Value of Domain Hacks

jexi said:

Also, people, DNam.es is available to register, grab it

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Why? What's special about that domains??

Lost Africa, but not SouthAmerica

I never said that's anything special, but It can be used as Domain names blog, news, reports etc

I see Smart.ly has just sold for $20,000.

TheBaldOne said:

I see Smart.ly has just sold for $20,000.

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My first instinct is to take this sale with a large pinch of salt, particularly as there are much better hacks than this available at reg fee (!).

Also, it is worth mentioning that the domain is still showing the Guerin brothers, as the ultimate owners. So no transfer has taken place yet then, and I will look forward to seeing the new owner details on this name in due course.

dnrevolution said:

My first instinct is to take this sale with a large pinch of salt, particularly as there are much better hacks than this available at reg fee (!).

Also, it is worth mentioning that the domain is still showing the Guerin brothers, as the ultimate owners. So no transfer has taken place yet then, and I will look forward to seeing the new owner details on this name in due course.

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Although your point about the domain name still showing the Guerin brothers as owners is a good one (we will have to wait and see on this), I am amused by your statement that "particularly as there are much better hacks than this available at reg fee(!)"

Do you know the buyers? Do you know which business they are in? Do you know the target market? Indeed if you do know any of these points then it makes a mockery of you subsequently pointing out that the domain still points to the same owners.

However if you do not know any of the above points then how can you say that there are better names available and at reg fee? For how can you decide what is better for the presumed new owners?

Oh, and by the way, as you obviously know about these domain hacks that are so good and available at reg fee would you mind sharing them with us - unless of course you are registering them yourself. :hehe:

TheBaldOne said:

Do you know the buyers?

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I don't know them, however the name is pointing to pedago.com and I think we have to assume, at this stage, that they are the new owners.

TheBaldOne said:

how can you say that there are better names available and at reg fee? For how can you decide what is better for the presumed new owners?

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I can say that effortlessly, and with the utmost confidence, because it is true... Smartly is a word that may well be found in a modern dictionary, but it is a very awkward word that is seldom used.

Yes, the name might be ok in a 'trendy' way, or as a potential brand name, but lets not forget that Pedago is already juggling with a brand name, i.e. it's own name (!)... and I find it difficult, frankly, to reconcile a start up co., like Pedago, wanting a buy an obscure domain name such as smart.ly...

The ".ly" extension hardly inspires any confidence, and if you had spent some time mining the more credible extensions you'd know that there are plenty of great domain hacks available at reg fee.

The perceived value of a domain hack is not simply confined to the word that it spells out. In fact, the "value indicator" that is much more important, even than that, relates to the ccTLD that underpins the domain.

Speaking of which, how is Haiti working out for you right now?

Well, that means there is a sale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You really obviously have read a book and taken it that it is gospel. What end-users want, what they see as value, and what will or will not work for them you are unable to fathom, but obviously the NEW OWNERS think the domain worth the investment.

I notice with interest you haven't actually given any examples of these supposed 'better' domain hacks that you know of. :lol:

As for me do not worry, I am finding as usual there is a lot of interest - now it just needs one of the potential buyers to decide my price is what they are willing to pay!

Yeah, no worries "thebaldone".. Let me now wish you well with your fig.ht sale. I hope you get full price for it, and I really do mean that.

I won't give out any examples now, of names that are better than smart.ly, that you can get today for reg fee, simply because I don't want the competition (!). Suffice it to say that Messrs Guerin, and many of the readers of this thread, have dropped names within the last year that are infinitely better than smart.ly and i've been able to snap up a good number of them.



I wish rocketna.me well on their reported sale of smart.ly, but frankly their current hack portfolio is very poor in my opinion. They dropped most of their quality hacks in the last 2 years, and have replaced them with ".ng" (nigeria) and ".al" (albania) names... eeek!

As for .ng's - they COULD have been great for untold number of domain hacks - but IMO they are not worth the worry as to whether you will still have the domain in an hour's time let alone tomorrow, the whole system is corrupted, indeed it is widely reported that corruption and extortion are endemically ingrained in the registry, whether this is so I do not know but I would not invest in them at all personally.

