Best Direction for Links.com

Hi,

I am trying to nail down a direction for Links.com. It is doing relatively well in attracting visitors who are looking for tv, video, and game links (about 2000 visits a day). However, it is difficult to monetize these visitors. I am thinking of developing a social networking site for these visitors or turning it more into a social networking site for webmasters who are looking to exchange links. Which direction would you go. If you have any better ideas I would also be interested. Thanks.

Rich

 

If you do not have any original ideas your best bet may be to sell it as that domain should fetch a good chunk of change!

 

Sell it.

You've been around with your domain for quite some time now.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/search.php?searchid=4958938

And many peoples over those threads gave you very good and sound advices, but obviously, you are going nowhere (no offense, but with such a brandable domain...)

So, my 2 cents, if you don't succeed in monetizing it, you'd better to sell it and start other projects on other domains (directory, social newtorks,... whatever you've been thinking to start on links.com) with the spare change.(you should got some)

 

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion. However, I have patience and if it takes a few years to build a business (this is not an unusal time frame), then I am willing to wait. I have been at it only six months, and if anyone threw in the towel after six months, there would be no new businesses anywhere.

Appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Rich

 

Thanks. Yes, there have been many good ideas, but for one reason or another I have rejected them - mostly for business reasons. It is not easy coming up with a brandable idea that will add value to the domain, so I am not discouraged. I have been with companies that took many years to develop (I have over 35 years of business experience and have been on the board of directors of several companies), and I understand the value of patience. However, I do appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Rich

 

If I were you, I would just sell it You have to set-up a really really good business if you want to earn what that name will give you when you sell it.

 

You have the start of an excellent business vehicle - and you are correct in wha t you said about waiting - It will come to you about monetizing your site - most would give a virtual right arm to have that url name - First thing that comes to mind with a name like that would be a search engine or web directory, but it would be a hard fight to the top of serps except that you might get up there easier with an authority name like links.com - just my two cents - good luck either way.

 

Hi,

I very much appreciate all of the advice to sell the domain. I am not considering a sale at this time, since I am focusing on developing domain. I have tripled traffic in the last two months, and have moved my Alexa rank from 700,000 (where I started six months ago), to a bit over 100,000 at this time (Quantcast puts the ranking of www.links.com at about 80,000). Hopefully, I can continue to pick up some ideas here and there from this forum (and others), they will help me further develop the domain.

Thanks again for your recommendation.

Rich

 

Your two ideas are ones that I have been considering and researching. What I need, and I think you will agree, is to come up with a point-of-view that provides some real value to visitors. I do not think a me-too site will add much value to the domain, over and above its current value. But I am constantly hunting the forums and marketplaces, searching for some angle along the lines that you suggest.

Thanks much for taking the time to respond and your well wishes.

Rich

 

From my experience, original ideas do not materialize automatically, but instead take time to germinate. I think most good ideas underwent a long gestation period before coming to fruition. I am sure there is an idea out there, it is a matter for me to be patient until it comes along. In the meantime, I am hoping to take incremental steps that will bring me closer to that idea.

Thanks for your response,

Rich

 

Hi Rich,

I'm sure you'll end up finding a fantastic idea that'll allow you to get the most out of your domain (unfortunately my brain is dead at the moment so I can't think up of any!), but I just wanted to offer a bit of advice.

With such an exclusive domain name, don't be scared to invest a decent amount of money into it if your idea so requires. You can get a whole heap of web development done relatively cheap if you outsource the work (to say Indian programmers). We are currently developing version 2 of our software and have chosen a bunch of programmers in India to do the work. It's costing us far, far less (up to 10x) than what it would've had we developed it locally.

With that being said I'm sure that with whatever project you choose to do it'll be successful (just based on your domain name alone). Best of luck!

 

Thanks much for the advice. I would be very much interested in hearing more about overseas outsourcing/development. I am quite willing and able to invest in the site, should I feel confident of an idea. My approach is to build incrementally, and prove the idea before making substantial investments.

Since in my past life I designed and developed many large-scale systems, on IBM mainframes, I also prefer to oversee and walk-thru the development (I am quite a crackerjack designer myself ), in order to ensure good design and well constructed programming code. If there have been any discussions concerning remote development, on this or any other forum, I would appreciate the link, since as you suggest this is an excellent way to conserve capital while I am testing out ideas.

