Erik Allebest is one of the founders of Exercise.com, a website that helps anybody improve their well-being and health through various innovative online tools. He is also the co-founder of Chess.com, a gaming site with over 4 million registered users. Chess.com enables anyone to play chess for free online. Erik is a graduate of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and enjoys building web entities with high-traffic potential through web marketing, sustainable monetization models, and smart domain valuation.
Here are my 5 questions with Erik and his answers:
1) You have been able to secure two pretty impressive top level domains, albeit in two topics that are quite divergent from one another. What is your methodology for evaluating the potential worth, and arbitrage value, for a high-value domain name before you buy it?
There are 4 factors I consider when purchasing a domain:
- Current traffic (how much traffic does it currently generate)
- Potential traffic (how much traffic do I think I can generate based on keywords in the domain)
- Brand (how does it sound? how easy to type? how does it “feel”?)
- Market (how monetizable is each visitor?)
I’m not shy about spending money on a domain because your domain is your brand, your address, your face, and your #1 sales person all rolled into one. Get over the notion that “domains cost $9”. They don’t.
I have purchased many domain names in the 4 figure range and flipped them in the 5 figure range because I knew they were undervalued. I’ve also bought domains I thought had potential and then had to take losses on them. But that isn’t the business I want to be in. I think the Web is changing. Keyword-heavy domains, mass content farms – those things are fading. I believe the future of the Web is strong brands on top of top-quality services, products, and content. That doesn’t mean domain names aren’t important anymore, it just changes which domain names are important.
2) How have the Google Panda update, and the reported addition of social queues in search ranking algorithms, changed the way you architect your initial domain and search strategy?
Panda hasn’t changed my views on creating high-quality sites and experiences. It has, however, harmed those who rely on mass quantities of low-quality or duplicate content. Building a high-ranking site shouldn’t be easy, and Panda reinforces this. I’ll be honest – I have a site I built for fun a few years back that makes decent passive income. It lost 60% of its traffic with the Panda update. And while I’m sad to lose some cash-flow, it’s almost a relief – the site isn’t that great and didn’t deserve the traffic it was getting!
3) Some sources have claimed that .co might have the potential to compete with .com. As of now this hasn’t proven to be true. Do you think there will ever be a generic top-level domain (gTLD) that can legitimately compete with the visibility and value of a .com?
No. No. And no. There will always be new TLDs, and they will be useful, and sites will be built on them. But .com will always be #1 by far.
4) Regarding Exercise.com, how do you believe the Web has changed the landscape of the fitness industry given that exercise is such a physical activity within and outside the walls of the gym (where Web activity is primarily virtual)?
The Web hasn’t YET changed the landscape of fitness. That is what we are working on. The thing is, in the end, people need to be eating better and moving more. And you don’t do that well from behind a computer. The Web will change fitness by delivering better content, making the in-between-workouts more social, and adding motivational and accountability features. BUT, it can’t change the nature of man and that objects at rest tend to stay at rest. It’s a tool, not a solution, just like an inert hammer. You have to pick it up and do the swinging on your own. And getting someone to want to do that… it hasn’t been solved yet.
5) Many would argue that mobile devices such as smart phones, but also mobile metric tracking devices like Jawbone and Fitbit, will eventually have a significant influence in the way technology helps positively influence fitness. With this in mind, what excites you most about the future of technology and fitness?
Those tools will be immensely helpful for people who are motivated and in-process toward reaching their goals. Again, they are neat tools, and I find them interesting and useful for people who exercise. What has me worried going forward is that technology doesn’t yet know how to assist people’s will power. It’s too easy to ignore the beeps. I don’t want to be a pessimist on the topic, but until a device can seriously impact the cravings to eat unhealthy foods or meaningfully get people off the couch, they will remain novelty items. And people will keep making them, because people buy them with the hopes they will help them make a change. But they don’t. The change has to come from deep down inside, and the commitment has to be kept up from inside.
No exterior tools, gadgets, or pieces of equipment have yet been able to impact that. They all end up as sad lifeless devices for people who can’t muster their own will power. The unfortunate “good news” for people who make those devices (and websites, and DVDs, and books, and…) is that the market for fitness “help” is infinitely large because most people never get the internal piece figured out and keep buying new stuff to help themselves. So it generates a lot of $$$, but little results. I want to see that change, and I want to be part of it.