As a domain investor and consultant, an environmentalist and a businessman who believes in responsible and ethical business practices, I feel the need to write this article. It might be unpopular, but it might also encourage some professional domainers to find the courage to stand up and comment here in support. Let your morals dictate your responses (NOTE: I don’t publish anonymous comments. You can use your handle if I know you and I will publish your remarks.)

A few weeks ago, a successful domain investor known to most domainers wrote an article disparaging domainers buying domains that he labeled “pigeon shit”.  I’m not sure how he knows who’s buying what and how he used a scale for measuring domains to be “pigeon shit”, or even which domainers he’s referring to. To me, it seemed odd for someone who’s made millions$$$ in this business (especially as a producer of top-level domain events that many domainers paid to attend) to take the time to write a broad affront to so many domain buyers.

I don’t have to mention his name, but I am worried that hundreds of domainers may buy into his misguided advice, or even worse, the domainer-haters will use his rhetoric to fight against domainers to continue making the domain industry look like a place filled with soul-less opportunists. (Not implying that this domainer has no soul)

This issue has to do with this famous domainer’s claim that there are still “typein” or “PPC” domains to be bought as new registrations (OOTB – “Out Of The Basket”).  I agree with him on this point, but where we differ is the type of domains being purchased.  This important domainer’s assertions as I perceived them was: “Those who don’t agree with me are buying “pigeon shit” domains,” if I read his blog article correctly.  It’s hard to fight against his comments, because he is clearly experienced, successful, and correct in some of his assessments of the financial world, including domain investments.

However, when you read these types of missives from this writer: “Don’t argue against PROOF just to argue! Time to LEARN!”, you have to wonder what the newcomers to the domain investment business are thinking: “Should I speak out? I need to make money, I don’t want to make enemies in this business, maybe I’ll just follow along and agree with this commentary, even though I have some against-the-grain questions.” Then, these new domainers, or even seasoned domainers, may make a mistake that ruins them, as El-Silver points out in one of his latest blog articles.

Many stories and comments regarding “pigeon shit” domains were discussed on this domainer’s blog in the last week or so, and there were unkind references by the blog owner about the “morons” who dared question him. Wow. Okay, I can appreciate his passion. But then this domain celebrity showed us the great domains he bought as OOTB’s for an example of what he was trying to prove regarding new PPC domains. Here’s two of the domains he bought and displayed for us:

BPSPILL[dotcom] and BPOILSLICK[dotcom]. He lists them on his blog, along with the less than $25 revenue he earned in typein traffic from those domains.

Unfortunately for his readers and domainers in general, the domains he purchased and displayed were, in at least 1 – 3 ways, very wrong choices based on simple “Do Not Do” domainer rules:

1) His domains included a clear reference to the trademark of a company “BP” (British Petroleum). This is a big no-no in our industry because we are working extremely hard to avoid being called “cybersquatters” that infringe on any company’s trademark. The stigma from this label is still prevalent, even among experienced internet experts and media tech writers. Additionally, if you are blatant in your domain registrations infringing on some company’s TM, you could be sued for $100k on each count. Ouch.

2) His domains are “time-sensitive”, which means that the domains refer to news which is limited to a certain scope of time that the domain name will be relevant. (Granted, this oil spill is the worst in history, and will be talked about for decades, if not for generations – so he might “luck out” on this no-no).

3) His domains are based on tragedy, catastrophe, suffering, sadness, horror, and so many other negative adjectives and nouns that you probably already feel. If you have no conscience making money on suffering, then go ahead and make your $100 a month off of domains that “spell out” disaster.

The above are just a few of the rules new domainers need to know when they buy a domain. Always.

Ironically, this oil spill disaster may harm some several very successful domainers because of the location of the property they own. If that happens, these domain purchases by this (in)famous domainer are not going to seem like “pigeon shit” purchases, but more like elephant feces. God forbid, if oil starts seeping onto the beaches and dead animals and ruined economies start appearing in Florida, some domainers in the area aren’t going to appreciate the exploitative domains callously purchased by this influential domainer. Imagine if you owned a house on the beach in Pensacola, Florida right now, and you knew some domain investor was making “$50 a day” off of a domain name that described the disaster that was destroying your investment and your beautiful home.

