You WILL Lose Traffic If Your Domain Isn’t Memorable

Situation 1: Someone mentions your site while chatting on Skype (word of mouth advertising)
Situation 2: Someone notices one of your offline ads (offline advertising)

Let’s assume that you on the one hand and a friend on the other (let’s also assume that both of you are from Chicago) are collecting insurance leads: you own the domain ChicagoInsurance.com and he/she owns EliteOnlineChicagoInsurance.com.

What do you think will happen if someone mentions your site while chatting on Skype (situation 1)? What do you think will happen if someone notices one of your offline ads (situation 2)?

What do you think will happen if someone mentions your friend’s site while chatting on Skype (situation 1)? What do you think will happen if someone notices one of your friend’s offline ads (situation 2)?

Which Domain Will Most People Remember?

People have short attention spans, this much is certain: it’s more than obvious that a lot of folks would end up forgetting your friend’s URL (EliteOnlineChicagoInsurance.com), I earn a living online and I’d probably forget it myself. There are just too many things “competing” for my attention when I’m chatting with someone or when I’m doing offline stuff. If you want me to remember your site, please do us both a favor and don’t make things difficult!

On the other hand, it’s next to impossible to forget the domain ChicagoInsurance.com if you live in Chicago and are chatting with someone about something insurance-related or if you’ve noticed an ad which promotes an insurance-related site. If you own the best possible domain for your niche, you can rest assured that people will definitely NOT forget which site they need to visit, simply because it’s the first “online thing” they associate with the niche.

Chicago Insurance? ChicagoInsurance.com!
Internet Marketing? InternetMarketing.com!
Domaining Tips? DomainingTips.com!

The more you complicate things, the more likely it is that people will have a “Now what was that insurance-related domain someone mentioned on SKype?”/”Now what was that insurance-related domain I saw on a billboard earlier today?” moment.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel! Seriously, just don’t. When it comes to word of mouth advertising and offline advertising, traffic leakage is an extremely important issue. Spending a bit (or even a lot) more on a kick-ass domain is the smart thing to do and I’m sure that most of you are wondering:

Just How Much Should People Spend?

Try seeing things from the perspective of a person who knows how things work online and wants to help someone out, what would you tell a friend who wants to buy an insurance-related domain? What questions would you ask? I don’t know about you but here’s what I would ask:

1) What’s your advertising budget?

2) Based on your experience or based on what you’ve heard from people who are more experienced than you, how much traffic do you think that you’ll receive?

3) How much is a lead worth to you?

4) How much money would you lose if let’s say 10% of the people who hear about your site would not drop by because they forgot the domain?

If (for example) you’d be looking at a $1,000 monthly loss, spending $10,000 on a great domain would definitely be smart. On the other hand, spending $100,000 would be foolish. Use your brain, analyze things thoroughly and you (and/or your friend) will be fine!

Branding and a Domain’s Inherent Value Are Two DIFFERENT Things

Look: the domain name “digg.com” has nothing to do with digg’s success, just like the domain “ebay.com” has nothing to do with ebay’s success.  If Kevin Rose (digg’s founder) would have chosen pikk.com, hawgg.com or something else instead of “digg.com”, the site would have still been successful.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many people are spending lots of money on crappy “web 2.0 domains”, something along the lines of “hey look, digg.com is a successful site: let’s spend all of our money on similar LLLL dot coms” . The same thing can be said about domains ending in “Space” (again, MySpace’s success  has nothing to do with the domain: it was a smashing hit thanks to its business model, period) and the list could go on and on.

Are Domains Important If You’re Chasing After Social Media Traffic?

Yep! Not as important as exact match domains are to people who want to chase after search engine traffic (for example ) but still, they’re important. People who use social media websites have an incredibly short attention span, so it’s obvious that having a memorable domain helps. After all, you want them to drop by again, right?

Let me make this perfectly clear: your domain needs to be memorable, not necessarily short. Most people make this confusion but guess what, not all short domains are memorable! In fact, most of the domains which are being bought by people who have been influenced by social media hype are anything but memorable.

Let’s play a game. Here are 5 LLLL dot coms which most people consider great or at least decent: Mupp.com, Zeeg.com, Mnop.com, Oolh.com and Ptoo.com. Alright, now grab a piece of paper and write down this question: “What were the 5 LLLL dot coms Andrei mentioned on his blog?”. Finally, put the piece of paper next to your bed and when you wake up, this question will be the first thing you’ll notice.

