How To Research A Keyword Geodomain Before You Buy It
To start, this post isn’t about pure geo domains. Those are no-brainers. This post is intended to help you decide if a geo+keyword.com is worth picking up.
Since I found the new Name.com tools I have been doing a lot of mining for geodomains using my trusty Domain Research Tool. There are so many geo+keyword.coms deleting every day, with countless more waiting to be registered. They are littered all over every single site out there.
So how do you tell if you are looking at a winner?
I’m going to leave out things you check for in every domain, such as pagerank, backlinks, indexes, history, etc. That said, there are four main things I look for, other than price, when deciding whether or not to pick up a geo+keyword.com:
- The size of the city/state/whatever. Not just population, but quantity of businesses. City-Data.com can help you here. This is the most obvious and doesn’t really need any further explanation.
- The relation of the keyword to the geo location. Does it fit? Do you want FloridaSnowblowers.com?
- Has it been registered in the other extensions?
- The number of other similar geos that use that same keyword. This is perhaps the most important and the reason why I’m writing this post.
For example: I have a handful of cities and states in the Name.com notification list of deleted names, including “Texas.” If a domain drops with the word “Texas” in it then an email will be sent to me. Yesterday I received a notification that FuelTexas.com deleted and was available to register. I thought it was a pretty good name. But before I pulled the trigger, I wanted to look a little deeper into it.
- Big state, both in size and population. Win.
- Fuel and Texas are almost synonymous. Win.
- It was registered in .TV but the other extensions were available. Lose.
- And finally I ran all 50 states in the DRT with the keyword “Fuel” in front of them. This was going to be the deciding factor in whether I purchased the domain name or not. Unfortunately I found that just 7 Fuel+State.coms were registered. Ouch.
Finding just 7 registered was quite disappointing. I was fully expecting 40+ to be registered. So few means that this simply can’t be much in demand. Still, these two words fit quite well together and since it’s reg fee, it’s worth picking up in my opinion.
Let’s move on to another example. I received an email notification saying that FlightsMichigan.com had deleted and was waiting to be registered. I thought it was a pretty good keyword, so I put it to the test.
- Again, big state both in size and population.
- Not really touristy like Florida or Nevada, but still a great keyword that can be good in any state.
- Again, the .TV was taken but the rest are available.
- Yet another shock: just 12 state.coms have this prefix!
I really thought such a popular keyword would be taken by now. Personally, I prefer geo+keyword.com over keyword+geo.com. It sounds better to me and feels brandable. MichiganFlights.com. Yea, it sounds better. And I’m not the only one that feels this way: running state+flights.com through the DRT… 100% gone. Not a single one is available.
So I decided to look even further into FlightsMichigan.com using one of my favorites: the Google Keyword Tool. “Flights Michigan” has a search volume of 40,500 with some decent advertiser competition. Even further, “Flights Colorado” has 135,000 searches a month and FlightsColorado.com is available! The list of available names are at the bottom of this post.
This is something you should always do before you pickup a geodomain. It’s helped me make purchases many times. There have been a couple instances where I took a keyword and found just 1 or 2 states, or a couple of the top 50 cities that didn’t have the geo+keyword.com registered. Even though there was a time or two where I wasn’t absolutely thrilled with the domains, there is an obvious demand for them.
And remember, none of these are set in stone. This is a guide to help you make a more informed decision. If your gut feeling says to ignore the rules and go for the domain, then by all means do so. I’ve done it myself.
Have fun with these:
flightsalabama.com
flightsarizona.com
flightsarkansas.com
flightscarolina.com
flightsnorthcarolina.com
flightssouthcarolina.com
flightscolorado.com
flightsconnecticut.com
flightsdakota.com
flightsnorthdakota.com
flightssouthdakota.com
flightsdelaware.com
flightsgeorgia.com
flightsidaho.com
flightsillinois.com
flightsindiana.com
flightsiowa.com
flightskentucky.com
flightslouisiana.com
flightsmaine.com
flightsmaryland.com
flightsmassachusetts.com
flightsmichigan.com
flightsminnesota.com
flightsmississippi.com
flightsmissouri.com
flightsmontana.com
flightsnebraska.com
flightsnewhampshire.com
flightsnewjersey.com
flightsnewmexico.com
flightsohio.com
flightsoklahoma.com
flightsoregon.com
flightsrhodeisland.com
flightstexas.com
flightsutah.com
flightsvermont.com
flightsvirginia.com
flightswestvirginia.com
flightswisconsin.com
flightswyoming.com
Oh, and I left FuelTexas.com for someone to reg.
