Hand registering domains is a mugs game - Here's why

[kaz2]

Hi all. I've been thinking abut the subject of hand registrations for a few days now. I was an avid hand registering fan up until about 2 weeks ago when I had a kind of epiphany.

I had been searching for ours on end for the elusive "gem" of a hand register...if, like me, you do just hand registering you will know the feeling of frustration as, time and time again, you find all the decent names are gone.

Eventually you end up registering anything just to feel that the fruits of your labour are worth something right? And hey, it's only $10. Problem is those ten dollars soon rack up...

What happened with me was that I was about to hand register another "gem" I had spent hours searching for. My plan was to put up a simple landing page stating that the domain was for sale. The idea was that people would find the domain through direct navigation as SEO was a non-starter.

I then suddenly realised that, if there were people searching for this "gem" I just registered, then it would have been taken ages ago (unless it had only recently dropped).

I know this may seem obvious to some of you but, for me, it was a sobering moment to realise that the 50 or so domains I have hand registered are useless unless I develop them. The clincher was that I realised that over 18 months I have not had a single offer for one of my hand reg domains.

As a result of this I have decided to start mining the drops instead as you may have a slim chance of picking up something decent that other people actually want. Think of it - 10 useless hand reg domains = $100. With that $100 you could catch 2 or 3 good names on the drop and have a decent chance of selling them.

Thoughts of experienced domainers are appreciated but what I really just want to say is:

Hand registration is a mug's game.

 

[venturefile.com]

First off, if you register domain names, don't spend $10 per reg, spend $1-$3 max with discount codes. That makes things easier..

Second, if no one has approached you, why don't you approach people? The drops won't be much different then hand regs in this department

Good luck!

 

[Kate]

I then suddenly realised that, if there were people searching for this "gem" I just registered, then it would have been taken ages ago (unless it had only recently dropped).

Exactly right. If only domainers were thinking logically like you just did

The clincher was that I realised that over 18 months I have not had a single offer for one of my hand reg domains..

It usually is a sign.
Selling handregs is tough, especially if they have never been registered before. On the other hand the drops tell that at least one person though the domain was worth regfee, until they no longer needed the domain...

Personally I hardly monitor the drops anymore, I just move up the ladder and go for prerelease domains instead. Or contact domain holders directly.

I am not sure the drops are worth your time, unless you can automate things a lot and treat it like an industrial process.

 

[kaz2]

Hi venturefile, thanks for replying. I do occasionally use coupon codes but, let's be honest, your business model should not really rely on making a saving of $6 or so per domain especially as you will pay full whack in year 2.

Let's face it, even if you were selling your domains at $100 a pop, saving $6 on purchase won't make a huge difference on your bottom line vs the effort of locating coupons etc.

Regarding approaching people - good point, but you need decent domains in the first place which brings me back to my original point which is hand registrations suck.

the drops are very different as you can pick up a higher quality of domain which means that people will also approach you.

 

[kaz2]

I am not sure the drops are worth your time, unless you can automate things a lot and treat it like an industrial process.

Hi sdsinc, thanks for replying, much appreciated. I'm interested in your quote about the drops not being worth spending time on. Could you please tell me why this is the case as I'd be very interested to know why. Many thanks sdsinc.

 

[discobull]

No offense, but I think that you've misidentified the problem. The real problem isn't hand-regs, it's this attitude:

"Eventually you end up registering anything just to feel that the fruits of your labour are worth something right? And hey, it's only $10."

Any purchase, regardless of the amount, should be made because a determination has been made that the domain has potential value, not because it's only a few bucks.

I personally focus the bulk of my attention on dropping/expiring domains because I find it requires less effort than trying to find a good hand reg. However, I've purchased dropping domains where I've been the only bidder and where those domains have subsequently sold for $x,xxx within a few days of my purchase and I've also purchased dropping domains that have attracted heavy bidding only to find that I'm holding those domains for years. What's the point? It's that you can't rely on the crowd to determine what does and doesn't have value and the same way that valuable dropping domains can slip through the cracks, so can unregistered domains.

I don't hand-reg very often. Typically, when I do, it's because I've found a dropping domain that I've liked and have decided to see if there were any similar domains available that have not yet been registered. When I've bought those, I've only spent 1 or 2 dollars, and so even though I've purchased a few dozen, I don't think I've spent even $100 total on all of them put together. Off the top of my head, I can remember 5 ( there may be more ) that have sold for about $2k each so I'm easily way ahead. Again, I barely put any effort into finding hand regs, so if I can find some that sell, it means that there are probably tons more.

