Choosing The Best Domain For Your New Site Project

With over 60 million domains currently registered, it can be daunting nto try to find the right domain — one that will drive quality traffic to your nWebsite or parked domain. But how can you ensure you\”re making the right decision when you purchase nregistered and expired domains? Do your research and you\’ll feel confident in nyour purchase. In this article, I\’ll explain the tools and techniques domain pros use to ndetermine — or at least reasonably guesstimate — how much, and what type, of ntraffic a domain receives. Armed with this knowledge, you\’ll be able to predict napproximately how much money a given domain will make, and thus gain a better nunderstanding of the domain\’s true value. We\’ll discuss three methods for nevaluating the traffic a domain receives: nn *Trackers/Direct Methodsn *Predictors/Indirect Methodsn *Traffic SourcenThe educated buyer always comes out ahead, so read on to unlock the mysteries nof domain traffic and learn how to determine scientifically if a domain is nreally worth buying.nnTrackers/Direct Methods…nIdeally, you could skip all of the guesswork and find out how much traffic a ndomain receives directly from the domain owner. The easiest way to do this is nsimply to ask the seller. However, the seller may make a mistake (or simply be ndishonest), so it\’s always a good idea to double-check the numbers using one or nmore of the following methods. nnThe educated buyer always comes out ahead, so read on to unlock the mysteries nof domain traffic and learn how to determine scientifically if a domain is nreally worth buying.nnTrackers/Direct MethodsnIdeally, you could skip all of the guesswork and find out how much traffic a ndomain receives directly from the domain owner. The easiest way to do this is nsimply to ask the sellers about it. However, the seller may make mistakes (or simply be ndishonest), so it\’s always a good idea to double-check the numbers using one or nmore of the following methods. nnIt\’s worth noting that visitor numbers can be manipulated by malevolent nsellers, but in general, parked domain visitor stats serve as a needed nguideline for potential buyers.nnParked Domains…If a domain name is parked, the nparking program may make traffic statistics available automatically through the ndomain\’s sales listing page. For example, at the time this article was written, nthe traffic attracted by the parked domain, and anuk website ncould be viewed on the domain\’s sale page.nnIt\’s worth noting that the visitor count can be manipulated by malevolent nsellers, but in general, parked domain visitor stats serve as a very helpful nguideline for potential buyers.nnAlexa.com…Alexa ranks web sites based on the nnumber of visitors they receive. For example, at the time this article was nwritten, Yahoo.com ranked first, while blue.com ranked at 212,093 and camera.com nat 717,298. These rankings are based on data derived from Alexa\’s toolbar users. nTranslating these numbers into unique views, Camera.com received over 10,000 nunique views in the month of September while Blue.com received over 70,000 nuniques. (Statistics from Sedo.com). nnMany high-traffic domain names will receive an Alexa ranking just from their ntype-in traffic. In general, an Alexa ranking under 1,000,000 for an undeveloped nsite is a good indicator that the domain receives decent traffic (e.g. several nthousand monthly uniques). Rankings over a million are less reliable, but nusually any sort of Alexa ranking means the domain receives at least some ntraffic. As with all of these methods, Alexa should be used as a guideline only: nsometimes even domains for which Alexa returns \”No Data\” (too low to rank) will nstill receive traffic. Ranking.com offers a tool that\’s similar to Alexa\’s. nnOverture Searches…Yahoo! Search Marketing\’s nKeyword Selector Tool (known to most as formerly Overture) tells you how often a ngiven keyword was searched on the Yahoo! network. For example, \”Yahoo\” was nsearched 17,858,229 times in September 2005, while \”Blue\” was searched 178,124 ntimes.nnSo of course, a domain name that contains a highly-searched keyword is more likely to nreceive traffic. However, the Overture Tool\’s usefulness goes beyond that: if nyou use the exact domain name (with extension) as the keyword, Overture results ncan be used as a predictor for whether or not a domain name receives traffic. nFor example, \”Yahoo.com\” was searched over 11 million times in September, naccording to Overture. Our comparison sites fared as follows: \”Blue.com\” was nsearched 794 times, while \”Camera.com\” was searched 258 times.nnResearch shows that Overture searches do usually have a rough ncorrelation with traffic (especially type-in traffic), but as with other nmethods, there are many exceptions to the rule. nnTraffic Source…If you are trying to better understand something, go to the nsource. This aphorism applies to domain traffic just as well as it does to