(Something tells me I’ll regret not registering all of these)
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I’m Back! And I Have A Couple Great New Tools
I have electricity once again after Ike took it from us for 11 days. The site was also down today. Apparently the Google positioner plugin I use stopped working and made the entire site go poof. It’s gone and the site is back.
I’m a bit out of touch at the moment; haven’t been able to keep up on news and trends very easily. What I do have, however, are a couple great tools recently released by Name.com.
To start, they now have Domain Suggestions, Expiring Names and a Recently Deleted section.
The Domain Suggestion feature isn’t terribly special; it seems like any other suggestion engine. Though, I was able to find a couple decent names using it.
The Expiring section lets you buy names for $19.99 before they get deleted. Again, not terribly special but I did find a decent name or two.
Now the Recently Deleted section is a different story. I was able to find plenty of decent names here for the bargain price of reg fee. Eliminating hyphens, numbers, .nets and dropping the length below 20 yields some nice domain names for the keywords you enter. I love how you can search back X amount of days as well, but beware: the searches can take a long time (and I hate the location of the checkout button; my mousehand loves to click on it).
Let’s take some recent trends reported here on TrendDomaining.com and search the Recently Deleted feature on Name.com
- BambooTips.com
- TattooFinder.com
- RobotMachinery.com
- KyotoCarbonCredit.com
- CheckCarbon.com
- CarbonNeutralising.com (Yes, I know this is British)
- CarbonActivist.com
- ReduceOurFootprint.com (Call-to-action is the in-thing)
- CharlotteDayTrips.com
- SolarHerald.com (what a great name for a solar news site)
- OntarioSolarPower.com
- HomeEnergySolutions.com
Enter broken record: Yes, these aren’t CarbonCredit.com, SolarPower.com and Robotics.com, but these are worth reg fee and would do an end user well.
There is one last tool Name.com has given us: e-mail alerts for deleted names that contain your hand picked keywords. You can reach there through a not so subtle link on the Recently Deleted section called Get email notification of newly deleted names.
You can enter as many keywords as you like, such as Houston, Chicago, NewYork, Bamboo, etc. Then choose a max length, hyphens, numbers and e-mail frequency and Name.com will send you a notice as soon as the domain gets deleted.
Like Google Alerts though, this thing can spam ya. Do not leave the max length at 63 unless you really are interested in xomphoenixnightlifewhiteoutparty.com. Yes, I did receive an e-mail alert for that.
I really like how it will bundle your alerts into one e-mail instead of one for each name or even each keyword. Excellent idea.
These are a couple nice tools to add to your ever-growing arsenal. They need some polishing, but it’s a good start for Name.com in bringing in new features.
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My Running Diary Of Hurricane Ike
Sorry for the off-topic post. This isn’t about domaining, so if you’re sick of Ike now would be the time to click elsewhere.
I wrote this post and after I was done I decided to change it a little. So I don’t spam newsfeeds I’ll leave this as a running diary today. I’ll edit it as things change.
Ike has turned further north. It is now heading straight for Galveston. This is real bad. Galveston is an island south of Houston, with a population of about 60k (though right now it’s more like 1k). It’s a popular daytrip and tourist spot. Galveston was destroyed in 1900 by a hurricane, it’s a big thing down here; you walk into shops in the area and there is always something about the 1900 hurricane: books, calendars, models, mugs, etc. Ike can repeat this devastation.
Sure, Ike isn’t a Category 4 like the 1900 hurricane… but it’s the surge, not the wind speed, that will kill and destroy. When I say surge, I’m not talking about rising water. A surge is almost like a tsunami. They are expecting anywhere from 10 feet to 25 feet of surge. A 25 foot surge can will destroy Galveston.
Kemah, also a real popular daytrip and boardwalk party destination, will also be wiped clean.
Because the storm has turned north, it will head straight out of Galveston up I-45. I-45 is the main highway going through Houston; it leads straight into downtown. If Ike keeps it’s current track, and it’s certainly possible it will not, it will hit the heart of our nations 4th largest city. I’m not talking about clipping it, brushing against it or hitting part of it. The track that you can find on various sites has the eye of the hurricane heading straight into downtown Houston. And downtown Houston is BIG, both in size and height. But no one seems to be talking about that…
This coast is loaded, I mean LOADED with oil rigs, refineries and energy plants of all kinds. It is home to the largest refinery in the U.S. After all, it’s the energy capital of the world. These are all in the projected path of Ike. Even though a state of emergency has been declared, there has been price gouging at the pumps. This is illegal. I note these people and vow never ever to give them business again. Call me sad, but I hold these grudges. I still don’t visit the gas stations that gouged during/after 9/11.
