I just downloaded the new verision of FireFox 3.0 web browser which features the new “Awesome Bar” which Mozilla says is a new way of using the address bar on top of the browser to navigate the internet taking into account your bookmarks and viewing history. Mozilla says that the “Awesome Bar” basically turns the address bar into a search engine.
“No longer do you have to know the domain of the page you’re looking for the AwesomeBar will match what you’re typing (even multiple words) against the URLs, page titles and tags in your bookmarks and history, returning results sorted by ‘frecency’ (a combination of frequency and recency).”
So is this good for domainers.
We make our bread and butter on the address bar.
We make our bread and butter based on people typing in one of our domains into the address bar.
Firefox gives you mulitple choices as you start to type in an address, and the domain they might be typing of your’s might not be the first choice they get.
For example I started typing in the address for namejet.com
But wait, there’s more…
Tell me fizz, tell me
At the end of the day the core value of a domain is based on how easily it can be branded and what kind of traffic it produces. In my opinion neither of these are going to be hurt much by Firefox’s new feature because if somebody wants to type in a domain or they hear about a site from somebody else they are still going to type in the full URL into the address bar regardless of what Firefox is throwing at them in the process of doing so. They have an image of a specific site in their mind and they go for it. The place where they are more inclined to try out new and different things is in the search environment rather than the address-bar environment. That’s the whole point of searching. A small percentage of the time one might just “go for it” and deviate from the initial course of action and try out something different using this feature, but the rest of the time I believe that it works as follows:
– Address bar is where I am confident in what I am looking for and I will continue to type in my domains as I set out to do in the first place
– Search box/page is where I am exploring and am more inclined to try different things
I think the value of domains are as important as ever if not more so because they assign a definitive address to a web location in a time when guys like Firefox are trying to make things a little too vague.
I use Opera and today downloaded the newest version 9.50. Whenever I put a single word into the URL it sends me to the .com
If I use multiple words it sends me to a seach engine for results.
For single word dot com domains this is very good news.
I knew this is coming And i think Its good news.
Ultimately it places more weight on the domain.
Even though the feature you are talking about gives options based on history I think It will evolve.
I think at one point in the future the address bar will show a list of relevant domains and I think keywords will play a big role in determining what is shown. I also think the evolution of the address bar into a navigation will place more emphasis on .net / .org
Yes, but how do you get the first visitor there?
Mike,
First, congrats on that historical sale! I’d like to learn from you the art of selling domains some time. I would’ve settled for 10% of what you sold it for. I know how to buy great deals but selling for great prices is high art. It’s a testament to how great a seller you are.
.Org’s do not get much type-in traffic at all, maybe 1-5% of what the comparable .com would get, at least based on my 3,500 domains. Your sale confirms without a doubt that the value of a domain is way beyond direct navigation.
Lastly, I’d like to repeat from my post in a previous thread that people have been and perhaps always will be typing in “keyword.com” no matter if it’s the address bar, google bar, this new awesome bar or whatever else google or the browsers will cook up in the future. I’m so convinced of this that I’d elevate this tendency to being part of human nature. You just cannot eliminate this behavior, all IMHO.
Tony
First thing is you have to ask for the money.
Look at Rick. No better example.
You think anyone would have gotten the price Rick did for Ireport.com that he did.
No
Why, he asked for the money and even more importantly he insisted on it.
Now Rick and I are in a position that we can pass up sales.
A lot of guys aren’t
I understand that.
And I don’t really have a solution for it.
But I do know that if you do not start out asking for the money your not going to get it.
On the other hand you have to know the value of the domain.
You can t ask 100K for a 4 word .com.
But one word names, are very valuable.
Good points, Mike. Thanks for that.
Great post – Interesting response
All of my friends who have been using a computer for 10 years, still go to a search engine to find the site they want. They have no clue what a URL is. They still think that you have to go to a search engine first and type the url then click on the search engine url.
Thats sick, and we have AOL browser to thank for that.
Question on the comment about four word domain names, does that change any when the four words would match what a person used in a “search” for the product? e.g., MaleBirthControlPills.com ?, a person searching would go to the awesome bar and type in those four words?