Google updates blamed from drop in registration numbers

[snoopy]

"total .com and .net domain registrations grew only one percent in Q3, below the company’s previous guidance to investors"

"CEO and President D. James Bidzos spent considerable time discussing Google’s impact, and not just related to the recent EMD update that targeted exact-match domains with low quality content, but also Google changes as far back as 2009."

"I think there is a more serious effort by the search engine algorithm players here to sort of clean up search results and improve the quality, as Pat said, to drive some of the monetization community down further. So we discussed in the last call, the Panda and Penguin programs, for example, that Google utilized where they were targeting content farms, they were targeting keyword stuffers and now, they’re also targeting exact name matches, which typically are monetization names often."

http://searchengineland.com/verisig...p-in-domain-registration-renewal-rates-137739

 

[James]

I feel that update was very damaging to the domain world, that been said people need to start pushing a positive domain message imo, because in the end of the day it is going to effect every ones profit's if you have interest in domains,example:

http://jamesnorquay.com/reasons-quality-exact-match-domains-still-working-seo/

We need to pushing more positive PR for the domain industry because if not peoples perceptions will be negative towards EMD.

 

[snoopy]

I feel that update was very damaging to the domain world, that been said people need to start pushing a positive domain message imo, because in the end of the day it is going to effect every ones profit's if you have interest in domains,example:

http://jamesnorquay.com/reasons-quality-exact-match-domains-still-working-seo/

We need to pushing more positive PR for the domain industry because if not peoples perceptions will be negative towards EMD.

The thing is, the changes are real, it does effect the attractiveness of exact match domains. The site now needs to be much better quality, that makes the concept of mini sites, using multiple domains, much harder to do.

Now we can say "everything is still fine" "push a positive message", but domainers themselves are buying less, that seem to be the gist of the verisign comments.

 

[James]

The thing is, the changes are real, it does effect the attractiveness of exact match domains. The site now needs to be much better quality, that makes the concept of mini sites, using multiple domains, much harder to do.

Now we can say "everything is still fine" "push a positive message", but domainers themselves are buying less, that seem to be the gist of the verisign comments.

But the thing is old dominer's who have invested in quality domains in the past will be effected by this new change too, think about it all it takes is a big insurance company to see a few negative articles about EMD domains and they are turned away.

I think pushing a positive message around them is the way to go, its better then sitting back and thinking lets do nothing, if more people push out the positives and do not focus on the negatives it will be better for all.

 

[snoopy]

I think pushing a positive message around them is the way to go, its better then sitting back and thinking lets do nothing, if more people push out the positives and do not focus on the negatives it will be better for all.

Personally I don't think big business has ever been influenced by what the domain industry has said. Given the EMD changes by Google are due mainly to domainer sites & domainers themselves are pulling back on the purse strings, are large companies going to take much notice from positives article from inside the effected industry?

 

[findtim]

targeted exact-match domains with low quality content

thats the key to the issue, low quality content, thats all, google isn't saying they hate emd's they just hate low quality content on emd's, so keep buying the emd's and then sell to the end user that will create the high quality content and google has no problems with you as far as i can see.

or have i just simplified it to much?

parked emd's will be affected but emd businesses won't, thats what google is saying. imo

tim

 

[chris]

Thanks for sharing the article Snoopy, here's another one on the topic from SEL:

http://searchengineland.com/google-emd-update-research-and-thoughts-137340

Only a few years ago, an EMD could rank highly regardless of what was on it, so they've tuned things back to help users find relevant content.

Regardless of the domain, the signals of a poor quality site will eventually impact on rankings.

thats the key to the issue, low quality content, thats all, google isn't saying they hate emd's they just hate low quality content on emd's

Yes, they hate poor quality sites full stop.

so keep buying the emd's and then sell to the end user that will create the high quality content and google has no problems with you as far as i can see.

or have i just simplified it to much?

parked emd's will be affected but emd businesses won't, thats what google is saying. imo

tim

Sure, that's a good summary Tim.