The important lesson is to be disciplined about purchases. If you're buying domains because they're cheap and thinking "what the heck", you're thinking like a gambler, not like an investor. That's the part that I would work on changing.

Anyhow, good luck to you.

 

[Kate]

Could you please tell me why this is the case as I'd be very interested to know why.

I think the best way is to trawl the droplists and see for yourself. I find that the pool of quality drops is depleted and I am not the only one complaining
The problem is that anything that is half-decent will be snapped by some catcher, or will go to auction. We are not talking about paying just regfee (or less with a coupon) to secure those domains.
You have to raise up the ante in all aspects.

 

[kaz2]

"Eventually you end up registering anything just to feel that the fruits of your labour are worth something right? And hey, it's only $10."

The important lesson is to be disciplined about purchases. If you're buying domains because they're cheap and thinking "what the heck", you're thinking like a gambler, not like an investor. That's the part that I would work on changing.

Anyhow, good luck to you.

Hi doscobull, thanks for replying. I am actually with you on the above issue - if you see in my original post, I actually put this down as a negative approach to buying domains via hand reg (ie because they are cheap). Like you I agree, don't buy something because it is cheap, buy it because you can resell it. This is why I have a problem with had reg domains.

I personally focus the bulk of my attention on dropping/expiring domains because I find it requires less effort than trying to find a good hand reg. However, I've purchased dropping domains where I've been the only bidder and where those domains have subsequently sold for $x,xxx within a few days of my purchase.

Anyhow, good luck to you.

I agree, the drops is the way to go. I am interested to know what type of domains you generally register via the drops - are they generic key word domains?

Also, how do you sell most of them - is it via outreach to endusers or on a platform like SEDO?

Thanks discobull.

 

[hookbox]

There are tons of good handregs available but it takes time to find them. Lots of time.

I read so much about people complaining that all the good names are gone but the problem is most don't know what they are looking at.

List the last 20 names you have handregged and let us as a group tell you where you are going wrong or right.

 

[discobull]

I agree, the drops is the way to go. I am interested to know what type of domains you generally register via the drops - are they generic key word domains?

Also, how do you sell most of them - is it via outreach to endusers or on a platform like SEDO?

Thanks discobull.

I use the usual free patforms: Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy, AfterMarket, Domainnamesales.com and have recently added flippa catalog listings to the list. The first 3 have been the biggest source of sales out of those platforms. In addition, I prefer to point my domains to my own landing page because I think it's easier to negotiate directly with a buyer and also because if I don't have to pay a commission it means I can make the same amount of money while simultaneously making the price more attractive to the buyer ( my direct sales outnumber my sales on those other platforms by a wide margin ).

I don't actually send out emails anymore ( I'm sure I would make more money if I did ), but I'm a big advocate of targeted email marketing for 2 reasons. The first is that it's effective. I've sold a lot of domains that way and it works. Mind you, I'm talking about sending emails to a selected list of potential buyers, not to just anyone in the phone book.

The second reason is that nothing has helped me learn about how to spot a good domain as much as the process of finding leads to market them. Once you start trying to put together mailing lists for your domains, you quickly start to notice how much easier it is to find potential buyers for some domains vs others. The process that I use to find leads has now become a central part of my research practice for buying domains. In other words, if I can identify a good number of solid, potential buyers for a given domain, that means that it's a good domain to buy ( assuming the price is right). If I can't, then I'll pass. I apply this principle regardless of whether I ultimately intend to do any email marketing or not.

As far as the types of domains I choose, the approach I've detailed above tends to favor keyword domains simply because it's easier to identify potential buyers for those as compared to brandables. I do buy brandables as well and have sold them, but they tend to be the sort of brandables that are based on words, rather than the type that are meaningless pronounceable combinations of letters. There are exceptions to everything so, for example, if I found a 4 letter pronounceable domain that I thought attractive, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it at the right price since those tend to be pretty easy to move.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ms Domainer]

I have sold hand regs for $$$$, so...

But I do agree that they can be hard sells.

 

[JudgeMind]

I agree that any good KEYWORD hand reg domains are impossible to find. I gave up handregging keyword names a long time ago with the exception of hand registering 5-7 letter brandable domains to sell on brandable marketplaces. Also i will hand register domains related to future technology (ie. 3D, digital, Virtual reality, etc...) As far as keyword domains, Namejet is my place for finding them, just be sure you know what you are buying and where you are gonna sell, wouldn't want to see anyone buying a name for $xxx ++ and not knowing where or who to sell it to

I should also add...

