Domain Name Registration Search Declines - Google

I've been spending a lot of time on Google Trends since discovering how useful it is to track interest levels over time on any particular keyword phrase search. As a Search Engine Optimization Specialist, I pay a lot of attention to Google Hot Trends to see what people are searching for by the hour.

I made note about that in a post a couple of days ago and pointed out that there are usually about a half-dozen specific domain name searches in the top 100 most frequently searched terms at any one time.

But today it occurred to me that interest levels are much lower in establishing new businesses online. Now it's not about internet riches that entrepreneurs dream - but business riches based on solid business models and real services with actual utility behind a web site.

Just four years ago, the internet bubble had burst and was re-inflating. Buying domain names for cybersquatting was bigger - or just finding the last of the remaining generic domain names.

Perhaps it is because people now go directly to their favorite registrar, rather than searching for domain sellers, but that would suggest that everyone now has a registrar bookmarked and doesn't do those navigational searches I've discussed here recently. I doubt that. But one thing is clear - searches about domain name registration are far less common than they were four years ago.

Hot Domain Names in Google Hot Trends Searches

Google Hot Trends Reveals huge number of people search for domain names rather than typing them into the browswer address bar. Any list of popular keywords shows that yahoo.com, google.com and cnn.com are among the most searched phrases on the web on a daily basis - but Google Hot Trends refreshes on an hourly basis to show that the top 100 most frequently searched phrases at Google ALWAYS includes domain names on the list. On average that list of 100 top search terms at Google Hot Trends includes 5 or 6 domain names on the list, but on occasion it includes as many as twenty full url's!

When the list of searches gets that long for domain names, it is usually because there are about a dozen or so variations on the theme when people don't know proper spellings (or subdomains) of the URL - as in Del.icio.us. I discussed this phenomenon last week in a post about Navigational Search, but that post focused on people's preference for search above the address bar.

Now comes news that FireFox 3 (Download Beta here) will include navigational search in the browswer address bar. Hmmm, why would people use the address bar to search? This could be an interesting move, since it may get people to do their searches from the address bar and stop them from going to Google to do those searches for navigational purposes. Why go to Google, then type a domain name, then click a search result, when you could just make it a single step right in the address bar? Confusing right? Watch this video for more on FireFox 3 and searching from the browser address bar- or as FireFox is calling it - the "Awesome Bar."

Most of the address bar navigation stuff is within the first 30 seconds of that video, but there are other useful features such as Malware protections, bookmarking, tagging bookmarks and domain identity info right in that same address bar. Make it useful and maybe more people will use the address bar. But unless they heavily promote and advertise these features, my prediction is that people will STILL use the address bar very little.

Domain Names Owned or Hosted By Google Servers

I was a bit slow to pick up on this one due to some time off recently, but I just came across a list of domain names owned by Google - or at least listed as resolving to Google servers - which could be hosted sites as well. The list is below, but I'll continue to post thoughts on those names as started last month in an earlier post. Here's that list of sites resolving to Google servers.

Read this doc on Scribd: 0804 google domains

Why not Use Google Product Blog Domain Names?

In a continuing look at Google-owned Domain Names this week, I'd like to look at a few tidbits that I've found regarding the word "Blog" in domains monitored and protected by MarkMonitor.com for Google. Yesterday we reviewed a few "Android" SDK domain names Google has set aside - and only that - set aside. They don't resolve to anywhere and are clearly being held to prevent others from reserving them.

Here are some more like that. Google has got dozens of blogs on just as many topics, all hosted by BlogSpot (which you can't go to directly, only to subdomains - Blogspot.com redirects to Blogger.com (Sheesh!). I've always wondered why. Why, when Google has plenty of resources and hires MarkMonitor to protect their trademark and intellectual property rights, do they not acually USE those domains they reserve - at least the ones that could be used?

It seems absolutely bizarre to me that ADSENSEBLOG.com for example doesn't actually resolve to Google's Adsense Blog. Instead, they host it at http://adsense.blogspot.com/. Why is that they do the same with their Adwords Blog rather than hosting it at http://www.adwordsblog.com/?

Google owns no fewer than 24 dot com (.com) domains which include various Google product names, combined with the word "blog." Yet they don't host their blogs on those blog domains in most cases (I don't have time right now to check them all.)

Here are a couple more: quickly:

• GOGGLESEARCHBLOG.com again, at
• GOGGLEVIDEOBLOG.com

And hey - I'll bet they own the domain names for many, if not all of those Google Blogs listed down the shoulder of their "Official Google Blog" and shown in the partial screenshot here. (This is approximately HALF those listed on their blog) The question for me is - "Why don't they use the blog domain names they own?

