I heard there were very low numbers of people at this domain show. I am not sure if somebody on DNF.com was kidding or not, but they said something like 8 people? Source

The Live Auction never happened and was moved to a Online Auction only which clearly didn’t perform either. The auction provider was new into the domain auction game, Fusu.com. Only 38 lots were available with only 10 meeting reserve during the online bidding. DQF.com is still at auction with the current bid at $7,200. The domain names that had bids and reached reserve are as follows:

1. CanadaTrademarks.net $220
2. CanadianPub.com $420
3. Quality.ca $4,800
4. DownloadPDFs.com $120
5. ChargerKits.com $310 (most bids with 49)
6. CelebrityNews.ca $230
7. Climb.ca $2,500
8. BuyLand.ca $100
9. uDonate.net $2,500
10. ParkingDemo.com $101

26% sold with 6 of the10 selling for Less then $500. Total sold, $11,301

You can see the full domain list and what got bids but didn’t hit reserves here.

Alexa.com use to show the top 500 traffic sites on the web but cut that list back to 100 and you need to pay to see more then the 100 free that they provide per country.

Well, Ranking.com offers pretty much the same thing, but it’s free! They state you can see the top Million sites! Here is the direct link to see the top sites http://scripts.ranking.com/data/report_domain.aspx or you can just visit Ranking.com and under the Welcome section in the middle, click the link Top One Million Web Properties. Enter in the code and your on your way.

Clicking the "Site Info" by each domain shows some nice info about the site. A lot of info really. The Trust Guage is helpful if you never used the site before. They also show how many Links each site has. I question how accurate that info is, as two of the top twenty-five sites show very low amount of links, which is not very common. # 16, FindStuff.com shows 530 links but using MarketLeap.com’s link checker which is very accurate shows 7,072 links.

Under Category Rank, if you click the mini web page window, shows similar sites to the one you clicked.

Sites like this can help you find tools and other services you were not aware of which is always nice. You can also find some of the top sites in a category which you can advertise on etc.

Ranking.com is also showing the use of a nice generic domain name. When you find some time, check it.

In my efforts the past couple of days in setting up my own domain sales system, I have been searching for unique, easy and secure ways to offer my buyers for payment.

I wanted to stay away from Paypal since the seller’s security is very low. So my options are escrow and escrow only. With escrow you have a couple options but right now only one offers a Great one that can easily be used when promoting a single domain name or if your site is filled with domains.

This option will only work if you have a Set Price, which you should anyway. Secondly, this option is only available with Escrow.com . Now I have said my choice of Escrow for domain names is EscrowDNS.com since they handle the push/transfer of the domain. I am currently working with Justin, the owner of EscrowDNS to see if he will set up a system similar to this, but currently Escrow.com is the one to offer this.

Using the affiliate program that Escrow.com offers, you can create a "Buy Now" button. This button has prefilled info with the Domain Name, Price, Fee’s etc.

It is Free and very easy to sign up for the Escrow.com affiliate program here. https://ecart.escrow.com/Index.asp Once signed up, you will need to go to Transaction Defaults and set your info.

Then visit the Single Item Buttons tab and create your button.

This allows you to automatically start escrow for a specific domain name with the safety and security of Escrow.

It takes Escrow.com a little bit to "Approve" your affiliate sign up, but once they do, your button will work. So give them a little time to approve you if your button doesn’t seem to work. Below is an example of how it works. Just click the button.

KidsCards.com $3,850 USD

I would think Justin from EscrowDNS.com would add this, but I am waiting to hear back from him.

I have felt powerless all day… DotWeekly had some database problems today, had server issues yesterday thanks to the high winds and fires in CA etc.

I hope the site can Be up and Stay up now for awhile. Thank you to those who contacted me to point out the site was down. I was working on getting it back up all day.

Now I have to play catch up on my other work ,as well as make a couple posts here. I think many of you missed a post the other day when I was having Server Issues, so I wanted to point that out again. http://www.dotweekly.com/2008/10/13/talking-to-a-legend-doesnt-happen-everyday-2/

I also spent most of yesterday working on my new system, which should be up and running by mid next week. I’m sure it will take a little tweaking but will allow me to put up what I Want on my domain names and the process I feel they need to Sell while also providing a quick and secure transaction for both me and  the buyer.

Have you submitted domains to Aftermarket.com for the TRAFFIC down under auction? I only submitted one so far but I really only own .com domains, so I wanted to get an idea of "what kind" of domains some are submitting. If you would like to have some more info on this, you can see that here which is DomainTools.com blog. Submissions are open until Nov 1st.

The domain name game is a tough one. Security issues during transactions, listing domain names with Sedo and Afternic to only have your domain names lost in the mix. Parking revenue is down with your X amount of uniques in a day and your pennies of revenue, uneducated buyers etc.

The fact is, I am pretty sick of depending on "others" and it’s time that I do something about it.

I am tired of waiting on Sedo to "try and close the deal" when I send a visitor to my domain listing. Same goes with Afternic. I mean did you ever look at an Afternic.com listing page and look for what would "make you buy" the domain? If you park with Sedo, it’s even hard for me to find out how to get to the "listing page" of the domain a lot of times, so think of the end user. The parking pages change and the This Domain May Be For Sale link moves as well and is not always at the top.

Did you ever email some of these services? I guess they feel that 24-48 hours is "ok" to get back to the email. Heck, I hope it’s not a Friday when that email came in… Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon and that’s if your lucky and they answer the email on Monday. 4 Days, the chances of your buyer waiting around are getting much, much lower…. or they were shopping around and found a different domain.. Now that would piss you off.

Am I mad? No. Am I ticked about these services, no not really. That’s just how they work and it took me this long to figure it out! I mean, Sedo takes Days to get back to me, so if you have an interested party using the service because you sent them their, they could be waiting for Days as well.

I’m not saying not to use Sedo or Afternic and similar services but ask yourself… What good are they doing for YOU and your Domain? Is your traffic your sending, selling other people’s domains and not yours? Do they earn their 10-20% commission? Could you be selling your domain names for More if they were not in a mess of 11 Million or 3 Million "other" domains? What if your buyers were educated more? Are you happy with "splitting" your parking rev if you use their services?

You might want to step back a little and think…. Are these services Helping or Hurting "me"… Do they care about "my" business?

As the title says, I am tired of depending on others. I’m a salesman. I know what payment services are Quick and Secure. I know what most end users Need to know but are not informed of. I work daily and answer emails quick, so why am I depending on others.. just think about it.