The folks at AvivaDirectory just published a article entitled: 10 US Laws Every Domainer Needs To know. In addition to issues near and dear to the domaining community like domain sniffing and trademark law, the article also devotes a lot of energy to business structure. I admit the nuiance of trademark law and choosing business structure aren’t the kind of things that get me really excited but as Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

On a side note, I like the idea of Top 10 lists. People seem to be drawn to top 10 lists (or maybe it’s just me). The focus the attention of the writer and, if done well, they’re great long standing resources. Here’s a few random domain related Top Ten Lists I found.

Top 10 Cheap Domain Name Registrars
Top 10 Domain Name Extensions
The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs
Top 10 Urban Copyright Myths
Top 10 Domain Names Do’s and Dont’s
Top 10 Reasons People Overprice Domains

Do you think top 10 lists are a useful way to make a point?

What topics would make great subjectmatter?

What are your favorite Top 10 Domain related lists? Post your comments!

domain investment is often compared with real estate investment, here’s an audio recording that goes into that analogy a little further…

I just bought this name. I know it’s no big generic name, but it cracks me up. I like and I’m not selling it until I get a few thousand for it at least, maybe more. I’ve got some ideas for it, but what kind of site do you guys think it would be a good name for? YouTube (rhymes!) for boobs? A site about idiots? What do you think?
And, hey, I thought I told you in my last post to buy my son’s CD!

Technorati Tags: domain, name, boob, youtube, tit

I was looking through some snapnames.com names this morning when I saw that FreeChildPorn.com is up for auction for $60. Who in the hell, who is not into child pron, would buy a name like this? Why doesn’t snapnames and others have filters to block anything with that exact phrase? It’s sick. Hey, I understand anything with the word “teen” in it, because that includes 18 and 19. But kiddie porn!

I’ve always thought it would be fun to look up the names of those owning child porn domains, find them and confront them (yes, I’d interrogate them first to make sure they weren’t holding the name for anti-child porn usage first). I have a feeling I’d immediately know by looking into their eyes.

Now there’s an idea for someone with more time than me. Make a web site that finds child porn loving people through domain names, and lists their names and addresses, much like a sex offender site. Radical? Yeah.

If you have a good number of domain names you’ve most likely thought about the question of how to account for them at tax time? And, by the way, I’m speaking from a U.S. point of view, where we have very complex (and nonproductive) tax rules.

There are significant decisions to make regarding both the structure of your business (mine is an California LLC for legal protection, and for its simplicity), and of how you treat your names — are they inventory? Are they expenses? Are purchases (above and beyond reg fee) capital expenditures? Amortization? Cap gains or ordinary income?

Crap. It’s enough to make you want to quit the business, if the sheer insanity of the seemingly 24-hour a day name hunting is not for any normal person anyway.

Anyway, it’s likely that your general CPA may not know anything about domain name accounting, so to save a few hundred dollars on him searching for information, I’m going to point you to something that after you read it, you can pass along to your accountant to give them at least a basis of understanding from someone who specializes in this.

Monte Cahn, president of registrar Moniker.com, has a radio program (can’t say I’ve heard it yet, but I’m going to start listening). My CPA found the transcript of one show where he interviewed Evan Brody from Brody & Associates. Evan is Moniker’s corporate tax guy.

I can’t tell you that this interview will answer every question for you on the subject. Hell, when it comes to taxes, I don’t know if one can ever get complete answers. Sometimes, it’s so subjective anyway. But there is a lot of good information. It’s at least enough to get you scared into thinking about how to do it right, I hope.

One of the most interesting things I got out of it is this shocking statistic: “when you’re unincorporated on what they call a Schedule C or Sole Proprietorship, the audit ratio which is really something that is a variable that you really don’t take into consideration for tax planning, but just some statistical information, those entities get audited 11 times more than if you were a corporation.”

Now that’s frightening. I’m assuming since I’m neither a Schedule C or Sole Proprietorship, or a corporation, my LLC falls into or close to the corporation audit rate. I think it just signals to the IRS that the filer is simply more willing ($800 a year in California) to take steps to be serious about their taxes. By the way, I can also tell you that I’ve heard that having your taxes done by a CPA greatly reduces the risk of an audit. I guess individuals are more likely to either lie or make mistakes, than would be a CPA.

So, for your reading enjoyment, here is the Monte Kahn Domains and Taxes transcript.

I would appreciate it if readers would post into the comments any other links to domain business tax discussions they know of! And, please post your own knowledge, or how you do your accounting.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain names, tax, IRS, accounting, corporation, LLC, income

Well, that was an interesting test. About ten days ago, I parked DomainRookie.com as a test. I wanted to see how the parked page would do at Sedo.com and if readers would miss it.

I was pleasantly surprised at the numbers. In the stats for the last seven days at Sedo, I received 4,154 uniques. I don’t think the name was optimized for the first 4-5 days, but now it is with “domain names” as the keyword. It’s received 19 clicks at 49 cent EPC.

I’ve received many emails from people who had to look up my email address on my Whois records to find me. They want the site back for the commentary and the resource page. Thanks for your support!

I’m going to continue with commentary here and, in fact, improve the site over time, as I see it’s desired and it’s getting the hits. I know can put in more effort to monetize it. I’ve really not done much at all to make money from it

However, I’m also going to put it up for sale at a pretty affordable price before I spend the time to beef it up I’ll take the first $5,000 (net to me after expenses) offer.

