Just what does Authority Labs really do?

The service allows you to monitor your domain names for search engine rankings of specific keywords or search terms of your choice.

Once you set a domain name and define the search terms you want to track, Authority Labs goes to work monitoring your ranking for those terms. There are options to be updated via email alerts and you can view charts to track your performance over time.

Monitor One Website for Free

You can give this service a go for free through a promotional free trial account. You can monitor one domain and 10 search terms.  Simply visit the Authority Labs website to sign up.

There is also a Personal Plan which is $9 per month to monitor 3 domains, though the beauty of this service may lie in the fact that it’s scalable, allowing paying customers to monitor many many more websites with ease.

Why Bother?

Monitoring search rankings can beneficial for numerous reasons. For one, it can help you visualize the progress you are making, especially if you are just getting started!

Keeping tabs on those rankings can help you discover where your traffic is coming from and try to repeat that success.

Do you track your search rankings? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Monitor Google, Yahoo and Bing Rankings for Free with Authority Labs DotSauce Magazine

“The True Story of the Internet” is about the internet revolution of the last 10 years. The founders of eBay, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Netscape and many others tell the personal stories of how they made their untold billions in this short time period.

The style of the story-telling is up close and personal. With first-hand testimony from the people that matter, we tell a story that has all the excitement of a thriller — full of battles and back-stabbing, moments of genius and moments of sheer hilarity. You will never surf the net in the same way again.

Did They Leave Out the Domain Name Industry?

Domain names are the backbone of all this progress in business, branding and the internet itself. I am not positive, but I don’t think the domain industry will be put in the spotlight within any of these episodes.

Soon domain names will become main stream as more and more big stories unfold. Aside from Mr. Gates himself, domainers are making as much if not more income than many of these featured business founders.

Episode Premier Schedule

There are four separate hour-long episodes in this special presentation. Listed below are the premier air times. Each episode will be rerun many times in the following days if you happen to miss the premier.

Trailer Video Clips

• Mooning the Giant: Bill Gates gets the necessary fuel to begin an all-out war.
• Navigator: Netscape’s latest invention, Navigator, begins to take the world by storm.
• YouTube: YouTube Co-founder Chad Hurley discusses his outlook on people driven browsers.
• MySpace: What’s next for the new generation of Web 2.0?
• Bill Gates: After dropping out of Harvard to run his own company, Bill Gates is going nowhere but up in the PC World.
• Web 2.0: These innovators are heading the revolution of Web 2.0.

Enjoy the show! Feel free to reminisce about what you were doing during the 90′s internet revolution with a comment. I wish I had been buying domains!

“Download: The True Story of the Internet” Premiers Monday March 3rd DotSauce Magazine

New Features and Interactive Snap Previews

Just last week, Snap.com rolled out free memberships, which allow you to customize your Snap Preview displays at any time as well as input your AdSense Publisher ID to earn money by displaying relevant textual links directly below your Snap Previews.

Here are a few first hand examples of some of the new Snap Previews in action, hover over the icon next to each link to activate the content preview.

• Video: The Future of Digital Media
• RSS Feed: DotSauce Domain News
• MySpace Profile: Mark’s Profile
• WikiPedia Info: Domaining
• Google Maps: FireFox Crop Circle!
  *Note: Select “Satellite” view and zoom in to see the crop circle.*

Getting Started with SnapShares
Input Your AdSense Publisher ID

Within the “Manage Your Site” section you simply click on the “Snap Shares” tab, select AdSense Network and input your publisher ID (e.g. pub-12345…)

Now simply copy and paste your lightweight SnapShot JavaScript before the closing </body> tag of your pages. Your Snap Previews with AdSense links will automatically be included immediately after your site loads. It is too early as of yet to report on any click activity or revenue earnings.

SnapShots Isn’t For Everyone

I have had complaints in the past about the bulky and awkward “pop up” styling of these windows. Maybe it’s the icons, the design or just that some people are not used to something like this application. If you do not like SnapShots you can easily turn them off permanently by clicking the small gear box icon at the top right of any Preview Shot to edit your individual display options.

I think the SnapShot application provides excellent benefits for both content publishers and readers alike. They save visitors time by having extended external content right at their fingertips. They make websites dynamic and interactive or “sticky,” if you will, which in turn keeps your website visitors staying longer and coming back!

Google Teams Up With Snap For New AdSense Revenue Opportunity DotSauce Magazine

Visit the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and enter one or more keywords or longtail keywords (popular phrases) on separate lines.

