OpenDNS turns crumbs into gold

Recently, Techcrunch did a writeup on the innovative free service offered by OpenDNS. OpenDNS provides a great service to internet surfers, with features like slightly faster surfing and added safety since malware sites are actively filtered. What surprised me is how they make their money. Techcrunch says they currently make about $20,000/day from the 2 million search queries they serve each day. I was curious if that means they rewrite the referral string, stealing search engine referrals from other legitimate referrers like Firefox. In fact, they don’t do that at all. Instead, whenever a user mistypes a domain, or when the legitimate site they’re after is down or not resolving, OpenDNS shows them a “guide page” of helpful related content instead of a browser error screen. What a fantastically brilliant idea, especially since their referral revenue works out to roughly $10cpm. Conclusion: OpenDNS will be huge. Mark my words, they are just getting started.