EPISODE 1.15 - THE 2020 DOMAIN REGISTRAR CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET: ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR 20 years ago was the best time to create an online business.  Today is the second best day.  If you’re spinning up a new website and need hosting, I personally recommend siteground.  What’s better is they’re offering 3 months Startup Hosting for only $0.99!  They offer free email, SSL certs, you can transfer in a wordpress website or create a new one with the press of a button.  They also offer auto-scaleable cloud hosting, wooCommerce hosting and more!  (you can even register domain names there).  They have an easy to use UI, secured through two-factor authentication (please set this up).  Their support staff is always helpful via liveChat when I use that.  Would you use my affiliate link? https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida     It’s been a while since I’ve provided an update, so here’s what’s happening Here’s my plan for the future: I break down the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 to get us down to the Final 4 Domain Registrars.  Here's a full break down of the bracket from the first game to the most recent. I’m not buying a lot of new domains these days, mostly because I’m pinched for time.  But I bou

THIS EPISODE

• Update on my Amazon Affiliate Website
• Breakdown the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in the Best Domain Registrar Challenge
• Talk about a few new domain acquisitions
• A coping strategy I implemented to help me deal with kids during COVID-19

ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR

• Article stating how I set the seeds for the tournament
• East Bracket
• Midwest Bracket
• South Bracket
• West Bracket
• Sweet 16
• Elite 8
• Updated Bracket

20 years ago was the best time to create an online business.  Today is the second best day.  If you’re spinning up a new website and need hosting, I personally recommend siteground.  What’s better is they’re offering 3 months Startup Hosting for only $0.99!  They offer free email, SSL certs, you can transfer in a wordpress website or create a new one with the press of a button.  They also offer auto-scaleable cloud hosting, wooCommerce hosting and more!  (you can even register domain names there).  They have an easy to use UI, secured through two-factor authentication (please set this up).  Their support staff is always helpful via liveChat when I use that.  Would you use my affiliate link? https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

Leading into the show I talk about how to cope better with the COVID-19 situation by using your time to accomplish tasks around the house, getting fit, buy domains and more.  Find new routines and emerge on the other side of this pandemic a better  you!

Breaking down the first round of the West Regional

In this article I break down all 16 games in the first round of the West region.  You can view the updated bracket here.  I’d love to see this shared throughout the domainer community!  Please feel free to follow along in my next several podcasts as I choose winners from each bracket!  I think it’ll take me about 8 podcasts to crown a champion – so please fill your bracket out and follow along at home!

Here's a full break down of the first 32 games.  In future podcasts I discuss each bracket in detail.  Be sure to subscribe!

• Article stating how I set the seeds for the tournament
• Article breaking-down the East Bracket
• Article breaking down the Midwest Bracket
• Article breaking down the South Bracket
• Article breaking down the West Bracket

Breaking down the first round of the East Regional

In this article I break down all 16 games in the first round of the East region.  You can view the updated bracket here.  I’d love to see this shared throughout the domainer community!  Please feel free to follow along in my next several podcasts as I choose winners from each bracket!  I think it’ll take me about 8 podcasts to crown a champion – so please fill your bracket out and follow along at home!

Here's a full break down of the first 32 games.  In future podcasts I discuss each bracket in detail.  Be sure to subscribe!

• Article stating how I set the seeds for the tournament
• Article breaking-down the East Bracket
• Article breaking down the Midwest Bracket
• Article breaking down the South Bracket
• Article breaking down the West Bracket

Today’s episode is brought to you by my friends at siteground. Use my affiliate link: https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

Before I get into the regional breakdown, I want talk about the new Domain Name Wholesale Exchange by Josh Reason

• DNWE.com Domain Name Wholesale Exchange (DNWE.com) is a wholesale market which excludes endusers.  Founded by Josh Reason in 2020, with a recent addition of partner Joshua Schoen.  Here’s some more details:
  When you register, it must be approved – unsure of the vetting process, but when you sign up you must list 2 domains that you own.
  Listings are 100% private
  Commissions lower than 15%
  You can buy/sell domains.  It doesn’t look like there’s a limit on TLDs, right now there are .com, .net, .io, .co, .org, .in (1), .tv (2), and .vc (1)
  All listed domains must be approved.
  Once you list, your listing is good for 30 days.
  The highest listing price is $20k, but lots are listed between $299 and $999.  $299 is the minimum.
  Great filters by alpha-numeric, price, category and TLD
  
• As a user, I wish it had an information page – how much commissions are, an “About” page would be a nice addition.
• I’ll be posting a new article about where I interview Josh Reason about DNWE soon.

