In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of the domain name industry, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve. The industry is rich with opportunities and it’s brimming with innovators who are shaping its future. One such innovator is Andrei Polgar, the founder of GiganticWebsites.com. Andrei has made a significant impact in the industry, with his unique insights and strategic approach to domain name acquisition and management. In fact, Andrei was on the scene when I first began my domain name journey. He was challenging the status quo back then and continues to do so today.
Andrei’s work at GiganticWebsites.com has paved the way for new trends and possibilities. With a keen understanding of the digital landscape, Andrei has helped businesses harness the power of the right domain name, thus bolstering their online presence and success. Andrei agreed to explain more about his journey, his thoughts on the industry, and his vision for the future.
Mike: Let’s start out by having you tell us a little bit about your background and how and when you got involved in domain names.
Andrei: Ironically, the proverbial new guard of domainers might not even remember me and even if my name rings a bell, it’s probably associated with the One Minute Economics YouTube channel or my econ/finance books more so than domain investing.
However, my interest in the space far preceded One Minute Economics and most likely originated back when Frank Schilling was still blogging. With his SevenMile writings inspiring me to actually take action in the space. Fast-forward over a decade and I have written the Omnia Vincit book together with Frank… from teenager who was fascinated with his posts to co-author, quite crazy how things happen!
While nothing can beat my love for economics, there will always be a special place in my heart as well as activity for this industry. With me being the only economist who, for example, covered the acute phase of the short domain mania of late 2015 to early 2016 in my books. In fact, I take pride in not being an ivory tower economist but rather a “doer.”
Mike: How did you come to start GiganticWebsites.com and tell me more about the value your service brings.
Andrei: This yet again comes with the territory when trying to be a doer because as the person behind One Minute Economics, I ended up being pretty much bombarded with AI-related questions. What will the consequences of AI solutions be when it comes to employment? Which industries will be the most affected ones and why? Which business models need to be re-considered? The list of questions went on and on.
However, I realized that without rolling up my sleeves and actually embracing this technology, my perspective was far from meaningful. Thus, I decided to do just that. One experiment at a time, one use case exploration case study at a time. One thing led to the other and as someone who dabbled in the domain space a fair bit, I had my “Aha!” moment.
After all, there has always been immense demand for a viable domain development solution. One which enables investors to turn a few of their names into income streams, income which helps them be financially secure enough to aim higher during domain negotiations. At the end of the day, it’s far easier to say no to an offer if you do not depend on said sale to pay the bills.
Unfortunately, such solutions are difficult to come by. Over a decade ago, people experimented with mass developing small websites but in light of the fact that said websites were quite thin, Google wasn’t exactly a fan. On the other end of the spectrum, prior to the generative AI craze, creating very large websites was quite unaffordable and therefore not all that scalable. Imagine paying $20 for an average article (one written by a freelancer rather than an expert in the field) and creating ten 500-article websites… a total investment of $100,000 for the ten websites in question. That’s a lot of money to earn back!
When I realized that I could put an offer on the table where the ten websites in question would cost less than $10,000 and the articles could even be of better quality than average freelancer-written content, it became clear that it was time to set things in motion. And for a service which revolves around creating websites with even thousands upon thousands of articles, the domain GiganticWebsites.com was a no-brainer.
Mike: Your pitch says the sites are optimized for SEO. Does the buyer get to select which SEO words or phrases are targeted? Is hosting included?
Andrei: Of course, it is all up to the client: we can handle 100% of the keyword research process, tackle keywords provided by said client or anything in-between. Hosting is not included but any half-decent hosting package should do. Upon request however and subject to staff availability, yes, we can set up a hosting account at no additional charge. With the client covering the hosting fee in question but paying $0 for our service of setting up that server.
Mike: Your promo video mentions leveraging AI for content. We all know that AI is not yet perfect. How do you ensure the articles you provide are accurate?
Andrei: Right off the bat, it’s important to split test, split test and split test some more. For example, the free ChatGPT version (3.5) just doesn’t cut it, whereas the paid version (4.0, a ten times larger model!) is excellent with smart prompting and occasional human intervention. Excellent for regular or if you will “bread and butter” articles, that is. As someone who has a PhD in economics and international affairs, I have also experimented with academic tasks and on that front, AI in general is nowhere near competent enough yet. Again, it all depends on the use case we are referring to.
Mike: Is publishing a website pumped full of articles all it takes? Do you have any customer or personal examples of this model working to drive traffic and profits?
Andrei: It would be intellectually dishonest not to make it clear that we are at the cutting edge of this, pioneers if you will. It is, at this point, still too early to tell. Furthermore, let’s not forget that smart link building is also required. As a courtesy, we are offering to manage the link building budget of clients free of charge, to the best of our ability. But only a charlatan would make set-in-stone guarantees at this point. We’d much rather under-promise and over-deliver.
Mike: As you strive to build your business, what trends are you currently observing in the domain name industry?
Andrei: I would say a common theme was interacting with investors who had a solid 2022 but a sub-optimal 2023 in terms of sales. Which is to be expected given the macro environment where “tightening” is the operative word. To state that the domain investing space is somehow immune to changes in global liquidity conditions would be borderline delusional. A mistake domainers made right after the Great Recession and which I hope they are wise enough not to repeat. Given how things stand, even more so than in the past, the idea of building income streams that reduce your reliance on sales is becoming increasingly attractive in my view.
Mike: Does the quality of a domain name play a role in how successful a gigantic website will be or is it purely driven by the content of the articles?
Andrei: A great domain has an impact on pretty much anything. For example, let’s assume you have identical listings on a Search Engine Results Page, with the domain being Gold.com in one case and Gold-Website.biz in another: which listing do you believe will have the better CTR? The same way, what if you contact potential partners for an opportunity related to that website, do you believe you are more likely to hear back with mike@gold.com as your email or mike@gold-website.biz? Moving on to link building, we will assume you push two identical well-written press releases, one for Gold.com and one for Gold-Website.biz: which one do you believe is more likely to get picked up organically? The list could go on and on, which is why I believe that the better a domain is, the more sense building a gigantic website on it makes.
