Balkhis - Vision For Success

Typo Domains is it really worth it?

Well headline story news today, John Cow has been sold for $50,000 at sitepoint. A perfect example of acquiring a typo domain. Put in effort, passion and dedication in the project. Make it worth $50,000 in the end.

Let me begin with this cindrella story. This domain was registered by some domainer who was thinking he will make big bucks from the name. He probably paid the normal reg. fee to register it. The blogger at John Cow decided that he wants the domain and emailed the domainer. Domainer asked for $800 for an undeveloped domain (I used to be this crazy as well in the beginning years). Finally the domainer gave in for $80 for a typo domain. He was thinking that he made good profit from his investment. Saying that the domain was registered for $7 and now he just made 11 times his initial investment. But the real story began once the owner of John Cow started putting his time and effort into it. Blog went live on July 1st, 2007. In less than a year he was able to get about 1500 rss feeders. He made over $1000 from the blog the first month. That was a good record. He put down the blog to be making $2500 / month. So we can call an average of $2000 / month.

9 months the blog was there until sold, so the total income made was $18,000. I don’t know how much money was invested because the hosting was sponsored for quiet sometime. He wrote 1-2 posts a day and thats it. The blog had about 45k backlinks, which is not that much because I already have around that in my first two months. But anywho, he ended up selling the site in one day of which it was listed for $50,000 hard cash. I think even if he would’ve set the price to $75,000, he would easily get that, but o well. He converted his $80 investment into 625 times more to make it $50,000. What a profitable return.

Now come back to answer the question typos domains, is it really worth it? You have just as much if not less chance of getting rich with a typo domain then buying a lottery ticket. He got lucky and so did the original domainer, but will you get lucky? No one can guarantee that. It is just taking a risk and putting your best into it. Results will tell whether the time and capital was worth the investment or not. Just like any other business.

Smart technique would be not to go after a typo and start with your original brand and build it. Because it is much easier to sell later on.

I am having trouble typing because my neck is sprained from the gymnastic gym which I attended for the first time in my life yesterday, and ended up landing on my neck when i did a front flip over a 5 feet 10 inch peice of thick foam, and landed on alot of foam, but the impact on my neck even it was on the foam was pretty hard. Imagine if it was the ground. I would be dead by now lol. I better go relax now and let my neck heal.



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100th post of the blog – Blog Stats uptill now

Well, as I was fixing the size of the images which ruined the entire design, I realized something very special. Balkhis was at the post count of 99 !!! Wow, It doesn’t even feel like that I have written that much. This post is the 100th post at Balkhis. This blog hit another benchmark point today and that was for comments. Balkhis has passed the benchmark point of 500 for comments today. I would like to share stats for Balkhis uptill now.

Total Post – 100

Total Comments – 507

Tags – 412

Total Categories – 14

Pages – 6

Spam Comment Queue – 190 (I just got rid of all two days ago), I hate Spammers

I feel pretty good about this, so I thought I should share the stats with everyone. Keep reading the blog and don’t forget to subscribe.



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HostGator committing a federal offense?


Am I going to give you a law lesson. NO!, but I am going to share what I found through a client about HostGator. Well, I have a client who needs a website for their new business. They asked me which webhost should the get, so I said get HostGator because they are pretty big. After the fact, the client emailed me the chat conversation and the issue they had with hostgator. I said get the Baby Plan which is advertised on the homepage for $7.95 / month. It even says, No Hidden Fees and No Contracts. Apparently that is not true when you go and follow through with the plan.

Host Gator Pricing

At first, I thought they just put the best price on the homepage, and when you Read more, It will tell you, so I clicked More Info. Which still said $7.95/month. So I said well lets go and click order now just to confirm what my client was claiming. I proceeded to the cart, It said enter the domain. I entered one of the domains that I own. Next Page believe me or not said $9.95 monthly. Not even that, but they require you to sign up for 36 months for you to even get the price.

Host Gator Pricing

They not only put out all their terms up front, but HostGator false advertise their prices on the homepage by adding No Contracts / Hidden fees. When there is a 36 month contract needed to get that price. This is considered a federal offense in United States. I am wondering if there is a law suit awaits for this big hosting giant.

Even more funny was that their representative owned upto that they are false advertising and it was not an error.