Here is a list of keywords I used as an example specifically for this article:

• blog marketing
• blog advertising
• blog sales
• blog text links
• blog affiliates
• blog revenue

Step 2: Download Results as Text File

You should now be looking at a long list of keywords related to your initial search. These keyword suggestions are exact phrases that are typed into Google Search. Below your results table will be an option to download all keywords to text file.

Step 3: Bulk Domain Availability Check

Open the text file you just downloaded and copy all the keywords listed. Note: Some keyword phrases may be blatantly useless and you can exclude those lines from the file at this time.

Paste your list of keywords, longtail keywords and search phrases into a bulk domain availability search tool. Moniker’s Bulk Registration tool is my personal favorite for reliability, speed and security. The spaces between words will automatically be removed and “.com” will be appended to the end of each line.

Voila, great domain names available to register!

You have now found some domain names that reflect exact searched for keywords and keyword phrases. By properly developing and optimizing the domain with your keywords and relevant content, your domain will have a serious edge over the competition!

You end up with a list of available premium search keyword domains!

Here are the exact results I came up with:

• LinkToMyBlog.com – Taken!
• BlogTheSaleCycle.com
• BlogMarketingPrograms.com
• LinkToYourBlog.com
• AdvertisingYourBlog.com – Taken!
• LinkToBlog.com
• BlogWebsiteForSale.com
• BlogMarketingCompany.com
• BlogNetworkMarketing.com
• BlogMarketingProgram.com – Taken!
• AdvertisingConsultantBlog.com
• BloggingAffiliate.com – Taken!
• BlogsRevenue.com
• AdvertiseBlogs.com – Taken!
• MarketingBlogSpot.com

I was very tempted to register several of these domain names (especially the ones highlighted in bold). They would be nice additions to my portfolio of names for sale. However, on second thought, I believe it would be a neat social experiment to see how long these great domain names remain available after having been posted on DotSauce.

If you decide to register one of the domain names above, I would like to request that you write a blog post about your new domain name and how you found it at DotSauce! It also would be very kind of you to make a donation through PayPal.

Available Domain Update!

Well it seems a few people took my suggestions to heart. All 5 of the domains that I showed interest in with a bold highlight have been claimed in less than 24 hours after I originally posted.

Here is a message I received from Jeff K of DNfolio:

Hey Mark,

Great blog post – thanks for sending the link my way.

I grabbed LinkToMyBlog.com and AdvertisingYourBlog.com

… I’d like to donate $5 for each domain.

Kind regards,

Jeff

Thanks Jeff!

How To Easily Find Popular Keyword Domains DotSauce Magazine

I hope you make great use of these new free domain tools and free SEO tools whenever you like and please share them with your friends!

In the near future DotSauce will also be providing regular lists of Available Domain Names exclusively for regular subscribed readers! Subscribe through RSS or email to be sure you don’t miss out on our quality lists of expired dot com domains.

Also *New*, though not quite finished, is my complete Domain Sales Portfolio which has found it’s home here at DotSauce. Please browse the many categories and purchase oodles of my quality dot com domains, thanks!

Here is a listing of some of my favorites!

Alexa Traffic Ranking Charts

View and compare Alexa Traffic charts. You can select a data type from Reach, Rank and Page Views.

Broken Link Website Scan

Scans any website for dead or broken links which lead to nowhere, may have been mistyped or are no longer active websites.

Text Link Price Calculator

This tool will help you calculate the approximate amount you should be paying or charging per month for a link of a specified website.

Link Popularity Tool

This tool will calculate how many backlinks you have indexed on Google, Yahoo & MSN.

Page Index Checker

Check for the total number of pages of a specific website which are present on Google, Yahoo & MSN search engines.

Backlink SEO Tool

This tool compiles a list of backlinks linking to a specific website including URLs and PageRanks.

Keyword Analysis & Suggestions

This tool generates a tag cloud of your keyword density for any website and additionally provides suggestions for new keywords. Optimize your keyword distribution.

Spider Vision

Using this tool will enable you to view any website from the perspective of a search engine spider.

• View All of DotSauce’s Free Domain Tools
• View All of DotSauce’s Free SEO Tools

[tags]seo, domain, tools, search engine optimization, free seo, free domain tools[/tags]

Free SEO and Domain Tools by DotSauce DotSauce Magazine

I assume that a large percentage of domainers have it etched in their minds that long domains or ccTLDs are worthless. I personally have a portfolio of near 200 short dot com domains, the majority of which are two-word names. Read over the following quotes from EngineWorks’ blog for some enlightenment on the effective use of domains for search marketing.