If you are building a domain hack portfolio I think that is about as wise an investment as you can make in domaining (again just my opinion), but if .com's are considered the 'gold standard' then good domain hacks must be considered as platinum considering their rarity - but not everybody likes platinum do they! Remember though domain hacks are the only TRULY unique domain names.

I have done well from domain hacks and I wish you the same, and there has never been a better time to invest in them, but give it 6 - 12 months and they shall rocket in value. (Indeed I am solely concentrating on development now and that started out with the domain MySite.is and has mushroomed into a huge project.)

TheBaldOne said:

IMO they are not worth the worry as to whether you will still have the domain in an hour's time let alone tomorrow, the whole system is corrupted, indeed it is widely reported that corruption and extortion are endemically ingrained in the registry

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Oh, I couldn't agree more. In fact, .ng isn't even worth reg fee, in my opinion, because of the very reasons you state.



Well done on getting the ".is" name 'though. Iceland is a super safe jurisdiction, that allows you to create hacks like memph.is, illino.is and so on.

Some may say that the only thing that the new gTLD's are actually good for are domain hacks... and I agree 100%!

Also, with the "in roads" that the gTLD's are now making, in to the domain market, I suspect it won't be too many years before people start to question why they should bother with ".com" at all...

dnrevolution said:

Some may say that the only thing that the new gTLD's are actually good for are domain hacks... and I agree 100%!

Also, with the "in roads" that the gTLD's are now making, in to the domain market, I suspect it won't be too many years before people start to question why they should bother with ".com" at all...

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There will be some of the new sponsored gTLD's that survive but I think mainly they will go the way of .pro, existing rather than growing.

I am a firm believer that domain hacks are the most underrated group of domains on the market at the moment. The new gTLD's are indeed ok for some expansion of the range of domain hacks, but, and it is a big 'BUT' - many will find it hard to be recognised as such by the public. With present hacks it is generally just the last two letters of the term/word/phrase that appears after the '.' - and even chickens can count to three so there should be no problem with internet users realising this. The rate of usage of domain hacks will increase exponentially as the internet using generations evolve constantly, already how many people have adapted to using hash tags?

Seriously you have made a wise choice, just a few words of advice would be 'do not get stuck on the tram lines' - other peoples ideas will evolve differently to yours, just be ready to recognise when it looks like becoming a trend;.

Oh, concerning the .is domains, it is not only illino.is, etc., but also great 2 word hacks such as 'Love.is', 'Home.is', 'What.is', 'Where.is', and the list goes on.

But I think you already know all this. Good luck with the portfolio, remember even at the moment domain hacks should be valued at between 10%-20% of the corresponding .com, but there are times when taking 5% can give you liquidity to purchase other properties and increase your portfolios overall value.

TheBaldOne said:

There will be some of the new sponsored gTLD's that survive but I think mainly they will go the way of .pro, existing rather than growing.

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Actually, I think that very few gTLD's will survive, but do you agree that the sheer number that are being released will (in time) change people's expectations toward domain names?...

I think it will. After all, .com means nothing that i'm aware of, even 'though it has been very good to me and i've sold quite a few "big ticket" .com names in my time. For me, the answer lies in what I would have done 20 years ago... before the internet was even a gleam in the public's eye.

For example, if I was asked to choose between ameri.ca and america.com (on a site that is about America), I would have chosen ameri.ca at that time, because in my opinion it is much more visually impressive and meaningful than the .com.

Of course, I wouldn't have known what .com related to back then... (but then I still don't now!).

So i'd still make the same choice of domain even today, and I think that people instinctively know when something is right, or is a true "authority", and I feel that .com has always been some kind of "smoke and mirrors" routine, perpetuated by money-hungry folks with a vested interest in keeping the pretence going.

Am I advocating the death of .com? No. At least, not for a while yet...

And for those of you who want to chime in that hacks are inferior, because they don't pass the 'radio test', you can skip it. I have clients who have bought single-word hacks, and they are using them in their marketing programs and they encounter no verbal difficulties at all.