other ninformation. Thus, in addition to using the above methods to guess-timate the nquantity of traffic a given domain receives, you may want to use these ntechniques to try to determine the source of that traffic.nnTraffic source will affect the longevity and conversion of the traffic. In nsimpler terms, it will have huge impactts on how much money the domain will nmake. nn.Link Popularity…Any given web site or formerly-developed ndomain name may receive traffic from old incoming links and directory listings. nThere are many online tools for checking link popularity; Marketleap.com offers none of the best of these tools.nnThe important thing to look for here is not the quantity of links, but their nquality. A single link from a major web site may be worth thousands of links nfrom smaller sites. The longevity of link traffic varies widely: a link from a nnews article may generate a strom of traffic that lasts only a week, while a ndirectory listing may continue to generate steady traffic for years. Another nsimilar tool worth checking out is URLtrends.com.nnSearch Engine Listings…Search engine listings are na major source of traffic for many sites. You can guesstimate how much search nengine-derived traffic a web site receives by looking at its \”search engine nsaturation\”. This is an indicator of how often the domain appears in the various nsearch engine indexes. Again, Marketleap.com offers an excellent tool for nevaluating search engine saturation. nnJust keep in mind that it\’s also very important to look at how high the site is nlisted and how often the keyword in the domain is searched. And don\’t forget that search nengine listings change frequently, so if this is the primary source of traffic, nexpect fluctuations! nnPaid Fluctuations…Some traffic may be coming from nPPC advertisements, exit popups or banner ads that the seller has bought. This nis the shortest-lived traffic, because as soon as you buy the domain, the seller nstops paying for the ads! The best way to determine traffic origin is to ask the nseller about traffic sources and view the traffic logs. To ensure the logs are nnot modified, ask for access to the logs instead of screenshot of the nstatistics.nnWithout access to the logs, it can be difficult to determine if a domain is nreceiving paid traffic, but a smart domain buyer will look for a few key pieces nof evidence: do the domain statistics align with the Alexa ranking and the nnumber of incoming links? For example, a domain that receives a couple hundred nviews a day, and has no Alexa ranking and very few incoming links from nlow-traffic sites may likely receive paid traffic. But don\’t discount such ndomains out of hand: they may be receiving typo-traffic, or may even be a seasonal domain (such as one related to the World nSeries). nn.Expired Traffic…If a domain was formerly ndeveloped, some users may continue to visit because of old links and reference pages, nor simply because they remember the actual name of the domain. This traffic may continue for nyears, but as with any site, it decreases over time. nnIf it\’s not possible to speak with the current owner about the past ndevelopment of the site, a few simple searches can help. In particular, use the nhints above to examine the types of sites that are linking to that domain. With this ninformation, you may be able to get some idea of the type of traffic that\’s nvisiting the domain in search of old content. After the content is removed, many nof the links will be updated or removed and this traffic will eventually dwindle nor expire.nnTypos -n- Variations…Don\’t ignore traffic that\’s ndiverted to the domain name as a result of typos from other high traffic sites. nCheck out the traffic that flows to similar or mistyped domains using the tools nabove. Also consider traffic generated from variations of names, such as an nabbreviated form of your domain name, or an acronym. If these domains experience nhigh volumes of visitors, there is just as much of a possibility that this will translate to nhigh traffic levels for similar sites.nnAlexa can be useful tool for doing this — it offers a feature that lists nother web sites that visitors of any given domain also visit. For example, an nAlexa search on: social networking websitesnshows that many visitors to these types of domains also visit othernreplica watches and Michael Jordan shoes sites.nn.Find the Right Domain…Traffic is crucial for any revenue generating nbusiness on the Web. Finding and choosing the right domain with targeted traffic can take nyour business and -profits- to new heights. If you haven\’t quite had the ntime to build that web site, simply park your domains, let your parking company nplace targeted advertisements on the domain\’s index page, and sit back and monetize nthe traffic. You can do this at sedo by taking advantage of their optimize keywordntool. Also, use the tools listed above to determine domain traffic and never nmake a wrong buying decision again.