I’m long and I’m strong…

“Longer Is Sometimes Better For Conversions! Longer domain names tend to be significantly more specific than short domains. For example, ‘homeloan.com’ may be succinct; however it is also very generic. Whereas the longer domain name ‘portlandmortgageloan.com’ defines the type of loan and the geographical location.”

If you are a returning DotSauce reader, you may be aware that long tail keywords are the latest SEO buzz. A tactic which makes use of specific generic phrases to reach targeted customers and readers. This ideal can be applied directly to domain names. However, I do not recommend using hyphens if at all possible in your names. It may work, but I think it looks cheap.

Think Outside of the [.COM]

“When searching through a country specific search engine domain (for example ‘google.co.uk’), many times the results returned will include Web sites that feature similar CCTLD domains, such as ‘domain.co.uk’.”

If you own an internet based business or service you can make use of any number of ccTLD’s to optimize your search rankings on a specific localized engine. Google Canada seems to love DotSauce for some reason of which I am not sure, oddly enough I rank higher on specific keywords on Google.ca and therefore receive a small increase in traffic, I love Canada!

Build A Reputation Beyond Repute

“Companies can fortify their brand, and gain new business, by building trust through a generic domain name. As an example, Bank of America owns the domain ‘loans.com’. The company could chose to use this domain name separate from its primary domain to build-out a loan information site.”

Most of us can only dream of being able to afford a generic dot com domain name. These premium brandable domain names fetch prices in the millions. Where would companies such as Hotels.com, Register.com, & Buy.com be without their names? For those like myself who can’t afford “BadAss.com”, check out another of my articles entitled The Ten Commandments of Branding or read how some big companies are marketing and getting creative with domain names.

The Importance of Domain Names for SEO DotSauce Magazine

Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal is a blogging and search marketing consultant. His old search blog has since evolved into Marketing Pilgrim. A collaboration by a few talented writers bringing the latest news, reviews and rumors of the search marketing industry. They also like to stay in the know about social networking, search engines and business as they pertain to marketing.

Maki’s DoshDosh

Maki, the creator of DoshDosh is in my mind a man of pure genius! His articles are composed incredibly and contain invaluable information on niche marketing, advertising, SEO, business opportunities, web applications, blogging and soo much more.

Andy Beard’s Niche Marketing

Andy writes often with insight into marketing online. He praises social networking services such as Bumpzee, Sphinn, Squidoo and more for blog promotion. If you are looking for an edge in the blogosphere read up on some of Andy’s great articles.

John Chow’s Blog

John Chow is a wildly popular blogger who has been maintaining his marketing and advertising blog for quite some time now. He has a loyal following of readers who drop in daily to gather whats left of Chow’s marketing mojo. Monthly earnings reports make for some interesting readings. Today John Chow reported that he earned nearly $18,000 from maintaining his blog.

John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing

This blog features some excellent articles on marketing, small business and social networking. Duct Tape Marketing also features an audio Podcast.

I hope you enjoy the marketing wisdom these fellows provide you! You found them here first at DotSauce.

What’s your favorite marketing blog? Please leave a comment below.

Internet Marketing Blogs: Required Reading DotSauce Magazine

The idea behind this application is to draw valuable information from numerous web services and bring them into one easily readable and sortable list. Google’s PageRank, various search engine’s backlink counts, Alexa Rank, DMOZ status and domain age are a few of the services that are queried for your list of domains or websites.

Help Me Spread the Word

Please feel free to use and share BulkSEO for your domain and website research! I would very much appreciate if you would bookmark it, submit it to Social Networks (Del.ici.us, StumbleUpon, Bumpzee, Digg) and email the link to fellow web developers to help spread the word!

Limited Time Offer to Purchase the Code

I would also be willing to sell personal and reseller rights copies of this script for you to use in your own development projects or a standalone service for your website visitors. Please view a demo the exact script that is available for purchase.

• Personal Copy – Just $19!
  
  
  

  License to use and modify the Bulk Domain Lookup script on your own website. Not to be distributed or resold in any fashion.

• Personal Copy + Reseller Rights – Just $49!
  
  
  

  License to use and modify the Bulk Domain Lookup script as well as resell an unlimited number of individual copies of the script to others. You may set your own pricing but may never sell the rights to resell the script.

Please contact me for complete script details or if you are ready to purchase this excellent bulk domain lookup script. Payment is accepted by PayPal and the script will be emailed in a ZIP archive with simple installation instructions.

