Comments on: Comparing Mini Site Providers

By: Michael Sumner

Michael Sumner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:54:02 +0000

All the examples I gave of our results were registered between 1997 and 1999. Half of Mike’s examples were registered between 1996 and 2001, and while the other half were fairly recent, they are extremely low competition and easy to rank for. How is that not a fair comparison?

By: Michael Sumner

Michael Sumner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:47:15 +0000

It would probably take me half the day to find a site we did where the domain was registered in the last few years, because we turn most of those away for not having high enough search volume or CPC. We mostly develop premium domains that were registered in the late 90s and early 00s. If you don’t understand what I said in my previous comment, I’m afraid we’ll just have to agree to disagree because I don’t have hours to waste finding an example to rebut your false assumption that search engines give a lot of undue credit to old domains. Mike Cohen did worst on the old domains because they are better and have higher competition… QED.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:43:02 +0000

Ok.. if you want to disprove my “theory” then please answer my original question:

“Do you have any examples of recently registered domains (2005-present)?”

If not, best of luck to you.

By: Michael Sumner

Michael Sumner — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:10:24 +0000

First of all, you’re exaggerating the value search engines put on old domain names. Second of all, Mike’s first example was registered in 1996, and the last three examples were all circa 2000 and 2001, so I think the comparison is plenty fair. It’s much harder to rank an old domain with extremely high competition than it is to rank a fresh reg with low to no competition. Mike couldn’t rank the last three domains in his examples… and they’re all aged pretty well (8 – 9 years old). That alone disproves your theory that old domains get “big points”.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:18:24 +0000

Do you have any examples of recently registered domains (2005-present)? Search engines give big points to aged domains so showcasing results for recent regs would be a fair comparison IMO.. especially since most of your potential customers do not own these single-word gems. Thanks

By: Leonard Britt

Leonard Britt — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:37:20 +0000

I have not yet tried any of the minisite development services but my hesitation arises from personal experience and examples like those you illustrate above. Adsense clicks on a lightly-searched phrase or on a minisite on page 3 or lower of Google/Yahoo make it difficult to justify spending on development even at $99. No doubt there are cases where it works out fine but I’m just not convinced that it works out well on average. Thanks for the comparison.

By: Michael Sumner

Michael Sumner — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:35:54 +0000

Thanks Paul. I was advised by a reader to tone it down a bit

People shouldn’t get suckered into thinking that more content is always better, or even that ranking well in search engines is a guarantee of success. You really have to scrutinize what is going on.

If you have 600+ words per page on five pages, but you don’t rank well in the search engines, was it worth the money? If you rank well in the search engines, but the term doesn’t get many searches at all, are the few dozen extra visitors each month going to pay for the development in a reasonable amount of time? The answer is no.

The real litmus test is whether or not a mini site provider can rank well for keywords that matter, everything else is hype.

By: lumpenfolk

lumpenfolk — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:51:32 +0000

Great post. I was lucky enough to read the earlier version too

- Paul