What do you think, will you be able to answer this question tomorrow? I don’t know about you but I’ll probably forget these domains within an hour or two and I’m the one who came up with the idea! Shouldn’t that tell you something?

The Conclusion?

As always, a memorable domain definitely helps but you need to understand that not all short domains are memorable. Seriously, do yourself a favor and remember this:

Memorable, not necessarily short: most short domains are NOT easy to remember!

Memorable, not necessarily short: most short domains are NOT easy to remember!

Memorable, not necessarily short: most short domains are NOT easy to remember!

Seriously, Why Not?

Find one person who generates and monetizes search engine traffic for a living and who says that exact match domains don’t help “quite a bit”, I dare you. It simply makes sense: by owning an exact match domain, you’re basically telling search engines exactly what your website focuses on.

As a result, the fundamentals are definitely there and, personally, I see no reason why an exact match domain should carry less weight in the future. If anything, these domains will end up helping even MORE down the road.

Think About It!

What do search engines want? They want to reward the sites which provide the most value to the average visitor.

Does owning a great domain send a message across? Yep, it tells search engines that you mean business. And since great domains will definitely go up in value, it will be more and more obvious that only people with a decent budget will be able to afford an exact match dot com, dot net or dot org.

So, what will search engines “think” of a company which owns a great domain? Well, how’s about something along the lines of “this company seems to have a decent budget at its disposal, these guys seem to be in it for the long haul”? Do you think that these things don’t matter to the people who are constantly improving algos? Think again!

And let’s not forget one important thing: the age of a domain! All of the great exact match dot coms, dot nets and dot orgs have been regged for quite a while and that definitely helps. Again:

It All Makes Perfect Sense!

1) It’s highly unlikely that exact match dot coms, dot nets and dot orgs will carry less weight in the future

2) On the contrary, common sense tells us that these domains will probably carry significantly MORE weight down the road

3) The indirect benefits of exact match domains (since most of them have been registered for a long time, age – for example – represents an important indirect benefit) are also worth taking into consideration

4) If you decide to take things to the next level and milk other traffic sources (especially if we’re talking about word of mouth advertising), the domain will (once again), be an asset: authoritative and extremely easy to remember!

The list could go on and on but this much is certain: folks who think that domains are not important to people who want to chase after search engine traffic don’t have a clue! Personally, I wouldn’t even think about trying to target an extremely competitive keyword without a great domain: if you don’t have an edge, you’re better off focusing on another keyword. Use your brain, stop buying/regging crap and start making some serious cash!

(In Most Cases) End Users CARE

First of all, let’s define an end user as a person who buys a domain with the intention of developing it. So for example, if you own DallasLawyers.com, an end user could be represented by a Dallas law firm as well as by a webmaster who wants to turn the domain into a directory (for example).

Leaving end users who are only interested in a descriptive domain which passes the phone test aside (there are a lot of them though), there are quite a few people who want to buy a certain domain with a clear business model in mind and those are exactly the folks who care about other traffic sources.

The Relationship between Domains and Traffic Sources

Let’s not complicate things too much and get right down to business by defining the most important traffic sources and referring to the relationship between domains and them:

1) Type-in Traffic

There are gazillions of posts/threads which focus on type-in traffic and since I’m pretty sure that most of my readers (after all, this is a domaining blog and everything) know everything there is to know about it, let’s move on and not waste valuable time.

2) Links

Yep, links. That’s how we communicate online and as a result, there’s a huge amount of traffic on the table. How do people find sites via search engines? They perform a search and click on the link(s) they consider relevant. How do people share sites via email? Again, through links! The list could go on and on. Here are the three most important “subcategories”, if you will:

2.1)  Search Engine Traffic

Why are domains important to people who want to chase after search engine traffic? Simple! It’s because exact match domains will always help them have an edge over the competition. If you’re targeting the term “Dallas lawyers”, for example, owning the exact match dot com/dot net/dot org would help quite a bit.

People who want to chase after search engine traffic exclusively will probably not have an “only dot coms, forget everything else” way of thinking, simply because search engines don’t value a dot com more than a dot net or a dot org (seriously, they don’t).  So as long as you stick with that has been proven to work in terms of SEO (.com/.net/.org), you’ll probably be OK.

2.2) Social Media Traffic

Social media websites like Digg (the most popular social voting site), Delicious (the most popular social bookmarking site), Facebook (the most popular keep-in-touch-with-people site) and Twitter (the most popular microblogging platform) are all about sharing stuff and what do people share online more than anything else? Yep, links!

