NamePros Blog

Sully · Tuesday at 7:04 PM

For a while there, it felt like anything with "AI" in it was worth a second look. I've got names in my account right now that I grabbed because the keyword made them feel important, and I'm not proud of all of them.

The thing is, AI isn't a fad. It's not nft in the "here today, gone next...

Sully · May 19, 2026

I used to think outbound was a numbers game. Send enough emails, get enough replies, close enough deals. That was the formula. If response rates were low, the answer was always to send more, write better subject lines, find better contact data, try a new angle on the pitch.

In time, I...

Sully · May 12, 2026

There is a difference between what domainers talk about and what founders actually do when it is time to launch.

That difference matters.

In domain circles, extension conversations can get out of hand fast. One week it is .ai. Then somebody says .io is losing steam. Then somebody else says...

Sully · May 5, 2026

The domain industry changes all the time, but somehow the arguments stay the same.

New marketplaces, new hot extensions, whatever AI is doing this week. Someone posts a big sale, everyone reacts to it, and within a few comments, we are right back to the same debates we have been...

Sully · Apr 28, 2026

In the last article, I wrote about the idea that a lot of domains do not sell because nobody ever really sees them. They sit on a landing page or marketplace listing for years, and we mistake that for exposure.

I still believe that is true.

But there is another layer to it. Even...

Sully · Apr 21, 2026

...Nobody Ever Sees Them

There is this idea floating around the domain world that if a name is good enough, it will sell eventually. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but someday the right buyer shows up and recognizes it.

Technically, that can be true. I just do not believe it as...

Sully · Apr 15, 2026

Here is one that has been scratching at my mind for a while. It's been a lingering thought and not something I planned to write about. Yet, here I am.

Years ago, I was a partner in a two-letter .com. I won't give up the exact name, but if you followed me over the years you can figure it out. We...

Sully · Apr 7, 2026

One of the easiest ways to lose money in domains is to mistake attention for momentum.

A few reported sales hit the timeline. Investors start posting hand regs. A category gets labeled “hot” within a week. Then the pressure starts building. If you do not buy now, you missed it.

To be fair...

Sully · Mar 31, 2026

One thing I keep noticing is how many investors use free or cheap appraisals as a stand-in for actual market testing. I've done it too. Not recently, but early on I held onto names longer than I should have because the number looked good. Nobody was buying. The tool didn't know that.

That was...

Sully · Mar 24, 2026

I wrote recently about how skeptical this industry is toward new platforms, and how that skepticism is earned. We've watched enough launches come and go to know that trust accumulates slowly here.

That piece got me thinking about the other side of it.

Because there's a version of...

Sully · Mar 17, 2026

Bad names are easy to spot. So are great ones.

The bad names are the ones that never should have been registered. You know them when renewal season arrives and your stomach does that thing. The great ones practically explain themselves. You know why you own them. You know who wants them. You...

Sully · Mar 10, 2026

I recently wrote a review on my blog that got me thinking.

Domainers are not easy to impress.

A new marketplace launches and instead of excitement, the first response is usually a pretty simple question. Who's actually using it?

Not who's writing about it. Not who's in the press...

Sully · Mar 3, 2026

I jumped on a call with Paul Rubillo this week to talk about what he's been building, what he's buying, and what he thinks happens next in domains as AI keeps steamrolling the internet. Talking with other domainers and entrepreneurs always gets me excited, and I think it is essential for...

Sully · Feb 24, 2026

I spent two hours last Tuesday night on NameBio looking at comps for a domain I already knew I should price at $3,500. I knew it was a $3,500 name. I've been doing this long enough to recognize the structure, the buyer pool, the use cases. But I still went digging. Found a few sales that...

Sully · Feb 17, 2026

I spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about how to generate leads. Outbound strategies. Landing page optimization. Where to list. How to get in front of end users. All important stuff. I've written about most of it.

But the part that decides whether you get paid is what happens next. What...

Sully · Jan 20, 2026

Most people think the hard part of domain investing is finding good names. It is not. The hard part is figuring out who would actually buy them.

I am convinced that identifying real end users is the most difficult and most misunderstood skill in domaining. It is also the skill that separates...

Sully · Jan 13, 2026

Most portfolios are not collections of assets. They are collections of decisions made at different skill levels, in different market conditions, often by different versions of yourself. Some names were bought with clarity. Others were bought with hope. If I had to make a clean cut overnight, my...

Sully · Dec 16, 2025

Domain pricing is supposed to get easier with experience.

It usually doesn’t.

