NamePros Blog

Sully · Tuesday at 11:32 AM

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...

James Iles · Jan 7, 2016

Welcome to the first edition of New Names in 2016. This series shows you the recent purchases of other domain name investors to give you insight and inspiration for your own acquisitions.

This week we look at purchases that NamePros members have made recently. These domains include...

James Iles · Dec 24, 2015

This evening, NamePros user @donnied79 revealed that he has sold USA.tv for a six-figure price, which will be reported to DNJournal.

The established member created a thread on Monday asking for opinions on an offer that he had received on the domain name. In his initial...

James Iles · Dec 21, 2015

What is it like to receive emails every week offering you a multiple seven-figure sum for your domain name? Meet @jason calacanis, the owner of 20.com, which he bought in 2006 for just $75,000.

Jason is no stranger to owning valuable domain names. As an entrepreneur, he has founded...

James Iles · Dec 19, 2015

China's inaugural domain name festival and digital asset summit has just been held in Shenzhen, which included a domain name auction. The main topic of the event was "domain names as digital assets."

Some of China's most respected Internet leaders were present at the event, which by all...

James Iles · Dec 16, 2015

This week in NamePros.com’s New Names series, we take a look at five more recent purchases from @Ali Zandi, domain investor and director of sales and acquisitions at Perception.com.

In our previous New Names blog post, Ali revealed that he had acquired Raindrop.com for...

Chris @ SwingNames · Dec 11, 2015

Liquid domain names are developing into mature tradable assets similar to stocks. The increasing demand from Chinese investors has been a driving force behind their recent growth.

ChaoMi.cc is a website that emerged to help Chinese investors stay informed with the trading activity of...

James Iles · Dec 8, 2015

Political figures are often subjected to intense public scrutiny, and they often make national and international headlines for their decisions, speeches, and opinions. Owning their own name as a .COM domain name should be a priority for politicians to allow the public and the media to access...

James Iles · Dec 7, 2015

Over the weekend, an eName conference took place in China with some of the country's most respected entrepreneurs turning up. This meeting was, in part, celebrating the 10th anniversary of eName, one of China's most popular domain name registrars. In attendance were many domain name veterans...

Keith DeBoer · Dec 5, 2015

When you start a company, there are a thousand things to do. Often times, the domain name is the last thing on the list. That can be a huge mistake, and I wrote an entire article about it.

As a rule of thumb, startups do best when they launch with a dot com that passes the radio test and...

James Iles · Dec 2, 2015

Welcome to the brand new NamePros series called New Names. In this series, we will be discovering the domain names a successful domain investor has acquired recently. The subject for this series is @Ali Zandi. Aside from being a very popular NamePros member, Ali is the Director of Sales...

Keith DeBoer · Nov 21, 2015

If I’m buying brandable domain names for resale then I need to know what’s selling and study the sale prices. That’s why I read the weekly list of the top 20 brandable domain sales by Doron Vermaat (@dv82). It’s also why I track brandable sales daily and post them weekly on Doron’s blog...

James Iles · Nov 17, 2015

As China continues its buyout of high value domain names, we're seeing higher and higher sales numbers, with four-letter .COM domains currently considered the hottest property among many investors.

At the top of the tree, however, is the two-letter .COM domain names. Chinese investors now own...

James Iles · Nov 9, 2015

Here's another interesting story from Medium.com posted in August by Zalmi Duchman, founder of The Fresh Diet, which is an online meal delivery service established in 2005 whose clientele have included Mila Kunis and Sara Michelle Gellar.

After initially naming his company ZoneAtHome (largely...

James Iles · Nov 6, 2015

When I logged on to Twitter this morning, I was met with a tweet from domain investor George Kirikos claiming to have uncovered one of the most expensive domain transactions in history.

Edit: Article updated for accuracy. The domain deal is for $90,000,000 payable until 2040. Not $65...

James Iles · Nov 4, 2015

Have you ever wondered why Chinese investors have turned to buying domain names? Over the past couple of years, we've seen the market for two-letter .com, three-letter .com, four-letter .com, two-number .com, three-number.com, four-number .com, and five-number .com heating up with prices...

Keith DeBoer · Oct 28, 2015

There’s a saying in real estate: You make your money on the buy, not on the sale. The same is true for domain names, but selecting solid brandables can be tricky. We need information to inform our opinions and develop our skills. So here are some tips for making savvy purchases that can increase...

James Iles · Oct 27, 2015

In the third part of my series of famous faces who don't own their own .COM domain, I'll explore five more celebrities including two actors, a politician, a TV show host and a businessman. It's always interesting to see how some of the world's successful people are overlooking vital online...

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