People who are interested in social media traffic exclusively will probably want to stick with dot coms, obviously because this is the most popular extension and they want a domain which is extremely easy to remember. On the other hand, domain hacks might work as well, so don’t exclude this possibility either.

2.3) Word of Mouth (Or Should I Say “Word of Keyboard”) Traffic

People mention sites when they’re sending emails, people mention sites while they’re chatting on Skype/AIM/whatever, people mention sites when they’re interacting via forums and so on.

Folks who consider word of mouth traffic a priority will probably want to limit themselves to buying dot coms, maybe even more so than people who are chasing after social media traffic and that’s because the “leakage” factor comes into play.

3) Offline “Referrers”

Billboards, newspaper/TV/radio ads, phone conversations and so on. Just like with let’s call it “word of keyboard” traffic, leakage is definitely something that people need to take into consideration.

Think about it: if you don’t own a dot com, you’ll probably be losing quite a bit of traffic as a result of the fact that people didn’t remember the extension and automatically assumed that they need to go to “the name they remembered” dot com when they heard about your website or saw an ad. Once again, people who will want to promote their site offline a lot will probably want to stick with dot coms.

An In-Depth Analysis?

I’ll be analyzing the traffic sources I’ve referred to one by one this week and as a domainer, being armed with as much knowledge as possible will definitely help a lot down the road. After all, whenever you’re contacted by potential end users, doing a little bit of research is always smart.

It’ll be fairly easy to find out who you’re dealing with and based on what you know the person who has contacted you is interested in, you’ll be able to “organize” the negotiation better and “sell” your domain accordingly. If you want to develop at least one domain, then knowing a lot about these traffic sources is even more important. Alright, enough for today: don’t forget to drop by on Wednesday for some more words of wisdom

Where to Start?

First of all, you need to understand that you’ll have to control the “gotta invest NOW, gotta buy as many domains as possible NOW” impulse which will make its appearance. We humans always want things to happen yesterday and a lot of times, this way of thinking clouds our judgment.

First of all, you need to spend a bit of time reading (don’t go overboard though):

1) Check out a few forums and blogs in order to learn the basics

2) Analyze some portfolios and also as many past sales as possible (dnjournal.com, namebio.com and dnsalesprice.com are great resources: USE THEM)

3) Compile a list of blogs worth following and read them on a daily basis

4) Read forums once or maybe twice per week, bookmark the profiles of a few people who seem to know what they’re doing and read their posts from time to time

If you’re serious about learning the ropes, you’ll probably be able to understand how things work within a week or so. Now that you’re armed with enough knowledge in order to get started:

Keep Your Eyes Open

You just never know when you’ll come across an excellent opportunity. But again: don’t spend your entire budget right away, be patient and understand that no matter how smart you think you are, you’ll (probably) screw up royally at the beginning!

Ask anyone who currently makes a lot of money as a domainer how things were when he/she was just starting out. Everyone makes mistakes and at the beginning, I’d advise against giving your gut feeling too much credit. Having confidence in yourself is great and everything but that confidence should be backed up by experience and a decent track record.

And be careful whenever you’re involved in bidding wars: don’t get carried away. Always do your homework BEFORE the bidding war starts and determine how much you’d be willing to pay for a domain. If someone with deeper pockets takes over and you’re no longer comfortable with the price, let go and move on.

Strictly Buy and Hold?

At the beginning, selling a domain or two definitely doesn’t hurt. Not necessarily just because of the money, it’s important to let the market prove you right or wrong from time to time.  If you’ve sold 4-5 domains at a loss in a row, what does that tell you?

Again: don’t go overboard with this self-confidence thing, don’t trust your gut feeling all that much until you have a decent track record. Someone who has been investing in domains for 8-10 years (for example) and who understands how things work is in a FAR better position to buy and hold. While you’re still a beginner, gaining experience should be your number one priority. You’ll make lots of mistakes and that’s perfectly natural, it’s all a part of the game. Learn from them, move on and gradually start trusting your instincts as well.

What about Flipping Opportunities?

You will definitely come across quite a few flipping opportunities and the fact that you have a decent budget will help a lot. I’d recommend only targeting expensive domains after you have some results under your belt.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Use let’s say 5% or so of your budget as “experiment money” and make things happen: your main goal should be gathering as much data as possible. About the market, about how bidding wars work and so on.

The Big Picture

After you’re experienced enough in order to have confidence in your ability to come up with a long-term business model, take a few days off in order to THINK. Most people are convinced that putting together a business model is a formality and nothing more, WRONG!