Breaking down the first round of the Midwest Regional

In this article I break down all 16 games in the first round of the midwest region.  You can view the updated bracket here.  I’d love to see this shared throughout the domainer community!  Please feel free to follow along in my next several podcasts as I choose winners from each bracket!  I think it’ll take me about 8 podcasts to crown a champion – so please fill your bracket out and follow along at home!

Here's a full break down of the first 32 games.  In future podcasts I discuss each bracket in detail.  Be sure to subscribe!

• Article stating how I set the seeds for the tournament
• Article breaking-down the East Bracket
• Article breaking down the Midwest Bracket
• Article breaking down the South Bracket
• Article breaking down the West Bracket

Today’s episode is brought to you by my friends at siteground. Use my affiliate link: https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

Before I get into the regional breakdown, I want to talk about current events

• Coronavirus      is changing the world, how I’m coping, things locally (beach closings,      Stores are out of everything (dishwasher tabs), I’ve got about 6 rolls of      TP if anyone wants to send me some.
• Registering      domains with Coronavirus
• Don’t do Coronavirus Domain Outbound Marketing by Elliot Silver at com

Breaking down the first round of the South Regional

In this article I break down all 16 games in the first round of the south region.  You can view the updated bracket here.  I’d love to see this shared throughout the domainer community!  Please feel free to follow along in my next several podcasts as I choose winners from each bracket!  I think it’ll take me about 8 podcasts to crown a champion – so please fill your bracket out and follow along at home!

Here's a full break down of the first 32 games.  In future podcasts I discuss each bracket in detail.  Be sure to subscribe!

• Article      stating how I set the seeds for the tournament
• Article      breaking-down the East Bracket
• Article      breaking down the Midwest Bracket
• Article      breaking down the South Bracket
• Article      breaking down the West Bracket

Today’s episode is brought to you by my friends at siteground. Use my affiliate link: https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

SEGMENT 1: Previewing the Domain Registrar Championship Bracket

In this article I talk about how I derived the 2020 Domain Registrar bracket, including seeding all 64 registrars.

If you’d rather cut to the chase, you can view the bracket here.  I’d love to see this shared throughout the domainer community!  Please feel free to follow along in my next several podcasts as I choose winners from each bracket!  I think it’ll take me about 8 podcasts to crown a champion – so please fill your bracket out and follow along at home!

Here’s the poll at namepros.com that inspired this bracket challenge.  I wanted to find some real data and have some fun in making this bracket challenge – and crown a real champion, opinions aside.

Today’s episode is brought to you by my friends at siteground. Use my affiliate link: https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

Segment 1: The different types of Top Level Domains

In this article I reviewed how the DNS system works, but I also reviewed all 5 types of TLDs:

• Generic TLD (gTLD) - .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, .edu AND all the new gTLDs like .web, .online
• Country Code TLD (ccTLD) - .io, .co
• Internationalized (IDN) ccTLD – .co.uk, .com.au
• Infrastructure TLD - .arpa, all reserved
• Historical TLDs – no longer exists, such as .yu for former soviet block country Yugoslavia.

Segment 2: Which of the “new” TLDs should domain investors buy?

• Country codes – outside of the U.S., the ccTLD is often the primary TLD. Great examples are .de, .ca (which doesn’t charge sales tax to purchases from the US)
• Startups: .co (Columbia), .io (Indian Ocean), .ai (Anguilla) – Artificial Intelligence

HOT TLDs for the future

• So brand new you haven’t heard of them: Alvin Brown interviewed Morgan Linton who educated me about .gg TLDs. You can listen to his podcast and interview here.
  • Here's Alvin's interview with Peter Askew that I mentioned was really good!

