Back in 2006 there was a tremendous amount of AOL search data that was leaked, it included information on slightly more than 9 million searches and almost 5 million clicks.  A member of EarnersForum.com, Breakpoint, scrubbed the data to determine how many clicks each position can expect to receive.  This is fairly well-known in the SEO community, but I haven’t heard domainers talking about it, hence why I wrote this post.

To begin analyzing search volume, we first need to know what percentage of searches will likely result in a click.  Obviously this will vary, but because this is such a large and broad sample, we can assume the data will apply fairly reliably across multiple verticals.  So lets get started…

The AOL search data included 9,038,794 searches which resulted in 4,926,623 clicks.  From that we can assume that 54.5% of searches will actually result in clicks.  If the exact monthly search volume for the keywords in your domain is 25,000, you can probably expect there to be 13,625 clicks (25,000 * 0.545) on the organic search results across all positions.  The next important question is how those clicks are distributed across the positions.  Obviously a site ranking #1 in Google will get more clicks than a site ranking #7, but how much more?

Here’s the breakdown of the 4,926,623 clicks:

Position 1: 2,075,765 clicks (42.13% of clicks)
Position 2: 586,100 clicks (11.9% of clicks)
Position 3: 418,643 clicks (8.5% of clicks)
Position 4: 298,532 clicks (6.1% of clicks)
Position 5: 242,169 clicks (4.92% of clicks)
Position 6: 199,541 clicks (4.05% of clicks)
Position 7: 168,080 clicks (3.41% of clicks)
Position 8: 148,489 clicks (3.01% of clicks)
Position 9: 140,356 clicks (2.85% of clicks)
Position 10: 147,551 clicks (2.99% of clicks)

Positions 11 and beyond had 501,397 total clicks combined, or 10.18%.  That means ranking #2 would be better than having every position from 11 and on to yourself.  I find it interesting that ranking #1 gets you 3.5 times more clicks than #2, and ranking #10 is better than ranking #9 since it is the last thing someone sees before clicking to the next page of results.

TRAFFIC (EXACT SEARCH VOLUME  *  0.545)  *  PERCENT OF CLICKS AS DECIMAL

Lets go back to the example where the exact match search volume in Google is 25,000 per month, from which you could expect around 13,625 total clicks across all positions (remember we did 25k * 0.545).  If you can rank #1 for the term, you could expect to get 5,740 visitors (13,625 * 0.4213) per month from Google.  If you ranked #2, you could expect 1,621 visitors (13,625 * 0.119) per month from Google.  All you have to do is multiply the total expected number of clicks by the fraction of clicks a certain position gets.  So ranking #10 should get you about 407 visitors (13,625 * 0.0299) per month from Google.  Of course if you really wanted to do a thorough analysis of the domain’s potential you would add in search volume for long tail terms that you could likely rank for.  An example would be if you had CarInsurance.com, you might want to analyze other keywords such as “car insurance quotes” that you would likely be able to rank for.

If you have time, I would be interested to hear from the community about this.  If you have a site ranking on the first page of Google, run the numbers based on your position and the exact match search volume, then check your analytics and see how it compares to the real-world numbers.

Of course this leads to other questions such as how difficult it would be to rank for each position based on the competition, how much money you could expect to earn from PPC ads or affiliate programs based on the traffic you are expecting (and CTR/RPC), etc. but I will leave that for another discussion.  The first question is very tricky to come up with a guesstimate for, so I like to choose the position for the calculations conservatively.  There are many variables involved, most of which are a closely guarded trade secret.  You can make an educated guess by looking at the sites ranking on the first page.  How many backlinks do they have?  What is their page rank?  How long has the site been up?  How many established players are there (Wikipedia, Fortune 500, etc)?  Are there any .edu or .gov sites (these are hard to outrank)?  The earnings question is easy to ballpark once you have a traffic estimate though.