I hope sincerely that this never happens. And I hope that all domainers avoid the lure of buying any domains that make money off of suffering.

I read this article tonight written by Mark Morford of SFGate.com that summed it up for me:

“There is, you have to admit, a sort of savage grace, a tragic and terrible beauty, to the BP oil spill…

“…Like any good apocalyptic vision of self-wrought hell, the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history has its inherent poetry. You see that creeping ooze of black, that ungodly wall of unstoppable darkness as it slowly, inexorably invades the relatively healthy, pristine waters adjacent, and you can’t help but appreciate the brutal majesty, the fantastic, reeking horror of this new manifestation of black death we have brought upon ourselves, as it spreads like a fast cancer into the liquid womb of Mother Nature herself…

“…Really, it’s not just the incredible photographs of the spill that are, in turns, heartbreaking, stunning, otherworldly and downright Satanic in their abject revulsion. It’s not just the statistics that tell us how many millions of gallons might ultimately be spilled, or the stunned scientists who can only hypothesize how this unprecedented catastrophe might affect the fragile food chain and distress the ocean’s ecosystems at the very root level.”

“It’s not even the endless, heartrending tales of livelihoods lost, industries destroyed, coastlines ravaged or wildlife killed. The fact is, any one of these aspects alone is enough to poison your soul for as long as you wish to wallow in that murky state of fatalism and doom. It is nothing but bleak.”

Then the author sums it up with a telling statement of how we domainers should act:

“Finally (and a bit shockingly), I’m not hearing Pat Robertson or any of his cretinous cult of apocalypticans blame the gays, or voodoo, or anal sex, or reality TV for what’s happening in the Gulf. Oil is, after all, completely non-denominational. It mocks all religions equally — except, of course, the only one that really matters: capitalism.”

Nobody will argue that it’s “bad capitalism” as we’ve seen it in the last few years that has put us into a war based on a lie, ruined our economy by greedy Wall Street cretins, and allowed safeguards to protect Americans to be removed. I am not putting myself above anyone here. I’ve made these same domain mistakes in the first of my 11 years of domaining, but I learned and changed. We domainers can and should be responsible capitalists, with ethics and at least an apparent moral center. I’m not perfect, but I hope to follow these responsible rules in buying domains. I hope you do, too.

Pray to whatever god you worship that this oil spill ends soon. Don’t worry about those domains that this influential domainer bought and tried to convince us were “good domains” – if they lose money, we’ll know it’s easier to clean up his pigeon shit than remove oil off of a pelican.

I looked up the link in the articles listed in the NY TIMES and Wall Street Journal regarding the Chris Bosh debacle, where in their stories they listed a link to what a “CYBERSQUATTER” was.  Well, according to WiseGeek.com, a cybersquatter is what domainers think they are… and the majority of domainers avoid being put in this position by the domains they buy.

However, an interesting final statement on the link at WiseGeek.com was this:

“The era of the cybersquatter may be coming to an end, however. Companies and celebrities now have a better understanding of the importance of domain name registration. Acquiring the rights to their own names and product lines has become a much bigger priority, considering how much potential income could be lost if their preferred internet identities are already owned by a cybersquatter.”

I’ve talked to many domainers selling domains to end users, including Buy Domains and Snapname, and I’m sure all the other domain auction sales sites agree that many companies (end users) are starting to focus on buying their catalog descriptive product generic domains in order to control the “basics” of a brand they are promoting. We call it “BackBranding”, where promoting your brand along with the generic descriptive domain for what that brand represents is the most important online marketing move a company can make. If you request it, I will put up a list (other domain bloggers have done this too) of domain names and phrases that are generics, bought by large companies.

Listen up people. We are on the fence, with barbed wire at the top. People are trying to destroy us, just as the corporate world is beginning to understand the domain value process, and how important it is for them to own generic domains that do NOT represent TM infringements.

I hope the future for domainers follows the righteous path… (borrowed from “Pulp Fiction”)