Presenting BulkSEO.com Domain & Website Research DotSauce Magazine

Directory and PageRank Basics

First off, let me explain a bit for those who may not be familiar with the reasoning behind directories let alone what they are. Web directory scripts, such as the most prominent PHP Link Directory ($25 per license, great script, I own a few myself), provide a comprehensive platform for indexing website address links or domain names. Most directories have a broad range of categories and sub-categories and others are “niche directories” which focus on one specific genre or industry.

Submitting your website to quality directories in appropriate categories is proven to increase your coveted Google PageRank. I personally do not feel that this is imperative or even something to boast about, however it is commonly known that the value of your website or domain name will increase with higher ranking.

Download & Install AutoFill Forms

Click here to download “AutoFill Forms” add-on for FireFox!

I love FireFox Add-ons that make my life easier! Go ahead and download AutoFill Forms now and browse around for some other add-ons you may enjoy. Once you install you will have to restart FireFox so be sure to bookmark this article!

Once you have AutoFill installed follow these simple steps to add it to your toolbar:

• Right-click on your toolbar.
• Choose ‘Customize…’ from the context menu.
• Drag and Drop the Autofill Forms button on your toolbar. (Looks like a pencil)

Configuring AutoFill Forms for Single Click PHPLD Submissions

This addon is very simple once you get the basic idea of what each element does. Once it automatically fills out your first form it will slap a smile on your face and may have you creating custom profiles for all types of mindless data entry you do on a daily basis.

Let’s create a customized profile for PHPLD submit pages.

• Open up AutoFill Forms settings and you will be presented with the default profile that is loaded with a bunch of junk entries.
• Click on the text “Default” and type in “PHPLD” and press the “Add” button. You should now have 2 unique profile names with the same data.
• We want to remove the default data, so Shift+Click the first cell in your new profile, scroll down and click on the last cell and then press your Delete key.

You should now have a blank “PHPLD” profile. Now navigate to any PHPLD submit page, such as BumpLink.com and press the “Display Form Details” button to show form element names on a page.

• Fill out the “Form field rule” area with info for our first form field
• Name: LINK_TYPE
• Value: normal
• Field Rule: (?:^LINK_TYPE$)
• Press the “Add” button

You can also use the “Rule Editor” to specify field rules and add multiple potential fields for your information to be dumped into, for PHPLD we will be stating the the field name equals “LINK_TYPE” etc.

• Fill out the “Form field rule” area with info for our second form field
• Name: TITLE
• Value: DotSauce Domain News
• Field Rule: (?:^TITLE$)
• Press the “Add” button

Continue to add rules for the following PHPLD submit form fields as seen in the screenshot:
LINK_TYPE, TITLE, URL, DESCRIPTION, OWNER_NAME, and OWNER_EMAIL.

Go on a Submitting Frenzy!

There are thousands of active and free PHP Link Directories some more powerful than others. Here are some great resources to help you start submitting:

• Listing of 100+ free PHPLD directories
• Official PHP Link Directory Forums
• DirectoryKit.com Directory Blog

Want to see your PHPLD directory listed here? If you have a quality PHPLD directory with free nomal links, post a comment below and I will do my best to include your link in this article!

You can also promote your RSS feed to RSS directories and get more subscribers. DotSauce has a list of 55 active RSS specific directories.

1 Click Directory Submissions with “AutoFill Forms” a Firefox Add-on DotSauce Magazine

What is important here for domain owners is the intelligence of an address bar using OpenDNS. All domain extension spelling mistakes and typos are automatically corrected and a user is seamlessly directed to the correct website. This brings back lost traffic and provides a satisfying kick in the rear to Google, Yahoo and any other company who hijacks 404 pages with sponsored links.

I have been running OpenDNS for a few days now and I can personally attest to increased performance in domains resolving speed over my default DNS servers provided by Time Warner cable. This is due to the fact that OpenDNS runs some of the largest DNS caches on their own reliable network. You can also install the improved servers on a router so that your entire home network is protected from phishing sites which are rampant on MySpace and fraudulent PayPal and eBay emails.

This is a completely free service and I highly recommended you switch to OpenDNS. Please encourage all your friends to do the same!

Domain Owners, Embrace OpenDNS for a Faster and Smarter Internet DotSauce Magazine

It is fairly common sense, the more subscribers you get to your RSS feeds the more visitors you will have to your website. A high subscriber pool can increase visitor retention, monetization and activity on your site as well.

Lets get you some more subscribers!

I have weeded through over 100 RSS directories and stripped out the inactive, slow, poor quality sites. The following 55 featured sites are active directories that receive visitors and submissions daily. Links below will open in a new window and usually go straight to the submission form.

