It seems everyone is jumping into the “traffic domain name” game - either purchasing them for their own use or purchasing traffic from others who own these domains. For those that don’t know, a traffic domain is one that has either expired and still receiving traffic, or one that is being typed into the browser url location (type-in traffic) by users looking for a particular website. These are hot little properties but often abused as some register typos of an existing popular domain - such as Google for example. Yes, Virginia, there is a lot of traffic in those typos.

I own a number of expired & type-in traffic domains and have overall had good results. The worst one gets about 10-15 visitors a day but manages to earn anywhere from $5-$20 in revenue through a pay-per-lead program I use. Combined, all my traffic domains pump out a nice chunk of change without me even having to host them, look at them or even think about them.

On the other side of expired domain & type-in traffic is services which allow you to purchase traffic from domain names which they control and manage. Now you would think this sounds pretty good after what I reported about my own traffic domains, but the sad truth is that the majority of these services are complete scams.

Oh yes, they’ll deliver the “targeted” 5,000 or 10,000 “hits” you purchased, but the reality is that the actual traffic from their domains either doesn’t exist at all (generated by software to create an illusion of unique visitors) or comes from sources like auto-surf sites. And it’s not like you can really monitor & evaluate this traffic to know if it’s real or not, and you certainly have no way of knowing if it’s targeted or just junk hits. You’re basically putting all your trust in the site offering the service and since none offer any guarantee that the traffic will bring you sales, they’re off the hook.

Look at it this way - let’s say a service is offering 100,000 premium targeted visitors for the very low price of just $49.95. Think about it. If you had 100,000 targeted real visitors at your disposable, would you sell them off for essentially pocket change? Of course not. If you were selling a product for $29.95 and only 1% of those 100,000 visitors made a purchase - then that would be 1000 sales totalling $29,950. Can you really believe that they would let that amount of money slip through their fingers just so that they can do you a favour?

Do yourself a favour - If you’re thinking of purchasing traffic from one of these services, keep your money to invest in more reliable and proven options or learn about finding and registering expired domains (an article on this topic coming soon) and register them for yourself.

Carole Nickerson has been a web developer and internet marketer since 1998. Visit http://www.thenetter.com for more free articles, tips and software.

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In the world of 21st century, it is no longer surprising to find that most business had already establishes a web presence to support their brick-and-mortar businesses. There are many advantages of establishing a web presence on the Internet such as selling globally to prospective customers and disseminating information to the public.

Most business owner would have already understood the importance of a web presence to their business. What most of them had failed to understand is that the domain name in their website can contribute significantly to their online marketing strategy.

First, we look at a few rules of a good domain name. Most would agree that a good domain name should:

1) be able to describe your business when people first look it.

2) include hyphen in between the words to make it easier to read.

3) have an appropriate .com, .net, .biz, .info, .org to reflect the nature of the business.

What I differ in opinion is that a long domain name “mysuperduperbrandflyingsite.com” can be as effective as a short domain name “superduper.com” depending on the context where the domain name is used. Many people would definitely disagree with me on this point as they believe that a short domain name is easier to remember. However, a long domain name can be just as effective depending on the context where it is use.

Having a catchy long domain name such as http://www.dont-miss-a-thing.com or http://www.once-in-a-lifetime.com/ would definitely helps to draw attention to your business promotion rather than promoting your website name http://www.yourcompanyname.com which is mundane.

When people reach http://www.dont-miss-a-thing.com or http://www.once-in-a-lifetime.com, you can communicate a short sales message before driving them to the appropriate web page.

Thus, depending on the context where the domain name is used, a domain name can actually help to make or break your overall marketing performance.

Justin Koh is a freelance writer whose articles have appear in most major ezines. You can find more of these at: http://www.domainnamecenter.info

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

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