Following are some of the top search phrases, their owners, and their uses.

MothersDay.com

MothersDayPoems.com

Season.com

Bosnia.com

I thought a billboard was the worst place you could have thrown a QR code.

Boy was I wrong.

Here are a few more pictures where a domain name would have [...]]]> I received a bunch of pictures after the ‘Marketing Fail‘ post re: QR codes vs domains.

I thought a billboard was the worst place you could have thrown a QR code.

Boy was I wrong.

Here are a few more pictures where a domain name would have done a better job conveying a message than a QR code.

And a couple instances where neither works well……

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Uhhh……don’t you think a domain name might have been a little better on the memorability factor?

This was a roughly 40 mph road [...]]]> I was driving through a new town recently and nearly spit out my coffee when I encountered a billboard that was dominated by a QR code.

Uhhh……don’t you think a domain name might have been a little better on the memorability factor?

This was a roughly 40 mph road too…..not Times Square, or a pedestrian friendly thoroughfare.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snap a picture of the billboard I saw – I was, after all, driving 40 mph – and I didn’t have time to return.

However, I did a quick search, and these aren’t as rare as I would have hoped….a few pictures are below.

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However, it is interesting to follow DNJournal’s sales charts and investigate similarly-themed domain names that have been scooped up.

One niche that recently caught my eye is towels. Here are a few 2012 sales, thanks to DNJournal, NameBio.com and DNSalePrice.com.

A recent headline caught my eye, “Auction.com Sells $424M in Multifamily Assets”

As a refresher, Auction.com sold for $1.7 million in 2009, which put it at #4 of that year’s Thanks to my prior commercial real estate days, I’m still subscribed to a bunch of related newsletters.

As a refresher, Auction.com sold for $1.7 million in 2009, which put it at #4 of that year’s DNJournal sales charts.

It was sold to an existing, successful auction company – Real Estate Disposition Corporation – which has since rebranded as Auction.com, and forwarded its prior websites such as redcgroup.com and ushomeauction.com to auction.com.

At the time, here is what the company said about the acquisition:

“I’ve wanted this domain for years and I’m thrilled that we were able to acquire this coveted top level domain,” company Chairman Robert Friedman said. “REDC is without question the number one real estate auctioneer in America and quite likely the world. This is a domain we should have had from the beginning and I’m thrilled we are finally Auction.com.”

Here is the most recent story about Auction.com, from National Real Estate Investor yesterday:

“Auction.com sold 64 multifamily assets in an online auction covering three days last week. The assets sold to online bidders included 46 properties and 18 notes comprised of 9,300 units and totaling $424 million.

The auction featured assets in 29 states, including: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

The assets in the auction were viewed 230,884 times, 5,926 confidentiality agreements were signed and there were 2,366 registered bidders who had submitted cash deposits in advance to participate in this online event. These registered bidders submitted 1,821 bids on the 64 assets. In addition, each asset received, on average, 22 bids. The highest-priced individual asset of the auction sold for $55.1 million.”

Compared to the domain world, where online bidding glitches seem to be commonplace, those are pretty impressive figures.

Per the company’s website,

“Auction.com has sold over $12 billion of real estate assets for our clients.

In 2011, our residential sales totaled $1.8 billion and 35,000 homes auctioned. Our commercial real estate division auctioned 1,169 Notes totaling over $4.6 billion at a recovery rate of 52 percent; additionally, it auctioned 1,087 REO valued at $1.2 billion with an average recovery price at 103 percent of the reserve.”

I’m not here to imply that the domain Auction.com is responsible for catapulting their business to another level.

I will simply congratulate them for appreciating the value of descriptive domain names, for successfully re-branding their company under the Auction.com umbrella, and for their rapid growth and success as a company.

In a world with a steady stream of spam emails peddling crap domain names, GoDaddy’s e-mails are nicely done, and don’t come off to me as a spammy burden.

The main reason the emails don’t come off as spammy [...]]]> I’ve gotta say that I like the GoDaddy NameMatch recommendation emails that I receive regularly.

