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The dude that built DudeRanch.com

deepsouthventures.com

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Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#21

Post by eightturn »

chmod775 wrote: post #18

I'm surprised he paid $20k for that domain name, and then made the site look like this: https://i.imgur.com/3XYXdo6.png That is Firefox by the way. I suppose it looks differently in whatever browser it was tested at the time? Or maybe it is my adblock blacklisting wpengine.com by default? He could have hired a web designer/coder for a fraction of that price. Edit: Turns out it is uBlock. Don't use styles/JS from doma…

author here.. thanks for mentioning this.. try to fix this as we speak.. does it still appear wonky?

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#22

Post by NikolaNovak »

erikig wrote: post #15
gorpomon wrote: post #4

I love reading about Deep South Ventures websites-- the projects are simple but inspiring. They're kind of like the other side of the coin to YC-- they make business seem possible but in a completely different way. Heads up-- something on duderanch.com is putting a max-width on rows making the site unreadble in desktop: ...

I agree. I just finished reading this guide on how to build a profitable side business and it is as practical as it is - eye-opening. https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/

Hmm, main underlying point still has validity, but it's interesting how some things / gut reactions may have changed or be changing.

The example that "[one would] always go to biketours.com" is literally invalid for all my friends today - we'd immediately think of it as a link farm with content of limited or no value - and maybe even dangerous. In fact, it's their very proposed business model, that has conditioned us to mentally de-rank such generic domains.

As a consumer, I'll mentally avoid "weddingphotographer.com" and maybe even "TorontoPhotography.com" in rankings (no clue if those are working domains, assume so, no ill will to the operators:) but would scroll to e.g. "BobDoesPictures.ca" or "MichaelDavidsonPhotography.ca" or something more specific and similar like that. One sounds a generic link farm, one sounds a specific potentially useful site. So I'd definitelly use GoSojourn.com over BikeTours.com.

Mind you, from perspective of a pragmatic business, my friends and I may well represent an insignificant minority :(

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#23

Post by jordanmoconnor »

eightturn wrote: post #21
chmod775 wrote: post #18

I'm surprised he paid $20k for that domain name, and then made the site look like this: https://i.imgur.com/3XYXdo6.png That is Firefox by the way. I suppose it looks differently in whatever browser it was tested at the time? Or maybe it is my adblock blacklisting wpengine.com by default? He could have hired a web designer/coder for a fraction of that price. Edit: Turns out it is uBlock. Don't use styles/JS from doma…

author here.. thanks for mentioning this.. try to fix this as we speak.. does it still appear wonky?

It still appears wonky, yes. FF + uBlock.

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#24

Post by eightturn »

eightturn wrote: post #6
gorpomon wrote: post #4

I love reading about Deep South Ventures websites-- the projects are simple but inspiring. They're kind of like the other side of the coin to YC-- they make business seem possible but in a completely different way. Heads up-- something on duderanch.com is putting a max-width on rows making the site unreadble in desktop: ...

author here.. thank you for heads up.. I'll let David know..

this is hopefully fixed now..

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#25

Post by JeffRosenberg »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #22
erikig wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I just finished reading this guide on how to build a profitable side business and it is as practical as it is - eye-opening. https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/

Hmm, main underlying point still has validity, but it's interesting how some things / gut reactions may have changed or be changing. The example that "[one would] always go to biketours.com" is literally invalid for all my friends today - we'd immediately think of it as a link farm with content of limited or no value - and maybe even dangerous. In fact, it's their very proposed business model, that has conditioned us…

For me, this becomes more true the longer and more oddly specific the domain becomes. I'd feel perfectly fine with biketours.com or duderanch.com, but no way would I visit best-bike-tour-discounts.com or discount-dude-ranch-vacations.com.

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#29

Post by bhartzer »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #17
erikig wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I just finished reading this guide on how to build a profitable side business and it is as practical as it is - eye-opening. https://www.deepsouthventures.com/build-a-side-business/

I agree, but with some minor quibbles specific to the HN audience: 1. The ability to write software is an asset and the DSV type projects are more software adjacent. Software has such great margins that it's much easier to create a profitable business than anything that involves shipping or physical goods (MicroSAAS, Dev Books/Courses, Themes, etc.) 2. It's sort of left unsaid that much of the purpose of buying these…

>> But there have been some changes to SEO (Google weighting factors and more navigational searches) that have reduced the value of them.

Well, I've actually studied this a lot... and it's not that Google reduced the value of them (Exact Match Domains EMDs). It's just that Google stopped giving them more weight. So now all domains are given the same potential ranking weight--even the new gTLD domains.

Bing, on the other hand, still gives more value to EMDs.

Re: The dude that built DudeRanch.com

#30

Post by bhartzer »

ggcdn wrote: post #11
GCA10 wrote: post #8

Any idea what the yearly gross income from duderanch.com might be? Or the selling price at the exit? I love the narrative. I'd love it even more if we had a glimpse of whether this ultimately settled in as predicted ($25k/year) or turned out to be a whole lot more rewarding.

I'll bet its more than the $664 USD this website valuator [1] reports, lol. [1] http://www.siteworthtraffic.com/report/duderanch.com

GoDaddy's appraisal tool values it at $7,628 https://www.godaddy.com/domain-value-appraisal/appraisal/

Even though, in the same result, they report the comparables:

duderanch.com $17,949 heroesranch.com $7,500 urbanranch.com $7,000

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