Aiming to centralise networking in the UK domain market and exposing the UK to a more global audience, the day was opened by event coordinator, charismatic David Brayshaw. He welcomed attendees into a new era for the industry and introduced them to a vision for where the industry is heading.

Arguably one of the hottest topics of the conference was the  eagerly awaited revision of .UK Registry Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service (DRS). Attendees listened keenly as CEO Lesley Cowley spoke of Nominet’s plans and held her ground as questions were thrown at her about what is being done for the protection of their industry.

Lesley Cowley
 CEO of of Nominet

Angus Hanton
Giraffe.co.uk

Angus Hanton of www.giraffe.co.uk gave a captivating seminar on effective sales techniques in the UK and domain value. With the use of various props, Angus guided us through the complicated world of domain valuation and sales. Girraffe.co.uk hold 18,000 domains, mainly .co.uk, and in the past have made some impressive sales: three.co.uk to the mobile phone giant Hutchinson, egg.co.uk to the financial group and 3121.com to Prince.  

Angus commented on domain value, “The trite answer is always ‘a name is only worth what someone will pay for it’ but this is hardly a satisfactory response because it is so subjective and as owners we are often in a position of needing to quote a price or as buyers to make a firm offer.” Throughout the attendees it was interesting to find that over half the audience had both bought and sold domains with the same number again having been asked to price the domain and faced legal action over them.  

Michael discussed the potential trademark issues surrounding apparently ‘generic’ domain names while Daniel highlighted the differences between the UK market and others such as Germany and the US where traffic plays a greater role in valuation, and how continue maturation of the UK domain market would continue to mirror the recent developments in the US.  

Left to right: Angus Hanton,
Michael Toth and Daniel Law

Legal panel (left to right): Jim Davies,
Stevan Lieberman & Paul Keating

Paul began with a simple question: “Can I ask how many lawyers there are in the audience?” Only one hand was raised. “You’re a much better-dressed crowd than the guys in the US. The only people in suits there are the lawyers!” 

Keating continued to give an overview of risk management cov ering domain transactions, hijacking and dispute resolution – His buzzwords – Always reply to C&D letters and Never default as this harms the domain industry itself. Stevan focused on  trends in domain law in the US while Jim provided the counterbalance by lending his extensive expertise on UK domain law, the under-fire Nominet DRS procedure and several case law studies, including BernardMatthews.co.uk, a man who is in the news for other reasons currently.  

The general theory was monetising domains can take up to 2 years to find the right solution for you and your domain. Each domain should be treated as an individual, analysing each one to figure out where the revenue would come from. By starting with domain parking you can see what traffic exists and where best to deve lop but that only work for domains with traffic. By talking to your affiliates and PPC networks you get better value from them. They are the experts and are there to help.  

Tommy Butler was keen to push development, by branding and getting repeat traffic. The better the site looks and the more content and information, he opined, the more repeat traffic won and advertisers will feel they want to work and be associated with you. If your sites link to each other and have good content the more likely you will be to keep the customer within your site. The key question is, “would I go to that page and use it?”  

Tyson Pearcey & Ed Russell

Peter Smith & Tommy Butler

In terms of implications for the domain industry, Sandler said that Google views the domain community as strategically positive. Looking to the future, Google wants to reshape all media, making them faster, fresher and more relevant with moves into Google audio, Google Print and the hot new buy of You Tube for Google video.  

The big new current development for Yahoo is Project Panama. This will lead to a shift from a max bid approach for advertising to a relevancy approach. Project Panama is expected to be fully rolled out by the end of 2007. The implications of this in the short term are not very transparent but long term should lead to advertisers increasing their spending. For domainers, however, the implications look likely to be problematic for some while others will benefit.  

Ross Sandler
RBC Capital Markets

By sharing his money-winning optimisation principles with the domainers of the UK, Van Dyke inspired the attendees that they, too, could develop their sites into the cash cow that is Army.com. The only question left on the minds of all was, “How can I do that with my two word, hyphenated, .co.uk?”  

Mark Van Dyke
Army.com