Before you go into a submission frenzy…

As a thank you for compiling this list, please be so kind as to subscribe to the DotSauce.com RSS feed for great articles on web design, development and the domain industry. Enjoy!

It has also been suggested that you spread out your RSS feed submissions over the period of a few days.  This way you will receive a steady rise in subscribers. So, bookmark this article and come back tomorrow too!

55 Active Web Directories to Submit your RSS Feed!

• Feedest.com
• Blogoculars.com
• 2RSS.com
• RSSaround.com
• BLOGBal.com
• Plazoo.com
• Page2go2.com
• Feedooyoo.com
• RSSmicro.com
• FeedFury.com
• Octora.com
• RSSMountain.com
• FindRSS.net
• FeedBase.net
• RSSmotron.com
• MillionRSS.com
• Yahoo RSS Guide
• ReadABlog.com
• GoldenFeed.com
• BlogDigger.com
• 88tem.com
• WeBlogAlot.com
• Chordata.info
• BlogPulse.com
• DayPop.com
• IceRocket.com
• RSS-Network.com
• Feeds2read.net
• Feedcycle.com
• FeedShark.BrainBliss.com
• FeedPlex.com

These RSS directories require free username registration.

• Scribnia
• OnTopList
• FeedCat.net
• Feedage.com
• NewsIsFree.com
• Syndic8.com
• NewzAlert.com

Good luck promoting your RSS feeds to these great RSS Directories!

Please leave a comment and subscribe to DotSauce RSS feed.

55 Active RSS Directories to Help Promote Your RSS Feeds! DotSauce Magazine

They have taken a bold step by displaying only 3 sponsored advertisements on results pages. The intuitive design displays relevant category based information in the left panel, the search results content in the center as well as additional content from relevant blogs and photo thumbnails in the right panel.

Ask has been testing this interface for quite awhile now and has happily reported quality monetization and great user experience. The big factor attributing to this layout’s success is the ability to free up more vertical space and allow more quality content to be displayed above the fold of a result page.

The room we used was dark, so you’ll barely see Ferguson, but you’ll see plenty of the new interface, and Ferguson shares some great info, not found on any other site. Another Marketing Pilgrim exclusive! :)

Click To Play Video

Sneak Peek Video of Ask.com’s New Search Interface DotSauce Magazine

• dnScoop’s Domain and Website Value Tool – this innovative tool provides astonishingly accurate market valuation to any website. Simply type in your website address and dnScoop goes to work calculating your traffic, PageRank, backlinks, domain age and more to determine just how much you could sell your website for along with all the juicy stats. dnScoop also has a great forum community.
• Google Trends – Not-so-hidden in Google’s not-so-secret laboratory you can find this powerful search term analysis tool that pulls keyword trend data from many years back. This data is charted nicely according to keyword popularity at a given time and is also ranked globally by country. See also, Google Webmaster Tools.
• iWebTool’s Visual PageRank – This type of tool is not unique to iWebTool, however I am going to feature this page alone for the sake of clarity. Visual PageRank deploys a robot which crawls a given website and displays a Google PageRank icon next to each hyperlink. This tool allows for a clear view of the rankings of internal and external links on your website.
• SeoDigger^Beta – Although new, this web app provides an interesting view of what search terms a given website appears for on Google. This tool may only be useful for established sites at least several months old. Long-tail keywords can be a significant source of traffic over long periods of time, SeoDigger may give you some insight into optimizing new keyword strings.
• SEOmoz’s Page Strength and Crawl Test – Currently 2 free uniquely designed Ajax powered SEO tools. The Page Strength tool provides valuable information on your website and it’s search engine rankings as well as social networking backlinks, all of which are factors in determining your 0-10 numerical “page strength.” The Crawl Test requires a quick username registration as a basic member which allows you to one run diagnostic report every 24 hours. Their other 2 tools require premium paid membership.

5 Innovative and Free Web Applications used for SEO DotSauce Magazine

Be sure to read “5 Innovative and Free Web Apps used for SEO” too!

To use these SEO tools you will need to

Ready to get started with optimizing your keywords, scrutinizing your competition and analyzing detailed statistics on how your site stands up against the rest of the internet? Then by all means install these free Firefox Extensions.

1. RankQuest SEO Toolbar

This popular extension is probably the most comprehensive “all-in-one” SEO tool for Firefox. Live PageRank, links & code validator, keyword analysis, meta tag optimization, popularity, traffic stats and more.

