This is pretty crazy but over the Labor Day weekend Google.com displayed a design of a "Buckyball" to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Not only did Google display the Buckyball, they linked the bucky design to a Google search for Buckyball on Google. It just so happened that GetBuckyball.com ranked very well for the search term and was slammed with traffic because of it.
How much traffic? Ohhh, some 2 Million + unique visitors that day.
That traffic resulted in 10,000 unites selling according to a press release, which totaled up to about $250,000!
Sometimes it pays to be lucky and it just so happens that a little luck paid off for the GetBuckyballs.com owners. They ranked well (likely # 1 or 2) for the term buckyballs and were offering a product that just so happened to be featured on Google as a Doodle.
The desktop toy appeared to be a hit by searchers who very likely had no idea just before the search they would be buying some BuckyBalls!
Buckyballs.com although registered in 1998 didn’t stand a chance sitting on a Godaddy standard parked page!
Who said search traffic wasn’t important! Happy Developing!
GetBuckyballs.com was registered 2/27/2009 over at GoDaddy!
Sources: PrNewsWire.com | TechCrunch.com
Gnanes
BuckyBalls.com displays ad for getbuckyballs.com. Does the company have a chance of getting the domain in a UDRP?
Jamie Zoch
@Gnanes,
Potentially. I never checked the trademark but Buckyballs.com was registered a pretty long time ago and the “owner” doesn’t have the domain parked.. Godaddy is “parking” it. It looked like it was a site not that long ago.. so it is hard to say. Always a risk though.
DNLingo
i have never even heard of a buckyball. what luck they had that day, i wonder how the site will progress in the future?
Alan
great story Jamie !!