The site is hosted at my excellent web host, LivingDot.com, in an “add-on” account under my main account. I’m sure they would move the WordPress blog files and database to a new individual LivingDot.com account for free for someone opening up a new account there. It’s $11 a month and I see there is a 50% off coupon code on their home page right now. This company gives (you won’t believe it) five minute or less support response times. (I get no fee for recommending them)

So, if you’d like to run this blog, with all its room for growth, or use the domain for something else, let me know through the contact page on the site.

Note: This was a PR4 blog for a long time. It currently shows zero. It must have been the temporary parking that made it a PR0 for some reason, for the moment. I see I still have my Alexa rank of 174K

Technorati Tags: wordpress, domain, domain names, website for sale

I started what’s become a great topic at namepros.com titled, Type-in Behavior Changing?. In my opinion, it’s a must read. If you are buying names for type-in income, you better read it. Pay particularly close attention to my posts (slobizman) and those of Seabass, a brilliant poster.

I’d summarize some of the postings and conclusions here, but I’ve got to keep my eye on the crazy stock market today, and I am in the middle of several domain sale escrows so I’ll ask that you just read the thread. You won’t miss anything that way anyway. Now, don’t stop reading early. It begins talking about the behavior of browsers, but moves on to more general discussions of the possible changing world of type-ins.

(I’ve also got to watch Hillary Clinton being interviewed on CNBC in 45 minutes, about her fears relating to the stock market. I sure hope to hell they have the guts to ask her about how back in her corrupt Arkansas days she turned $1,000 in Cattle futures into $100,000. Just dumb luck she says. Yeah right. LOL! Political payback. But I digress…)

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, ppc, parking, namepros

I just received the following promotion from GoldKey.com via email. I’ve always liked Goldkey, although I’ve got my names mostly at SedoPro now (I went there when they accepted me into the Pro system). But, I think I’m going to give some names a shot at GoldKey.com again with all these changes they’ve listed.

You too, should think about at least setting up an account and try out a few names. To do so, go to GoldKey.com. It’s pretty simple to get going with them.

To Our Valued Customers:

We are pleased to announce that on March 1 we are launching a major upgrade to GoldKey.com that features many of the options and features you’ve requested, including:

· Setting your domain names to 1-click results or 2-click landers at your discretion

· Placing your own custom logo for the top of your sites

· Uploading your own main photo image for lander pages

· Testing up to four of your own keywords in rotation for auto-optimization of landers, and

· Customizing landers with up to 21 of your own hand-selected keywords.

In addition, we’ve added several new template layouts and now offer almost 500 themes, from Amish Country to Hip-Hop. Combined with our 70 color schemes, we now offer more than 300,000 variations of pages available to maximize the experience for users of your sites.

Also as part of this major launch, we are also changing our upstream feed provider of CPC advertisements to further maximize the revenue potential of your traffic. As a result, you’ll notice slight changes to our templates recommended by our new feed partner to further clarify to users what they can expect when they click or search. Revenue reports from our provider are scheduled to arrive in our systems by 1 p.m. ET, so expect them to show shortly after processing on our end.

We are excited about these upgrades, many of which came from your ongoing comments and suggestions. Further updates are in store - for example, we’re acting on your requests to return simple report data to the first page you reach upon login, and receive more e-mail reports. Please keep the comments and suggestions coming, and as always, contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, goldkey, sedo, afternic, PPC, parking

Do you have to pay a big bucks for names to make big profits on them? No. Are the only good names already taken and do you have to bid them up at dropcatchers to get them? No. Decent names abound at low prices and can even still be hand registered.

To illustrate, in the last week, I sold seven names. All were purchased in the last year. Three were hand registered and four were picked up at tdnam for $5 to $15 dollars, plus registration fee. What did I gross on those names? $5,240.

That’s $92 turned into $5,240, less Sedo or escrow.com fees.

And, I didn’t have much risk with these names as they were so inexpensive. Don’t get me wrong, I do buy more expensive names as well, having paid up to a several thousand dollars for a name. And I’d certainly be willing to pay $50,000 - $100,000 or more for a truly great name. But, when names get into that price range, they are invariably on a major dropcatcher’s site and there are tool many fools there spending their money like it’s 1999 in the tech bubble stock market again. No way I’m going to hang on to millions of dollars of names in a market that could bust (or change) when you least expect it. And we could likely be going into a housing led recession by next year and that will effect all investment markets…but I digress. Am I missing out on making the million dollar hit? Of course. But I do that in other business ventures, not this little hobby.

There are many thousands of dollars to be made by thinking differently, not chasing keywords everyone is chasing, being well-read and opportunistic, being a good negotiator, and most of all using your intuition — if you have it.

Technorati Tags: domain, name, domain name, sedo, dropcatcher, expired name, profit

It used to drive me nuts entering names or doing anything in my portfolio in Afternic. I could run to the bathroom while the screen was painting and when I got back I still had to wait. But, over the last few months, it’s been much, much faster. (And it’s quick at telling me my names might be too naughty for them, too!)

But, now the once quick-enough Sedo has taken the place of Afternic as the slow-as-molasses site. It’s truly frustrating sometimes. But, I sell just about all my domains there, so I guess I’m stuck with it. But I can still complain.

How’s your experience?

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, after, sedo