What is domain name indexing I hear you ask!

In my last post, I talked about an SEO back-linking tool called SEOLinkMonster that I’m trying out. So far I’ve used it daily and have several articles in the system. I can’t say yet whether they’re counting as backlinks and boosting my sites’ exposure,  but I suspect not.

Reading through the support blog of the system, I stumbled across an article from October 2011, which quotes a conversation between one of the system’s founders and a Google engineer. This might be old new to some of you, but I hadn’t heard of it before (though had suspected it) so here goes.

According to the unnamed Google source, there is no need to register a site with Google in order to get it included in the search index. I’ll call it “domain name indexing” for the lack of any official term.

As standard procedure, Google will find your site within moments of it going live. The reason? They are actively tracking all new .com and .org domain registrations to include them in their crawl. As soon as the domain goes live with a site they know and within three days, it’s in the index.

Try it and see. It works.

I don’t know whether other extensions are treated in this way, but it makes sense certainly, for country TLDs to be included, as Google has country-specific search results and automatically geo-targets them.

On a personal level, I have never submitted any of my sites to Google, but without exception, I have had them listed in the index, usually within 24-48 hours which kinds of backs up the theory. I do however, do a couple of things with my new sites in order to help the process along a little.

Whether this domain name indexing adds any value to generic keyword domain names I have no idea, but in theory it does, since we already know that domain names are considered to varying degrees in the search algorithm, so it seems logical to me that good quality names will still out-perform “brandables” for some time come. And that can only be good for values.

Last week, I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting with some very smart commercial property investment people from a specialist company that puts together and manages high-end commercial property investments such as industrial estates and shopping centres, usually worth several million pounds upwards.

Part of their business is to help their clients bid on lots of commercial property portfolios that come onto the market. It’s a real cut-throat business as there is lots of competition. There is also an awful lot of money involved.

As I’ve been involved in the commercial property market, though from a different angle, I was able to sit my less than adequately educated self at the table and join in the discussions about how deals are structured and how entire estates are managed, because I was there as an advisor.

Those who know my immediate background might think that I was there to advise on marketing or on how to get their business on the web. But no. I was there in the capacity of advising on the state and condition of a property portfolio that was being acquired by one of their clients for around £25 million.

The point of this post isn’t to shout about being involved in such a big deal. In fact my part in it was worth only a fraction of that amount, but I was still at the table where the big boys play and, I was their as an equal.

They had engaged our surveying practice to help provide detailed information about the property portfolio on offer, which involved a lot of UK travel and a lot of headaches. But it was good to be involved in something big and it’s certainly helped my application to gain “chartered” status.

As we were enjoying a particularly sumptuous lunch, the subject of discussion around the table got to marketing and promoting services, mainly because somebody commented on our name “BuildingSurveys.com” and asked how we came to get it ahead of the large practices.

That started an altogether wider discussion about marketing professional services on line and of course, we discussed how that might be relevant for their type of business. Make no mistake, these old-school investment people aren’t ignorant of the net. Far from it. But they don’t know how to make things happen yet.

For years, domain name professionals have been eager to attract the attention of real investment people in the domain industry and have invited them to shows, seminars and the like in an attempt to spark their curiosity, when all that was probably required, was a few real life  examples of how a generic name can help promote real business in their own environment.

They are not interested in how to sell widgets. They couldn’t give a stuff about how a name could be worth millions with some proper investment. They are interested in, is how to promote their own business and just like any business people, it’s them first, everyone else second.

So how do you bring big investment people to the domain table?

Quite simply, you demonstrate with real-life, relevant examples, how domains can promote their business. When you’ve done that, the magic will start to happen, because these boys network and are extremely well connected.

Personally, I’m just working my business. I have no domain drum to bang anymore, so wasn’t out to sell anything and you know what? They liked that.

Now, what can I do with investment-property.co.uk…

This is the final post I’ll make on the subject of domains, domaining and Internet Marketing in general.

The time has come where I can finally walk in through my front door and not check available names, search for drops or look for domain bargains. In fact, I don’t even like having to look at my emails or even having a PC at home any more.

My path is now crystal clear and I am freeing myself from this market completely.

My business is no longer domain oriented – it’s about building a professional practice and taking it national with a planned franchise and branch network that I hope will see me to the end of my career.Either that or it’ll be the end of my career!

It’s not a sad day though – it’s a great day, because for me, domains have led me down this path.

All the skills I’ve learned during my career, from marketing, selling, building web sites, writing copy, SEO and building business from little more investment than a £6 domain name have led me to this point. That and the fantastic contacts and associates I’ve met along the way.

Special thanks, in no particular order go to (amongst others in this space) Ed Keay-Smith, Rick Schwartz, Tommy Butler, Owen Frager, Howard Neu, Donna Mahoney and Mo Connelly who’ve all at some stage provided me with great examples of how to do things properly, how to behave correctly and most of all, kept me going when all I’ve felt like doing is giving up.

How strange it will be to a few of those names to see the names next to them – given that there’s some bad feeling amongst them these days – life’s too short for fall outs, but they’re inevitable in life.

Thanks too, to those who’ve asked me questions and relied on my judgement in the past – you’re far too generous and trusting!

So now comes the time to concentrate. In fact, I’m not so much concentrating as being totally obsessed – and nothing in my professional life has ever grabbed my attention more than this. I live, eat and breath what I’m doing now and that is the single most important ingredient that has been missing from my career for many years.

This blog keeps me connected to the domaining world. It has to be released, so here goes.

The content will soon disappear and be replaced by my real passion I hope.

Some of you won’t get it, because it all adds up to “work”. All I can say to that is that it “works” for me.

Good luck with all of your domaining – it’s a great thing to do, but it’s not for me any more. My future is commercial property and building surveying.

Thanks so much to all who’ve read and participated in this rather self-indulgent blog over the years. If I didn’t mention you by name, don’t be offended – I’m getting old now and tend to forget the detail.