Internet Business Society

It’s exciting to think about the potential Marchex has as they take their domaining business to the next level by moving away from just domain parking and actually providing valuable content on their slew of over 150,000 local domains they have amassed. Up until now, they’ve just been sitting on the domains and raking in cash when people click the links.

I’m not sure how many people actually make it to their websites, though, since the search engines typically penalize domainers that have zero value in the content of their websites and just use them as a shell to make money off people who might click the links. However, Marchex has several thousand GREAT quality domain names that generate type-in traffic where people enter the domain into the URL address bar directly rather than using the search engines.

Because of Marchex’ low quality websites, they have adapted by coming up with ways to capitalize on the type-in traffic and other ways of not having to rely on organic search results to achieve ROI.

But now they have announced several different initiatives aimed at improving both the value added to their visitors and the income their company brings in. They are expanding their openlist service that connects visitors on their local websites with various products and services. They have also partnered up with various companies that will provide content, reviews and other services to their websites.

Folks, they are serious about taking their domaining company to the next level. It’s an inspiration to everyone out there who has a large collection of domain names. When you look at their financial records (yep, they are publicly traded) and find how little revenue they pull in versus how much they spend it really helps you understand how much you as an individual has to gain by going it alone with less fixed costs.

Here are a few of Marchex’ websites:

• OpenTable (www.opentable.com): Openlist.com users, as well as users of such local Marchex Web sites as www.seattlefinedining.com can now make reservations at any of more than 7,000 restaurants across the U.S., using the OpenTable reservation service.
• Contractors.com (www.contractors.com): Users of Open List and such Marchex Web sites as www.remodeling.com can now access hundreds of thousands of reviews of home improvement service providers from the most comprehensive directory of residential contractors.
• HealthGrades, Inc. (www.healthgrades.com): The leading health ratings organization provides users of Open List and other local Marchex Web sites such as www.newyorkdoctors.com with detailed patient experience surveys of doctors across the U.S.
• Judy’s Book (www.judysbook.com): Open List and Marchex local Web site users have access to hundreds of thousands of market- and category-specific reviews from Judy’s Book, an online shopping community.

Since launching their openlist content-powered websites this year, Marchex’ organic traffic has increased more than 20%. Wow, what a difference adding a little value to end users makes (duh!). They’ve still got a long way to go but I’m optimistic about the potential.