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DesignContest.com sells for $40,000 at GreatDomains

The domain name DesignContest.com has sold at Sedo’s GreatDomains for $40,000 USD.

The DesignContest web site, which is already online but has unfinished business in terms of development and content, plans to run logo, web and other graphic design contests. The site has a feel of 99designs.com, a popular ‘design contest’ web site that has nearly 60,000 projects completed to date and last month alone paid out almost $1 million to designers ($742,096, to be exact).

In April, 99designs, had nearly half a million people visit its site, according to Compete.

Interestingly enough, DesignContest.net, runs a similar web site and currently owns the #1 spot in Google for the search term: design contest. In 2010 DesignContest claims to have awarded $42,238 in prizes.

DesignContest.com, which still appears to be in Beta, has a number of test contests online. But based on the track record of 99designs and other clone sites, the $40,000 investment for the domain name seems like a smart investment.

Last year, Contests.com was acquired by National A-1 from Yahoo! for $380,000. The Contests site is online, but still under construction. While not much is known about the plans for Contests.com other than the WordPress site that is online, launching a ‘design contest’ web site might not be such a bad idea.

UPDATE: DesignContest.net purchased the domain DesignContest.com. DesignContest.net left a comment on this story: “DesignContest.com has been acquired by DesignContest.net. The new version (V2) of DesignContest.net will be launched on .com in early 2011 to bring new unique functionality and services to it’s customers that look for top results in graphic design.”

Domain developers and bloggers now have a resource – The Yahoo! Style Guide. TechCrunch, Mashable and numerous other web sites are reporting the news.

According to Yahoo!, “Polished and expanded for its public debut, “The Yahoo! Style Guide” covers the basics of grammar and punctuation plus a multitude of topics with a Web-specific focus. Yahoo! editors discuss effective writing and editing for an online audience, techniques for streamlining copy, basic Web codes, Internet law, search engine optimization.”

The Yahoo! Style Guide

The style guide has 19 Chapters that cover a range of web topics ranging from SEO basics to writing engaging email and newsletters. A quick glance at the website and you’ll notice the information seems straightforward and obvious. It may be good advice for both new and experienced web developers and bloggers.

The site offers good explanations for topics that seem mysterious to many, like SEO.

Here are a few excerpts from the website,

People usually click the links on the first page of results, so sites at the top of the list are more likely to get visitors. And more visitors can mean more page views, more leads, more sales, more ad revenue, and other business benefits.

Search engines and people both like:

Verbosity. In the search engine world, verbosity means substantial, relevant, original content. Do fill your page with words, but write succinctly: Make sure that every word you write is relevant to your audience and to the topic you’re addressing.

Good writing. To a search engine, good writing means using variations of your keywords, including those with different endings. For example, if you are targeting the phrase job interview, use the singular, plural, -ing, and -ed forms, such as job interviews and job interviewing.

In the style guide, Yahoo! even takes you through the steps of optimizing a fictional site in Chapter 17.

You can buy the style guide everywhere books are sold starting July 6 and you can order it online now at sites like Amazon.