So what is this experiment?  We’ll be posting on our new Twitter account every single time something happens on the site.  If a new listing is approved, it gets posted to Twitter with a link to the Sedo listing, encouraging our followers (and those viewing the public timeline) to make a $60 offer if they are interested in the domain.  If a domain gets pushed to auction, it gets posted to Twitter with a link to the Sedo auction, telling our followers to go join in the bidding.  When an auction closes, we post the sale price to Twitter with a link to the bidding history.

Our hope is that, first and foremost, this will help drive more traffic to Sedo listings, getting domains pushed to auction faster and bid up higher.  By making it easier for people to track activity on the site, there should hopefully be more involvement.  Also, as we grow our follower base, we will be able to hit a broader audience, some may even not be involved in the domain industry.  This will help educate outsiders on the value of domains, and make them aware of the existence of the domain aftermarket.

We just launched this test today.  The first Tweet on the new account was to notify followers that 9es.com was pushed to auction, and the Tweet got 14 clicks within a few seconds and we didn’t even have any followers yet.  The idea has already sent hundreds of clicks to Sedo listings, and it hasn’t even been 12 hours since we created the account.  This definitely looks promising, I expect this to take off once we have a larger follower base.

Please take a moment to follow PushToAuction on Twitter, maybe do a Tweet to tell your followers about us, and be sure to tell your domainer friends to give us a follow.  The more you help build awareness of the site, the more you will benefit when you need to liquidate one of your domains or you are looking to buy something.  Thanks!

Instructions

1. Download the Alexa list and extract it as “top-1m.csv”.
2. Copy/Paste the Alexa Data Mining Script into your favorite text editor.
3. Save the file as “alexa_mining.php”.
4. Upload both files to your server in the same directory.
5. Visit the script in your browser, fill out the form, and hit submit.

Note: You must have the max execution time of scripts on your server set to 0 (zero) so the script doesn’t time out.

Here is sample output from the script when I checked .com.mx domains in the Top 1M to see which were available in .com:

etapafinal2.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 13529.
42035rek2.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 219402.
vw-crestacuernavaca.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 271792.
descubrecpc.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 330641.
seriesvc.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 372805.
excelenciacademica.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 430121.
graficavillalba.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 469513.
consultoriofiscalunam.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 473568.
promocionessaftpay.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 482167.
checalo-triques.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 534623.
autoproductosmexicali.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 546489.
perionotas.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 610566.
descubreherbal.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 630434.
nissantiidasedan.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 648945.
eventossistema.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 650076.
alertaperiodistica.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 689653.
nissanaprio.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 697259.
marketingrci.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 723472.
checalo-autos.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 728666.
orlandoalonzo.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 740093.
larebeliondeloslycans.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 740882.
sientetucafe.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 758298.
eloficiodehistoriar.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 784745.
testdriveclub.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 816419.
odmintranet.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 819018.
cine-butaca.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 826995.
lindisimos.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 848434.
boutiquemusical.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 850035.
acuamex-shop.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 856203.
imparmexico.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 858146.
remateschidos.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 923745.
nissanplatina.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 951391.
mejoresarticulos.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 988385.
fathersfate.com is available. Buy at Moniker or Godaddy. Target Alexa rank of 996375.

Tip: Make sure you only pick up domain names that are defensible as generics and do not have any trademark issues.  Also, the Alexa list is compiled daily, so check it often as new opportunities will arise on a regular basis.

As always, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

If you are unable to install the script, I can run some scans for you (for a fee).

The way it works is simple, it loops through checking the domains in your list until it finds one that has dropped.  When one of the domain names expires, it logs you in to Dynadot and adds the domain to your shopping cart.  Then it quickly checks you out and completes the purchase, and then removes it from the list of domains it is checking.  It keeps going until all the domains have dropped.  It checks the domains sequentially, so the more you add to the list the less frequently it checks each one.  Depending on how good your server is, it should be able to check a domain every 1/5th of a second.  That means if you have one domain in your list it will check it five times per second.  If you have five domains in your list it will check each domain once per second.

