Web Review: www.diamondsfordollars.net

By Gil Galanti

For over 20 years Texas Watch and Diamond, operating from Texas U.S.A., have been buying and selling diamonds, fine watches and jewelry. They also operate their own website at diamondsfordollars.com. I wouldn’t have noticed this website if it wasn’t for the fact it was the only site that has purchased Google’s sponsored links for the search phrase “sell diamonds”, appearing at the top of the Google search page.

Diamondsfordollars.com buys diamonds, gold, antique and vintage watches and fine jewelry (“Minimum 1 ct. diamonds or fine watches and jewelry only please”). Apart from the cool domain name, and a scroll promising up to $50,000 for “pre 70’s Rolex Daytona or Patek Philippe Day Date Moon Phase Chronographs", this extremely simple site is basically an HTML presentation of how to “turn your diamonds, watches, and jewelry into dollars in five easy no-risk steps”.

(1) You contact diamondsfordollars.com and receive a price quote, (2) the site makes a “blind offer”, usually close to the final offer (3) you ship the diamond to diamondsfordollars.com, which pays all charges including full insurance (4) after receiving the item the site makes a final offer, explaining how it came to that offer. (5) You make your decision. If you accept you get paid immediately. If you decline, your goods are returned, fully insured.

It has been a long time since I last visited such an old-fashioned website as diamondsfordollars.com. The Internet has greatly evolved from the early nineties when a “no-graphic attention”, “up in 5 minutes” set of html pages and a few links were enough to get any attention. Sadly, the guys at diamondsfordollars.com have simply ignored this evolvement. They don’t even have a decent hosted email account, instead offer one from Hotmail. They do have something interesting to say though, despite the way they present it.

Not surprisingly, Diamondsfordollars.com Google ranking is very low - 1/10 - but the paid inclusion in Google, the cool domain name, and their business focus all combined to gain attention. This said, I would still prefer a more contemporary approach.

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