Gamifying domaining is a great way to have fun while investing in this industry. Over the years, I have begun to treat domain drop catching almost like a game. Drop catching is a cheap form of entertainment that may net me a big sum one day. Lately, my drop catching focus is four-character (4C) .com domain names for China.
Every day, expired dot com domains are released starting at 2 PM EST/EDT. I generally spend about an hour looking at the dropping domain names. I use ExpiredDomains.net as a source of dropped names. The website is free to use and excellent. Every 5 or 10 minutes, I download a list of expired 4C .com domain names, quickly scan the list, and select a few names for further investigation.
On January 1st, the first name I investigated was JP46.com. I like domain names that start with two letters because many Chinese words are two characters. I'm not concerned with the number "4" as long as the whole domain name has a good meaning(s).
I have previously written about my Chinese database that I use to evaluate the meanings of domain names for China. The database is a list of numbers and letters with the corresponding Chinese characters that rhyme with them. When I read news reports of domain name sales with detailed descriptions, I copy each name and its associated Chinese character as reported in the news to my list, which serves as my database for future domain evaluations.
I quickly checked JP46.com against my Chinese database. The results were great for my purposes. In Chinese, JP means
I decided to register JP46.com manually using GoDaddy. Unfortunately, someone in Bulgaria got it first - congratulations! Not upset by this failed exercise, I continued looking for other 4C .com domains, eventually found one that I liked, and registered it.
I spent an hour and registered just one domain name. Was it worth it? I think so.
To me, hunting for quality domains is the best online multiplayer game. In addition to the potential payout, I feel adrenaline running through my body as I try to beat players all over the world just to grab that one valuable domain name.
However, I believe the game will soon come to an end, as demand for short domain names continues to increase. As 4C .com domains become more scarce, Iβll have to turn to new types of domains for drop catching, or I'll have to look for other forms of entertainment.
Every day, expired dot com domains are released starting at 2 PM EST/EDT. I generally spend about an hour looking at the dropping domain names. I use ExpiredDomains.net as a source of dropped names. The website is free to use and excellent. Every 5 or 10 minutes, I download a list of expired 4C .com domain names, quickly scan the list, and select a few names for further investigation.
On January 1st, the first name I investigated was JP46.com. I like domain names that start with two letters because many Chinese words are two characters. I'm not concerned with the number "4" as long as the whole domain name has a good meaning(s).
I have previously written about my Chinese database that I use to evaluate the meanings of domain names for China. The database is a list of numbers and letters with the corresponding Chinese characters that rhyme with them. When I read news reports of domain name sales with detailed descriptions, I copy each name and its associated Chinese character as reported in the news to my list, which serves as my database for future domain evaluations.
I quickly checked JP46.com against my Chinese database. The results were great for my purposes. In Chinese, JP means
ιη₯¨ (golden ticket), η²Ύε (gifts), ιη (gold medal), and Japan. I then looked at JP46.cn to discover that no website was built on it. When I searched Google, I discovered a Chinese site JP46.cc that sells knives. Then I used Archive.org to look at the history of JP46.com and found nothing. Finally, I tried to pronounce the translated domain names in Chinese (ιη₯¨46, η²Ύε46, and ιη46), and they all sounded good.I decided to register JP46.com manually using GoDaddy. Unfortunately, someone in Bulgaria got it first - congratulations! Not upset by this failed exercise, I continued looking for other 4C .com domains, eventually found one that I liked, and registered it.
I spent an hour and registered just one domain name. Was it worth it? I think so.
To me, hunting for quality domains is the best online multiplayer game. In addition to the potential payout, I feel adrenaline running through my body as I try to beat players all over the world just to grab that one valuable domain name.
However, I believe the game will soon come to an end, as demand for short domain names continues to increase. As 4C .com domains become more scarce, Iβll have to turn to new types of domains for drop catching, or I'll have to look for other forms of entertainment.