Well, maybe it gets a little easier. Maybe you get a little better, a little closer. But even investors who have been buying and selling for years will admit, quietly, that pricing still feels uncertain. Not because...

Sully · Dec 3, 2025

I've been calling myself a domain investor for almost twenty years. It's what was on my NamePros profile, what I had on my blog bio, what I mumble when someone wants to know why I own so many random URLs.

But I've been thinking lately that the title doesn't really fit anymore. Maybe it never...

Sully · Nov 25, 2025

I was looking back at some of the emails and DMs I've received over the past year. There's a common theme running through it. If you've been around for a few years, you have probably received something like this, too. If you're a newer domainer, you probably wrote something like this, or you can...

Sully · Nov 18, 2025

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, probably because I just ate another renewal invoice on a domain that all the data said was solid. Good DA. Decent search volume. CPC in the double digits. Sounds good.

And it's been sitting there for three years generating exactly zero inquiries.

The...

Sully · Sep 23, 2025

I get it. You've got a decent portfolio, maybe 200-500 names, and you're waiting for that sweet inbound email. "Hi, I'd like to purchase YourDomain.com for $50K."

Yeah, me too. Still waiting. In fact, when I first started domaining, I was under the false belief that "buy the domain and they...

Sully · Sep 16, 2025

The other day, I posted a short thought on X (Twitter for those of us still getting used to the name):

“A good domain reduces marketing spend. A great one eliminates it.”

It’s one of those lessons that is more than obvious to me after years of watching businesses either...

Elie Eweka · Jul 5, 2025

How can we unlock the mystery of the future when it remains unknown to us all? While certainty eludes us, we can still prepare for what lies ahead in every way possible. As Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam wisely said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Although we cannot physically...

Molly · Dec 26, 2024

This month’s Closeouts featured an eclectic array of domains, each with its own quirky charm. From UglyCarpets.com to the more adventurous OilAndButters.com, it was a smorgasbord of ideas. Among the oddities, OtherHumans.com and HumanBecomings.com piqued interest...

Elie Eweka · May 15, 2023

Almost 2-decades ago, I hand-registered "Casino" and 9 other ultra-premium one-word domain names in the .SO extension. .SO is the ccTLD for Somalia. Unfortunately, I dropped all of the names because of their renewal fee and zero inquiries from prospects. At the time, it did not cross my...

Bob Hawkes · Dec 3, 2019

Memorable domain names have great value. Among the domain names that are most easily remembered are situations where the name and extension match, such as com.com or win.win. These are called domain name twins. In this blog post I take a look at domain name twins in use...

Bob Hawkes · Oct 31, 2019

Today is Halloween, and I thought it might be fun to have a look at Halloween domain names. As well as summarizing historical sales in Halloween-themed domain names, I survey what is currently for sale. I even find a few possibly interesting domain names still available at standard...

Rob Monster · Sep 10, 2019

Long before General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance was a topic, GoDaddy and other registrars adopted a practice of obscuring WHOIS records and/or requiring persons interested in knowing the identity of the registrant to visit their website to retrieve the properly...

James Iles · May 22, 2019

Brothers Michael and David Castello are founders of CCIN (Castello Cities Internet Network), a portfolio of domain names and city-based websites that has been amassed since 1994. Previous sales from the brothers’ portfolio include Whisky.com for $3 million, Rate.com for $725,000 and Driven.com...

James Iles · May 8, 2019

Since entering the industry in 2015, James Booth has been responsible for hundreds of high-value domain sales, which has seen him ranked consistently in Escrow.com's annual Masters of Domains list. In October 2018, we published a Top 10 list of names owned by James along with his brother...

James Iles · Mar 20, 2019

The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, had humble beginnings in 1923, with Walt Disney moving to Hollywood after the bankruptcy of his previous firm. Along with his brother Roy, the pair built the now world-famous company.

With over 200,000 employees and an annual revenue of over...

James Iles · Jul 11, 2018

With 676 two-letter .COM domain names in existence, transactions involving those names can be few and far between. In fact, the last time we reported on a two-letter .COM sale was almost two and a half months ago. Today, news has been disclosed of three separate two-letter .COM sales.

The...

James Iles · Jun 13, 2018

Investor and entrepreneur @Michael Cyger became a well-known figure in the domain name industry thanks to his @DomainSherpa brand, which he created in 2012. Through DomainSherpa, Michael won several industry awards including Blogger of the Year, Developer of the Year and Goodwill...

James Iles · May 15, 2018

Viacom is one of America's largest brands and the ninth largest broadcasting company in the World. The company operates some of the most powerful brands in media including MTV, Paramount and Nickelodeon. With revenues of over $13 billion last year, the company is seemingly going from strength to...