Where do you see yourself 3 months from now?

Where do you see yourself 3 years from now?

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

What does “buy and hold” mean to you? Would you be willing to hold a domain which you think has long-term potential for let’s say 10 years?

What will you do if you encounter cash flow problems at one point or another? What impact would such a situation have on your portfolio?

The list could go on and on, never lose track of the big picture. If you have some results under your belt, if you’re confident in your ability to pick domains with long-term potential and if you’re willing to be patient, you’re in a great position to come up with a great business model. Sounds good? Alright, then go make some coin

Should You Invest in Domains if You’re Low on Cash?

Nope! Why? Because you’d end up buying crap, that’s why. Need some more reasons? Ok, here ya go:

1) You’d be under waaaaaaaaaaay too much pressure and it would cloud your judgment as a seller. You’d have to basically flip your way up the ladder, so to speak, and that’s easier said than done. Let me make myself perfectly clear: there are TONS of better ways to make money when you’re starting out than flipping domains.

2) You’re not (financially) ready to make money through trial and error as an investor. In other words, the “error” part could end up depleting your entire budget. The result? Disappointment! If you don’t have a budget which makes it possible for you to take calculated risks, you’re carrying around a huge burden.

3) Finding decent domains at extremely low prices is so hard that you’d end up spending hours upon hours researching in order to find ONE “flippable” domain. The result? If you factor in the time you’ve spent and your return after selling the domain, you’ll draw the line and realize that you’ve actually made peanuts per hour.

The list could go on and on but I don’t want to waste valuable time, I’m sure you get the picture. Are there exceptions? Are there examples of people who flipped their way up the ladder? Yes, there are always exceptions but that doesn’t make a certain method worth it. People even made money by selling real estate on the moon but that doesn’t mean that you need to buy a telescope and start looking for planets to invest in

OK, Then What SHOULD I Do?

First of all, you need to realistically assess your current situation:

1) What are your goals as a domainer? Do you simply want to generate a bit of side income? Do you want to retire early thanks to domaining?

2) What budget would put you in a good position to take calculated risks?

3) How can YOU secure that budget? Do you have stuff that you can sell (on ebay, via craigslist, through a garage sale… whatever)? Based on the value of those assets, would organizing everything be worth it or would you (just like by flipping cheap-ass domains) end up making peanuts per hour?

4) Ok, maybe you don’t have objects worth selling. No problem, start selling your TIME! How many hours per day are you willing to invest in order to secure a decent budget?

5) What can you do? Are you a great designer or programmer? Are you a great writer?

After you’ve decided what you’re going to do in order to generate cash, start making things happen. If you’ve decided to sell lots of stuff you don’t need, start organizing everything. If you’ve decided to sell your time, let others know by posting a thread on a bunch of webmaster/domaining forums and/or signing up for an account at sites like elance.com.

If you’re willing to work hard and provide value to clients, you’ll start making money right away and before you know it, your paypal account will be in great shape. But don’t forget to keep your eyes on the prize and:

Know When to Stop!

Being a freelancer is not bad but it would be a shame to stop there. Seriously, you need to understand that at a certain point, enough is enough. If you have a budget which allows to take calculated risks, you’re ready to start investing.

Again: if you have enough cash set aside in order to be able to survive for let’s say 6-9 months, you’re probably good to go. What now? Here’s what I’d recommend:

Develop ONE Site and GRADUALLY Add Domains to Your Portfolio

First of all, buy one kick-ass domain. Just one for now! Even more so, buy it with the intention of dominating a niche. On the one hand, the domain should have inherent value (who knows, you might receive an offer you can’t refuse at one point or another and even leaving everything else aside, a great domain always adds quite a bit to any site’s value in the eyes of a potential buyer) but on the other hand, it should be related to a niche you feel comfortable with.

This one site should be something amazing and if you’re not passionate about the niche, dominating it will be extremely hard. Think about it: you are not passionate about what you’re doing but will be competing against LOTS of people who are!

Why Develop and Not Just Invest?

You have to put food on the table, always keep that in mind. If you have to sell domains in order to be able to do that, you simply won’t be in a good position to negotiate. Period. Remember: I’d recommend not getting started unless you have enough money set aside to survive for let’s say 6-9 months (if you think that 6-9 months would not be enough, keep selling time and/or assets until you generate a budget you’re comfortable with). That’ll give you enough time to turn your site into an asset which generates enough money for you to get by at the very least.