A nice short brandable domain name is an important factor for any online business and there are still plenty of other benefits to good EMD's:

http://www.dntrade.com.au/domain-bias-web-search-paper-t5682.html

Another point is that not all EMD's are created equal, take the example of Widgets.com.au and BuyWidgetsOnline.com.au. They're technically both EMD's but vary greatly in value. Check out the pyramid on this article at SEOmoz:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-exact-match-domain-playbook-a-guide-and-best-practices-for-emds

Just some more EMD reading

Cheers,
Chris

 

[findtim]

Just some more EMD reading

Cheers,
Chris

its a noval , but a good one, like the pyramid as it sums it up well

tim

 

[atom]

So if EMDs are becoming less appealing, does that make short brandable names more desirable and easier to market?

 

[findtim]

So if EMDs are becoming less appealing, does that make short brandable names more desirable and easier to market?

i don't believe EMD's are less appealing, just crappy content on them or NO content like link farms and parked domains.

short brandable: wellllll they really are an EMD also eg: perfume or photographer but even so if its got crappy content it shouldn't rank.

two word short: like melbourne florist is an EMD, park it and it will get trashed, put an ecom site on it and it should have easy rankings.

brandable: well everything is brandable if you have enough cash to throw at it, optus, telstra, woolworths, coles, aldi the list goes onnnnn are all worth nothing without the traditional advertising market or a huge SEO budget.

tim

 

[johno69]

i don't believe EMD's are less appealing

Of course they are less appealing. You can't simply throw together a MFA site an expect it to rank.

 

[snoopy]

So if EMDs are becoming less appealing, does that make short brandable names more desirable and easier to market?

Doubt it, might push some towards just registering something or not bothering at all in the case of domainers.

 

[findtim]

Of course they are less appealing. You can't simply throw together a MFA site an expect it to rank.

isn't that what i said?

i don't believe EMD's are less appealing, just crappy content on them or NO content like link farms and parked domains.

or maybe the sentence should have been

i don't believe EMD's are less appealing, just PUTTING crappy content on them or NO content like link farms and parked domains
MAKES them less appealing

which is what i meant

tim

 

[johno69]

Of course they are less appealing.

isn't that what i said?

No, you said.

i don't believe EMD's are less appealing

Which to me seems the opposite.

Your additional line you added only seems to make your own view more confusing.

 

[findtim]

let me try again!

emd's are not less appealing to google , IF you don't throw an MFA site on it BUT actually build content on it, and i mean "bert the dubbo dentist has dubbodentist.com.au and its actually his business with his local content on it "dubbodentist.com.au is much better for him then bertsmithdentist.com.au IMO

tim

 

[DavidL]

OK we all agree this algo change makes it harder to rank crappy MFA sites with an EMD.

But, in Australia at least, it's only a very small subsection of domainers who have been employing this strategy and consequently pushing up the demand (and prices) for these types of domains. I mean how many of you guys, the domaining community have been hurt with this change?

According to this report - http://www.netfleet.com.au/blog/wp-...r-Conference-2012-Portfolio-Holder-Report.pdf, domainers only account for 10% of the .au namespace.

And out of those domains how many were bought for the primary purpose of benefiting from the EMD ranking benefit which has now been watered down?

I'd guess less than 5% (certainly the case with my portfolio).

So, if we're talking a reduced demand for 5% of 10% of domains = 0.5%, I don't think we have much to worry about, in Australia at least.

Might be a different story in com/net where there's a much bigger domainer market proportionally.

 

[snoopy]

OK we all agree this algo change makes it harder to rank crappy MFA sites with an EMD.

But, in Australia at least, it's only a very small subsection of domainers who have been employing this strategy and consequently pushing up the demand (and prices) for these types of domains. I mean how many of you guys, the domaining community have been hurt with this change?