Just My Opinion (take this with a grain of salt) 

• I think the geo TLDs (.boston, .ny, .miami, .la) are going to be huge in the future for local businesses and government entities. Like .com, this is about real estate – there’s only one in each local.
• .club – many private uses for .club, and I think there is great leadership behind this TLD. HOAs, other public and private clubs.
• .tech – great for tech-only companies, who’s end user’s are primarily technical people in nature.
• .global – notice these catching on for international companies a bit (namescon.global)
• .org – with the recent shakeup of Public Interest Registry, I think this we need to monitor the TLD – it certainly could go down (but it’s already little brother to .com) – so I see a big upside for investors right now.

Any tld that operates primarily outside the US won’t be a money maker for a long time.  I’m going to focus investing in TLDs that US users will adopt, since US users are the people who spend money online, plain and simple.

Final word on new TLDs: for most of the “new” gTLDs, only buy ones that are one-word dictionary words, these will be the highest value sooner.  Also, there’s some luck in this – the next generation will dictate their usage, and much of that is unknown.

Segment 3: new TLDs to avoid

• Any TLDs that have plural/singular like .auto and .autos
• Any TLD with “special requirements” like “must live in (insert country here, unless you live there)” or .bank (where you must be a bank)
• .biz, .info, .tv – I know there’s been some buzz around .tv – but in a generation, people won’t even know what broadcast television is, and the use of “cable tv” is declining world wide. Industry is being redefined, seems to me like it’s on the way out.

I can see a future where security is a big concern, and TLDs are locked down to “verified companies” (more like .bank).

Today’s episode is brought to you by my friends at siteground. Use my affiliate link: https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida

Segment 1: What is Domain Name Theft and How are Domain Names Stolen?

Most common way:

1. Hacker finds out what your login to your domain registrar by doing a whois lookup for your domain name.
2. If it’s an email that can be logged into online (such as gmail or outlook or some other hosted email account), hackers will try to break into your email account. Once they have access they will change your email password, locking you out.
3. Once they gain access to your email, they can use “forget password” on your domain registrar login and have access to your domain registrar. They will now change the password to your registrar account, effectively locking you out.
4. Now all they have to do is transfer your domains to another account.

Segment 2: how to prevent your domain names from being stolen

A few years ago, the dev shop I work at during the day did the dev work to allow users to opt-into two-factor authentication, so I have a strong working knowledge of how it works.  I’m going to share my knowledge today to help you keep your domain names from being compromised.

Online security is about setting up multiple lines of defense around all of your accounts.  It’s not a matter of IF one of your accounts will be compromised, but WHEN.  Because of that, it’s important to have layers of security.

• Length is truly the only thing that matters.
• Use a password manager, like LastPass, to generate and store your passwords.
• Use UNIQUE passwords everywhere you login. Never reuse a password you use!
• Always Enable two-factor authentication (2FA)
• Use different email addresses as your contacts for than you use to login with your registrar account.
• Lock your domain names. Your registrar allows you to set a “lock” on your domain – this means they will have to contact you via your contact info to unlock your domain to enable a transfer.

Finally, I want to reiterate that you should NEVER use a website that doesn’t offer TOTP.

Segment 3: SOME OF MY LANDING PAGES HOSTED THROUGH EFTY.COM RECENTLY STOPPED WORKING

I wrote in this article how to setup email forwarding on your domains.  In it, I showed you how to setup your efty.com landers without pointing your DNS servers to efty.com.  It seems as though efty has closed this loophole.  Earlier this week, I notice my landers setup with domain forwarding with masking no longer worked, so I had to route my DNS through efty.com to get them to work again.  It’s a minor inconvenience, and since each registrar handles email forwarding differently (paid vs free) and sometimes it works or it doesn’t (I’m looking at you GoDaddy), then it’s even more difficult to bulk forward email sent to email addresses associated with your domain.  I’ll be writing an article on this soon (hopefully)

This episode brought to you by SiteGround.  Check out this amazing hosting platform that I highly recommend based upon experience.  The offer free and easy SSL certificates, easy wordpress website setup, and free hosted email.

Segment 1: general observations from NamesCon

I wrote a quick recap of my first ever NamesCon.  I don’t like spending money, and for me, this trip was a luxury.  Was awesome to bring my son, Jackson (15) with me and spend some quality time with him.