Even if you’re not exactly experienced, you’ll still have enough time to learn the ropes and make money while you’re at it. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for great buys. Yeah, you have some cash at your disposal but that doesn’t mean that you have to spend everything within 24 hours. You can’t build a decent portfolio overnight, it’s just not how things work. As a beginner, you have to fight that URGE to buy as many domains as possible asap because otherwise, that urge will cloud your judgment and you’ll end up making costly mistakes.

Investing for a Living?

Sure, investing for a living is definitely possible IF AND ONLY IF you have a huge budget at your disposal. If, 2 years from now, you sell the site you’ve developed along with maybe a handful of domains for let’s say $750,000, you’re in a decent (not great, just decent) position to become a full-time investor.

Without a huge budget, you’ll always be dealing with the pressure of having to sell domains in order to put food on the table and that’s an extremely dangerous weakness. To sum it all up:

Here’s What I’d Recommend

Step 1) Sell a few offline assets and/or your time in order to secure a decent budget

Step 2) Buy one great domain related to a nice you’re passionate about and do your best in order to dominate it

Step 3) In the meantime, gradually buy domains but never let the urge to rush things get the best of you. Trying to build a portfolio overnight is NOT recommended

Step 4) After seeing how things work as both an investor and a developer, you’ll be able to make informed decisions: maybe you’ll focus on development or maybe you’ll end up becoming a full-time investor, time will tell

Step 5) After you have a lot of money in the bank, send 50% my way. The end

Maybe there are other approaches worth considering, there probably are. Based on my experience, this is what I’d recommend if you’re just starting out and are low on cash. If you’re not a complete idiot and are willing to work hard as well as smart, you’ll be just fine. Stop worrying and start making things happen!

Guys — let me tell you a strategy which will help you sell more domains and skyrocket your domaining profit.

Start a newsletter – it is a very powerful tool and something that most people ignore. I have been running newsletters for some time now so I am talking from personal experience.

Learn how to start a newsletter, how to get people to subscribe and some practical things I have learn from my own experiences. Let’s get started, shall we?

To make much more money than you would without having one.

Let me explain how you will make more money by having a newsletter –

1. Stop Traffic Leak. Tell me – how many times have you felt frustrated when people so many people read to your listing and leave — to never come back again?

What is even more frustrating is that there is no way that you can get in contact with them again if you drop your price, modify your listing or have some other related domain to sell that you think they may be interested in.

A newsletter can instantly solve this problem. Once they subscribe to your newsletter, you can send them a message whenever you feel that there is something they may be interested in.

2. Building Trust. Internet is a faceless medium and building trust online is a difficult job. However, I have found that if you are in constant contact with people — either via your newsletter or your blog — and if you give it a personal touch, they start trusting you more somehow.

I guess the reason may be that they start feeling that they know you and that makes them more comfortable doing deals with you rather than some stranger who they know nothing about.

3. Repeat Selling. Here is something that amazes me — whenever people have something to sell, they will just go and post classifieds everywhere they can but never contact people who they have already done business with.

There is no rule in the book which says that if someone buys from you once, they can’t buy it again. Actually, it’s quite the opposite.

If someone has already done business with you, they know what kind of service and experience you can offer and they are more inclined to trust you and deal with you than someone who doesn’t know you at all.

As a matter of fact, I make a large part of my domain and service sales revenue from people who have already done business with in past. Having a newsletter makes it a one-click job for you to do repeat selling.

4. Cross-Selling. Whenever you sell a domain or a website to someone, that is not the only thing that you can sell to the person. There are so many other things like consulting, marketing services, design services and your other domains or sites for sale.

Do you want to leave money on the table by not having a newsletter? I guess not, especially since it is dirt-cheap to do so.

Sponsor: Sign up today for a 15 day free trial. Try iContact now!

You can start a newsletter manually by BCCing the eMail to everyone but it is not a practical way to do it. The hassles which come with subscribing/un-subscribing people manually, sending bulk mail and ensuring delivery are simply not worth it.

And no, you don’t get all the extra goodies like click-tracking, open-rate tracking and timed auto-responders — which make newsletter management and your life so easier.

What is recommended is that you use a third party hosted service like iContact or Aweber. Both are extremely cheap. Just subscribe to either of these and you are ready to rock!

iContact gives a free 15 day free trial if you visit this link. So I recommend that you check them out and take a free 15 day trial — you have nothing to lose.

