Natural Search &
Online Tourism Consultant

I’ve thought I’d share a project im working on called TaxCalculator.co.uk. The basic tool gives the user a break down of their gross salary including any extras like  pension and other allowances but i thought i’d add a simulation of what will happen to your net salary depending on what political party get into power. Check out the Tax Calculator. After the election the tool will be opened up to historical data.

Here are some top tips for inclusion in your domain dispute resolution case

1. If you have a trademark; search for it and quote the URL from the intellectual property office
2. Note the date that they registered the domain name from the whois on the Nominet.org.uk  website
3. Check the way back machine and understand what the domain was used for in the time that the current registrant owned it. Often you can see that on a accidentally dropped domain name, the new registrant immediatly puts the domain on an domain auction website. In a recent case the registrant put the domain on a domain auction site within 12hours of acquiring it which coincidentally was picked up by the way back machine therefore adding ammunition that the registrant had no intention of doing anything with the domain.
4. Take screen shots of the domain in its current state, if the domain has paid adverts from your competitors or clients this is great ammunition for your case as the regisitrant is trying to palm off their domain as your own.
5. If the domain name is for sale with a domain sales site like Sedo you can find visitor number from their domain listing page. Another useful statistic to include as squatters will often not realise this metric is publically available and would otherwise be impossible to get.
6. If the brand is registered in a personal name or UK registered business they are very unlikely to want their details broadcast if the case gets referred to an “Expert” because the case becomes publicly available. Some high profile squatters not naming any names have a truly tarnished online reputation due to the DRS process going to an experts decision on many occasions, you might want to highlight this to them in the initial correspondence.

The goal at this stage is to cover every angle and not give the registrant anywhere to move, if they are new to the DRS this is usually enough to bring on the sweats.

Nominet have launched a new search function for expert decisions from the Dispute Resolution Service. For the first time, it is now possible to search through the text of published decisions using a free-text search or more specific search criteria.

The Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) offers an efficient and transparent method of resolving disputes in the .uk Top Level Domain. Through the DRS they seek to settle .uk domain name disputes through mediation, and where this is not possible, through an independent expert decision.

All expert decisions are published on their web site. Nominet have now launched a decisions search function. The search function allows users to search through the full wording of decisions for key phrases or words. Specific searches can also be made using the domain name, date, result, expert, complainant or respondent.

Nominet are also in the process of tagging all decisions in a number of categories. A case will be tagged based on which part of the dispute policy it relates to, for example, typosquatting, passing off or trademark infringement. We will also tag cases based on the field of activity or industry to which the domain name relates. The tag search function is an ongoing project and it will take us some time to complete the tagging process for all historic decisions.

DRS decisions will still be published using our RSS feed. You can subscribe to the DRS RSS feed to ensure that you are alerted to new decisions as soon as they are published.

What this means for Trademark and brand owners…

Having consulted on dozens of Dispute Resolution  cases in the past few years knowing what to write and how to approach the situation is the key. Now via the Nominet DRS search function knowing what to write can be extensively researched from previous case history. They even talk about giving search functions by the type of abusive registration whether its Typo’s or squatting. The big power brands such as Expedia and GoCompare have put a lot of effort into their domain reacquisition process so why not make use of their internal experts writings for your own personal issues. I’ve always thought that the .co.uk process for taking back a domain for being an abusive registration was the easiest of any tld…now with an extensive library of case history to go on it got even easier and less daunting for anybody to take action and be confident in their arguments.

What this means for domainers

Not all domainers abusively register domains. However if you have domains that are closely aligned with any trademark or brand you might find an email from Nominet arriving in your mailbox in the not too distant future.

If you have a case which you want looked at email me at contact@leewoodman.co.uk. Having looked through several of the DRS case profiles there are some which I’d feel confident of winning should it go to appeal.

The choice of domain name is critical for business. The generic domain name is something that a lot of people strive for and the Citys.info internet franchise is no different. Depending on the market the decision to go with a generic or a branded domain is a tough call to make. In a lot of markets the generic domain name offers instant product or service recognition and will give confidence to the user as to what content they will find when they click on the link. This helps to improve click through rates on a multitude of on-line areas from organic SERPS, PPC listings and blog links amongst others.