Some Non-Blog domains that they own actually resolve to a site, like "Adsense.com actually works and redirects to the longer Google URL of https://www.google.com/adsense/ and Adwords.com actually works, again, redirecting to the longer Google URL of https://adwords.google.com/select/ What's up with that Google. You are an official domain registrar - yet you don't sell domain names yourself - but through partners, you own thousands and thousands of product related domains but don't use them but to redirect in a few cases - the rest don't resolve. We now know that the registrar data you can access is baked into your algorithm to assign ranking to domains of others. But why are you ashamed of your other domain names?

Google Android Mobile Domains vs Squatters

Last November, a site called Android Community posted a dicsussion thread titled "Squatting on Android Domains - Are You Guilty?" and then listed that Google had moved a large collection of Android based domain names to point at Google DNS servers (though none resolve to a destination as of this evening). These domains are all based on the name for Google's mobile phone operating system and "Software Developers Kit" called - what else - Android.

The Android Community owner, an Android enthusiast and apparent iPhone fan and retailer of accessories, Vincent Nguyen, admitted to having reserved a bunch of Android names himself.

So in line with yesterdays post about Google-owned domain names related to Google products being protected by Markmonitor.com for Google. I took a look at the thirteen Android related domain names on the long list of those domains posted by Pingdom.com and discussed here yesterday, then did a bit of standard web searches to find the Android discussion forum post mentioned above in which Nguyen lists the 26 additional dot net and dot org domains reserved by Google and protected by MarkMonitor.com.

Currently this list of domains all fail to resolve to any server.

androidalliance.com androidalliance.net androidalliance.org androiddevice.com androiddevice.net androiddevice.org androiddevices.com androiddevices.net androiddevices.org androidfederation.com androidfederation.net androidfederation.org androidhandset.com androidhandset.net androidhandset.org androidhandsets.com androidhandsets.net androidhandsets.org androidmobile.com androidmobile.net

androidmobile.org androidphone.com androidphone.net androidphone.org androidphones.com androidphones.net androidphones.org androidplatform.com androidplatform.net androidplatform.org androidsdk.com androidsdk.net androidsdk.org androidsoftware.com androidsoftware.net androidsoftware.org androidtechnology.com androidtechnology.net androidtechnology.org

My question for Google and MarkMonitor is why these and not the literally thousands of others that will no doubt be reserved by typo-squatters, enthusiasts and haters of Google, the Android mobile phone operating system, and plain opportunists looking for a few advertising dollars or domain parking income.

What is that determines those domains worth protecting and those that go unprotected and eventually fall to creative and quick domainers? Is this based on Google or MarkMonitor algorithms that suggest the most commonly searched domains? What makes MarkMonitor protect over 125 dot come (probably 375 including the .org and .net tld) domain names related to the Google IPO and only 39 related to the Android SDK? There must be a formula based on the amount of the cost to fight squatters for ownership through their expensive IP and trademark attorneys or in some cases costly court battles.

Who

Google Domain Names Owned Via MarkMonitor.com

Most web savvy types know that Google is an ICANN approved domain registrar - and even though they have publicly stated that they have no intention of selling domain names themselves, they can directly access domain records and monitor ownership data. This would come in handy to help them monitor pagerank and reset it when a domain changes hands, as has been said publicly by Google Anti-spam guru Matt Cutts a couple of times in the past six months.

This past week, performance monitoring site Pingdom.com posted an interesting list of Google-owned domain names in a blog post. They also posted an excel spreadsheet of domain names that point to Google DNS servers. That's not really useful as those could include sites not owned by Google, but hosted in one way or another by Google, such as those who purchase domain names through Google Apps.

(Those domains are not sold by Google, but registered seamlessly through several partner registrars, including GoDaddy and eNom). That list contains some odd adult web addresses which are clearly not owned by Google and doing whois checks is recommended before making assumptions about who owns those names on that list. Over the next few posts, we'll take a look at some of those names which hold some interest for what Google might be up to in the domain name space.

Google has used Domain Name Management firm MarkMonitor for trademark protection and brand management and shows as the registered owner of all Google domain names.

Domain Name: google.com

 Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
 Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
 Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

    Administrative Contact:
 DNS Admin (NIC-14290820)  Google Inc.
 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
 dns-admin@google.com +1.6506234000 Fax- +1.6506188571

Doing a whois lookup on any of those domain names on the list of over 2300 domain names Pingdom.com provided is a good idea to verify proper ownership. But one grouping of over 125 domains were clearly reserved prior to the August 2004 Google initial public offering to protect those from being registered by those hoping to profit by them. The really funny thing about that is that MarkMonitor.com obviously missed one - probably the one that got them to register the other 125 - and that domain name, www.google-ipo.com is a pretty good source of information on the IPO as can be seen from the screen shot below:

They went extreme on those they protected too, as one might guess with over 125 variations, it ranges from the obvious GoogleIPO.com to silly things that only LOOK like the word, but include number 1 for the L and zeros for one or both "O's" - like Go0g1e.com.

Enough of that - since the IPO is past and of little interest today, we'll move forward next time and look at some things that may have obvious meaning in Google's future.