Both iContact or Aweber offer timed auto-responders. If you are not already familiar, an auto-responder automatically sends messages to your subscribers at a specific time intervals.

For example, if someone subscribes to your newsletter, they will get a message as soon as they join. Now, you can write a bunch of messages in your auto-responder and the software will automatically keep sending them after specific time intervals.

The subscriber will think that you are regularly sending him or her the updates and will remember you.

The reason why this is important is because if you do not send a message to your list for a long time, they will probably forget you and that they had opted in to get your newsletter.

And honestly, it is hard work to regularly send a new message every single day. Let an auto-responder take care of that for you — without any effort on your part.

1. Give them Incentives. Take a look at DomainingTips.com Free Newsletter landing page and you will see what I mean. This page is getting us a lot of subscribers — and that is the bottom line. From the feedback I have had, most people join us for the free report and quality content keeps them subscribed.

2. Exclusive Deals. Whenever you sell someone a domain or service, ask the person if he or she would be interested in joining your newsletter. Tell him or her that you will send deals and offers before others have a chance to get them. In my own experience, over 90% of them will join you.

3. Forum Signatures. Add a link to your newsletter sign up page in your forum signature. If people like what you are posting, they would like to hear more from you and sign up.

4. Your Blog. If you run a blog, add a link to your newsletter sign up page at the bottom of your post. It is an extremely effective way to get subscribers. As a matter of fact, a blog is an excellent way to sell more domains but that is the subject of another post.

1. Screw Freeloaders. A lot of people will subscribe to your newsletter to get the incentives and instantly unsubscribe. The best advice I can give you is that you don’t take it to heart as to why they ub-subscribed — they are just bunch of cheap freeloaders.

2. Commies Are Not Cool. There are so many digital communists who want everything to be non-commercial and will send you mean messages whenever you try to commercialize your newsletter or your blog. My advice? Ignore their message and instantly un-subscribe them from your newsletter.

They are not worth your time and effort. There is no free lunch in this world.

If you have any question or ideas, feel free to ask me in the comments or Ask Lord Brar.

Also, Easy Link Building’s Link Building Tool has been getting rave reviews around the net. Did you buy your copy yet?

Chapter 1 – The Shocking Truth about Domain Parking
Chapter 2 - How I “Really” Make Money From Domain Names
Chapter 3 – 6 Ways Not to Go Broke Developing Domains
Chapter 4 – Should You Fool Around With Your Domains
Chapter 5 – An Interview I did recently
Epilogue – The Unanswered Questions…

Read it online »

One of the most critical components component of your success on the internet is your web-host. If your web-host keeps giving you troubles, you will not be able to concentrate on developing, promoting and monetizing your websites. Also, if your website is down, you will not be able to show any ads and that would translate into zero revenue for you.

Sure — you can go with the top-of-shelf hosts which provide 100% uptime but they cost an arm and leg. Since our objective is to keep our costs minimum, we are going to use cheap shared-hosts. However, a LOT of these cheap hosts often resort of tactics — which I call “Dirty Games” — to squeeze every bit of profit from their customers.

Read this post to find out how most of these hosts try to rip-off their customers and “Rules of Thumb’ for identifying and avoiding such hosts. And yes, I will have host recommendations from my personal experience with some companies. Let’s get down to business, shall we?

With the advent of cut-throat competition in the hosting market, a lot of hosts have taken to making false and misleading statements to lure those new to the industry and then use “dirty-tacts” to squeeze every bit of profit out of them. Here are Five Worst Dirty-Tactics.

#1 – Long Lock-In Periods – See those ultra-cheap $3 or $4 a month prices? Most of the times they are valid only if you prepay for a year or two. What this means is that you are going to be stuck with this host for next year or two.

Yes, what this means is that it doesn’t matter how bad the quality of service after the 30 days trial period, you are neither getting a refund nor you have an exit strategy. And let me tell you from my own personal experience, even the poster-boys of the industry go bad.

A few years ago I used to have a website hosted with Site5. At that time they used to be a rock-solid host and everyone used to swear by their quality of service. And then within a few months the quality of service turned into one of the worst in the industry.

Perhaps they were victims of their own success and grew much faster than they could manage. They are still in business but I don’t hear much about them these days. However, the point is not that. The point is that people who had prepaid them for two years had to stick with them and suffer through the bad quality of service.

Some hosts use tactics like introducing setup fees to motivate people to pay for longer period. If a host has a setup fee — avoid them. Back in 1998-99, setting up an account used to be a manual thing. However, today, when most of the stuff is automated, charging a setup fees is just a scheme to get you to pay for a longer contract.