2. Autofill Forms

Great tool with many situational uses, such as submitting your website to hundreds of free directories! Essentially, it works just like Google Toolbar’s AutoFill. Autofill Forms enables you to fill out web forms with one click or a keyboard shortcut. A set of customizable rules is used to determine the input for each form element.

3. SeoQuake

Similar to a grease monkey Google modifying script, this extension places various important stats under each result including PageRank, number of pages indexed by Google, Alexa Rank, etc.

4. KGen

Keyword Generator allows you to extract strong keywords from any web page. Rightly enough, titles and header tags are given more strength. Check out your competitors keywords, make sure yours are optimized, or possibly use it to fill out social networking “tags” fields.

5. Niche Watch Tool

Extension requires a simple username & password registration. Once signed in this tool allows you to compare your domain name with the top 10 Google search results for a given keyword. Numerous important SEO statistics are displayed in this Firefox addon.

Hope you enjoy those extensions, please leave a comment on your experiences with these and other useful Firefox addons. Check out our Web Development section for more SEO tools and SEO resources.

5 Firefox Extensions used for SEO DotSauce Magazine

In a recent article by Information Week, Stephen E. Arnold, managing director of Arnold IT and the author of a book on Google, said his analysis of recent patents filed by Google indicates the search engine company will be able to increase its dominance of the search market and dashes predictions that competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo will whittle away at the firm’s lead.

Arnold, whose opinions were outlined this week in a Bear Stearns report, said Google is augmenting its PageRank algorithm by beefing up its search and indexing methodology. The key patent applications, published in February, would create a Programmable Search Engine that would lead to more structured Web page data.

“The PSE will be the basic foundation behind Google’s Semantic Web and will be invisible to the searcher, but will augment the search experience to a level that will be hard for competitors to duplicate quickly or easily,” the Bear Stearns report states.

According to the report, PSE will allow Webmasters to program an Internet search engine to categorize site content in very specific ways. This will allow Google and other search engines to identify the content as belonging to specific domains of expertise as well as to identify complex relationships with other sources of information.

PSE is expected to be in use by the end of the year.

Google’s next-generation search results could mean trouble for Search Engine Optimization, yet on a positive note it may reduce spoofed results by spammers. The basis of the PSE is to provide more detailed and targeted results for individual users and could lead to advances in media search and dynamic content.

Webmasters will be expected to “tag” content in metadata to define what type of information is being provided. This new way of identifying content will most likely be presented as an extension of Google’s Webmaster Tools. Google is, in effect, attempting to change the pecking order of the Web, from having search engines scanning the entire sites themselves to asking Webmasters “to tell us what you got,” Arnold said.

Spying on Google Patents, PageRank Changes in the Works DotSauce Magazine

The Compete service can be compared to Alexa‘s popular Traffic ranking system. Compete ranks the top one million websites based on the number of People in the U.S. that the domain attracts each month. However, there are many more new and interesting research options available on Compete.

• People Count (Visitors)
• Popularity Rank (Top 1 Million domains)
• Visits (Includes Returning Visits)
• Attention (Percentage of time spent on a domain compared to all time spent online)
• Average Stay (How long unique users stay)
• Pages Per Visit (Average page views per unique visitor)
• Velocity (Growth of visitor attention over time)

Video Interview – David Cancel, co-founder and CTO of Compete, Inc. talks on the ScobleShow Podcast about Compete’s Web traffic analytics service and trends he’s seeing in Web traffic.

Be sure to visit the official Compete Blog where they often post interesting charts on web trends and marketing patterns. Here are some interesting example charts generated with Compete featuring high-traffic domains.

Compete – Analyzing the Web Beyond Traffic Numbers DotSauce Magazine

You may not have the genius of renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil who has been hired by Bill Gates on numerous occasions just to talk, but you can still predict the future of the domain industry. By the time a child born today graduates from college, Kurzweil believes that poverty, disease, and reliance on fossil fuels will be a thing of the past. Ray bases his predictions on the exponential growth in the power of technology, or as he calls it–the Law of Accelerating Returns. We can apply futuristic predictions to valuable domain name investments. Think outside of the box; education & technology, information syndication, social networking, robotics, alternative energy…you get the picture.

2. Stick With the “Dot Com”

This suggestion could be argued, but generally successful investors and domaining old schoolers will tell you that they will put their money on “.com” remaining at the top of the food chain for quite awhile. If you get in the market early for a popular ccTLD (country code top level domain) like .us, .tv, etc.; you may be able to snag a great name. The risk factor for “.com” is significantly less than the other extensions. Maybe we should ask Kurzweil what he thinks.