HostGator is located here in Houston just 7 miles or so northwest of downtown. I’m not sure if it’s their only location and I don’t have a clue how they are set up, but be prepared for possible site downtimes just in case.
This change in direction puts the eye in my backyard now. Thankfully I’m away from the surge. I was planning on taking pictures, but I seem to have misplaced my camera. Hopefully I can dig it up and take some shots.
What’s so amazing is that much of this can be avoided, or reduced, if it just turned north a little bit more.
I’m curious how the media is reporting this outside of Texas. Does everyone realize how serious this can potentially be?
7:10am
The projected path was updated at 7am and they moved it a little more north. This is good news. This path has it not hitting downtown head on, but clipping it to the side. We want it to keep moving north. Picture to the right.
12:00pm
The path has not changed; they’re still forecasting it to clip downtown. I drove out to Sugarland to see how things were going and there many more people out and about than with Rita. I recall, with Rita, being at the center of one of the busiest interchanges in the city and not seeing a single car in sight. I pulled over, got out and took a picture. Not with Ike; there were people everywhere. Walmart was closed, but Target, Jack in the Box, McDonalds, CVS and Walgreens were all open for business and business was good.
Pic below shows Ike’s projected path alongside interstate 45. 85 mph sustained winds is tough, I’m getting nervous about our roof.
8:20pm
It’s getting late and things are starting to pick up. No rain yet, but the wind is getting strong and gusting pretty hard. Loads of surge flooding is happening by the coast. It’s looking like we will lose most of Galveston. I speculated that there were about 1k people still on the island. The news is reporting 20k still on the island. This is not good considering the entire island will likely be underwater within 24 hours. I can’t believe 20k people stayed behind ignoring a mandatory evacuation.
This will likely be my last post for the evening as power can go out at any moment. We’ll see tomorrow how things go.
Sept 16th
OK, not much of a running diary. I am still without power and water, but was able to charge my laptop today hence the update.
So wow, what a storm. I’ve found that anywhere from 20k - 40k people stayed on Galveston Island. I mean , seriously? A 25 foot surge, which was expected but didn’t happen, would have made this state about 20k - 40k people less.
Other areas were decimated. My boss lost his house. People are fiending for water, ice, generators, etc. Even though more and more gas stations, supermarkets and stores open every day, the lines are longer and longer. I stopped at a Subway and there were 25 people in line with only 2 people working the counter. That’s how it is right now.
I am completely shocked at the outrageously low loss of life this storm has caused. It’s absolutely amazing. I’m the first one to say that I can not stand Houston at all. But I have to give credit where it is due for being hit by a storm that massive and having such low casualties. Good job Houston and everyone that’s had a hand in helping.
So I’ve been bored out of my mind without the power and water. You know, I can live without one of those two for a good period of time. But both…. ouch. I’m taking showers using a gallon of water and sleeping with ice packs on my body. No lie. With my chronic asthma and other issues, I don’t do well in the heat at all. Thank goodness it’s only been in the 80s this week.
It’s amazing being ‘unplugged.’ I feel out of it. I feel like I don’t know what’s going on in the world. It’s freaky. How did we do it before the internet? Isn’t that question sad?
I noticed that received a ton of organic traffic looking for related keywords like “ike” and “hurricane.” Any domainers out there affected by Ike?
Sept 18th
Nothing much new. Still no power. Just got water, but it will be a few days before it is usable. Been getting conflicting reports on when the power will return. A Rep told me today, but their website says that my area won’t get power until ’sometime after monday.’ It could be worse, some zip codes have an ETA of the first couple weeks of October! really!
So, I found my camera. None of the hurricane pics turned out as it was just too dark. This first one here was in the morning after Ike just passed through. It got real bad after I took this pic, but none of those pics turned out well as there were just too many things moving for the camera to focus well.
Later that morning I took a stroll to see what was going on, here is my neighbor getting a REAL close call with this pole coming within inches of their car.
Another neighbor lost a great tree. This was a decent sized tree. My guess is that it’s crown was so full that it acted as a sail.
This is the underside of that same tree.
We got in the car and went sightseeing afterwards. It’s not advised, as there are downed lines and other things that could be dangerous. All the billboards got hit.
Many of the traffic lights look like this.