#2 – Unreasonable Restrictions – A lot of these hosts put unreasonable restrictions on their users. These may include a restriction on number of domains, daily bandwidth limit, maximum file size limit, database size limit, not being able to use certain popular scripts etc.

One very popular host doesn’t allow its customers to use FTP Software but rather forces them to use an online interface — what a pain in ass if you have to upload hundreds of files — like when you are installing wordpress.

The very same host also has a file size limit of a few kb and a database size of just 10 MB — even though they are giving their customers hundreds of GBs of diskspace and thousands of GBs of bandwidth. Try filling up those spaces in a few lifetimes if you can.

Another host claims to give 3000 GB of bandwidth a month — however they have a daily cap of 10 GB. This means that no matter what, you cannot use more than 300 GB a month of bandwidth.

And there are so many other hosts which do these type of things.

Now mind you, we want to host all of our domains on just one account — using addon domains facility which I will explain it at later in post. If you end up with a host with such crazy restrictions, you are basically in big trouble.

#3 – Super-Sneaky Contracts – Let’s not even get started on the fine-print they have in their contacts. Basically what it usually says is that if you site starts to get popular, we will kick you out unless you upgrade to our more-expensive plan.

Want to know another super-sneaky clause most of these cheapo hosts have? Even though you are given a 30 day money-back period, but, if you ask for the money back, you have to pay setup costs which are usually about $30. Pretty high considering annual fees of most of these hosts is like 80 or 90 bucks!

#4 – Low Quality Infrastructure. One of the reasons why these hosts are able to offer services at such low prices and still be in business is because they do ruthless cost-cutting.

Usually this cost cutting involves using low-quality server infrastructure and using low-quality networks. This usually translates in low-reliability and quality of services being delivered.

Another department which suffers is customer-service. Since highly skilled technical staff costs money, so they are out of question. These hosts usually outsource their support to third-world countries and hire bare-minimum skilled staff. Result – lower quality of support for their customers.

#5 – Hidden Costs – What most people don’t realize when they are paying for the super-cheap hosting package is even though that they are getting a package with “more than you can ever use” bandwidth and space, the power-features missing.

God forbid, if your site ever becomes famous — which it will if you keep following my strategies — you are in for a shock!

I have seen some hosts charging $15 per GB of bandwidth over usage (yeah right!), $10 a month for SSL Certificate (needed for eCommerce) and $8 a month for ever add-on domain.

Now you have to remember that for these hosts, it is simply a numbers game. If you get dissatisfied and move on, it would hardly make a dent to their figure of hundreds of thousands of customers.

However, for you, it will mean a lot of wasted time, effort and money. Let’s see how to find the right host.

Am I saying that all cheap hosts are bad and should be avoided? Absolutely Not. I have used them for a long time before moving to VPSes. However, I do have a big problem with those super-cheap hosts who will go any extent to lure new customers and keep them locked in — by hook or my crook.

Here are some things you should remember when choosing a web-host. They will save you a lot of hassles and headaches in long run.

Rule#1 – No Lock-In. I would strongly recommend against paying anything more than a month in advance and, if you have to, a maximum of three months.

Sure, you may pay a bit higher price by paying monthly than you’d if you pay yearly. However, think of it as your “host-reliability” insurance — in case their services start to deteriorate, you will have an option of moving to another host.

Rule #2 – Know the Restrictions. It is an excellent idea to clear-up any special restrictions that the web host may have before you sign-up with them. Nasty surprises are particularly bad if they affect you monetarily.

And when you ask them about this, be specific in your questions. Ask them the database size limit, file-size limit, if they have any cap-on daily bandwidth usage and any particular script they disallow.

Do remember that nearly every host disallows extremely server intensive scripts like chat-scripts on shared infrastructure. You should be concerned only if they disallow popular scripts like vBulletin, PhotoPost and other which you may use.

Rule #3 – Know Thy Contract. Read the terms of service and acceptable use policy carefully before you sign-up with the webhost. Don’t just skim through it considering it to be regular stuff — more than often it is not and it directly affects you.

Rule #4 – Clarify Prices. Make sure that you always clarify the pricing of various add-ons before you hit the sign-up button. Here also you have to be specific unless you love getting vague responses.

Ask them if they will charge a setup fee if you terminate within first 15 days, cost of excess bandwidth and space, cost of upgrading an account and if there are any additional administration and support charges you should be aware of.

