ShoeMoney Tools Domain Marketplace: Review
ShoeMoney Tools offers great search engine tools, but I’m not completely sold on the domain tool.
If you aren’t familiar with Jeremy Schoemaker, he’s a classic rags to riches story. Broke and out of work, he stumbled upon search engine optimization and hit it big. You’ve probably seen his big check from Google Adsense. He also writes the popular ShoeMoney blog.
A couple months ago Schoemaker launched ShoeMoney Tools, a collection of SEO tools for web site owners. ShoeMoney Tools also includes a “Domain Marketplace” for finding expired domains with good backlinks.
Here’s how the domain tool looks:
The marketplace includes expired and readily available domains that have incoming links from military (.mil), education (.edu), and government (.gov) sites. Inbound links from these sites are thought to be more valuable than links from unrestricted domains such as .com.
You don’t get to see much regarding each domain. You see its length, any hyphens, and extension. You then “buy” the domain for $20-$40. By buying it, you are simply unmasking the domain so you can register it at your domain registrar.
I have mixed feelings regarding this tool. It’s possible that you’ll pay to see a trademarked domain you don’t want to buy. The domains could also be banned by Google (some of the domains look spammy just by seeing their 2 or 3 hyphens.) I bought one domain to test it out. It wasn’t a trademark per se, but it’s not the type of domain I’d usually register. Also, many domainers use backlink tools to gather similar data and don’t have to pay to buy domains like this. At least since domain tasting has been drastically reduced you have a chance of picking up something that hasn’t been tasted for traffic by now.
So I give Domain Marketplace a lukewarm recommendation. It’s great for people who want to set up SEO sites and don’t really care regarding the subject. It’s not for building your portfolio of resalable domains.
But the rest of ShoeMoney Tools is excellent. If you operate any web sites, you’ll find the $99 a month pricetag worth it. The tools include pay-per-click tools, keywords, site search engine tracking, and regarding a dozen more.