In fact, their hacks are currently outperforming their old .com counterparts by a significant margin.

dnrevolution said:

I wish rocketna.me well on their reported sale of smart.ly, but frankly their current hack portfolio is very poor in my opinion. They dropped most of their quality hacks in the last 2 years, and have replaced them with ".ng" (nigeria) and ".al" (albania) names... eeek!

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I take this sale with a pinch of salt too, and you are right to be skeptical. First of all, the sale is reported by his own outfit, like the others if I'm not mistaken. He is heavily invested in domain hacks too, and he always pimps them like it's the next big thing.

Domain hacks are not easy to sell and are often expensive to carry in exotic extensions. I don't think any of those outfits focusing on niche domains are profitable.

TheBaldOne said:

remember even at the moment domain hacks should be valued at between 10%-20% of the corresponding .com, but there are times when taking 5% can give you liquidity to purchase other properties and increase your portfolios overall value.

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Sorry but this is nonsense

sdsinc - I am not on about to domainers, I am on about to end-users. Sorry if you haven't had the success with them to end users. Of course I would simply point at the recorded (and accepted) sales to end users, then compare the price of the sold domain hack to the guesstimate of the value of the relevant .com domain.

As always there are variations, I remember selling one for just $200 (I think it was) but I would have expected circa. $4k for it, but I got the offer and sent it to auction and unfortunately nobody else bid on it (sometimes learning by ones mistakes can be expensive - but if you learn then you do not make the same mistake again).

Remember a domain is like any other commodity that is for sale, if you as the seller underestimate its value then why should you expect a potential buyer to pay its real value - this is business and the buyer wants to pay as little as they can for what they purchase, if the seller helps then that is even better for the buyer.

Remember that the domain hack 'ca.rs' is truly unique, the domain cars.com is not, there is a legion of suffixes in which the word 'cars' can be registered, the present difference is that the '.com' gets type in traffic, and it and some other gTLDs presently get ranked higher by the Google algorithm - and this will soon be changing. :o

TheBaldOne said:

Remember that the domain hack 'ca.rs' is truly unique, the domain cars.com is not

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Yep, ca.rs is an outstanding hack. I remember trying to get that one back in 2008, but its been in a "reserved" status since then...

Instead, I got superca.rs, and some of the other car classification names (in .rs), but, of course, none of these names could ever compare to ca.rs... A beast of incomparable beauty if ever I saw one

Many 2L ccTLD hacks are reserved or have a hefty premium attached to them, but they could still be worth the effort and/or investment trying to get, because nothing (and I mean nothing) looks as potent as a 2+2 domain such as ca.rs.

I have a few 2+2's that are "in the neighbourhood", in so far as quality is concerned, but ca.rs really is the Holy Grail of Hacks, if such a thing exists.

Yes, .rs is Serbia, but Serbia is solid enough and the country is also backed by the powerful European Union, so you can't expect much better than that really...

Some domainers talk about "exact match" domains, but the only truly "exact" domains are ccTLD hacks, and hacks that are derived from the new gTLD's.

Viva la hack! :sold:

TheBaldOne said:

Of course I would simply point at the recorded (and accepted) sales to end users, then compare the price of the sold domain hack to the guesstimate of the value of the relevant .com domain.

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Perhaps it's time to take off the rose-colored glasses.

Cherry picking the few domains that have actually sold, what does that mean for all the unsold domains.
There is no market really, because these domains are not liquid. Your valuation depends on sheer luck, more than anything else. I really think they are worth zero in general, until you get lucky.

sdsinc said:

Perhaps it's time to take off the rose-colored glasses.

Cherry picking the few domains that have actually sold, what does that mean for all the unsold domains.
There is no market really, because these domains are not liquid. Your valuation depends on sheer luck, more than anything else. I really think they are worth zero in general, until you get lucky.

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Oh, I see, sorry I didn't realise you were talking about .com domains, you know the suffix with 10,000,000's registered. Of course I do understand now that the very small percentage of 1% that are sold do give a misleading impression of the .com's value. Of course that means it is all down to luck and salesmanship.

