Bodog - Power Of Brand Recognition and User Aquisition.
Last week Bodog poker was stripped of its domains. A few days later its new domains were already in the DMOZ directory (im sure money had nothing to do with it .. doesn’t everyone get accepted in 3 days?).
Anyway just looking at some statistics from Alexa… and yea I already hear some ignorant people out there moaning when I just mentioned Alexa but in this case where a company lost there domain and had to switch to a new one Alexa traffic is VERY relevant because the people that are going to the site now are the exact people who were using the site before. ucopy?
So in looking at this graph you can see that not only has Bodogs traffic carried over to the newbodog.com domain its traffic is even UP. Talking to people inside Bodog they have confirmed to me that there new sign ups and traffic have increased by about 15%.
So how could a company keep going so strong after loosing there house? Well because of there user acquisition all they had to do was send out a email to all there customers and tell them what happen. This also was a great time to invite them to come play again and I am sure that lead to some of the traffic. The increase in sign ups can only be credited to all the recent press about bodog losing there domain. Also because bodog has such brand recognition people are still searching for bodog and finding it through other means even if not directly… what a great time to have a affiliate site that ranked for Bodog!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...- 80 Comments. What say you?
- RSS
- Delicious
- StumbleUpon
- Furl
- Digg
Your comments ring true. E-mail marketing and affiliate marketing are two of the most powerful methods of marketing online. You can’t go wrong with either one.
[Reply]
A kick in the a$$ = One step forward.
[Reply]
Damn, that’s crazy. Do you think they will ever eventually get the bodog.com domain back? Maybe after paying something like a ransom.
[Reply]
This is the exact opposite of what I though would happen to bodog…
[Reply]
Time to bet on some NFL games
[Reply]
Great stats. You nailed it — they got amazing coverage with the domain name loss. I have to confess I had never really noticed them before, but I think I read about the lawsuit in about 10 different places.
[Reply]
just check out Digital Point DMOZ foum,
many guys disclose their editors identity,
what a dirty hole!
[Reply]
DMOZ editors are just very active people.
especially in the porn and gamble sections.
[Reply]
Bloggers help bodog back to life
[Reply]
Wow, I’d never have thought someone could recover that well and that quick!
Why did they lose their domain anyway?
[Reply]
DMOZ SUCKS ! ! ! I will say this 100 times
[Reply]
lol that’s hilariously awesome! So basically that $50 million or w/e was a HUGE waste. That guy who bought out “bodog.com” would have been better off just cashing in and living the rest of his life as a rich bastard!
[Reply]
I agree - synical people would think this was all just great linkbait.
[Reply]
Still laughing at Theo’s comment. Glad to see someone jump back so quickly after a major disruption like having their domain swiped from them.
[Reply]
In a sense, pretty much every blog is linkbait? You have to talk about something… lol
[Reply]
I have to admit, I’d been to the Bodog Fight site before, but really didn’t know much about the betting side of things. Only after I heard about them losing (not loosing) their domains did I make my way to NewBodog and find the betting, which could ultimately be to my detriment. Who exactly was it that said there’s no such thing as bad press?
[Reply]
Very interesting…bodog has done an excellent job dealing with the situation. Check out their Google Trends chart too..http://www.google.com/trends?q=bodog , it’s through the roof.
[Reply]
Yeah, this spike in traffic is really just coming from the NFL just starting it’s season.
[Reply]
holy crap. Created: 2007-08-27 and already in dmoz.
[Reply]
Nice post Shoe. I was slowly losing respect for DMOZ from all the accusations of dodgey editors from people like yourself and I never really valued a listing that much in there anyway, I got in there straight away with one of my sites but didn’t mean anything to me. People seem to treasure it but to me it’s a pointless listing in a pointless directory which will get you no traffic, it may get you a bit of kudos from delusional bloggers who think a listing is like gold but not much worth in my mind. This post has just confirmed what a waste of time DMOZ is and why they should get lost.
[Reply]
Honestly, I don’t really have much sympathy for them. They should have hired a US law firm to represent them and won or lost the case on the merits. We’ve got a system of intellectual property rights in this country, and it’s a good thing that our courts enforce those rights. It might be fun to cheer for the person you feel is being unnecessarily harassed, but why not show up in court to defend?
