.Tel Competitors

In business you should regularly conduct a SWOT analysis of your operation - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats - if you want to stay ahead of the game.

Complaceny is probably the biggest killer of businesses !

.Tel has many potential competitors - several of them Free - and don't get too obsessed by the fact that ".Tel has its data in the DNS" - users simply do not care about this !

Do forum members have first-hand experience of any of the following competitors (there are others of course) to the .Tel extension ?

http://www.about.me

http://www.flavors.me

http://www.zapd.com

http://www.1and1.co.uk

http://www.google.com/places

Be interesting to hear your experience of using any of the above, and why you think .Tel, as a chargeable entity, is worth paying for even though many competitors are Free ?

There needs to be good reasons for users to choose a chargeable .Tel domain over a Free alternative (that is likely to be more heavily marketed) - let's list below the reasons why .Tel will triumph over the alternatives that are available !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Reasons for buying .TEL include

#1, You own (rather lease from registrar) your own domain
#2, Shortest URL string instead of subdomain or folder
#3, You have a "different" kind of control, at least over content, but not design
#4, Availability of many generic words and phrases, unlike .com etc

Mark

The list of competitors from Mike is not complete by far.
A lot of services have the advantage that users can try them for free first.
This way they can attract a lot of potential customers first before earning money with them later on.
In my opinion .tel is worth paying a (higher) fee, because of the potential future usage of it (name dialing) and securing an unique domain name for it, but customer from Telnames surely don't have any clue this is the plan.
In addition the control panel Telnames is extremely easy to use.
A lot of services like about.me are very comfortable already, but the domain name has to be bought in an additional step.
And Telnames looks more like a domain than a free service.
It would be great if Telnames customers would have more options to adjust their own design to make this even more visible.

(.tels from Telnic currently don't have the advantages from Telnames and are not competitive yet.)

kprobe wrote:#4, Availability of many generic words and phrases, unlike .com etc

Due to the higher price in comparison to Telnic mainly only newbies are buying Telnames.
Most of the customers at Telnames ignore reason #4 and register too long domain names.
If .tel would see its breakthrough, reason #4 would even disappear.

kprobe wrote:Reasons for buying .TEL include

#1, You own (rather lease from registrar) your own domain
#2, Shortest URL string instead of subdomain or folder
#3, You have a "different" kind of control, at least over content, but not design
#4, Availability of many generic words and phrases, unlike .com etc

Mark

#5, No additional fees for hosting
#6, You can secure your name phone number for the future
#7, Easy and fast update from cell phones
#8, Only one login for domain and website (at Telnames)
#9, Automatic content conversion for cell phones
#10, Creation within a few minutes

In my viеw, thе аdvаntаgеs оf TELs аrе/wеrе duе tо shоrt lоаding timе. Bеcаusе оf thаt (оr mаy bе by аnоthеr rеаsоns) Gооglе indеxеd thеm vеry wеll. In cоmbinаtiоn with nо hоsting fее fоr TELs аnd еаsy mаnаgеmеnt оf TEL cоntеnt it wаs pоssiblе tо usе thеm аs а kind оf "bаnnеrs", which cоuld crеаtе trаffic tо yоur mаin .cоm sitе.

Of cоursе nоw, with intrоductiоn оf EDM filters by Gооglе, it is а quеstiоn, will TEL still bе in fаvоrs оf Gооglе.

At thе mоmеnt I sее this аdvаntagе оf TEL using it аs а bаnnеr аs its оnly аdvаntаgе in prаcticе. Of cоursе, this advantage have оnly TELs with subdоmаins; fоr TELs frоm Tеlnаmеs I dо nоt sее аny usеful usаgе bеcаusе I dоubt thаt Gооglе will еvеr shоw thеm sоmеwhеrе nearer to the first pаgеs оf sеаrch rеsults аs thеy hаvе nо cоntеnt (thоsе 20 pоssiblе cоntаcts fоr Tеlnаmеs TELs I dо nоt cоunt аs cоntеnt).

As fоr a chеаp prеsеncе in Intеrnеt, if yоu dо nоt wаnt spеnd yоur mоnеy оn dоmаin nаmе, yоu cаn gеt yоur оwn dоmаin fоr frее in gTDL .tk оr еvеn with hоsting includеd in gTDL .mp.

___________________________________________________
Dailininkas.com & Painting-Artist.com

maxi wrote:At thе mоmеnt I sее this аdvаntagе оf TEL using it аs а bаnnеr аs its оnly аdvаntаgе in prаcticе. Of cоursе, this advantage have оnly TELs with subdоmаins; fоr TELs frоm Tеlnаmеs I dо nоt sее аny usеful usаgе bеcаusе I dоubt thаt Gооglе will еvеr shоw thеm sоmеwhеrе nearer to the first pаgеs оf sеаrch rеsults аs thеy hаvе nо cоntеnt (thоsе 20 pоssiblе cоntаcts fоr Tеlnаmеs TELs I dо nоt cоunt аs cоntеnt).

