Dynadot

opinion What I've Bought in the Past 12 Months and Why

NameSilo
I've often read posts from Elliot Silver and other bloggers about their recent acquisitions, and I have always found it fascinating to see what others are buying. I've endeavored to create a similar post below, and I hope that you get some interest from it.

My domain sales and acquisitions are nowhere near the level of many domainers, but given my budget and strategy I'm fairly happy. Below is a list of a few of the domain names I've acquired over the past twelve months. As always, you're welcome to post comments.

Two word .COM's
Most of my acquisitions over the past 12 months have been two word .COM domain names. They're something I've always focused on, and I have had some success in selling them on. Of course, I do have a number of criteria when choosing which domain names to go after. These criteria include the age, popularity of the words or phrase, and the potential end users should I decide to flip the domain.

Some of my better two word .COM acquisitions include:

PhotoRetoucher.com - a domain name that I'm now using for my retouching portfolio. This was acquired privately earlier this year, and I'm in the process of making a website there. I've already had one offer for the domain, but I'm choosing not to sell this one.

PhotoRetouching.com - at the same time as acquiring PhotoRetoucher.com, I also bought PhotoRetouching.com. Again, this was a private deal, but it was purchased from a different company. Both domain names cost almost exactly the same to buy. I opted to flip this domain name and listed the domain for sale on Flippa. It sold after a 30 day auction.

LandscapeArchitect.com & LandscapeArchitects.com were acquired late last year using the SnapNames platform. Initially I had plans to create an online landscape design business, but it got more and more complicated to complete. In the end, I sold both domains to a Landscape Architecture magazine.


Location + Profession .COM's
Another type of domain name that I like to acquire are location+profession .COMs. Recently, I've acquired BaltimoreCosmeticDentist.com, PhoenixCosmeticDentist.com and DetroitCosmeticDentist.com. Not the best domains you'll ever see, but each city has an abundance of cosmetic dentists who are all looking to get ahead of their competition.

Another domain in this category that I acquired recently is LongIslandCriminalLawyers.com. Yes, a four-word domain name. All you need to know about this is that I sold it last week for a 2,300% ROI (Return on Investment).


Exact Match .COM's
This type of domain is becoming less popular, but there are still some good acquisitions to be made here. One such example is DentalWebsiteDesign.com, which I picked up from NameJet at the end of last year. Dental Website Design is a very competitive industry and is potentially very lucrative. (The Cost Per Click used to be something like $33.)

After creating a lead generation website, and bringing it to as high as number three in the competitive search rankings, I sold the domain along with the website to one of the companies advertising for the term.


4 Letter .COM's
Every domain investor knows about the new wave of Chinese investors looking to acquire short domain names. As such, I've acquired a few four letter .COM domain names through NamePros.com's marketplace and via private acquisitions.

My best performing four-letter .COM domain is GPFN.com that I acquired on NamePros.com just a couple of months ago for low $xxx. I seem to get three to four offers per week for this domain name all for higher than I paid for it. I'll be waiting until 2016 before I look to sell any four letter .COM domain name.


LLNN.com Domains
This category of domain acquisition may surprise you a little, but I think that this could be the next category which Chinese investors look at. For now, they have a very low acquisition price with great bargains to be found on GoDaddy's Closeout site. As with numerical domain names, I believe that if these are to be a successful category, then repetition is key.

I've acquired domain names such as RR63.com and XE99.com recently, which are both starting to receive type in traffic.


Other TLDs
I'd say that 90% of my domains are .COM, but I have a couple of domain names from other TLDs which include ppi.online and fvt.cc. Of the new gTLDs, I have just three domain names, which probably tells you my current position when it comes to investing in them.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Where did I ask to buy LLLL.nets from me?
What kind of logic is this to link me selling with growing category. If it's growing why would I sell then? See, doesn't make sense. I sell for different reasons, same as many members here, it doesn't matter what to sell, buy cheap, sell higher, make money. Only few active markets here and they all LLLL, not LLNN, not because of me, but overall opinion. He probably wouldn't mind to sell either but no market for LLNN right now, first closeouts need to be wiped out and that what I said when posted "still early" for this category.

If you want to buy certain category, buy, if you think other way it's fine too.
I bring the facts, numbers and sales. If we have more opinions we can see the picture better.
When someone only post $200 sales and try to hide available names for $11 and asking to trust, "because big companies are buying"

I only post numbers and everyone can decide for themselves.
And when I compare - I do compare apples with apples, April with April.
For LLLL.nets that you mentioned base price in China is $60 now.
Go ahead and check the auctions if you can find any avail for $11 or even for 1 bid at $17 like it's possible with LLNN.com

Last 2 days about 800 LLLL.nets were sold in China, how many LLNN I don't know, they don't track this category yet..
 