If the plaintiff had a valid case, then they may very well have been in the right. Turning the issue around — if someone were stealing your content, wouldn’t you want to stop them?
[Reply]
thats a nice Mountain of a comeback if you ask me.
[Reply]
My last thought would be that all the media coverage (from you, shoe - and similar blogs/newscasts) could’ve easily accounted for the extra 15% as well?
[Reply]
Why are they so concerned about a DMOZ listing?
[Reply]
money is a very powerful tool
[Reply]
DMOZ may be corrupt, but a link there is still a big thing … hopefully not for long
[Reply]
How much of their traffic is from their customers? Probably a ton, so it’s not surprising that they’d get back to normal with a couple emails. Honestly though, the bigger issue is the DMOZ quick reaction…
[Reply]
It’s hard to guess where the pop came from because of so many factors but the NFL season starting probably got a segment of their existing customers to start betting more.
[Reply]
they were sued, didn’t show up, lost, and then the winner used the judgement to get the registrar to give them the domain. in other words, bodog’s lawyers f’d up
[Reply]
And they’re expensive!
[Reply]
Just like you said before in a previous post, brand recognition has a lot of power.
[Reply]
This case study points out the key advantage of email lists. They are not best for marketing (aquiring new customers) as much as they are for managing your relationships with your current customers. That’s why I always cringe when I hear the phrase “email marketing” - it’s a very limiting label.
[Reply]
hahaha
*lol*
[Reply]
Please learn the difference between “there” “they’re” and “their”.
[Reply]
It seems I guessed right
http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/08/28/bodog-poker-website-down-in-judgement/#comment-26747
[Reply]
I dont think anyone actually bought bodog.com as they had it seized from the owner.
[Reply]
DMOZ has been terrible from what I hear. You are the second person I know that someone tried to get money out of them.
Also you can have a great site with great content, they won’t look at you. You won’t even get a response telling you that you were rejected often times.
I applied one time to be an editor to help them out before I knew how dishonest the system is. I didn’t even get a reply after I put in my time applying.
Not the best business practice.
[Reply]
That’s great for Bodog. Goes to show you how important having a way to keep in touch with your users is!
[Reply]
3 days to get into DMOZ!
Mind you, it sounds like the publicity they got from losing their domains has really benefitted them.
How did they lose their domains to begin with? I didn’t realise you could be stripped of your domains/
[Reply]
Very interesting indeed, DMOZ is terrible. Thats all i can say.
[Reply]
Maybe it was just ingenious link bait, but who knows.
[Reply]
As bad as DMOZ has become, it can still benefit a site greatly.
[Reply]
or in the “where can I find someone who will pay me bribe money” section.
[Reply]
gotta agree the power of branding is often overlooked and should be a first and foremost… crackheads will always follow the crack…
the one disappointing thing to see though is that the dope who is at present the legal custodian of bodog’s site - why lay on it? why not throw up some ez/cheezy landing page and get something going on it/action? how many people have heard the news and are jsut merely “curious” about what’s going on? they visit the site and voila - something interesting instead of a 404 error page or the ms live search page? must be nice to burn $$$$$ —- i don’t know who’s wrong or right in this case - and personally don’t care - but just based off of that type of stupidity i hope this bastard loses the site back to the original owner at least that guy was smart enough to get the site back up and kicking again.
[Reply]
This really is amazing. Brand loyalty is worth a lot more than a domain name!
[Reply]
Can someone explain why this is the case? Does Google still consider DMOZ a very high authority site which therefore improves SERPs?
[Reply]
Blessing is disguise!
Thanks for the update. Pretty neat!
[Reply]
Wow that is really cool.Updating latest changes to clients thru email is very good option, we do collect emails and send optional newsletters to all our mailing list members.
[Reply]
I also think that is brand very important, but you have to stay loyal to content.
[Reply]
Their. There. Get it right.
[Reply]
I dunno if a site like that really needs linkbait….
[Reply]
in theory though given recent developments, i wouldn’t be surprised if it was devalued a peg or two
[Reply]
It was pure luck … can happen to anyone. Just keep submitting websites, and you’ll have one approved in 3 days
[Reply]
excellent example of brand building and great vision as a marketer.