That is so true!
Only the combination of the features from Telnic and Telnames the product would make sense for customers.
Why Telnic just don't realize this?

maxi wrote:оr еvеn with hоsting includеd in gTDL .mp.

I read on this forum this service is canceled.

Telnamer wrote:

maxi wrote:оr еvеn with hоsting includеd in gTDL .mp.

I read on this forum this service is canceled.

Yes, I also found this today when trying to look to some of .mp sites and was not able to do that. First I thought that it was due to my computer (I have some troubles with it currently), but now I knew the real reason.

In any case, it is not a big loss that free .mp are no more available. Worse it will be if some of the new gTDL will propose cheap domain and a free basic hosting with few subdomains included in the deal, and free WYSIWYG for managing the site on that free hosting.


___________________________________________________
Dailininkas.com & Painting-Artist.com

maxi wrote:Worse it will be if some of the new gTDL will propose cheap domain and a free basic hosting with few subdomains included in the deal, and free WYSIWYG for managing the site on that free hosting.

Yes, .tel shouldn't compete with hosting providers as Telnames does. How they want to survive against the high amount of competitors?
.tel should provide new and innovative telecommunication solutions instead.
Unfortunately at the moment Telnic puts all his effort into Telnames and loses sight of the essentials.

I made a simple experiment to look what is the difference between Google's and Bing's view on domains with keywords. It was a very simple trial: I took few names of my .COM sites and put them to the search window of both engines. Names were two-words English keywords with dashes like Mural Artist, Painting Artist, and few other similar sites with one or two pages of content only. I took domains with sites, not "empty" domains.

It appeared that Bing treated them very well (even I think better them they deserve) and showed them on the first page of search results for those keywords. Google showed them not good. I made a conclusion that Bing has a preference for sites build on domains with generic keywords and with a .COM suffix.

Now I think, what could be algorithms of search engines after the new gTDL will come to life? Could it be that not only Bing but and Google also will begin to make some preference for .COMs and some discrimination for other gTDL?


___________________________________________________
www.Dailininkas.com _ www.Painting-Artist.com _ www.Aquarelica.com

P.S.
By the way, two years ago, if you had a generic single English word TEL with a project on that TEL, then Bing showed it on the first-second page for a search made for that single English word. And now it shows not. So now it already became more difficult to promote TELs. And for me it seems that segregation between .COMs and other gTDL becomes more obvious.

In such a way wasted time of non-development turns to a wasted money.

___________________________________________________
www.Dailininkas.com _ www.Painting-Artist.com _ www.Aquarelica.com

maxi wrote:P.S.
By the way, two years ago, if you had a generic single English word TEL with a project on that TEL, then Bing showed it on the first-second page for a search made for that single English word. And now it shows not. So now it already became more difficult to promote TELs. And for me it seems that segregation between .COMs and other gTDL becomes more obvious.

In such a way wasted time of non-development turns to a wasted money.

___________________________________________________
www.Dailininkas.com _ www.Painting-Artist.com _ www.Aquarelica.com

Aside the discussion if search engines consider the value of a TLD for the weighting of search results, it can be also important if a TLD provides important content in general.
This can be a huge problem for the TLD .tel.
Most .tels are completely empty and the .tels in use show only a few contact data and nothing else.
This isn't a good motivation for Google or Bing to let them rank well.
In addition .tel is an outsider in the domain world until today.

I found it useful to set up a permanent page on my .tel to monitor SE positioning - see http://searches.mikeseaton.tel

http://MikeSeaton.tel

mikeseaton wrote:I found it useful to set up a permanent page on my .tel to monitor SE positioning - see http://searches.mikeseaton.tel

http://MikeSeaton.tel

That's a positive and useful idea, Mike.

I do have some original .tel domains that I have been holding off populating.
I will do my part to add a little contact content too.
(If only to monitor their progress more easily)

mikeseaton wrote:I found it useful to set up a permanent page on my .tel to monitor SE positioning - see http://searches.mikeseaton.tel

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Good work. Useful.

In Blekko (former unknown for me) ligury.tel is in the third place.
In Net-Link ligury.tel is in the first place.

TelFan wrote:The list of competitors from Mike is not complete by far.
A lot of services have the advantage that users can try them for free first.
This way they can attract a lot of potential customers first before earning money with them later on.
In my opinion .tel is worth paying a (higher) fee, because of the potential future usage of it (name dialing) and securing an unique domain name for it, but customer from Telnames surely don't have any clue this is the plan.
In addition the control panel Telnames is extremely easy to use.
A lot of services like about.me are very comfortable already, but the domain name has to be bought in an additional step.
And Telnames looks more like a domain than a free service.
It would be great if Telnames customers would have more options to adjust their own design to make this even more visible.

(.tels from Telnic currently don't have the advantages from Telnames and are not competitive yet.)

I wonder what Total .Tel Registrations would be today if Telnic had found a way to use this business model ?

http://MikeSeaton.tel

DUPLICATE POST - PLEASE REMOVE.

Thanks, http://MikeSeaton.tel