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Well said @DomainVP.

As another person commenting about LLNN.com domains isn't likely to make difference, let me share my comments.

In the end of August 2015 I got interested in these names. There are growing number of sales all the time at stable price level of ~$200~$500 usually, with 4-figures as well and one $10k sale. If you analyse NameBio, you will see that LLNN are much often traded and at higher price level than NNLL.
I would note also that LLNN are visibly rarer than LLLL (permutation of 26*26*26*26=456,976, while 26*26*10*10=67,600). If you subtract vowels and 4s, it's less. So the natural question is why shouldn't they trade at the same or theoretically higher level than LLLL, at least at wholesale/domainer2domainer? (Western end-user/global corporation may pay more for LLLL in fact than LLNN)

On August 20, there were slightly under 1,000 LLNN names without vowels and 4. I registered a "trial" of ~130 names, starting from best IMO ie. round/whole numbers LLN0 (whole dozen at the end).
Later, on September 22, there were only 215 left. Yesterday, on 2015-10-14, nothing was available from this list already. The scale of vanishing isn't like for 6Ns (at least now, because it's the end of availability), but stable liquidity, price floor and the fact of rarer combinations, they all together set very solid grounds for value of LLNN.

If you subtract vowels and 4, the floor price for these names is ~$160, excl. several dozens BIN offers below ~$100.

~AW

Nice observations, I'm seeing the same thing. Supply is dwindling, and premiums are being snatched up - without any great sales pitch like the other niches are going through.

It really does look exactly like a natural evolving demand that domains with stable value go through.

With that said, natural price increases take time - so I think in 8 - 12 months the LLNN niche will be extremely popular and these premiums will be worth quite the value. In 18 months time who knows, but in my opinion these are well worth acquiring now.
 
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Where did I ask to buy LLLL.nets from me?
What kind of logic is this to link me selling with growing category. If it's growing why would I sell then? See, doesn't make sense. I sell for different reasons, same as many members here, it doesn't matter what to sell, buy cheap, sell higher, make money. Only few active markets here and they all LLLL, not LLNN, not because of me, but overall opinion. He probably wouldn't mind to sell either but no market for LLNN right now, first closeouts need to be wiped out and that what I said when posted "still early" for this category.

If you want to buy certain category, buy, if you think other way it's fine too.
I bring the facts, numbers and sales. If we have more opinions we can see the picture better.
When someone only post $200 sales and try to hide available names for $11 and asking to trust, "because big companies are buying"

I only post numbers and everyone can decide for themselves.
And when I compare - I do compare apples with apples, April with April.
For LLLL.nets that you mentioned base price in China is $60 now.
Go ahead and check the auctions if you can find any avail for $11 or even for 1 bid at $17 like it's possible with LLNN.com

Last 2 days about 800 LLLL.nets were sold in China, how many LLNN I don't know, they don't track this category yet..


We know 4L.net is already started selling that's why you has to move on to new category , there is no U turn once i loose all my 4N.com or 4L.com , there may be very slim chance of getting that back with same price in future, same thing for 4l.net once you going to sale for $60 and if you need to buy in future you might not going to buy again , you has to research new category, and that time other category premium will sky rocket.

I have lost the game by entering late in 4l.net and even in 6N.com , since the premium which has 3 same letter in 4l.net is going high, so always buy premium name in each category that's what I have learned.

We may be simply ask you after you going to sale all your 4l.net which category you think will be moving on fire and which you going to buy.
 
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//you has to move on to new category

Not necessary. From my experience you can either time the market and win or time the market and loose. It's unpredictable though. I had 20 .com Chips and sold them for 100% ROI. And then turned this money one more time with the same product. If I would keep them little longer when the prices hit $1000 I would make same money and don't need to look for the second deal.
When market is growing "buy and hold" is same good as buy quick / sell quick strategy.

//I have lost the game by entering late

If you didn't enter the game you didn't loose!

LLLL.net and 6N.com are better categories imho, because they do sale in much higher volume then LLNN.
200-300 6N.com sell every day and 50-400 LLLL.net.
Rule #2: To make money you need to operate on liquid market.

LLLL.net that I'm selling is only part of my portfolio. Next I will get anything liquid, what I see undervalued.
If it just undervalued, but not liquid I'll pass.
 
