Domain speculator Mann: 24 hours to be registered 15,000 names domain name

The intermediary transaction SEO diagnoses Taobao guest stationmaster buys the Cloud host technology Hall

Michael Mann.

Beijing Time April 23 News, according to foreign media reports, over the years, Mike Mann has been frantically registering Internet domain names, and to sell the domain name to the highest bidder. The next time you find you need to register your name as a domain name, you will be furious because it has been registered, and this person is probably Mike Mann.

Mann has been engaged in Internet domain speculation for a long time, probably the first person in the world to do this business, and he now has a new trend-the names of people to be registered. He is not the same as others in the two-tier market for domain name transactions, but to register those who do not currently have domain names, even if there are currently 100 million names are registered as domain names. After the registration, Mann would resell the domain name, often selling more than hundreds of dollars, sometimes even more, than others.

Last week, about 24 hours in Tuesday and Wednesday, Mann registered 14,962 domain names, including 1822 in Tuesday and the rest in Wednesday.

It is estimated that after the report, all of us will be ashamed of Mann, but he did not care, "I am really greedy, because I want to have the whole world." ”

First, let's look at Mann's background. Mann, aged 45, settled in the American Delaware State, the first batch of people to have dug gold on the internet in the late 90. He had founded an ISP called Internet Interstate, but in 1998 he was surprised by the $25,000 trillion of people who wanted to buy his site's domain--menus.com. The next day, another 50,000 dollars were funded.

In the same conversation with the author of this matter, Mann wearing sunglasses, holding an unlit cigarette. "I remember registering that domain was like paying only 70 dollars, and suddenly it exploded many times," he said. The next day, I went to the business of registering domain names. ”

Then, Mann registered a large number of domain names, and became the world's most aggressive domain name speculators at the time, it really looks like the digital age of the western United States. In the early days of Internet development, to register a suitable domain name is not difficult, some speculators take advantage of this opportunity to register a lot of their own actually do not use the domain name.

But as time goes on, registering domain names is becoming more and more difficult. Some of the "smartest" domain speculators have adopted other methods to continue to expand their domain names, such as they will write scripts to register a huge number of domain names day and night, and those that have expired domain names will be registered again. In 2005, a speculator sold his huge domain name to a 164 million-dollar price to the Marchex website, which is now on the market. In addition, there are some small domain name registration agencies reached an agreement, once the expiration of the domain name they will immediately take over. In fact, this is the "money" to clear the Act, the author has been in the "who really owns the internet (the man who owns the internet)," the article was introduced. These unwanted domain names are useful for Google or Yahoo's pay-per-click advertising Service, because people sometimes need to enter a domain name in the browser's address bar, and if they do, they will inadvertently be transferred to the ads-filled web site.

In this wave of gold rush, Mann also had a great harvest. He created a company called Buydomains, which was sold to Boston's Highland Capital in 2005 at a price of 80 million dollars (Highland). The company is now called Namemedia and continues to develop at a rapid rate, even though it was forced to abandon its IPO plan in 2008 because of the financial crisis. Mann was able to sell the company because, in 2003, he developed a system of automatic domain name generation and registration that was granted a patent.

In short, Mann has his latest weapon. After selling the company, he still holds a 15% stake. By this patent, for about 4 years, Mann had no rivals. During this period, he also invested in other websites, such as Seo.com and nonprofit website grassroots.org.

But soon, Mann returned. About 2 years ago, he registered at the rate of 300 domain names per day and sold it through his website domainmarket.com. Mann says the current Web site can generate 400,000 of dollars of revenue each month.

In the past few months, however, cash flows have suddenly begun to get tense. Since then, Mann has started a business of registering names, and this week has made his site hot again.

Ron Jackson, founder of Domain name Journal, the name-trading website, said: "I haven't seen anyone so willing to spend a few years to buy a domain name." ”

So how did Mann do that? Half of the software is the reason, the other half is man-made factors. By using his own tools, he screens Google's keywords, evaluates traffic, filters out domain names that could lead to trademark infringement, and then ranks the domain names that can be registered. After that, is the man-made factor.

"You can use filter software, but I am the most efficient artificial filter in the world," says Mann. I don't think anyone can read and understand a long list of domain names as fast as I do. I am filtering by domain name mode, which is very difficult to operate, but I rely on this to make a living. ”

The machine will not be involved until the manual operation is complete. "The software will automatically connect to the registry, but only one operation-buy, buy, buy!" said Mann.

Although some large domain speculators would choose to register directly with the registry, bypassing intermediaries like Go Daddy, Mann did not. He still registers with the Go Daddy or other intermediary organization. That would cost him two days of income: about 100,000 dollars.

It is important to remind readers that these domain names are not very lucrative. They are not sex.com and can be sold to the highest price ever, and Mann has had this domain for some time. He is currently often registered with such domain names as ceohealthclub.com, chinesefoodcatering.com, baptistchurchcamp.com and Drugdevelopers.com, he is very confident that these domain names can sell a good price.

"There are some fools who think these domains are useless, just burning money," says Mann. But if you ask some real experts, they will tell you that these domain names can be sold for more than 100,000 dollars. ”

In the domain name trading market, few people have the confidence of Mann. A few years ago, the domain name trading market was blew as the overall economy burst, but some real demand emerged. Many companies will choose. A domain name at the end of CO or. Me, or simply use some strange spelling as a domain name, to avoid being exploited by domain speculators, such as Flickr and Digg.

Even so, I think Mann has registered a similar domain name, do not believe you can try it yourself.

(Responsible editor: Yinliang)