1. THE BEST: GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani gave the keynote Thursday. Like every CEO I’ve met, he’s very friendly and says all the right things.
2. THE WORST: Richard Lau’s “Design, Build, and Exit!” made me angry – pay employees low wages, have a crappy office and give poor benefits, so that when you sale, it will be a positive for your employees – so it will make it easier to sell your business. This is some dirtbag stuff. Treat others as you want to be treated – plain and simple..

Other notes

1. Some domain investors are pretty uppidy – “I won’t even look at an offer that’s not six figures” – I bet I heard this a dozen times. Good for these guys, riding their high horses.
2. Some domain investors are amazing and friendly! Everyone was approachable, some had more to say than others. Andrew Alleman’s voice is amazing!
3. Enchanted Rock was a lot of fun.
4. Jackson’s favorite part was was Lisa Box’s talk on Generation Z and Jeff Sass’s (.Club) Economics of a Registry
5. Cool Swag Bro!
6. The closing remarks by Soeren von Varchmin were disappointing.

Segment 2: How to best sale your domains via outreach

This was a topic that came up at NamesCon quite a bit. James Booth talked about sending an initial email then calling on the phone.  And be persistent and use a British accent, of course.

I heard others talking about using LinkedIn messaging, sending letters via postal mail (snail mail).  These aren’t bad ideas if you’re looking to liquidate your domains.

The issue I have is that I think this will cause you to get a lower price, it stinks of desperation.  Of course, perhaps I am wrong.  With domains, I think people need to understand the value themselves. When they do, if you own good domain names, then you will have leverage.

Segment 3: haters gonna hate

I’m going to rant for a moment.  Experience domain investors will tell you that your domains suck, that you’re doing it wrong, and some of them will laugh and maybe even ignore you. Do you anyways.

Segment 4: Amazon Affiliate update

I haven’t added any content to the site since the original 10 articles.  One article is drawing some interest, though it’s a “seasonal interest” site.  Progress is extremely slow.  I’m working on making time to add some more content in coming weeks – probably 1 article every 2 weeks or so, and see how that goes.

Episode 6 is sponsored by SiteGround, you can visit my affiliate link at https://www.siteground.com/go/jasonofflorida  

Segment 1: What I've Been Into Recently

• Launched my first amazon affiliate site. It’s a brand new domain that I think last podcast I was working on launching. A quick overview
  • It’s a wordpress website on a geodomain. One of the first ones I hand-registered as a DI (but realized pretty quickly it wasn’t a great domain for reselling it)
  • Amazon affiliate, which was actually very easy to setup. I may write an article about it later – contact me if this would be useful to you and I’ll put one together.
  • Currently has 10 informational articles which took me ~6 hours each to write myself, including inserting all the ads.
  • The articles are based on the keyword golden ration popularized by Doug Cunnington. You can watch his youtube here for more information:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXuI4H6flxc.
  • Traffic is very minimal, and it’s not showing up in first few pages of google yet, and I’ve had only 1 search click since launching on 12/18.
  • This is a process I think will take at least a year to see if it’s going to work, I’ll keep everyone updated.
• I spent the holidays in my hometown in Kentucky, with just a mixed-bag of emotions.
• Domain investing
  • Finally got planfully.com and islandpack.com listed
  • Changed all of my domain names to price upon request –here's my article where I examined 7 comparisons between buy-it-now versus price-upon-request.
  • domain prices are bonkers right now at auction websites.
  • Considered buying a few .city domains.
• Working on two websites for customers.
• Working on a website for the local youth league to support their 5k
• Added terms/conditions, privacy and cookie policy to my website over the holidays which has been on my wish list for a bit.
• I lost a domain name!

Segment 2: names con

• Newcomer and pro tracks you can select from (I’m going with the newb one)
• Domain economic forum, where they’re pushing for more transparency.
• Domain Auction - click here for a list of current domains that will be auctioned.

Segment 3: sell me your domains

Quite frankly, I’m disgusted at the pricing on auction sites, domain names seem overpriced.  I’m going to start pursuing more private purchases. If you have a domain you’d like to sell, reach out to me.