3. Keep it Short and Sweet

In the world of domains, generally speaking; 2 letter names are a fool’s dream; 3 letter names are king; 4 letter non-sense names are an easy sale; 5 letter names bank a small fortune. You would, however, be hard pressed to find any of those to add to your portfolio. My best suggestion to you is not to stray past two words within a domain name. Memorability, ease of typing and visual aesthetics play a big part in a domain’s value.

4. Keep it Brandable

Make sure the words you choose in your domain flow well together; repeat your name aloud several times to see how it sounds spoken. Ask your friends and family what their first impression of your name choices are. Does your name relate well to the industry or audience the website would be targeting?

5. Keep it Real

We have all seen them, invented names or characters mashed together that form pronounceable syllables–Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Tumblr. While many popular websites today have done well with these odd brand names it would be hard to market a cheaper version of these names to anyone, which brings me to my next point…

6. Have a Buyer in Mind

Before investing your money into a domain name, ask yourself a few questions about your future buyer. Would anyone want to buy this domain name today? What niche industry or population could I market this name to? Is this domain relevant to a small business industry, a single person or a large movement? The more potential buyers the better.

7. Don’t Spend More than Current Value

Do your homework. Research aftermarket domain sales portals such as Sedo, TDNAM, Afternic as well as domain forums for current sales prices of similar names. You can get a good idea of the value of your domain and some insight into how its value may mature in the future. I suppose there can be some exceptions to this tip if you’re Mr. Moneybags and find a name you are just sure is going to be a hit.

8. Don’t Sell Until it’s Ripe

Imagine you’re at the 1923 World Series and Babe Ruth tosses your baseball back to ya with his name jotted down in fresh black ink. A friend of a friend of your second cousin offers you $50 bucks for the ball a week later… you simply don’t sell your green bananas! The amount of people logging on to the internet and developing their own websites increases tremendously each year. If you think you’ve got a keeper, do just that.

9. Develop Relevant Content

Search Engines today are a key element to driving traffic to our names and essentially allow certain websites to be discovered. There are vast amounts of information and domain names that are essentially hidden to the world simply because webmasters do not take the steps to publish and promote quality information. If nothing else, setup a WordPress blog script on your domain name, get some quality web hosting and regularly publish relevant content to your domains.

10. Nurture Your Name

Incoming unique visitors, Google’s PageRank, backlinks and web reputability can add significant value to any domain. While publishing current events and related content to your domain name, manually submit your site to quality web directories. Social networks such as MyBlogLog, StumbleUpon and Bumpzee can also add reputation and send visitors to your name.

10 Tips for Investing in Domain Names DotSauce Magazine

• Web Design
• Web Development
• Web Hosting
• Buying Domains
• Selling Domains
• Social Networking

If you are reading this from our RSS feed, please drop by the site and check out the new sections.

Each section will contain relevant articles from DotSauce Magazine as well as a list of external articles on the subject from various quality blogs and news sources. Each section also features a link directory of websites, tools, tutorials and web applications.

I am actively working through the tedious process of merging my extensive bookmarked links and articles into these pages, so please bare with me as the resource lists continue to grow over the next few days. I am most definitely interested in your suggestions. My goal is for DotSauce to become a comprehensive source for information on the domain industry, how to get started, be successful and maintain a high-level of productivity.

Please contact me if you have any suggestions for relevant links to be included.

Restructuring DotSauce, in-depth resources for domain owners DotSauce Magazine

Ask.com announced a contextual advertising product for publishers today. As part of the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL – not to be confused with Age, Sex Location) platform, parent company IAC claims the new service already reaches 34 million unique users per month via their network of sites, which include Match.com, Ticketmaster, and and Evite.

The company hopes to win over publishers by attacking one of AdSense’s biggest weaknesses – transparency. Ask.com plans to inform content partners of their revenue share up front, rather than leave them guessing about the fluctuations in eCPM one might notice in their AdSense account. The service will also include other standard contextual advertising management features, such as customizing the look of the ads and offering varying levels of editorial control.

Could this lead to a change in the way Google informs publishers about their earnings? Let’s hope so.

Added transparency might win over the paranoid, but ultimately the battle for contextual will come down to who pays the most, and matching Google’s massive advertiser reach will be a challenge for Ask.com. For the curious, Ask.com’s contextual product will be available the week of May 21st. ((Reference: http://mashable.com/2007/04/25/askcom-launches-adsense-competitor/))

Get more information and Sign up for Sponsored Listings at Ask.com

Ask.com launches PPC keyword advertising DotSauce Magazine

It is very important for website owners to get the most out of their backlinks with what little control they have over them. Ideally another site owner will contact you about placing a link or use code that you provide directly from your website. This is not always the case, but for sake of a good example, we are going to assume you have some control over how your backlink is formatted.