The ranking benefits of having a generic domain cannot be underestimated either. Search engines rely on text links from external sources as a voting mechanism to credit sites as being authentic high value sources of information. When an author of content links from one website to another the text that is linked is known as the anchor text.

When read in context the links give the user a very clear guide as to the subsequent content they will find. Search engines use this text in helping them to better understand what information the linked too site is about. This helps improve rankings for the keyword phrases in the anchor text for the linked to website.

The decision to go with a generic or a branded domain is a tough call so testing the performance of both would be useful. The Citys.info internet franchise team conducted tests to see the performance differences in branded versus a generic domain through the Google Adwords platform. This allows an advertiser to bid on terms that users search for in the Google Search Engine. After submitting an initial bid, Google will then give a quality score (a list of variables that affect the cost per click aka CPC) for the keyword selected. The higher the click through rate on the advert the higher the quality score the lower cost to bid in the higher positions. So there is a direct cost implication in an advert not performing well in its click through rate.

The Citys.info platform is an affiliate of the Vue Cinema network and one of the revenue channels is selling cinema tickets. So the test also encompassed a feasibility study to see whether bidding on these terms was cost effective in achieving a target CPA.
Shows an advert displayed around the keywords “Vue Cinema Swansea” and Vue Cinema Cardiff”

Shows what the search results pages looked like at the time of the trial for the Swansea.info version of the test.

The adverts were run simultaneously over a 3 week campaign and the results were vastly different, the two domains Swansea.info and netcardiff.co.uk were run with the same advert creative and a maximum cost per click of £0.10. netcardiff.co.uk received a CTR rate of around 13% where as Swansea.info was consistently receiving a CTR of 56% which is an almost unheard of figure in any main stream PPC campaign.

Given the exact wording and exact same levels of competition that both adverts received the only conculsion that can be made from the test is that the domain name played a very important part in securing the click from the user resulting in a quality score of 10/10 on Swansea.info and 7/10 on netCardiff.co.uk.

No they don’t have to have the www in there although it depends on how you display the URL to the end user. If you want the user to eventually end up at the www. version of the address then by not having it in there you’re just making Google have to do a redirect when it follows the link. You don’t want to end up with duplicate content, for example
http://www.mysite.co.uk, http://mysite.co.uk, http://mysite.co.uk/index.php and http://www.mysite.co.uk/index.php are the same URL.

This can be addressed with a Canonical redirect in your .htaccess file in the root of your domain. For best results, each page of a website should be reachable at a single persistent url. This address is known as the page’s canonical URL (Canonical refers to being the authoritative address).

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^mysite.co.uk [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.co.uk/$1 [r=301,nc]
rewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.mysite.co.uk/$1 [R=301]

I have been receiving a lot of traffic recently related to people asking about free 301 redirects for their related domain names in their 123-Reg account. The redirect which 123-Reg actually implements is in fact a 302. The only way to implement a 301 on a domain name is to change the name servers to point at someone who does support 301 redirects, however, there will be a cost associated with this. If you have a Plesk Control panel you could set up an account and configure the .htaccess to conduct the redirect but this will result in a waste of account space for such a trivial task. Depending on the importance of the domain name will generally decide upon the best strategy.

Although documented in the press with large corporations, the domain highjacking issue is not of top priority when it comes to small to medium size online enterprises when it really should be. Recently I’ve been involved with closing ranks on many outstanding domain names that have either lapsed and been registered by third parties or never registered at all and the problem is a big one! Although not tried and tested yet Nominet offer a dispute resolution service where you can aim to retake control of what in your opinion is an abusive registration. In my opinion the service is priced wrongly and plays into the hands of the current registrant who will usually ask for a figure just below the DRS fee of £750 which for a domain name that cost at most £18, is not a bad return on investment and for large organisations is a quick resolution to their problem. I’ve seen situations where the domain was only 2 months old and the company paid out £500 for it’s return, although they would have had no problems in taking the domain through the DRS due to the nature in which the domain was being used and having sole trade mark, it was a critical part of their branding…the first question I asked myself was why had the .com been registered and not the .co.uk!

For any online or offline UK company it’s imperative to get both domain extensions (if you’re UK focussed I’d always 301 redirect the .co.uk to the .com it’s amazing how many companes run a duplicate site on both…this will be seen as duplicate content and will effect your natural search performance.)