Looking back through my sales this year i had a total of 6 domains hand registered which i sold for high $xxx and $x,xxx. My total sales for hand reg domains was $5,879 for the year, i spent a total of $419 on handregs in 2014. So, for the names i haven't sold yet, i made money from a few to cover all renewal fees and more.

A few of my recent Handregs all .com of course:

VirtuTrade
Aftia - Sold 4 weeks after aquisition on BB
Uploadsy
VRmultiplayer
ListState
Snowsy
Fileze
Prudentia
Opevia
8Kprojection

Should add that many of my handregs are expired domains

 

[kaz2]

There are tons of good handregs available but it takes time to find them. Lots of time.

I read so much about people complaining that all the good names are gone but the problem is most don't know what they are looking at.

List the last 20 names you have handregged and let us as a group tell you where you are going wrong or right.

OK, thanks hookbox, I'll take you up on it. I won't give 20 but here is a sample of a few:

.COM
DogSheds.com
Graduation Outfits.com
ForexPodcasts.com
PlusSizeGirdles.com
FatArms.com
DataProtectionGuide.com

.XYZ (holding these in the hope the extension will take off)
Ovens.xyz
TaxRefunds.xyz
Multivitamins.xyz
Scanners.xyz
BabyFood.xyz
FatLoss.xyz

If you or anyone else could give me any feedback hookbox I'd be more than grateful as I don't know where I am going wrong. Many thanks.

 

[kaz2]

I use the usual free patforms: Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy, AfterMarket, Domainnamesales.com and have recently added flippa catalog listings to the list. The first 3 have been the biggest source of sales out of those platforms. In addition, I prefer to point my domains to my own landing page because I think it's easier to negotiate directly with a buyer and also because if I don't have to pay a commission it means I can make the same amount of money while simultaneously making the price more attractive to the buyer ( my direct sales outnumber my sales on those other platforms by a wide margin ).

I don't actually send out emails anymore ( I'm sure I would make more money if I did ), but I'm a big advocate of targeted email marketing for 2 reasons. The first is that it's effective. I've sold a lot of domains that way and it works. Mind you, I'm talking about sending emails to a selected list of potential buyers, not to just anyone in the phone book.

The second reason is that nothing has helped me learn about how to spot a good domain as much as the process of finding leads to market them. Once you start trying to put together mailing lists for your domains, you quickly start to notice how much easier it is to find potential buyers for some domains vs others. The process that I use to find leads has now become a central part of my research practice for buying domains. In other words, if I can identify a good number of solid, potential buyers for a given domain, that means that it's a good domain to buy ( assuming the price is right). If I can't, then I'll pass. I apply this principle regardless of whether I ultimately intend to do any email marketing or not.

As far as the types of domains I choose, the approach I've detailed above tends to favor keyword domains simply because it's easier to identify potential buyers for those as compared to brandables. I do buy brandables as well and have sold them, but they tend to be the sort of brandables that are based on words, rather than the type that are meaningless pronounceable combinations of letters. There are exceptions to everything so, for example, if I found a 4 letter pronounceable domain that I thought attractive, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it at the right price since those tend to be pretty easy to move.

Hope this helps.

Wow, what an incredible reply discobull, you could easily have knocked out a few lines but I can see that you took time to educate me and other newbies. I'll need to reread your post a few times to really absorb the knowledge in it!

What I am intrigued by is the fact you actually have your own landers . This is what I want to do as well. The key thing I want to know is do you rely of type in traffic from buyers or do you rely on traffic from the 3 main sales platforms?

Also, do you get alot of views ofyour domains from Sedo, Afternic and Godaddy and do you have any tips / tricks on how to increase views?

Thanks once again for the great reply.

 

[kaz2]

I have sold hand regs for $$$$, so...

But I do agree that they can be hard sells.

Hi Ms Domainer and thanks - are you at liberty to give a few examples just so that newbies such as myself can understand what makes a good saleable name?

 

[campout]

Wow I am just getting into this, so thanks for the original post. My sense is there are good names to be found still. The selling aspect seems to be the tough part.

 

[kaz2]

I agree that any good KEYWORD hand reg domains are impossible to find. I gave up handregging keyword names a long time ago with the exception of hand registering 5-7 letter brandable domains to sell on brandable marketplaces. Also i will hand register domains related to future technology (ie. 3D, digital, Virtual reality, etc...) As far as keyword domains, Namejet is my place for finding them, just be sure you know what you are buying and where you are gonna sell, wouldn't want to see anyone buying a name for $xxx ++ and not knowing where or who to sell it to

I should also add...