Step 1: DOMAIN PREFIX
To include “WWW” or not to include “WWW.”

Probably the most overlooked and common mistake when promoting a website. However, it’s the easiest to fix. Listen up! Search for your domain name on Google, preferably by your top keywords. Use the format that Google displays! If you get backlinks formatted with the wrong prefix they do not count towards your PageRank.

<a href="http://www.DotSauce.com">

Step 2: YOUR LINK TEXT
What does your link say?

This can be the hardest step for alot of domain owners, you don’t have many words to draw attention to your link. You want to include your name and what you are about in the best possible way. Use your top keywords within the link tag and make sure it is easily readable. Find a good phrase and use what works for you.

.com">DotSauce Domain Name Magazine</a>

Step 3: THE TITLE=”ATTRIBUTE”
Not only handy, but functional.

You want to take a similar approach here as with your actual link text. Title tags provide you with added space to beef up keywords and grab attention. Don’t repeat your exact link text here, instead provide a strong call to action to someone who is hovering their mouse over your link.

title="Hot news and resources for domain owners!">

Step 4: DESCRIPTION
Will not improve PageRank, but is beneficial for incoming traffic.

Sometimes directories and link swaps will call for a description which follows your link and is used to clarify what your website offers. Don’t use caps at all except for the first letter and proper nouns, avoid exclamations and generic marketing slang. In todays day and age the web users has become immune to advertising jargon and may skip right over flashy and demanding text. The best thing to do is be real and describe what you have to offer.

Magazine</a> - Articles, polls, resources and tools for domain name owners.

Step 5: YOUR NICHE NETWORK
Linking to blogs, directories and websites with similar content.

Over the years we have come to learn that GoogleBot is known to place more value in backlinks on which content and keywords are similar to your content. It is ill advised to spam your links to anyone and everyone with a website, as this can be interpreted as spamming and have harmful affects on your rankings. Google also takes into account the PageRank of a site linking to you to determine the value or that link. Find niche directories for your industry, find groups of your interest area on popular social networks and reach out to other website owners.

You can use our BackLink Checker tool to manage your progress and keep track of who is linking to you.

BackLinks don’t mean everything. Google and other search engines seem to take note when you link to high PageRank sites that are relevant to your content. Here is a great list of websites with high page rank, hopefully you can find some related to your site.

Following these steps will provide you with the best possible results. Be courteous to your fellow sponsors and friends by applying these tips to their links. DotSauce has opportunities available for link exchanges for those websites involved with the domain industry, contact us for details.

Guide to Getting the Most Out of Backlinks to Your Domain DotSauce Magazine

The idea is simple: You want readers and you want linkbacks too because that’s all us bloggers want, it’s more precious than water for some :)

So what do you do?

Easy! Copy the list down below on your blog, hence creating linkbacks for your blogging friends and then click the RSS feed link to subscribe to all of them. Add yourself and up to 3 other blogs and their feeds to the list before you post it, Show some love :)

Just imagine if 10 people would do this and then 10 more after them. That would get your blog 100 extra linkbacks and 100 extra feed subscribers!

Why is this good?

Technorati rank and estimated RSS subscribers are a large part of sites like reviewme, where you get paid to review stuff. The better your rank on Technorati and the more subscribers on Feedburner for example will get you more money :)

Let’s get started…

• Subscribe to DotSauce Domain Magazine
• Subscribe to BobmeetsWorld
• Subscribe to LifeisRisky
• Subscribe to Thoughtsfrommylife
• Subscribe to CountRamblings
• Subscribe to TheThinkingBlog
• Subscribe to NotsoBoringLife
• Subscribe to DoshDosh
• Subscribe to KumikosCashQuest
• Subscribe to Fuery
• Subscribe to JohnChow
• Subscribe to Sean-Dinner
• Subscribe to BrownBaron
• Subscribe to EverydayWeekender
• Subscribe to BenSpark

The rest is up to you, Feed and get Fed!

Feed my Feed, get more subscribers! DotSauce Magazine

In the coming days will be syndicating various sources for notable articles on domain names and related current events. Expect to see feature articles on domain applications, resources and tools in the near future.

We look forward to building a great community of domain geeks, entrepreneurs, buyers, sellers and developers!

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