1.Until domain syntax is learnt by an entire generation there will always been a 50/50 split about what is entered into the address bar.

2. Search engines will give preferential treatment to a .co.uk with a UK IP in their country specific listings.

3. If your brand is a generic one then you don’t want anyone else being able to register a powerful top level domain which could impede your brand marketing.

There are many tools out there which can help you to manage your domain names and most are free if you register your domain with your host, goDaddy and 123-Reg are two I’d recommend although 123-Reg do regularly have performance issues (so why I stay with them is a mystery) however their domain management tool is one of the easiest I have seen. If you’re on an enterprise scale then your going to need to put someone in charge or monitoring your domains unless you get a third party in like netNames or similar, however cost is going to be 3-4 times more than doing it yourself. The main concern I hear is what if it lapses…123-Reg will regularly remind you 60,30,15,3,2, and 1 day before expiry and will renew automatically unless you choose not too. I’d set the email address for the accounts to domains@mycompany.com and on the outlook exchange server have it forwarding to at least 3 chosen parties. If you choose to go for a third party to manage your domains they will usually guarantee you won’t loose a domain name but will charge you accordingly; around £5000/year for a mixture of 150 .com and .co.uk so it’s not cheap but what would be the cost if you lost one?

Domain strategy and management like reputation management is crucial in any organisation for brand longevity.

From the 29th June Nominet will be changing its DRS Policy and the way that complainants can initiate action. There will be a summary decision from a domain expert at a cost of £200 + VAT. The expert will not be required to write a full decision with reasoning in these cases, but only to certify that Rights and Abusive Registration have been made out by the Complainant.

The new Policy and Procedure are both available together with a summary of the principal changes .

As of today Nominet have introduced online transfers so all the registrant of a domain needs to do is to access their online services and they can transfer the domain name to you/the buyer directly.

The old system relied on the completion of transfer forms and copies of suitable identification. The new system is based entirely online and can generally be completed in a matter of minutes.

Registrant transfer will be available in the online services account associated with the domain name. Where multiple domain names have been merged into a single account, you can choose options to allow individual or bulk transfers.

This will save a huge ammount of time in the business of domain transfer. Well done Nominet!

Having read the Lyndon Antcliff creation about the two US kids who hired the hookers on Money.co.uk it confirmed for me the power of the generic domain name and the benefits that come with it. There’s little debate that your choice of domain name doesn’t play some part in your hunt for good SERP listings for your chosen keywords…but that’s not what confirmed it for me; it was the speed and uptake of the story by some of the major news corporations around the world and I think a big factor in their running of the story was their belief in the domain name.

Here is an Alexa report for the traffic spike as a result of his story:

Owning a few generic domains in the online tourism sector, I’m always looking for domains that I know visitors will have confidence in, city names are a firm favourite of mine; the instant connection you get with visitors is priceless, provide a good service to your city and you’ll often become the first port of call for other services whether hotel web design or SEO services.

I remember cold calling a potential client back in 2004 to try and sell them a hotel subscription and she said “Why would someone choose Mumbles.co.uk over my own web site. I said “There’s possibly a trust issue…” that was my first and last mistake. She responded by saying she had been in business for 30 years and how dare i make such a statement. What I actually wanted to say was that being a city guide we are often preferred to over individual accommodation websites as the user thinks we offer an impartial service on their accommodation decision.

The benefits

• Instant brand awareness
• Better click through rates (CTR) in the SERPS for competitive terms
• Customer retention
• More effective PPC campaigns if required (Getting the search term in the display URL if you’re fortunate to have it, it will increase CTR and improve quality score thus lowering costs in the short and long term)

The downsides

• They’re notoriously expensive but that cost might be offset by your savings in marketing costs and customer loyalty down the line.
• Domain owners often become personally attached even if they’re not doing anything with name. It’s like their sending off their pet dog to a new home and want it to be loved, which at the price you’re paying your new dog will be in bed with the other half and you’ll be the one in the kennel.
• They are few and far between. On any given keyword/phrase there are 2/3 domain names which have what it takes.

If you’re looking for a “brand out of the box solution” and you’re confident in your copy maybe the generic domain is for you…but it’ll cost you in the short term.