Rule #5 – Contact Support. Always contact the webhost’s support department via eMail and, if they provide it, by phone. Try to assess how professional and supportive they are when you ask questions I recommend above.

Rule #6 – Take my Recommendation. I have recommended a host below who I had happily used for over two-years! I am sure you will be glad that you took my suggestion.

I had used over 8 hosts before I settled for HostGator and used them happily for over two years before I had to move on to PowerVPS due to increased requirements. Even today I hear rave reviews about them just so frequently even though they have become one of the largest hosts out there.

The package I recommend is the Baby Plan at $9.95 a month plan. Now if you host 20 sites on this account, it turns out to be less than 50 cents a month! Click this link and then use the coupon Jury to get the first month for just 1 cent.

Even though they offer insanely high space and bandwidth, they don’t have the crazy restrictions like which I have mentioned above. And furthermore, they are a company with pockets deep enough to back these claimed quotes in case some customers ever reach the levels.

They also offer unlimited add-on domains and on-click install for all popular software. What this means is that you can have as many domains as you want on your account.

And with a click of a button, you can install software like WordPress, Joomla, PhpBB and Coppermine among others on your site. Yes, this means that you can setup a site without having any technical skills.

To Signup with HostGator, follow this link and then use the coupon Jury, you will get your first month for just 1 cent.

Remember — a good host means that you will be able to concentrate on developing, promoting and monetizing your websites. And yes, I know from my personal experience that HostGator is one of them.

Art Deco — while referring to my Domaining Strategy and Domain Development posts — asks:

Quoting a wise man “I keep an excel file with weekly details of how much traffic did the site get and how much money did it make from various revenue channels. If both don’t increase consistently, I know I need to get moving to grow these figures.”

With some sites it just seems like they plateau at a certain volume – maybe a 100 uniques/ month, maybe a few 1000 uniques/ month, but never enough to actually profit by either affiliates or ad cents clicks – and then they they just don’t grow much more.

It is hard to know whether to put some more time or money into them or sell them and move on. That’s what I was talking about – some way of judging what the potential of a URL is, and how many times to submit it, or add content to it, or let it be.

I assume you have to have enough domains running through your system that you develop some or list some for sale every day or every week, so when do you decide this domain is not worth holding?

That is a pretty good question you have asked. While I hate to say this but there is no “formula” which governs when you should sell a site and when you should hold on to it. It is a judgment call that you have to make.

However, there are certain things that you can indeed consider when making this judgment call. Let me mention a few which I follow –

1. Why Did You Start the Site? The very first question that you have to realize is that why did you get into the niche and start the site in first place? Did you start it just for flipping or did you have any interest in the segment?

What I have personally found is that you hit the no-growth plateau mostly when you are in the niches that you don’t really have an interest in but are there just because you saw someone else do good in it.

If you happen to have any genuine interest in the niche, you usually know what your audience wants and where can you reach them — and you know what direction the market is going in. Which brings us to point #2.

2. Predict the Market. Try to predict which direction is the supply-demand curve for your niche heading in. What will the market situation be like after six months, one year, two years and five years?

What are the opportunities and challenges in the segment? If you think that the market is going to grow and you are in a position to benefit it out it more than you’d make by selling right away, then don’t sell. Do consider the time and effort you’d have to put in.

If you think that you would rather be making more money by exiting now rather than grab the opportunity in future – sell! However, consider the competitive advantage you have over others because of your site.

3. Competition and Saturation. Do an analysis of who your competition is and what their strengths are. Research how saturated is the market within your niche and where do you stand right now.

After you know the realistic situation, decide – are you prepared to put in the effort, time and money required to keep growing within the niche?

4. Your Long-Term Plan. This is perhaps the most critical factor in making the decision — do you have a clarity of goals?

Do you know which keywords you want to rank for, what type of traffic do you want and what you want to do with this traffic? Also, do you have any plans to get into related niches or sub-segments of this niche?

Yes, getting them to buy something using your affiliate / CPA links is indeed clarity of goals. But you have to know what you want them to buy through your links.

If you think you can and want to achieve your goals, then sure work towards it. However, if you want to exit this niche, sell the site and invest towards your other goals. However, consider — will it be worth it to do so?

5. Future Plan of Action. Decide what you are going to do with the money that you will get by selling the site. After you have decided that, research — will you get better returns from what you plan to do than what your site is giving right now?

So, overall, when and whether to sell your website / domain is a completely subjective decision that you need to make depending on your own unique situation. I hope my points above were of some help to you.