Following the theme of using public databases to find domain names and website ideas, I decided to take a look at the clinical trials being run in the U.S. These are best browsed by category.
U.S. clinical trials by category
Disease categories for domain names
I clicked on the second link, conditions by category and this gives you a nice overview of conditions. Any domain names or website names suggesting itself on this page? If not, click on parasitic diseases for instance. Now a long list of diseases present themselves. Want to know whats likely to be popular? Listed beside each disease is the number of clinical trials going on or completed. Look at malaria at 130.
Going down to the level of the actual clinical trial probably will not help you. The trials themselves are quite specific and include generic drug names that most people will not use to search.
Acronyms can take the majority of the traffic
Watch out for acronyms for diseases. Abbreviations and acronyms may be used where the disease has a complicated name, for example ventricular septal defect is known as a VSD. For type-in traffic those acronyms are likely to take all the traffic. If you develop a website, you can work in the acronym to catch that search traffic.
Traffic may be split across synonyms
The second thing to watch out for are synonyms. These are alternative terms used to describe the same condition, for example ventricular septal defect, VSD, perimembranous, membranous ventricular septal defect, ventricular septum all describe the same or similar conditions. You will need to parse out these terms to determine which one is getting the traffic
Search terms may surprise you
You can use Google Trends as a crude guide to traffic. Here I used septal defect, ventricular septal defect, heart defectas three possible terms in Trends. Notice how septal defect comes out on top. You might have thought heart defect was better. How about a simple term like heart problem? Now that has to beat a technical term. Actually it doesn’t. It matches it in more recent searches.
Technical term searches are the future
Surprises like this are common. The public feels much more at home these days with technical terms and spends a lot of time looking for information using those terms online. The consequences of this are that for type-ins, traffic will be split across many more domains as people type in precise technical terms. Similarly searches with technical terms will more very detailed technical websites. Often these are too complex for the public and the appropriate site is not found because of the search term. Websites that bridge this gap should start to see more traffic over time.
All the best.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I found this post to be very interesting because I started thinking about clinical trials and domain possibilities while researching them for my Dad who has Alzheimer’s.
I registered a number of good ones just a few months ago and have seen traffic increase as news is released on new trials.
One thought that I had for clinicaltrialssite.com was to develop it vertically using sub-domains. For example: “disease”.clinicaltrialssite.com with information and links for that specific disease trials. Along with that there is also the opportunity to market the domain as a great email address for the hospitals or universities that are doing the trials. That way they can monitor their incoming e-mail to see how many responses they received by linking to my site.
By purchasing the best generic domain that is available, and working vertically with sub-domains, you are able to maximize predictive domaining with less initial costs and spread your capital across many speculative opportunities, thereby reducing risk.
I also invested in some key nanotechnology domains after research into that area with the same idea to develop vertically. That industry is growing rapidly and there are still opportunities to buy some good domains.
I love your blog because you realize that there will always be many untapped opportunities out there for domainers that keep their eyes open!
Thanks for your kind comment. I too have clinical trials sites. I think your development plan is great. With our aging population, I expect them to increase in value over time. Healthcare is also considered recession-proof to an extent because people still get sick and still need treatment so even in the short term, I expect them to have value.