That’s a quote from a recent Frank Schilling interview at PlayingTheAngles.com. The context is:
FRANK: Well, the sellers aren’t going around now and saying the metrics don’t work, I’ll just lower my price. That’s just not happening. We’ve gone from 10X to 100X on the sell side. There are no big buyers anymore. But it really doesn’t matter. The good names are being renewed and the bad names will always be the bad names, and they will cycle in a boulevard of broken dreams to come.
That really hit home last night. I had to take care of my September and October renewals and it’s finally dawning on me how much crap I own. I guess because I have one of those runaway imaginations, it’s easy for me to get caught up in the possibilities of a domain. I also seem to become attached to domains I’ve owned for a few years. Even though the parking / WhyPark stats barely dip into double digits a month, there’s something about owning a domain name that leads me to become fond of it! But no more. Many will drop. I need to get leaner. These ideas didn’t ‘work’. Here’s the list of what’s going and in some cases, what I was thinking when I picked them up in the first place.
First off, my ‘click-alikes’. These are domains who because of clever letter configuration, appear to be other than what they are actually. Like an l/L representing a capital i/I or the one I was fond of, the letter m/M representing rn/RN. I guess this is similar to what Typosquatters do, but I was targeting generic keywords. I’m still convinced they could be very useful to someone, especially someone who already had a bunch of traffic but just wanted to move it around. I also think they might do well in a Google Adwords campaign, because they would appear to be authoritative keyword domains. If you built out around these names they might also be very effective. But developing click-alikes to compete with multi-million dollar companies, was more than I was up for. I think in the back of my mind somewhere was a get-rich-quick scheme that never materialized. I want to state that I do not think there is anything ‘shady’ about these names! Words convey meaning. These click-alikes represent words whose meanings are worth millions of dollars – same meaning!
dornainnames.com 10/28/09 0:27
websltes.com 10/28/09 0:32
webslte.com 10/28/09 0:35
internetrnarketing.com 10/28/09 0:39
affiliaternarketing.com 10/28/09 0:43
rnassage.com 10/28/09 0:47
glfts.com 10/28/09 0:51
plurnbing.com 10/28/09 1:06
rnovlng.com 10/28/09 1:06
carnping.com 10/28/09 1:06
savlngs.com 10/28/09 1:06
freernusic.com 10/28/09 1:06
rnp3players.com 10/28/09 1:06
dornainname.com 10/28/09 4:16
hornevalue.com 10/28/09 4:16
apartrnent.com 10/28/09 4:16
horneforsale.com 10/28/09 4:16
rnoving.com 10/28/09 4:16
asianpom.com 10/31/09 3:25
bdsrn.com 10/31/09 3:25
bigtlt.com 10/31/09 3:25
freepommovie.com 10/31/09 3:25
freepommovies.com 10/31/09 3:25
freepomvideo.com 10/31/09 3:25
freepomvideos.com 10/31/09 3:25
latinapom.com 10/31/09 3:25
lesbianpom.com 10/31/09 3:25
shernale.com 10/31/09 3:25
shernales.com 10/31/09 3:25
amateurpom.com 10/31/09 3:25
hardcorepom.com 10/31/09 3:25
teenpom.com 10/31/09 3:25
attomeys.com 10/31/09 4:14
casinogarnes.com 10/31/09 4:14
rnusicvideo.com 10/31/09 4:14
rnutualfunds.com 10/31/09 4:14
freernp3.com 10/31/09 4:14
intemetdating.com 10/31/09 4:14
televislons.com 10/31/09 4:14
casinogarne.com 10/31/09 4:14
freegarnes.com 10/31/09 4:14
rnusicvideos.com 10/31/09 4:14
rnutualfund.com 10/31/09 4:14
unlverslty.com 10/31/09 4:14
homeirnprovement.com 10/31/09 4:14
rnaps.com 10/31/09 4:14
shopplngcart.com 10/31/09 4:14
covvboys.com 10/31/09 16:03 Remember?
covvboy.com 10/31/09 16:03
businesslnsurance.com 10/31/09 16:03
cheapautolnsurance.com 10/31/09 16:03
automobilelnsurance.com 10/31/09 16:03
Then there was the iTeachMusic directory business idea. Only iTeachMusic.com is taken, and he wasn’t selling for the few $k I could scrape together to offer him. Somehow I convinced myself to go ahead and purchase a network of iTeach domains anyway. “Yeah, they’ll all funnel into the main site!” Because music and teaching music is my background, I could do this, I do know the business.
ITEACHCLASSICALGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHPERCUSSION.COM 9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHVOCALS.COM 9/19/09 17:45
ITEACHACOUSTICGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHBASS.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHJAZZGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHKEYBOARDS.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHBLUESGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHROCKGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSHREDGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSLIDEGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHVOICE.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHCOUNTRYGUITAR.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHSONGWRITING.COM 9/19/09 17:46
ITEACHMUSIC.ORG 9/19/09 22:46
And related keyword domains that would be easy to build mini-sites on to funnel traffic back to the hub. (Now which podcast did I get that from?)
BLUESSTANDARDS.COM 10/6/09 1:30
JAZZSOLOING.COM 10/6/09 1:30
BLUESSOLOING.COM 10/6/09 1:30
ROCKSOLOING.COM 10/6/09 1:30
BASSSOLOING.COM 10/6/09 1:31
CHORDTONESOLOING.COM 10/6/09 1:31
Not a bad idea right? Except that because I’ve been involved with it for so long I have absolutely no passion left for it whatsoever!
Then there were the ‘clever business idea domain names’ (and to be honest I have kept quite a few of these). Some of these were the result of trying my hand at PickyDomains.com where clients are looking for a domain name to match a business idea and you get a finder’s fee if they like yours (in theory).
MALALATETE.NET 9/17/09 21:07 Nice ring to it for a French health-related site, only they’d probably want to use .fr
MATCHSET.NET 9/17/09 21:59 Still think this is a great domain for a tennis site.
SICKPET.NET 9/17/09 21:59 This one actually gets enough traffic at WhyPark to pay for itself.
CCMASHUP.COM 9/21/09 18:29 CC as in Creative Commons, and mashup. The .com would allow you to publish commercially.
CCMASHUP.ORG 9/21/09 23:29 The .org would be for the not-for-profit version.
NORTHPOLEREPORT.COM 9/21/09 22:20 A Christmas site that would follow Santa on his travels.
FAMILYVIDEOTREE.COM 10/2/09 16:0 A video business my wife and I thought about getting into.
COMPAREPORT.COM 10/5/09 1:29 Compare/Report/Port nice ring to it for a shopping comparison engine.
TODOLOOP.COM 10/8/09 15:25 Collaborative ToDo lists.
TODOLOOPS.COM 10/8/09 15:26
A couple of Geo/Keyword domains.
NEWYORKCITYUSEDBOOKS.COM 9/20/09 3:36
NEWYORKDANCEINSTRUCTION.COM 9/20/09 3:36
A couple of high search result keywords that didn’t get any type-ins.
HISTORYOFVIDEO.COM 10/11/09 13:38 Google: 205,000 for “history of video”
HISTORYOFINFORMATION.COM 10/11/09 22:49 Google: 124,000,000 for “history of information”
And a few leftovers from my flipping on Ebay experiment.
6-49.NET 9/10/09 18:25 Thought this might make a great 6/49 lottery info page. But very few type-ins.
1YJ.NET 9/4/09 19:24
5JD.NET 9/4/09 19:24
There you have it. That’s a little over $700 I’ll save in renewals by letting these drop. I kept another $400 worth. Hopefully I’ve learned enough in the last few years to know that the ones I’m keeping have more re-sale or development potential. But I also kept a couple of crazy names I just like.
As I mentioned, these are all going for $59, what you’d pay to backorder them. Or wait around and I’m sure a lot of them will make it back in to the pool–will, as Frank put it, “cycle in a boulevard of broken dreams to come”.
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