Let's hear YOUR best domain-buying tip

There are several different general ways to do domaining, any of them can be successful with sufficient study. Any of them can lose your money, too.

Generic keywords with sexy PPC income are not likely to be hand registered or found for sale for much below their value. If you have a lot of money to invest then you might get a stock market level percentage yield here or somewhat better, probably capital appreciation, as well. A lot of knowledge is needed to evaluate these names and phony data is not uncommon.

Flipping names also takes a lot of knowledge, some are successful even now but others got caught when the market fell with the recession.

Buying for later resale (like growth stocks) is my primary focus. The internet is growing at a rapid pace, so overall values are rising (the recession has brought values down, I am speaking long term). Balance that with the fact that renewals are costly. The main question to ask is: Who is your market? There are two that count - businesses will pay quite a bit for the domain that they need, and domain collectors will create a baseline price for names that they want.

This second market is the advantage of short domains. If you have decent or better LLL. in the popular extensions or LLLL.coms then you can sell anytime for at least a minimum price, while still having the possibility of an end user paying much more for one of your domains. And there is a good chance, after the recession, that the overall value of your domains will rise.

accentnepal said:

This second market is the advantage of short domains. If you have decent or better LLL. in the popular extensions or LLLL.coms then you can sell anytime for at least a minimum price, while still having the possibility of an end user paying much more for one of your domains. And there is a good chance, after the recession, that the overall value of your domains will rise.

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This assumes that the day when the penny drops and everyone realises L*s are worthless and only hold value between domainers, except for a few rare cases, never comes.

Really, find me a domainer who invested heavily in L*s who has had more than 1% of sales to end users. Take a look at what happened with LLLL.net's, there was a shitstorm over LLLL.coms and everyone got suckered in, then LLLL.nets came, loads bought into them and now are massively out of pocket. Even Reece, the super domainer is selling them at low prices, he knows the boat is sinking.

L*s will only ever work short term, you can't rely on them to be anything more than a quick buck within a few days. It's going to happen, it'll be the domaining apocolypse when everyone eventually realises that L*s are going in a big circle. Domainer #1 buys it for reg fee, sells to another domainer based on hype, they sell on again, then the next buyer realises the value is tumbling and ends up selling at less than he bought it and this keeps happening until the domain is dropped.

It's a never ending cycle and if you do anything but take advantage of this - Like Reece has, which I commend him for - you're going to end up in the street crying. It's not and never will be a long term investment, buy L*s at a cheap price, sell them a few days later, don't buy them at 'market' (haha, like there is a market for them anymore but between domainers) and think "I bet if I hold onto this it'll be worth a bit more soon".

This comes from first hand experience, I've sold LLLL.net's for ~$30 during the "hype" and then I can now see these domains being sold for <reg fee. Proof is in the pudding, LLLL.coms have gone to about $15 min price, used to be $60.

There is a market for high end LLLLs, of course, but they're not reallu LLLLs. Sure, they have 4 letters but they don't match the pattern, the majority have meaning.

Well, this is not a discussion of LLL and LLLLs, and these questions have been dealt with frequently in the short domain section, but I will make two short points:

The overall internet is growing rapidly (30% per year in 2007, about half that in recession year 2008, I believe). There is no sign that this expansion will taper off anytime soon - indeed the move to the mobile web will probably accelerate the demand for domains. Yet the number of short domains is unchanging. Short domains' advantages (less to type on small keyboards, less to misspell) are highlighted on mobile. As the market grows, sectors that were of low value become premium. (The trick to reg-fee domaining is to anticipate which sectors)

As to the collector value suddenly vanishing --- How many silver dollars are sold for their silver content? How many 100 year old stamps are used for postage? Baseball cards and comic books used for kindling? People collect all kinds of things, and barring a major economic depression, (we are nowhere close now), they will continue to collect, it is part of human nature. And their holdings, if well chosen, will continue to appreciate, overall, if the domain market grows.

