.
CCMASHUP.COM    9/21/09 18:29 CC as in Creative Commons, and mashup. The .com would allow you to publish commercially.
CCMASHUP.ORG    9/21/09 23:29 The .org would be for the not-for-profit version.
NORTHPOLEREPORT.COM    9/21/09 22:20  A Christmas site that would follow Santa on his travels.
FAMILYVIDEOTREE.COM    10/2/09 16:0 A video business my wife and I thought about getting into.
COMPAREPORT.COM    10/5/09 1:29 Compare/Report/Port nice ring to it for a shopping comparison engine.
TODOLOOP.COM    10/8/09 15:25  Collaborative ToDo lists.
TODOLOOPS.COM    10/8/09 15:26

A couple of Geo/Keyword domains.
NEWYORKCITYUSEDBOOKS.COM    9/20/09 3:36
NEWYORKDANCEINSTRUCTION.COM    9/20/09 3:36

A couple of high search result keywords that didn’t get any type-ins.
HISTORYOFVIDEO.COM    10/11/09 13:38 Google: 205,000 for “history of video”
HISTORYOFINFORMATION.COM    10/11/09 22:49 Google: 124,000,000 for “history of information”

And a few leftovers from my flipping on Ebay experiment.
6-49.NET    9/10/09 18:25 Thought this might make a great 6/49 lottery info page. But very few type-ins.
1YJ.NET    9/4/09 19:24
5JD.NET    9/4/09 19:24

There you have it. That’s a little over $700 I’ll save in renewals by letting these drop. I kept another $400 worth. Hopefully I’ve learned enough in the last few years to know that the ones I’m keeping have more re-sale or development potential. But I also kept a couple of crazy names I just like.
As I mentioned, these are all going for $59, what you’d pay to backorder them. Or wait around and I’m sure a lot of them will make it back in to the pool–will, as Frank put it, “cycle in a boulevard of broken dreams to come”.

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Running wordpress there’s been so many times I wished I could have taken a picture over to a site and come away with a fully formatted WordPress header, its code, and where to put it. (Headermaker.com is not that, right now anyway). A good example of a site that does something like that is LogoMaker.com, very cool (and category-killer domain name). FooterMaker.com wants to be a drag-and-drop  interface for building a great footer for your site. My chops are so minimal though, I don’t really know how much work it would take to build. This could make a great portal to a Fremium model web design company. Especially if your portfolio included footers/design that looked like this!
Looking for a developer, ideas and feedback on this idea.
BTW I built this diagram at Gliffy.com Cool site. 30 day free trial. The jpg embedded in the diagram was found through Sprixi.com. Great sites, wish I could remember the domain long enough to tell my friends.

Today marks the 4th year anniversary of My Trip To Domainland. 4 years ago I concluded a four figure deal on a domain name I’d owned for years. I bought it for a vanity video site where I planned to host my collection of off-beat backstage band banter and inanity. I’d invite other people to host their behind-the-scenes band craziness. It was named after a scene in Spinal Tap. It had absolutely NO generic value. In one of those Black Swan coincidences, a fellow had built a network of domains around one of the keywords and he needed my domain to flesh out his by now successful empire. Yesterday I did the math, and in dollars only, certainly not hours, it turns out I’m about $2k down from that initial domaining seed money. Apart from my domain flipping on Ebay experiment [Fail], I have not sold a single domain–the type of transaction that got me into domaining four years ago has never repeated itself. Certainly I’ve had a few offers, but they were LAME.

So am I getting out of domaining? Am I frustrated and miserable and full of loathing for Domain Kings, Magnates, Experts, Flippers, Whizzbangs and otherwise? Not at all! The fact is I still LOVE domaining! Really, don’t ask me why, I’m sure I don’t know. It’s got something to do with words. Something to do with collecting. Something to do with the potential for huge profits. Domaining gives my over-active imagination a productive place to play.

Which brings me to the question… Is Domaining (for me at least) a hobby? And am I okay with that?

Wikipedia: A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit.
“Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward. ” Certainly in my case. “Examples include collecting, 300+, I like them all creative and artistic pursuits, Photoshop chops! making, tinkering, mini-sites! RSS feeeds and adult education I don’t think they mean that kind of Adult. Engaging in a hobby can lead to acquiring substantial skill, knowledge and experience Yes, but try to keep quiet about it at parties. However, personal fulfillment is the aim of course,  oh, and boatloads of cash somewhere down the road.
What are hobbies for some people are professions for others You know who you are. Generally speaking, the person who does something for fun, not remuneration, is called an amateur (or hobbyist), as distinct from a professional Elliot is a professional I’m not.

It is easier to turn a Hobby Business into a money making opportunity because the driver is passion and to some degree obsession. Turning your passion into a business say for example in arts and crafts domaining, a home studio internet connection and a credit card is all you need; a space to be creative exactly! Gift shops blogs, specialty stores SnapNames, galleries and arts cafes Sedo are the best avenues to exhibit and sell artworks, pottery, woodcraft, sewing craft domain names, web and  mini sites .

So maybe you weren’t hanging out in the (mostly porn and gambling apparently) forums back in the 90s and so didn’t get hip and grab yourself  a passel of generic category domain names. Don’t beat yourself up about it, relax!– domaining is fun, enjoy it.

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Adsense for Domains is used to monetize Type-In traffic, ie. people type your domain name into the Browser Bar and hit Return. That’s it! If you register a domain and discover it’s getting lots of traffic, it’s probably because you stumbled on (not likely now with so many generic keyword domains already registered) a phrase that a lot of people are looking for-so many that the tiny percentage of people who type the phrase into their Browser Address Bar amount to significant traffic. If you’re not getting hits/clicks on your Adsense for Domains domains it means you probably have an average domain name. Not meaning it’s a bad domain name, but it’s probably not a generic term that people are searching for. For example, you would be wasting your time entirely trying to monetize a domain (using AFD) like Figgs.com. OTOH you MAY earn a buck or two a month with a domain like usedfashionwigs.com Mostly I think Adsense for Domains is for ‘Domainers’ who, due to fortuitous timing and insight, picked up a lot of generic search term domain names early on. Rather than ‘park’ their domains at places like Sedo, Park, etc etc. they now have the option of parking with Google directly.

[Update 122209 Answered a question on another site]
The Google Adsense For Domains instructions are pretty good.
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=76049
Problem is, you don’t know if they’re going to accept your domain before you submit it and go through the entire hassle of changing your A records etc. And while the directions for setting it up are pretty good, there are no directions informing you how to change back. So keep good notes. I would recommend taking a screen shot of the settings before you make any changes. You might only discover that Adsense for Domains isn’t working for you a few months from now and have completely forgotten how the settings look. Ask me how I know

There should be an easier way to submit domains for consideration BEFORE you go through the whole A record hassle. For instance, two of the 5 domains I initially submitted were declined by Google. 2 others did worse than when parked. One did a little bit better.