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Funny thing about domains is that there is always something that goes against the trend
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gg44 sold for $164 in 2008 ......why? I think worst house in best scenario (at least in the mind of the buyer)
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44pj sold for $353 this year ......why? repeating numbers (my guess)
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Would I bet a house on this happening regularly from now on ......no but depicts that not everyone follows "the rules" As mentioned this market may open up to western users and any repeating numbers may be desirable, i sure don't think anyone registering 3character domains years ago were aiming at the Chinese market. The attitude was simply shorter is better, this are still short domains, it's all quite interesting
 
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worst house in the best street is what i meant to write
 
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//you has to move on to new category

Not necessary. From my experience you can either time the market and win or time the market and loose. It's unpredictable though. I had 20 .com Chips and sold them for 100% ROI. And then turned this money one more time with the same product. If I would keep them little longer when the prices hit $1000 I would make same money and don't need to look for the second deal.
When market is growing "buy and hold" is same good as buy quick / sell quick strategy.

//I have lost the game by entering late

If you didn't enter the game you didn't loose!

LLLL.net and 6N.com are better categories imho, because they do sale in much higher volume then LLNN.
200-300 6N.com sell every day and 50-400 LLLL.net.
Rule #2: To make money you need to operate on liquid market.

LLLL.net that I'm selling is only part of my portfolio. Next I will get anything liquid, what I see undervalued.
If it just undervalued, but not liquid I'll pass.

If you do not mind can you share after 4l.net which one id liquid in market?
 
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LLLL.com, LLLL.net, 6N.com are most liquid now.
 
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We know that i m saying after that
 
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They will remain liquid after.
I'm not Nostradamus, to predicting future.
If some other category will become liquid these 3 will still be there and remain more liquid than new category.
If you know theory of systems it's important to lower the risk.
Betting on new category includes 2 elements of risk:

1. You hope that the names will increase in price.
2. You hope that the category will become liquid.

Only if both of those assumptions are right you can benefit.

Working in category that's liquid already you only need to be right about price increase that makes system more stable risk wise.

If as you hope LLNN will increase in price, than the other categories will definitely increase in price as well.
And they already liquid.
 
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If as you hope LLNN will increase in price, than the other categories will definitely increase in price as well.
And they already liquid.

Incorrect assumption. Cheers :)
 
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@jamesile,thanks for sharing, the best part really, the community would learn so much from the attached reasoning. And YES I belong to the community.
 
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lol you will not find any good LLNN under $251, i have not bought any single but watching auction and it going around that range do not know when this will pop out.
 
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@DomainVP any news about your article about LLNN? thanks

In good faith I can say that now that the base prices are rising rapidly with LLNN domains, there are LLNN's that get passed on that are pure gems (in my opinion). I've gotten so much direct traffic from China that I've had to go back and re-code my landing pages to balance loads on MySQL server.

With that said, I am an active buyer. So for me to divulge my full buying strategy does me more harm than overall good at the moment - but I can share some of my thoughts at the moment.

With LLNN the standard pinyin buying formula of aeiouv does not apply. Value has been seen in western development and in China development. Planning for chip trading is a great way to hedge your buy, but I am buying based on potential branding/development use.

Also, most closeout LLNN's are just a risk based buy on the fact that they are LLNNs. So if you see a LLNN sitting there in closeout, it means most of us active buyers have already passed on it. Who knows, you might just get lucky, but buying based on luck can be expensive.

It's what happens when the buying scope narrows. Strong buys are based on combinations and meaning, then once those are all secured, the remaining ones are left until a smart investor with some $ to toss around just buys out any remaining LLNN's with vowels, 4's, and 'leading' zeros in the NN split.

So at this point you will have to either battle it out at auction, or start contacting aftermarket sellers and make some smart acquisitions.

I'm holding. I'm not looking for a quick flip, nor will I be doing any kind of outreach. I think by next year, regardless of a possible 4L 'burst' these will gain value as it is a very undervalued namespace.

NNLL will probably follow suit after that. NNLL may be for some people - it's just not for me right now.

In the near term, as everyone can see right now, the value of LLNN is raising sharply - and may continue to do so higher and faster than I can forecast.

3-4 months ago I spent $60 on four 'okay' 6N's that I sold for $800 in the last 12 days. Typically those kind of buys took much longer to gain value - in todays market it could take a few short months.

Case in point I hand regged a repeating letter (not aeiouv) LLNN a few months ago. Today, I am very sure I could get at least $150 for it here on NP and if I did some Chinese outreach probably $500+. That's a pretty good ROI for an $8 July purchase.

I took a break from buying last week as I have had a lot on my plate and I spent a nice chunk on buying, Including a LL88, and I was blown away to see how few LLNN's are being dropped and are at expired auctions. There are only two at GD auctions tomorrow - TWO. It really puts into perspective where this namespace is going.

Conversely, there are 11 4L's at GD auction that are true expiring auctions

Just my thoughts on LLNN's at the moment, I hope you have found value in my perspective.
 
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yeah i understand your point.
Thanks for sharing all those information. My research in this trend is 0 so until not ready with enough knowledge i'll be only a watcher :)
 
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What are LLNN's? i am new to this stuff so please excuse my ignorance
 
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