I’ve noticed that the Ike aftermath has already taken a back seat to the Presidential campaigns and the stock market woes. People are directly comparing it to Katrina and saying “oh it’s not as bad!” Let me get this straight, a major hurricane hits the nations 4th largest city, decimating smaller cities to the point of non-existence and it’s not that bad?
As you already know, Galveston Island was hit hard. But other areas were much worse. The Bolivar peninsula, just to the northeast of Galveston, was hit so hard that it is not even a peninsula anymore; it’s 3 islands.
Take a look at this pic of Gilchrist, a city on Bolivar peninsula:
That’s what the dirty side of a hurricane can do. For those that don’t know, the “dirty side” is the northeast quadrant of the hurricane. It packs the biggest punch of wind, rain and tornadoes.
Sept 20th
Still without power. Water is usable now though so we can take real showers. the entire west side of my subdivision has power, including half of my street. It suddenly ends 4 houses away from me. One Centerpoint worker told me we were on a different transformer and ours needed fixing. A different Centerpoint guy told us our transformer was fine and the problem was elsewhere. All I know is that there are about 15 trucks in my neighborhood right now so I’m hoping power is coming soon.
Then again, there were 10 here on tuesday and we didn’t get power then.
Anyhoo, can’t wait to join the real world. I miss football, surfing the web, buying/selling domains and other activities I take for granted.
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Free Unique Content: Themed Restaurants
This is a pretty small niche, but interesting nonetheless. Web Urbanist has posted 15 of the strangest themed restaurants. And when I say themed restaurants, I’m not talking Hard Rock Cafe or Rainforest Cafe. I’m talking cosplay and vampires.
This is an international list. In fact none are in the U.S.; most are in Asia. However each one of them would be a small but unique addition to a travel or geo site.
If you’re going to Tokyo, you simply must check out Cannibalistic Sushi, Maid Cafes and the Vampire Cafe. You won’t find these things on any other site. Ok, you will on Web Urbanist. But my point is that content like this can help set you apart from the other guy that doesn’t go out of his way to provide interesting content.
Simply grab some pictures, write something up and publish it on your:
- Geo site of the cities or the countries they’re in
- Travel site geared towards tourists who would want a story to tell, such as visiting the Hobbit House in the Philippines.
At first glance this list from Web Urbanist looks nothing more than something you would find on Digg, take two minutes to read, chuckle and then move on. That’s because that is where I found it. But a domainer needs to look at these things from a different angle. Ask yourself: Do I have any sites that could benefit from this info?
Even if the article did not provide you with any useful into for your sites- say you don’t have any international geo or travel sites- you can still apply it to a site you may have. For instance: there simply must be tons of themed restaurants in every country, right? Taking five minutes to do a Google and Digg search yielded these:
- 13 Creatively Themed Bars and Restaurants
- 10 Ridiculously Unique Dining Experiences You Should Try Before You Die
- 7 Strange And Different Restaurants
- Weird Canadian Restaurants
- The Worlds Most Unusual Restaurants
Of course, this wouldn’t be complete without the movie themed restaurants.
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Of Hurricane Ike And Disaster Domains
Hurricane Ike is headed my way. It’s current target is Freeport, Texas, which is just 70 miles south of Houston. Many of you have not heard of Freeport yet, but you will eventually and not because of the hurricane. Freeport is often thought to be the next big port in the U.S.;It’s a huge energy port that could play a key role in the upcoming years when things like liquefied natural gas (LNG) become bigger household terms.
I live in southwest Houston at just a one hour drive from Freeport; we should see a good portion of Ike this weekend. I spent my day today boarding up the buildings of the company I work for, and will start making preparations to my property. Most of the zip codes east of me are in mandatory evacuation and the highways are already packed. All of this is reminding me of Rita; the skies were a beautiful clear blue most of the day. I’m completely fascinated by hurricanes, tornadoes and other wonders of weather (my first dream job was a tornado chaser). If I can, I’ll take some pictures of the storm and get em up here.
Anyways, this blog is about real world trends and how domainers can take advantage of them. I try not to report actual domaining trends, such as LLLL.com’s or hacked domains, etc. That’s because there are oodles of other blogs and news sites that already report these. I’m going to somewhat break that rule of mine today.
You’ve read in the news this week about domainers needing to take a stand and start policing themselves. This has been mostly focusing on trademarked domains. But disasters are another facet that needs to be addressed. If domainers wish to do some PR, then they need not register these names with intentions of flipping and/or profiting off of them. If you do end up with a hurricaneike.com or a katrinarelief.com, then by all means please donate it to an organization that can make good use of it and actually help people that desperately need it.
Profiting off of these disasters gives us a black eye.
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