[Reply]
It’s unbelievable Google still uses DMOZ content to fill their directory.
[Reply]
Bad news is sometimes possibe to turn into good advertisement. I didnt know this company before and now I found it in few blogs already… so it could also boos its traffic.
[Reply]
Can’t they loose the new domain the same way they lost the old one? What’s the difference? They’re going to show up to court this time?
[Reply]
Let’s also not forget the fact that football is the busiest time for a sportsbook.
That had a little bit to do with it. :p
[Reply]
People can say what they want about Bodog but they know what they’re doing, that’s for sure!
[Reply]
Bodog should seriously evaluate what the value is of the occasional player who might not take the steps necessary to find their new website in the event they look up Bodog in their favorites and find the interloper’s site at the former Bodog URI.
Then Bodog should offer no more than that to the judgmentholder to end the litigation and get the domain back.
[Reply]
After what happened, one has to question whether the lawyers who failed to act didn’t do so under well-thought-out orders from Bodog’s operators.
Legal considerations don’t always drive business decisions, and sometimes they shouldn’t (unless the legal considerations impact the public or the shareholders or they employees, etc.).
Of course, the judgmentholders may be able to get ahold of the new bodog domain, and perhaps get an injunction preventing .com registrars from registering new domains for bodog.
Bodog may have workarounds for that, or may have to resort to finding a domain registrar in a jurisdiction where the U.S. judgment won’t be recognized for one reason or another.
But what Bodog has done so far has significantly undercut the value of the judgmentholder’s piece of paper.
[Reply]
This shows the power of having a large user database and its relation to search engines. They don’t have to rely on search engines whatsoever, they can send out a mass email and get their users back immediately.
[Reply]
This is a great lesson for all of us. Effective branding has many benefits
[Reply]
And the publicity got them lots of new visitors
[Reply]
I bet if shoemoney.com got blocked from google, after all the blogs picked up the story, he would be getting more traffic than with google. Not something you would want to intentionally risk though.
[Reply]
For the record, no money was paid for the DMOZ listing.
[Reply]
I think they do because before this I never heard of them and now Ive mad one bet so far, on mls, with them and I think they found a new user.
[Reply]
That it is!
[Reply]
Very substantive commentary. Do you write for a living. And where’s the follow through…you only said it once.
I’m just guessing, that the good hearted DMOZ community recognized this is the same site, content and trusted owner who was accepted before.
Anyone looking for a new case study in the power of DMOZ…thanks Shoemoney.
[Reply]
No offense…but did you read the post?
B/c the story seemed to highlight getting the new URL in DMOZ drew traffic for the query Bodog and Newbodog from Google.
I mean…that’s my take away. I could be wrong, but I doubt it ; )
[Reply]
Greg, we believe you
[Reply]
I think the bodog affiliate program is hard to get into though. I have applied a couple of times and got denied.
[Reply]
The question is how much users they would have now if they had still the old domain + this newsletter…
I think they lost a lot of $$$ though
[Reply]
How is this possible, I have been trying for years on some of my website to get listed in DMOZ. Wonder what is would cost me to do the same?
[Reply]
hahahaha I almost posted a comment like this once, but then I remembered that shoemoney just doesn’t care.
[Reply]
[...] a little while back about BoDog losing their name in a very dubious legal decision. Well I saw this post and it looks as though NewBoDog.com is actually getting more traffic that the old. According to the [...]
[...] Bribing DMOZ editors. Or paying their extortion demands. [...]
[...] September 13th, 2007 in Internet Shoemoney.com has a very interesting post on using a brand to migrate users to a new domain. The post shows how successful Bodog have been moving from bodog.com to newbodog.com after the [...]
[...] Bodog - Power Of Brand Recognition and User Aquisition. [...]
[...] Remember Puff daddy -> p.diddy -> diddy -> Sean Combs? I’m not sure if Calvin and the Bodog folks learned this or similar cases before pushing this strategy but what I do remember is, after losing Bodog.com and going with NewBodog.com, their traffic didn’t slow down - it went up. [...]