Find Savvy Domains Easily
by Jim Byrd
With over sixty million domains out there already registered, it can be daunting to try to find the right domain — one that will drive quality traffic to your Website or parked domain. But how can you ensure you’re making the right decision when you purchase registered and expired domains? Do your research and you’ll feel confident in your purchase.
In this article, I’ll explain the tools and techniques domain pros use to determine — or at least reasonably guesstimate — how much, and what type, of traffic a domain receives. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to predict approximately how much money a given domain will make, and thus gain a better understanding of the domain’s true value. We’ll discuss three methods for evaluating the traffic that a domain receives:
*Trackers/Direct Methods *Predictors/Indirect Methods *
Traffic Source The educated buyer always comes out ahead so read the following to unlock the mysteries of domain traffic and learn how to determine scientifically if a domain is really worth the price.
Developed Website…
Traffic counting scripts are one of the simplest and most reliable methods for determining traffic to a developed Website. Many free professional statistics programs are available. These can be integrated easily into Website code to give buyers the additional reassurance of a third-party-verified system. Most trackers will provide sellers even more information, such as top referrers, the geographic and chronological breakdown of visitors, and more.
Developed Website Traffic counting scripts are one of the simplest and most reliable methods for determining traffic to an already developed Website. Many free professional statistics programs are available. These can be integrated fairly easily into any Website code to give buyers the additional reassurance of a 3rd-party-verified system. Most trackers will provide sellers even more information, such as top referrers, the geographic and chronological breakdown of visitors, and more.
It’s worth noting that visitor numbers can be manipulated by malevolent sellers, but in general, parked domain visitor stats serve as a very helpful guideline for potential buyers.
It’s worth noting that visitor numbers can be manipulated by malevolent sellers, but in general, parked domain visitor stats serve as a needed guideline for potential buyers.
.Predictors/Indirect Methods…What should you do if a domain is not parked and the owner will not or cannot provide you with visitor statistics? Fortunately, a few handy tricks can be used to help you get a rough indication of whether or not a domain receives any traffic.
I wouldn’t recommend relying exclusively on any of these tricks as a bulletproof way to guesstimate traffic. However, taken as a whole, they can shine a bit of light on the question of whether or not a domain will receive valuable traffic.
Many high-traffic domain names will receive an Alexa ranking just from their type-in traffic. In general, an Alexa ranking under 1,000,000 for an undeveloped site is a good indicator that the domain receives decent traffic (e.g. several thousand monthly uniques). Rankings over a million are less reliable, but usually any sort of Alexa ranking means the domain receives at least some traffic. As with all of these methods, Alexa should be used as a guideline only: sometimes even domains for which Alexa returns “No Data” (too low to rank) will still receive traffic. Ranking.com offers a tool that’s similar to Alexa’s.
Overture Searches…Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool (known to many of us as Overture) tells you how often a given keyword was searched on the Yahoo! network. For example, “Yahoo” was searched 17,858,229 times in September 2005, while “Blue” was searched 178,124 times.
Naturally, a domain name that contains a highly-searched keyword is more likely to receive traffic. However, the Overture Tool’s usefulness goes beyond that: if you use the exact domain name (with extension) as the keyword, Overture results can be used as a predictor for whether or not a domain name receives traffic. For example, “Yahoo.com” was searched over 11 million times in September, according to Overture. Our comparison sites fared as follows: “Blue.com” was searched 794 times, while “Camera.com” was searched 258 times.
Overture Searches…
Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Keyword Selector Tool tells you how often a given keyword was searched in yahoo’s network. For example, ‘Yahoo’ was searched 17,858,229 times in September 2005, while ‘Blue’ was searched 178,124 times.
Traffic Source…
If you are wanting to better understand something, go to the source. This aphorism applies to domain traffic just as well as it does to other information. Thus, in addition to using the above methods to guesstimate the quantity of traffic a given domain receives, you may want to use these techniques to try to determine the source of that traffic.
Traffic source will affect the longevity and conversion of the traffic. In simpler terms, it will have huge impacts on how much money the domain will make.
Link Popularity…
A web site or formerly-developed domain name may receive traffic from old incoming links and directory listings. There are many online tools for checking link popularity; Marketleap.com offers one of the best tools.
The important thing to look for here is not the quantity of links, but their quality. A single link from a major web site may be worth thousands of links from smaller sites. The longevity of link traffic varies widely: a link from a news article may generate a stream of traffic that lasts only a week, while a directory listing may continue to generate steady traffic for years. Another similar tool worth checking out is URLtrends.com.
The important thing to look for here is not the quantity of links, but their quality. A single link from a major web site may be worth thousands of links from smaller sites. The longevity of link traffic varies widely: a link from a news article may generate a storm of steady traffic that lasts only a week, while a directory listing may continue to generate steady traffic for years. Another similar tool worth checking out is URLtrends.com.
Just keep in mind that it’s also important to look at how high the site is listed and how often the keyword is searched. And don’t forget that search engine listings change frequently, so if this is the primary source of traffic, expect fluctuations!
Paid Fluctuations…
Some traffic may be coming from PPC advertisements, exit popups or banner ads that the seller has bought. This is the shortest-lived traffic, because as soon as you buy the domain, the seller stops paying for the ads! The best way to determine traffic origin is to ask the seller about traffic sources and view the traffic logs. To ensure the logs are not modified, ask for access to the logs instead of screenshot of the statistics.
Without access to the logs, it can be difficult to determine if a domain is receiving paid traffic, but a smart domain buyer will look for a few key pieces of info: do the domain statistics align with the Alexa ranking and the number of incoming links? For example, a domain that receives a couple of hundred views/day, and has no Alexa ranking and very few incoming links from low-traffic sites may likely receive paid traffic. But don’t discount such domains out of hand: they may be receiving typo-traffic, or may even be a seasonal domain (such as one related to the World Series).
Expired Traffic…
If a domain was formerly developed, some users may continue to visit because of old links and reference pages, or simply because they remember the actual name of the domain. This traffic may continue for years, but as with any site, it decreases over time.
If it’s not possible to speak with the current owner about the past development of the site, a few simple searches can help. In particular, use the hints above to examine the types of sites that are linking to the domain. With that information, you may be able to get some idea of the type of traffic that’s visiting the domain in search of old content. After the content is removed, many of the links will be updated or removed and this traffic will eventually dwindle or expire.
Typos -n- Variations…
Don’t ignore traffic that’s diverted to the domain name as a result of typos from other high traffic sites. Check out the traffic that flows to similar or mistyped domains using the tools above. Also consider traffic generated from variations of names, such as an abbreviated form of your domain name, or an acronym. If these domains experience high volumes of visitors, there is a possibility that this will translate to high traffic levels for similar sites.
Alexa can be useful tool for doing this. It offers a feature that lists other web sites that visitors of any given domain also visit. For example, an Alexa search on: social networking websites shows that many visitors to these types of domains also visit Jordan Sneakers sites.
Find the Right Domain…Traffic is crucial for any revenue generating business on the Web. Finding and choosing the right domain with targeted traffic can take your business and -profits- to new heights. If you haven’t quite had the time to build that web site, simply park your domains, let your parking company place targeted advertisements on the domain’s index page, and sit back and monetize the traffic. You can do this at sedo.com by taking advantage of their optimize keyword tool. Also, use the tools listed above to determine domain traffic and never make a wrong buying decision again.
About the Author:
James Byrd was raised in North Carolina. He now lives in Phoenix, AZ with his two energetic children and wife of twelve years where they raise horses and collect shoes including air force one shoes and cheap jordans