You see when you start talking about numbers sold it is all relative isn't it. :D

Any domain, and I do mean ANY domain can have value, however, that value is only ever realised when a seller and a buyer agree a price and a transaction is completed. Now most domainers think that .com is the most valuable, some even think it is the only type of domain with value, but the fact is it is what an end-user thinks of as valuable that really counts. Now domain hacks are actually as rare as hell. This, like with most things that are rare often have a greater value to those who appreciate them than those who don't. Domain hack specialists (for want of a better phrase) are lucky in that they can often register or buy low and sell many times higher than someone who specialises in .com's can.

It is not I who is wearing the rose coloured spectacles I think in this case. But that aside think of the number of domain hacks that can be registered, then consider the number of sales, I think you will find in percentage terms it is actually at least on a par with .com sales against registrations. :hearts:

All domains are 'rare', because they are unique. LL.pw are rare too, there are only 676 of them. But not everything that is scarce has value. Apparently most domain hacks are still looking for a buyer. The value is not yet obvious to everyone I think. I like to dream too, but I can't and I won't depend on sheer luck to make sales.

After seeing a lot of creative hacks like awesm, socl, soccr, cancr and googl.... I couldn't resist adding this short and sweet country geo hack japn to my wallet, especially after knowing that the .an cctld is very restrictive.

.tv - Nice little pick up there.

Yes, well done, Dhananjey, it is good to see you continuing to be creative in the domain hack 'space'.

Yesterday, by the way, I contacted Pedago to congratulate them on what I believe is their recent purchase of the smart.ly hack. It is very likely that they will be the new buyers, and if they genuinely did buy the domain then I think they'd at least reply to me, however briefly.

So I will keep this thread updated on their reply, if indeed they ever do get back to me.

One or two of you here have contacted me privately, asking me not to question the validity of reported "hack" sales, suggesting that to do so is somehow damaging the domain hack market.

Two things:

1. If you have to contact me via the email address, on domains that I have offered for sale on here, rather than publish your comments publicly in this thread, then you are a coward. No other way to say it really.

2. My questioning the validity of a hack sale is not harming the hack market in any way. Admittedly, if a sale is found to be a fabricated one then it may well effect the fraudster in a negative way, but then fraudsters should always be exposed no matter what the market.

dnrevolution said:

One or two of you here have contacted me privately, asking me not to question the validity of reported "hack" sales, suggesting that to do so is somehow damaging the domain hack market.

Two things:

1. If you have to contact me via the email address, on domains that I have offered for sale on here, rather than publish your comments publicly in this thread, then you are a coward. No other way to say it really.

2. My questioning the validity of a hack sale is not harming the hack market in any way. Admittedly, if a sale is found to be a fabricated one then it may well effect the fraudster in a negative way, but then fraudsters should always be exposed no matter what the market.

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@DNRevolution - I would go further and say that actually we NEED publicized domain hack sales to be proven to the same standards as other domain sales are, i.e. proof of escrow payment through a legitimate party and/or demonstrable proof of changed ownership. There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with you or anybody else questioning a sale as long as the questioning is about whether the normal level of supporting proof has been obtained, the questioning though must not be based on perceived values.

Please anybody who has contacted dnrevolution please post here, this is where we discuss things, and that discussion makes domaining a far safer place and business.

TheBaldOne said:

we NEED publicized domain hack sales to be proven to the same standards as other domain sales are, i.e. proof of escrow payment through a legitimate party and/or demonstrable proof of changed ownership.

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I don't know what Ron Jackson (of dnjournal) considers "proof", however an integral part of said proof should be a screenshot showing the new owner details on whois.

Yes, some sales can take time and involve financing, but as I understand it smart.ly was a straightforward sale. Clearly, the money was paid over 10 days ago, so why aren't the new owner details now showing on whois?.. In fact, why weren't they showing at the time of payment?!

TheBaldOne said:

the questioning though must not be based on perceived values.

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Yes, ultimately, the only thing that matters is the proof (of sale), and I am perfectly happy to apologise to rocketna.me for having doubted them, if indeed they got a sale.

Based on my experience 'though, this sale makes no sense whatsoever, but i'd be delighted to be proven wrong on this one.