Chat Transcript
info: Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.
info: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat! You are now chatting with ‘Jeffrey S.’
Jeffrey S.: Welcome to HostGator, how may I assist you?
Client: My web designer just sent me this link to your site. He will be managing my site and told me to buy the 7.95 a month plna- the “baby” I filled out the form and clicked on baby. The total on the next page is 9,95 a month- why is it more than what you have on the selection page?
Client: Even the yearly rate is 120- no discount at all
Client: are you still there?
Jeffrey S.: I’m still here
Client: ok- thanks
Jeffrey S.: yearly is 83.40
Client: is that were the 7.95 comes from? I thought the web site said 7.95 a month, no contracts
Jeffrey S.: sorry , wrong page, baby doesn’t have a discount for 1 year, the 7.95 comes from the 3 year monthly average.
Client: ok- but when you select baby by clicking on :o rder now” it takes you to the place to pay and it says the cost is 9,95, not 7.95
Jeffrey S.: 286.2/36=7.95
Client: ok-but your math is still off- first- 83.40 times 3 years is NOT 286.20. it is 250.20. That is still. Also, the plan does not say anthing about the 7.95 being a 3 year plan. The web site says 7.95 a month- no contracts- that means, it is 7.95 a month. Otherwise, it should say 7.95 based on 3 years. You really can’t have it both ways. My web designer sends you a lot of business. I ca’t beleive that you are not posting your correct prices and trying to scam people with a a 3 year contract to get the rate you have on the website. I am already not impressed.
Jeffrey S.: when you pay for 3 years (36 months) you pay $286.20
Client: Do you rally have any idea what you are doing? Did you not type “yearly is 83.40″ in the second entry you sent? This is not fuzzy math- the numbers have to be the same.
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to xxx@gmail.com at the end of your chat.
Jeffrey S.: “sorry , wrong page, baby doesn’t have a discount for 1 year, the 7.95 comes from the 3 year monthly average.”
Client: ok- so we are back to square one- the “baby” is 9.95 a month- even though you advertise it on the website for 7.95- is that correct?
Jeffrey S.: 286.2/36=7.95 yes
Client: OK- I just want to be sure that you put it in writing that you prices are not correct. You fill out the form that says monthly at 7.95, and when I go to pay, the price jumps to 9.95. I do believe that is false advertising, or “bait ad switch” which is illegal. The feds require that you make it clear when a price is an average. Nowhere does it say that the price is an average.
Client: I will not waste anymore of my time or yours. Thank you for verifying this decepetive business practice in writing.
Jeffrey S.: You can email sale@hostgator.com and voice your concerns to them.

What do you guys think about this ?? I know I am not supporting HostGator any more.



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Attending Adtech Miami

I have finally decided to go and check out the exhibit of Adtech: Miami. Why did I decide to do this? Well, I was looking at the conference schedules, so I saw this one which fits my schedule perfectly as I will be out of school. Adtech is holding their Miami conference on June 3rd – 4th. If you don’t know Miami is only an hour away from my house West Palm Beach, where I will be spending my summer vacation.

If you are attending the conference, feel free to send me an email and let me know, so I would be looking forward to seeing you. The coolest part about this conference is that it is being held at South Beach Convention Center which means once I am done with the exhibit, I will be heading to the beach.

There are alot of companies that are exhibiting. I am looking forward to meet Casale Media. I’ll check out others as well. Hopefully I will have some pictures for you guys.

Register for Adtech Miami Here



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Ha, Mac is Hacked

No, this is not an April fool story. If you guys don’t know, I am not a big fan of Mac. I guess, I am a proud supporter of Microsoft since Day 1. You can call it my lazyness or I am just a normal human being who doesn’t like change. Make the long story short, I don’t like Mac. Alot of people tell me that Mac is so much better because it is very safe and bunch of safety nonsense. Alot of people think their Mac is untouchable.

Well, think again. Mac book air was hacked within 2 minutes by Charlie Miller at a CanSecWest security conference’s PWN 2 OWN hacking contest. Miller is one of the first person who hacked the Apple Iphone as well last year. He won $10,000 and a Mac book air.

I found this story a bit late as it was posted on March 27th on Yahoo Tech. I guess I have to check that section more often.

Now while I respect everyone’s opinoin about Mac, this is for all the people who thought I should switch to Mac. Pwned !



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