Thanks very much for your suggestions.

Regards,
Rich

 

Rich,

It depends on what you really want. Do you want to make the most possible money from the domain vs do you want to offer a service that you will be proud of.

You do have the right attitude that with such a domain the site should offer some real value to users through a unique selling point. And thats great but if your objective is to make the most money possible from that domain, selling it and investing in other areas may give you a better return on investment (considering what you're doing with the site now). After all money has a time value to it.

I do understand your affinity for the domain and your reluctance to sell. I've been in a similar position before and made a personal decision not to sell whereas the right business (money making) decision would have been to sell.

Anyway, good luck and I hope to see something productive out of that domain.

Regards,
Fahd

PS: I think something along the lines of text-link-ads.com or backlinks.com would be better suited for this domain than a search engine or web directory.

 

Why not some type of social network like "linkedn" ... they are a business network... yours can be more of a dating/friends network or something.

Don't sell it. Great name.

 

Open ended question but just out of curiosity how much would that domain be worth if it was sold? I completely understand you not wanting to sell but knowing its value might be interesting ...

 

Hi Rich. I think I remember seeing you around over at pligg.com!

I think it's great that you're not selling out. 99.99% of people will never have a domain name like that, and selling it on to a big company means one less domain name out there to go from zero to hero. In some ways, it's probably harder to come up with an idea for a domain name like that, because everyone knows it's a gem, and trying to come up with an idea to match such a domain is a hard one. My very first reaction for that domain name was social networking site, or contextual linking / advertising site - probably most peoples' first thoughts.

I like the idea of social networking, but I almost feel as if it would be wasted on one that just focuses on link exchanging - only my personal opinion. I wrote a blog post recently about my own thoughts on the future of social networking, and extending to a different audience in a different manner to how its currently done, but trying to "advise" or give a general opinion on the best direction for a particular site is almost impossible.

Have you had anymore thoughts on it yourself, on the social networking aspect, and what you feel you'd like to achieve with it?

 

The site is in a blog format?
You can do much better than that with such a golden domain name.
I see you have a professional outfit doing your SEO work, which is good.

 

Hi Fahd,

Thanks for the response. I very much appreciate the discussion, since there are very few people that I personally know that I can discuss this topic with.

My primary goal right now is to build something of value that relates to the domain. If it has value, I believe the money will follow. So right now, I have undeveloped property that has to be developed - but what?

I have considered that alternative investments may be better than links.com, but I think the appreciation on this name, especially with some development will probably appreciate more quickly and with less risk than alternative investments. Correct me if you think I am wrong. There is some exposure, but I think it is minor for the near term.

The issues I face with a text-links-ad type site are these: (it is a good idea)

1) Google may be devaluing or will devalue these type links in the near future. Any investment may therefore not yield a good return.

2) The competition is well entrenched and has industry expertise. I am a compete novice in this field (matching ads with sites) and therefore would have to seek out partners to build such a site. I am not sure how to go about doing this. It would be a substantial effort.

3) Google is entering into this marketplace with DoubleClick and other offerings. It is almost impossible to compete against them, since they can set rules that, for all intents and purposes, restricts others from doing the same thing that they will be doing. There is a real issue of monopoly-like power, but I am in no position to challenge it.

Despite these challenges, I have been actively researching this possibility, and thinking of some sort of "prototype" to test out the idea. If members of this forum believe it is a good idea, despite all of the challenges, I may proceed to test it out.

Thanks again for the dialog. It is very helpful.

Regards,
Rich

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence on "no sell". I believe this is the right business decision, but it helps to get some support.

I think something like Linkedin would be a terrific idea. I have to some how come out with some sort of design/offering that will not put be in direct competition, but will provide sufficient additional value so that there is a "critical mass" of members that would make such a site viable. If you have any ideas regarding software, approach, etc. I am all ears.

Thanks again for your help.

Rich

 

The value is totally unknown. There are many similar types of domains being sold at auction and in private sales in the neighborhood of mid-six figures and up. However, there are many good domain names available, and most do not sell when they are put up for sale. So it is really a matter of finding a buyer who is really interested. I could sell to a speculator, but in this case would receive only a fraction of its potential value.

Anyway, this is how I read the current market. If anyone has any additional thoughts, I would certainly be interested.

Regards,
Rich