Are you joking? Every 2nd domainer site falls into that category! Now some are worse than others but a huge chunk fall into the "adsense monetization as a business model", "affiliate links as a business model" type site. The one thing is that *nobody* really thinks their site is MFA.

Here is the questions I would ask,

1. Is you site MFA?
2. Are you mainly using adsense or affiliate to monetize?
3. Are you sure it isn't MFA?

Over time it is just going to get tougher for sites built around an organic listing + PPC (or affiliate link) business model. The model makes no sense.

According to this report - http://www.netfleet.com.au/blog/wp-...r-Conference-2012-Portfolio-Holder-Report.pdf, domainers only account for 10% of the .au namespace.

And out of those domains how many were bought for the primary purpose of benefiting from the EMD ranking benefit which has now been watered down?

I'd guess less than 5% (certainly the case with my portfolio).

So, if we're talking a reduced demand for 5% of 10% of domains = 0.5%, I don't think we have much to worry about, in Australia at least.

Might be a different story in com/net where there's a much bigger domainer market proportionally.

The larger the portfolio the less likely the person has bought names to run low quality sites, simply because it is hard to develop & manage hundreds of sites, even low quality sites.

 

[DavidL]

Are you joking? Every 2nd domainer site falls into that category! Now some are worse than others but a huge chunk fall into the "adsense monetization as a business model", "affiliate links as a business model" type site. The one thing is that *nobody* really thinks their site is MFA.

Here is the questions I would ask,

1. Is you site MFA?
2. Are you mainly using adsense or affiliate to monetize?
3. Are you sure it isn't MFA?

Over time it is just going to get tougher for sites built around an organic listing + PPC (or affiliate link) business model. The model makes no sense.

The larger the portfolio the less likely the person has bought names to run low quality sites, simply because it is hard to develop & manage hundreds of sites, even low quality sites.

No I'm not joking. I could well be wrong though.

Let's do a straw poll of the domainers on DNT then? I'll start:

3,000 domains, I'd say 60 are KW domains that I bought/regged for the purpose of making money from Adsense or affiliate stuff. Just skimming throught my URL channels in Adsense.

I'm including crappy MFA sites like WifiBooster.com.au (which still ranks #1) and more developed but still MFA sites like CocktailRecipes.com.au (which has been hit).

So DNT-ers, what % of your sites are in this mould - as snoopy says being broad with your definition (there's no shame in an MFA site!)

I've started with 2%....

 

[snoopy]

No I'm not joking. I could well be wrong though.

Let's do a straw poll of the domainers on DNT then? I'll start:

3,000 domains, I'd say 60 are KW domains that I bought/regged for the purpose of making money from Adsense or affiliate stuff. Just skimming throught my URL channels in Adsense.

I'm including crappy MFA sites like WifiBooster.com.au (which still ranks #1) and more developed but still MFA sites like CocktailRecipes.com.au (which has been hit).

So DNT-ers, what % of your sites are in this mould - as snoopy says being broad with your definition (there's no shame in an MFA site!)

I've started with 2%....

I'd say this would be a more telling question,

"Of the sites you have developed, what % are monetized with mainly PPC or mainly affiliate links."

People won't necessarily buy to run an MFA site, it is monetization strategy like parking for example, so if that strategy is gone it is going to have an effect on prices.

 

[DavidL]

I'd say this would be a more telling question,

"Of the sites you have developed, what % are monetized with mainly PPC or mainly affiliate links."

People won't necessarily buy to run an MFA site, it is monetization strategy like parking for example, so if that strategy is gone it is going to have an effect on prices.

We're talking domains and domain values, not sites, here snoopy.

I also think you have to add something in in relation to them being EMDs.

If someones developed BlueCow.com.au as such a site then that's obviously not in the same category.

So the question should be:

"Of the domains you have acquired, what % are developed and monetized (or you plan to) with mainly PPC or mainly affiliate links AND have a significant exact search volume which you planned to take advantage of to a greater or lesser extent?'