BlogMunch

Separate ventures for the year…

(Credit: NDH) 

As I was saying last time about renewal of my old domains, I finally did renew the domain that I think worth keeping. In addition to that, I bought three new domain for three separate ventures for the year.

I got round to buying the domain (.com) for my actual name. Which if you do a bit of research, you should know the name of the domain. Since I am taking up digital photography as a hobby, I will be using that domain as my personal photoblog. Those one photo a day type.

I did some research for the right template for this photoblog. I find that Wordpress very few themes specially for photoblogs and to set it up properly requires various plugins and customizations. As per all Wordpress blogs. The research led me to Pixelpost. This is a blog software specifically for photoblog. Although like Wordpress, it has addons and templates to choose from, its vanilla install is fully capable to  display your photos as a professional photoblog. Highly recommended.

For my second and third domain, its much more simple. One of them I would like to make a Single Serving Site (SSS). Click on the link or google it to learn more about it. This type of site I first heard about in the podcast for stackoverflow.com. I am not even sure why I listen to that podcast as I know nada about programming. But the eleven episodes cover a lot of concepts and I really learn alot. Quite entertaining too. Anyway, I want to built a SSS as I want to try out web app development. I am always curious about programming and a basic SSS should be good practice for me. We’ll see. I will link it here if ever I finish it. Expectation alert: My SSS will not scored high on originality.

Last one will not be a surprise. It will be another BANS domain. This time, I will concentrate on this one site and develop it fully before I move on to make another BANS site. That’s what I found after one months of testing BANS. You NEED to promote your site properly to expect any traffic.

There, this will be another busy year before another round of domain renewal comes around.

Good reads from my feeds - Domains

It has been some time since I have written about domains, so I would like to share some of the good reads about domains and domaining.

1. Mysterious Domain Names with Ads - A good article about the basics of domaining in layman’s term.
2. Does .org (or .net) + SEO = .com? - Everyone talks about .COM being the only valuable TLDs. A good brand and proper SEO can enhance your .NET and .ORG too.
3. Top 4 Lies Domainers Tell Themselves - Andy Hagans bust some of the myths domainers believe in.
4. How To Estimate Universal Search Volume *Without* Using Yahoo or Wordtracker - Most domainers uses Overtune to research their keywords. Here’s how to estimate without it.
5. Top 6 Places to Sell Your Domains For Free! - If you want to sell your domains yourself rather than depending on SEDO.com, here are 6 sites you can try.

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Bustaname - New features

I have written a couple of post on bustaname.com as I am really loving it as a tool for finding domain names. Now they have really improved it by adding two new features that I am sure its fans (like me) will love.

3 word combine

Previously, you can add in keywords into the first column and it will output available domains by combining any 2 keywords. Now you will have a option for combining any 3 keywords in your list. Note that as this will results in huge output, it is currently capped at 500 domains. Here are two domains I find with this feature:

• savethegazelle.com - Save the Gazelle
• madebynike.com - Made by Nike

Custom prefix/suffix

To aid in finding new popular domains, you are now allow to add in your own custom prefix/suffix. For example, to jump on the “i” bandwagon like iPodor iphone, you can look for:

• imuffle.com
• ishroud.com
• ienvelop.com
• iharrow.com
• irack.com (add this to show you this hilarious vid from youtube)

All of the above except irack.com is available. You can go register it. As you can see from the quality of these names, the “i” bandwagon is very crowded (I took quite some time to find these). I wonder how many are registered by Steve Jobs.

For suffix, it the same except it is added to the end of your keyword. For my case, if I want to monopolize the “munch” suffix, I can register for:

• moviemunch.com
• sportmunch.com
• travelmunch.com

So go and play around with it. You will have fun even if you don’t want to register any domains. Although, the temptation will be hard to resist, especially if you find a domain that you love.

Technorati Tags: domain, bustaname

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My domain names

As regular readers will know, I got quite interested in domain names. After going for a shopping spree, I currently own about 20 domain names. They are now parked at either SEDO.com or Bodis.com. I have put up all my domain names on the left sidebar on this blog. Anyone interested in buying them, you can left a comment below or email me at reko10@gmail.com.

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Estibot.com - Domain name valuator

Have you wonder what is the value of your domain name? Well, there are two domain appraisal tool on the web that is being recommended in Namepros.com forum. The first one is Leapfish.com. My overall feeling is that it is on the rough side and the estimations are generic.

Estibot.com seems more professional and the estimates are more accurate. According to the website, Estibot uses more than 30 characteristics of a domain name (like, traffic, previous sale value, keyword frequency, etc) to estimate a value.

Here are the estimated values of some of the blogs on my blogroll.

Congrats Mr brown, you are really Singapore’s MVB (Most Valuable Blogger).

It would be good if it can valuate more than one domain at a time, but as it is now, it is the best tool to estimate your domain name, short of getting a professional appraisal.

Technorati Tags: domain name estimate, estibot.com

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