In today's episode I veer off the normal template and freestyle a bit where I talk about being consumed by my latest domain investing project, building an Amazon Affiliate niche site and writing an ebook that I'll sell in pdf form on the same website.  This falls within the realm of domain investing since domainers do 3 things to make money on domains:

1. buy domains and sell them for profit
2. buy domains and park them for pay-per-click ads
3. develop them to monetize and build value

In segment two I discuss how doing everyday domain investing things like reviewing daily expiring domains is getting squeezed out while I've been focused on the niche site.  I did buy two domains in the last month (planfully.com and islandpack.com), and lamented that I haven't made time to list them on my website or put landing pages up yet.  Finally, I discuss some of the other things going on in my life like coaching 2 youth basketball teams, working to maintain the infrastructure at our local youth league, and a problem I had with Hootsuite.  I also mention a recent article I published on JasonOfFlorida.com that contained an interview with Domain King Rick Schwartz.

Question of the show: Can developing a website be considered part of domain investing?

Please email me with any questions or anything you'd like me to dig deeper into or a new topic I haven't discussed yet:  contact@jasonofflorida.com

Show Links:
I mention some of the podcasts that I've been listening to recently, here are links to their websites:

1.  https://www.humanproofdesigns.com/
2. https://nichesiteproject.com/
3. https://www.nichesitetools.com/
4. https://www.nichepursuits.com/

New article on JasonOfFlorida.com is an interview with Domain King Rick Schwartz:

Interview with a Domain King: Why and How he Buys Domains Off Twitter

In this episode I discuss a recent tweet by the Domain King Rick Schwartz and why it really caught my eye. His knowledge and experience as a domain investor and marketer is something you should pay attention to because you could could learn.

But more, you could also find some great domains listed at great prices. A short disclaimer, I do not know the domain king, nor have I ever met him, and this podcast surely isn't sponsored by him. As a new domain investor, it's good to look to the women and men who are leaders in the industry and soak up all you can. I also talk about how his listing his domains for lease could be a future market trend.

Finally, I review the three domains I own that I like least. I tell you why I don't like these domain names, even though they could be a great fit for the right user.

Question posed during the show: "would you offer a domain name to Rick at a discounted price for 90 minutes via twitter?"  I'd love to hear your replies.

Show Links

Rick's tweet discussed

article "Domain King Rick Schwartz Sets New Standard for Domain Investors"

Rick's Blog

Domain King Blog

Domain Sherpa Podcast - November 18, 2019

Follow me on Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn/Facebook/Pinterest: JasonOfFlorida
email: contact@jasonofflorida.com

In this episode I will discuss the hidden costs the domain investor incurs. These costs are outside the scope of the registration fee or purchase price, renewal fees and the basic cost of time.  These costs include leveraging domain name management tool Efty.com as well as social media manager hootsuite.  As part of the discussion, I talk briefly about recently leveraging my teenage son to be my social media manager.  I also talk about the Domain King Rick Schwartz recent blog post where he stated "Business is something you study and learn from. Business is one word......SALES! No sales....No Business. So if you don't like sales or selling, you don't belong in business."

I will also discuss my recent article "How to Buy a Domain Name: The Complete Domain Buyers Guide".  Lastly, I will discuss three of my recent domain name acquisitions coastkush.com, planfully.com and bewitched.io.  Head over to JasonOfFlorida.com for show notes and great resources for Domain Investors.  Thanks for listening!

In this episode I discuss a new page of my website where I added links to tools and resources for domain investors and web entrepreneurs, you can find that page here: https://jasonofflorida.com/domain-investing/tools/

I also discussed how to buy expired domain names from auctions.GoDaddy.com and Dynadot.com. I discussed some of the positives and negatives from each from a user experience point of view.  I also discussed viewing, filtering and sorting expired domains via expireddomains.net.

Lastly, I discussed three of my domain names that I own - SquareWraps.com, adno.org, and NavalHomes.com.  I talked valuation, my asking prices (and how I arrived at them), landing pages, and Buy It Now for Make an Offer.

I recently wrote a standard operating procedure so that I could easily list my domains on the registrar, afternic.com, sedo.com, dan.com and where I also discuss using efty.com for my forsale landing pages.  I discuss 3 recent domain name acquisitions excontraining.com, huxul.com and redbarrier.com