James Iles · Oct 23, 2017

With Halloween fast approaching, it will be interesting to look at the history of the Halloween.com domain name. All Hallows Evening, shortened to Halloween, is a celebration observed in many countries on October 31st. The Halloween that we experience today actually originated from Celtic...

James Iles · Mar 7, 2017

In this edition of Detected Domains, we take a look at several @Sedo sales, @Frank.Schilling buys plenty of four-letter .COM's and Anything.com sells Finery.com. There have also been a couple of possible two-letter .COM sales and @Rick Schwartz's 977.com domain sale is...

James Iles · Dec 29, 2016

I’ve never been one for new years resolutions. In my experience, the idea of deciding to start or stop something specifically because it’s the new year rarely works. Statistics back this up, too. According to a British survey last year, 63% of UK adults failed to keep a New Year's...

equity78 · Sep 13, 2016

Welcome to Behind The Keyword, I will be taking a look at the most popular keywords that sell, get listed and get developed. Whether it be on big marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic or specialty sites like BrandBucket.

...

equity78 · Sep 8, 2016

Welcome to Behind The Keyword, I will be taking a look at the most popular keywords that sell, get listed and get developed. Whether it be on big marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic or specialty sites like BrandBucket.

...

equity78 · Aug 30, 2016

Welcome to Behind The Keyword, I will be taking a look at the most popular keywords that sell, get listed and get developed. Whether it be on big marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic or specialty sites like BrandBucket.

...

equity78 · Aug 24, 2016

Welcome to Behind The Keyword, I will be taking a look at the most popular keywords that sell, get listed and get developed. Whether it be on big marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic or specialty sites like BrandBucket.

One...

equity78 · Aug 16, 2016

In this new series Behind The Keyword, I will be taking a look at the most popular keywords that sell, get listed and get developed. Whether it be on big marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic or specialty sites like BrandBucket.

...

equity78 · Jun 30, 2016

With 2016 practically at the half way mark, now might be a good time to do a quick inventory of your portfolio. It's also a good time to reflect on what your goals were for these names and if that has changed. There are internal factors such as your family, budgetary conditions, employment...

James Iles · Mar 26, 2016

Today, it has been revealed that the two-letter .COM domain name MZ.com has been acquired by American company Machine Zone, a leading video game developer with 550 employees, based in Palo Alto.

The news of this acquisition was first announced by Jamie Zoch of DotWeeky via his Twitter...

James Iles · Feb 27, 2016

This week's Top Topics from the domain name community contain a lot of very interesting opinions on a number of different subjects: new gTLDs, current investments, and the future of four-letter .COM domains are all covered.

You'll also be able to see the gradual movement within the five-letter...

James Iles · Feb 18, 2016

It was recently confirmed that the domain name Tesla.com has been sold to Tesla Motors, after being owned by a Mr. Stuart Grossman of California for a very long period of time. In the past, Mr. Grossman has defended the name in a UDRP against Tesla Industries, but as of today, the domain...

James Iles · Feb 9, 2016

Just under a year ago, Swedish entrepreneur Jonas Bonde acquired the $76,000 domain name Car.info in one of the largest .INFO domain name sales of all time. As the name suggests, Jonas and his team are building a data website for cars. It looks to be a big project, but Jonas is no stranger...

James Iles · Feb 8, 2016

In the past few months, I've bought more domain names than I have in the past two years. These have been through marketplaces, via private deals and of course on NamePros. Throughout all of these deals, there are a few rules that I try to follow to minimize the risks involved with acquiring new...

James Iles · Jan 20, 2016

With the influx of buyers from China acquiring short domain names in many different extensions, we sometimes forget about keywords and new gTLDs. In this week's New Names, we take a look at some of the recent purchases of NamePros members.

This week, we have two new gTLD entries, two keyword...

NamePros Blog

The domain industry changes all the time, but somehow the arguments stay the same.​

In the last article, I wrote about the idea that a lot of domains do not sell because nobody ever really sees them. They sit on a landing page or marketplace listing for years, and we mistake that for exposure.​

The other day, I posted a short thought on X (Twitter for those of us still getting used to the name):​

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The domain industry changes all the time, but somehow the arguments stay the same.

In the last article, I wrote about the idea that a lot of domains do not sell because nobody ever really sees them. They sit on a landing page or marketplace listing for years, and we mistake that for exposure.

The other day, I posted a short thought on X (Twitter for those of us still getting used to the name):