In a world with a steady stream of spam emails peddling crap domain names, GoDaddy’s e-mails are nicely done, and don’t come off to me as a spammy burden.

The main reason the emails don’t come off as spammy is that I’m actually interested in the names that they have for sale — I only receive emails when I own the same keyword domain, but in a different extension.

For example, if I own the .net, I receive emails periodically if the .com is available. Or, if I own the .com, I receive emails periodically if the .net or .org is available.

The only other criteria to be a NameMatch email recommendation that I’ve been able to determine is that the domain is a GoDaddy Premium Listing, with a buy-it-now price.

I’m not sure of the statistics around how many additional names these e-mails help sell, but it can’t hurt, and as an owner of lots of .com domains that are GoDaddy Premium Listings, I hope they keep regularly sending these types of e-mails to the owners of the matching .net and .org domains.

SkiLaw.com

The billboard’s location is perfect on I-70 — the primary route that thousands of skiers take [...]]]> Driving back last night from an afternoon of snowshoeing, a billboard with a great domain caught my eye — and probably the eye of most the other drivers on Interstate 70.

SkiLaw.com

The billboard’s location is perfect on I-70 — the primary route that thousands of skiers take each day to return to the Denver metro area from the front range ski resorts.

I love the domain — it’s short and sweet, and easy to remember.

The domain is owned by Denver law firm Chalat, Hatten & Koupal. Imagine how much more effective skilaw.com is on the billboard compared to their primary web address chalatlaw.com.

I’d prefer that they change skilaw.com to a capitalized SkiLaw.com, and their website doesn’t do much for me with little/no call to action, but hey – I still love their billboard, and the fact that they appreciate the value of a descriptive domain name.

I was able to attend one of the sessions last year, and was happy that I took a few hours out of my day.

The events are [...]]]> If you’re a website publisher that makes some income from Google AdSense, I encourage you to attend one of Google’s AdSense In Your City events.

I was able to attend one of the sessions last year, and was happy that I took a few hours out of my day.

The events are touted as an opportunity to “find out how you can make the most of your Google partnership, including:

• A 1-on-1 website optimization session for your site with an AdSense specialist

• Tips on how to understand your AdSense performance“

To me, more important than those points were:

• meeting real, live Google employees who were refreshingly candid regarding the AdSense program

• networking and exchanging tips with other AdSense publishers

Upcoming US cities in late February or March include Albuquerque, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Orlando and Ft Lauderdale.

International cities are also in the works for 2012, including Amsterdam, Bogota, Melbourne and Vienna.

If you’re an AdSense publisher, keep your eye out for an invitation — they have been communicating via both e-mail and  snail mail.

Similar to Guatemala (Lake Atitlan, Lake Atitlan, Antigua) and Honduras, the local ccTLD was a rarity — .sv in the case of El Salvador.

.com dominates again, but with an assortment of other TLD’s, as shown in the pictures below.

bancohipotecario.com.sv — The only .sv I encountered, at the only ATM in this small little beach town. Sadly, the site doesn’t resolve without using a leading “www.”

casa-conde.com — Too bad that they appear to have let the name drop.

sisa-ca.com — Rough domain name, which was bouncing along on a rough dirt road. The website is for Seguridad Intermodal, S.A., which is abbreviated as SISA.

elsalvador.travel — Yes, a .travel sighting of all things. The official tourism site of El Salvador.

lunasurfingelsalvador.com — Posada Luna: One of the many local lodging options.

papayalodge.com — Papaya Lodge is loaded with backpackers and only a stone’s throw from the beach.

newspring.com — Don’t try calling this US-based toll free number in El Salvador, as you won’t get very far. Redirects to Pactiv.com, which bought Newspring in 2005.

laprensagrafica.com — A .com for La Prensa Grafica, a national newspaper in El Salvador.

TopSea.co.il, SurfTrips.com.br, MantraSurfboards.com.br —- The domains above and below aren’t exactly local to El Tunco — the stickers were pasted by passing surfers — but I got a kick out of seeing the different extensions — a .co.il (Israel) and .com.br (Brazil).