Bringing good content to cybersquatting
Post by webgear on
Dec 19, 2006 3:42:31 PM CST
Cybersquatting relates to registering a domain name related to a trademark or a popular phrase in the hopes of making money without creating any content for the website. The cybersquatters usually try to make money by trying to sell the domain name to the trademark owner or related site for a huge profit, and if it does not sell, make money by showing ads on these websites.
An example of cybersquatting is www.flashgames.com [Article Link] , where the site does not create or distribute any games, but shows ads from Ask.com. According to the article, it makes a six figure income from these ads, where mostly users come to the site in search of flash games.
Companies like Demand Media, Marchex Inc. are trying to bring content to these domain names. Demand Media is a company started by Richard Rosenblatt, the former MySpace chairman. His company has been either buying or collaborating with various niche content providers like ehow.com, gardenguides.com, trails.com and golflink.com. Rosenblatt idea is to create user generated content and opinions, by starting with quality professionally generated content. In turn the contributor is rewarded from the revenue generated from pageviews or services offered from those content pages. This means someday, we might see a submission of a wave of good content on cybersquatted domain names.
Search engines do not give importance to low content websites, and hence some content will create better search engine rankings as well. Marchex Inc. which owns many of the zip code domain names like 90210.com have seen doubling page views after more related content was added to the domain websites. Looking at these zip domain sites, it features all ads.
Though all these above efforts are the culmination of the success of Wikipedia, it has to be seen how these niche content sites can provide better meat while being profitable from user generated content.
An Article on user generated content on MarketWatch.com
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