Autos and Automotive Article Sites

Autos and Automotive Trademark Logo

I’ve setup a few blog websites to protect one of my brands, Autos and Automotive, which is a Trademark that I’ve been planning on developing for some time. Getting the right products (or services) to base an full-blown e-commerce website on the name has proven difficult, though.  To that note, please get a hold of me if you have a great automotive product for me to promote.  I was looking to establish a full automotive shop presence originally, but have since adjusted my plans.

The domain names I have activated are:

• AutosAndAutomotive.com
• Autos-Automotive.com
• AutosAutomotive.com

I had eventually expected to setup an automotive classifieds website on these domain names that I have reserved to protect my Trademarked name, Autos and Automotive.  There I would allow anyone to post their car/truck/cycle for sale and promote some high performance and economic fuel efficient products.

Although I have enough of a small collection of cars and trucks for sale within my own family to start such an endeavour,  it always takes a considerable investment of time and resources to establish such a serious site, keep it secure, administrate and promote it.

Therefore, I had anticipated partnering up with some interested automotive advertisers in advance in order to support the considerable time investment I would have to make in designing, hosting, administering and promoting the website just to get started.

Unfortunately, as I have so many projects going on, it seems that I cannot take the time to develop the professional business presence that I am interested in, at the moment.  I’m afraid I would have to hire an employee or two and that just isn’t a possibility as I am still working out out of my home office.

So, in the interest of getting some automotive traffic which I could build on in the future, I have configured these domains to show auto and automotive related articles through SEOParking.com.  SEOParking uses WordPress to post publicly reprintable articles from its database.   I have used this service before with great results on several other of my domains.

SEO Parking is a little spammy, as they will post their own links on your domain.  However, they have promissed to allow parkers to subscribe to the service through a premium channel so that those interested in paying the hosting fee will not show the SEOParking links.  That is why I am, for the first time, actually recomending this service.  I look quite forward to getting some of those spammy links off of my website.

One word of caution about SEOParking is that if they should fail to provide the premium service I will definitely have to move all of my domain names away from them and do the same type of thing on my own.  But the staff at SEO Parking has been great with support so far and they have not broken any of their promises, either.  So I am actually quite confident that this service will work out well for me in the long run.

I was a little disappointed when the strange links started showing up on some of my domains at the beginning of the month, but obviously they have to make some money somehow.  However, I originally thought that they were looking to expand their distribution network for their articles database and I was simply fortunate enough to find them.

I just hope they don’t price themselves out of the market.  I can afterall, get full featured multiple domain web hosting (with my own free WordPress) through any one of my web hosting solutions such as Domain Hostmaster, HD Web Hosting, Apache Website Host, Site Host Pros or F1 Hosting Networks for way less than $9.00/month.  Not to mention that the competition won’t be much more than $10.00/month for nearly as good of a feature set.

I kind of wonder if anyone hasn’t developed an add-on module for WordPress so that we can do all this ourselves, already.   Shout at me if you have ever seen an automatic article poster that will post so many articles per day/week/month based on a set of keyword phrases.  I’d love to know about it, it would save me that monthly fee at SEOparking.com.  😉

But at least the Autos and Automotive Trademark is up, active and protected again.  I really do have some interesting plans for the brand once this economy turns around.

Yes, I am a domainer, but I have very special interest in this name (and the domains I am using to protect that name).  If all goes well, this will be one of those domains that I have the opportunity to develop myself, not simply sell for a small profit.  Because despite the troubles of our auto makers, this really is a time when the automotive industry is retooling for the new challenges ahead.   It was their lack of vision and their inability to embrace new technology that has grounded them in the past and hung them out to dry.  If they understand that, and learn something from that lesson, they may well make it.

Exactly who will make it in the auto industry is unclear.  I would bet on Tesla, if I could.

Unfortunately, I have been squashed by the corrupted powers that be as well, as no one is really actively developing or reinventing brands, (re)designing their websites, advertising, or marketing like they should.    That is a real big problem for a web designer, which is what I am.   And the real problem is that now is the time to advertise.  Now is the time to hire while you have a large pool of talent from which to choose the cream of the crop.  And the people who cannot will not recover as quickly when the economy does start turning around.  It is a shame.

Maybe once this depression is over, I will be able to develop Autos & Automotive.  I certainly hope so.

Autos & Automotive Trademark Logo

You might be able to tell from this second banner that I have decided to protect both versions of the name… Autos and Automotive as well as Autos & Automotive.  It’s kind of the same princible as grabbing a few versions of the domain name so that no one else can try to steal the brand away and declare its theirs.  Afterall, I don’t want to lose them and we do want to be ready for anything in the way of future trends, branding and marketing.

Dark Glasses & Dark Shades

Like most Domainers, I prize the dot com over any other international TLD.  But I do like other TLDs, as well.  I really like the .US country code, the .net (perhaps because I am in the business of reselling domain names & hosting), and I absolutely love the .info for blogs and information sites.

But DarkGlasses.net and DarkShades.net have been left unregistered well too long, now.  So I had to, of course, finally give in, go to Domain Hostmaster and register them.

Why do I do it?

Considering the risk I take for a new registration, the investment and risk is actually quite small for two dark versions of the cool name for sunglasses in a dot net.  Perhaps it is a bit riskier for me since I don’t actually plan on selling sunglasses, but I think that these are still greatly undervalued names that have until now been overlooked.  I honestly think that these names should command a $500.00 pricetag each on the very day that I registered them (for the next 5 years), even in this economy.  Or perhaps I should say, especially in this economy, as you need memorable names that can be built into brands these days.  In 5 years, they will be worth 5 to 10 times as much, at the very least, even if I do nothing.

Still, I am not supposed to be registering new names.  I’ve actually been letting a few domain registrations expire, but certain gambles did not pay off.  WiBro is still known as WiMax here in America, though I still have kept a couple of choice versions (i.e.: FindWiBro.com, ComputerWiBro.com, WiBroComputing.com, BusinessWiBro.com & PhoneWiBro.com).

I’ve also let a few of my longer High Definition keyword phrase domains expire.  I was very surprized that people haven’t been knocking my door down for these just as everyone is ugrading to High Def systems.  But I did keep the best ones.

I even let Fable.Biz expire and I actually planned on writing a fairy tale or two on that one.  But I just didn’t have the time to make that happen.

But I think these 2 dark dot net domains will do much better.  😉

-Doug
The Domainator