One neat thing about this script is that it does not require you to qualify for Dynadot’s bulk pricing and have access to their API.  All you need is a Dynadot user name and password, and the script does the rest for you.  However, it is not able to buy domains using the credit card you have on file.  You must add account credits for this to work.

Instructions

1. Sign up for an account at Dynadot and add some account credits.
2. Go to http://dnmedia.com/drop_catch.php and copy/paste the code into your favorite text editor.
3. Edit the Dynadot user name and password at the top (leave the quotes though).
4. Save the file locally as “drop_catch.php”.
5. Open up a new Notepad file, and enter in the domains you want to catch, one on each line.
6. Save the file locally as “drops.txt”.
7. Upload both files to your server in the same directory.

Now here is where the instructions could go one of two ways.  If you have access to set up Cron jobs on your server, set one up to run this script at 2pm EST (GMT -5).  If not, you’re going to have to run the script manually at the designated time by visiting it in your browser.  As with the bulk availability checker, you need to make sure the max execution time for scripts on your server is set to 0 (zero) so the script doesn’t time out.  If you set it up as a Cron job, most servers ignore the max execution time so don’t worry about that.

Each day you want to try and catch an expiring domain, you have to create a new “drops.txt” file and upload it.

TIP: Check NameJet and SnapNames to see if each domain you chose already has bids.  If it does, don’t bother adding it to the list because you won’t get it anyway, and the script will waste valuable time checking something you have no chance at.

Why am I giving you such a valuable tool for free?

Because I have a faster one so you having success isn’t going to affect me

As always, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.  Enjoy!

In Rick’s most recent post, he embeded a video one of his friends created called $3,000 a Day Domainer.  His friend, who apparently wishes to remain anonymous at this point, claims to earn in excess of $3,000 a day by hand-registering and parking ccTLDs.  He admits that he is telling us of this great business opportunity to increase awareness and in turn increase the value of his own portfolio, but it was thought-provoking nonetheless.  The video includes screenshots from his Domain Management page at Sedo which proves the traffic and revenue, however the domains are blocked out which left most of us wondering: what category of domains does his ccTLD portfolio consist of?  Is he sitting on a mountain of trademarked keywords?  Are they mostly premium generic keywords? Geo domains?  Are they mostly English, native language, or IDNs?

In addition to these questions, the video left me wondering how many domains it takes him to generate that kind of parking revenue and how much he spends in reg fees each year.  I would also like to know what the best registrar for ccTLDs is in terms of price, features, and security.  Finally, I would like to know which parking companies allow monetization of non-U.S. traffic and also support foreign languages.  Hopefully the next installment will answer some of these tough questions, otherwise I’ll have to start doing some legwork to figure all this out.  One thing is for sure though, my interest is piqued.

For the most part I have completely ignored ccTLDs when acquiring domains; probably 98% of our portfolio are .coms.  However, I became interested in ccTLDs after I spent two weeks in Romania for Christmas and New Years.  After a few days there I started to notice the complete absense of .coms on television, billboards, and radio.  Every single domain name I saw the entire trip (and I saw a lot), ended in Romania’s ccTLD of .ro.  When I got back to the states I tried to look up past recorded .ro sales on NameBio and DNSalePrice and could only find a handful.  This is definitely an untapped market right now.  I not only want to focus on ccTLDs for countries with large populations and fairly low (but rapidly rising) internet penetration, but I also want to focus on ccTLDs in countries that truly embrace their own extension (.de and .cn come to mind).

Sedo recently released its 2008 Domain Market Study which contains a division of the ccTLD sales through Sedo.  It came as no surprise to me that .de (Germany) topped the list with 61% of all ccTLD sales (6,159).  The .co.uk extension tied for second with .eu (European Union), each claiming 13% of ccTLD sales.  Next came .es (Spain) at 4%, .fr (France) and .us (United States) tied at 3%, .nl at 2%, and .cn at 1%.  I was surprised to see such a low number for the Chinese extension, I’ll have to keep that in mind.