I have been reading a lot about GeoDomains and Geo Domain development at the moment and I have to admit that this is one area of domaining that, until recently, I have tended to avoid. That is mainly because of the costs of acquiring good geodomains -especially town and city domains. However, I think that a lot of domainers are taking an interest in geo domains and I thought I’d take another look at this potentially profitable niche.
It might be best to start with some definitions. GeoDomains fall into two categories:-
Pure geodomains - for example Seattle.com, London.com and Birmingham.co.uk
Geo generics - for example SeattlePlumbers.com, LondonDentists.com and BirminghamBars.co.uk
I would like to discuss Geogeneric domains at a later date. So, the rest of this article concerns pure geo domains.
It is not hard to see the value in pure geo domains. The business model is, on the face of it, fairly straightforward. If people are typing the geodomain of a large city, say Ontario, its quite clear they want information about that city. If someone types the word ‘Seattle vacations’ into Google and the results include say, Seattle.com or Seattle.us or even Seattle.info then you know they are likely to look at these three as a priority.
Perhaps the most important thing domainers need to know about GeoDomains is that all the best ones have gone and are in the hands of domainers/ end users. So, you are going to pay decent money to get your hands on the best ones! (This week DNJournal.com reported that LasVegas.asia sold for $30,000 and VisitPanamaCityBeach.com for $25,000.) By best ones I mean pure domains that are the names of towns, cities, counties and regions of any significance.
Dot com geodomains are highly sought after. Place names with the related country codes are also highly prized, examples of which include Boston.us and London.co.uk. Many of the most highly prized pure geo dot com domains are in the hands of three players who between them own hundreds of the biggest city names in the world. These are:-
Boulevards New Media owned by Dan Pulcrano (e.g. Seattle.com, Los Angeles.com)
Castello Cities Internet Network Inc owned by David and Michael Castello (e.g. LongBeach.com, Nashville.com)
Geo Domain New Media owned by Skip Hoagland (Atlanta.com, MyrtleBeach.com)
The rest are owned by mainstream media organisations, domainers and a wide variety of internet entrepreneurs.
There are various approaches to the development of these domains. Some go for a basic consistent approach when developing out their domains while others go for more of a complex ‘visitor guide’ approach perhaps with more interactive elements such as small ads, job vacancies and, occasionally, a small amount of visitor generated content. Some have news and perhaps employ journalists. Some seem to be for local residents while others are aimed at tourists and business visitors.
Domainers interested in finding out more about geodomains could start their research at the geodomain website owners trade association website AssociatedCities.com. Here you will find links to the association’s 110 members sites. Mostly, but not exclusively, these sites relate to towns and cities in the US. There are also a great many UK geodomains that are well developed and certainly worth a look - Glasgow.com, LondonTown.com and Manchester.com are my favourites.
There is an interesting article about Skip Hoagland of Geo Domain New Media in DNJournal.com, this week, that is worth reading. Skip together with Steven Morales have built up a series of Geo domain related websites:-
GeoDomainer.com (social networking site)
GeoDomain.com (a premium geo domain auction site)
GeoDomains.com (a media company)
GeoBusiness.com (business tools/ services for the geo industry)
GeoAuction.com (an auction site)
Steve also writes the GeoDomainers blog SimplyGeo.com, which is a well produced and well written information source. Finally, there are two dedicated geo domain name discusion forums SimplyGeo.net and GeoOwners.com. Both have potential and are definitely worth a visit.
What do you think of geoDomains? Do you own any geo domains or any geo generic domain names? What does the future hold for such domains? Have ‘ordinary’ domainers missed the boat or are there hidden gems still out there waiting to be found?
Why not share your thoughts below.