Just goes to show that there are a variety of opinions as to how to make money in domains - but I believe that there is a great deal of agreement among experienced domainers as to how to lose money in domains--- buy domains without studying the market carefully. Guaranteed losers, lots and lots of people do it.

Actually, the number of "short" domains out there is always growing. Many of the domain genres that have value by mere virtue of their shortness today (LLLL.com, CVCVC.com) weren't worth much at all 5 years ago, and neither were triple-premium LLL.com's 12 years ago. As the total space of registered domains continues to expand, the definition of the "short' domain will slacken proportionally.

to buy domains one at a time and really do the due diligence to make sure you actually like the domain niche before you spend a dime. dont worry about what you missed out on regging, concentrate on 1 domain at a time.

Gene said:

If you had just one tip to offer a beginner when it comes to buying or registering a domain name, what would it be? This could be buying a domain for a flip, or for development, or for general business. It could be about buying something already established or a brand new reg. What is YOUR best tip for someone interested in profiting from domain names?

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If you're considering registering ccTLDs, as a general rule you should only register local language keywords in mature extensions.

Figure out your exact budget and goals. If you want to have 100 cool domains for $7.50 each, then your budget is $750. If you want 5 excellent domains for $500 each, then your budget is $2,500.

Now you have your stuff, go reach your goal. Were you looking for traffic profits? Make it happen. Were you going to develop each name? Do it. Are you out to flip domains like hotcakes? Start flipping.

No more spending until your goal is reached. This is more important for domains than most other professions. Buying without any purpose is a death trap. Once you've learned what it takes to reach your intended target the first time, you can do it better and more profitably the second time.

There is no golden rule about how or where to learn, but experience is always the best teacher, regardless of success or failure.

Confirm the spelling of your domain before you hit "Buy" and there is a world of difference between a name you can buy at $50 vs $7.50. It is worth it to spend a little more.

Read, Learn, Listen.....then spend!!!!

Ask yourself if the domain can bring buyers to sellers. In other words, are people searching for the exact term in the domain and are advertisers bidding on those same terms.

If you can answer yes to both questions, then it's worth looking into it more.

Others pegged the important stuff.
To it, I'd add- know your goals before clicking "buy". If you want domains to dev for PPC stuff, focus on them. If you want domains to resell, focus on them. If you want to speculate on the future value of certain domains or TLDs, focus on that.
For every domain you add to your portfolio, it should have a clear-cut purpose, not just "WOW! THAT SEEMS LIKE A GOOD DEAL AND ESTIBOT SAYS IT'S WORTH $5000!!" In time, as your knowledge base expands, you can expand your focuses, but don't let your portfolio get too schizophrenic.

Given the relatively abstract nature of domaining, I think too many domaniers develop these over-bloated, incoherent portfolios that serve no purpose other than to keep them paying reg fees on names that they won't ever see a dimes worth of return out of.

I realize that there is still 'keyword action' in the less significant extensions, but I think you are much, much better off sticking to .com. Look for .com value in geo and longtail. In most circumstances, I'd rather own StLouisPizza.com or BestPlumberInChicago.com than pizza.cc or plumber.vu.

One other thing. I think the most neglected yet most important metric of all domaining is simply, does the domain in question bear any relevance to real life commerce where real money actually changes hands? While "brandables" do have some potential future use in theory, most all of them very much strike me as being the domainers equivalent of trading sardines

Lastly, see my sig line.

labrocca said:

Have a development plan or idea for every domain you own.

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I strongly agree, this type of thinking has suckered me into being a webmaster instead of a domainer.

So I buy only with development in mind, potential future domain value is an after thought.


but for those who are only into domaining, you should definitely look at domains for their development potential.

DONOT USE ESTIBOT!! :lala:

Use Estibot, but do not believe the estimation

Don't use K or C unless spelling commonly known words! Usually X is not good either.

Don't rush to buy domains before learning what is really valuable. I did this and bought some crap =) hehe

buy expired domains