Looking back through my sales this year i had a total of 6 domains hand registered which i sold for high $xxx and $x,xxx. My total sales for hand reg domains was $5,879 for the year, i spent a total of $419 on handregs in 2014. So, for the names i haven't sold yet, i made money from a few to cover all renewal fees and more.

A few of my recent Handregs all .com of course:

VirtuTrade
Aftia - Sold 4 weeks after aquisition on BB
Uploadsy
VRmultiplayer
ListState
Snowsy
Fileze
Prudentia
Opevia
8Kprojection

Should add that many of my handregs are expired domains

Hi JudgeMind, I've been reading alot of your posts over the past few months so honoured you are replying here! I am interested to see that all the had regs you have listed appear to be brandables. Are you able to say what marketplace you listed them on and did you do any promotionfor them?

 

[kaz2]

Wow I am just getting into this, so thanks for the original post. My sense is there are good names to be found still. The selling aspect seems to be the tough part.

Hi, thanks. Ithink the post above by is instructive where it is stated:

"The second reason is that nothing has helped me learn about how to spot a good domain as much as the process of finding leads to market them. Once you start trying to put together mailing lists for your domains, you quickly start to notice how much easier it is to find potential buyers for some domains vs others"

I think this is a key concept on how to find saleable domain names - read that post a few times. It's gold.

 

[Ms Domainer]

Hi Ms Domainer and thanks - are you at liberty to give a few examples just so that newbies such as myself can understand what makes a good saleable name?

Hand regs that sold for $$$$ (off the top of my head):

Cubest [dot] com (regged off an available thread from Namepros)

ivote [dot] us​

No guarantees, of course, that your hand reg names will sell like this. Selecting names to hand reg is a science, art, and some luck.

 

[hookbox]

OK, thanks hookbox, I'll take you up on it. I won't give 20 but here is a sample of a few:

.COM
DogSheds.com
Graduation Outfits.com
ForexPodcasts.com
PlusSizeGirdles.com
FatArms.com
DataProtectionGuide.com

.XYZ (holding these in the hope the extension will take off)
Ovens.xyz
TaxRefunds.xyz
Multivitamins.xyz
Scanners.xyz
BabyFood.xyz
FatLoss.xyz

If you or anyone else could give me any feedback hookbox I'd be more than grateful as I don't know where I am going wrong. Many thanks.

First thing I would do is stick with dot com and stay away from the new gtlds. I say this because while in beginner mode it is easier to understand everything about domains if you focus on just one extension. Once you really "get it" then move on to the others.

It seems like you are using a keyword tool to determine if a name is good or not. I am sure you bought the domain DogSheds because you were thinking of DogHouse/DogHouses but no one calls them DogSheds. The only reason this pops up as a searched term is because of people saying things like "My Dog Sheds his hair" but it has nothing to do with people actually calling a Dog House a Dog Shed. Maybe some do but not many so hardly any value.

In the beginning instead of hand regging names try to focus on Godaddy Auctions first. Get an account and login to the Auctions and go through the list of expired names and select to Watch all the names that you think are good names. If you don't know how all you do is click on the Eye Icon next to the name. Try not to pick any names that already have bids but pick names that have no bids. Everyday look at the list of names you chose and see if anyone else bid on those names and what they sold for. If you are consistently watching auctions that are getting no bids then you'll have to tweak your understanding of what a good name is. Over time and experience your list of watched auctions will be filled with names that have multiple bids.

This is by far the best way to get a crash course in understanding what a good domain is without having to spend or lose any money.

 

[jamesosix]

depends on context.

a new tech or trend comes out, there will always be a chance for those who are in first to hand reg a gem!

just my opinion.

 

[hookbox]

depends on context.

a new tech or trend comes out, there will always be a chance for those who are in first to hand reg a gem!

just my opinion.

I agree 100% but sometimes you won't know it's a gem until a few years later. If a new domainer has to wait a few years to get a positive response they won't be a domainer very long.

 

[discobull]

Wow, what an incredible reply discobull, you could easily have knocked out a few lines but I can see that you took time to educate me and other newbies. I'll need to reread your post a few times to really absorb the knowledge in it!

What I am intrigued by is the fact you actually have your own landers . This is what I want to do as well. The key thing I want to know is do you rely of type in traffic from buyers or do you rely on traffic from the 3 main sales platforms?

Also, do you get alot of views ofyour domains from Sedo, Afternic and Godaddy and do you have any tips / tricks on how to increase views?

Thanks once again for the great reply.

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.

I'm not sure I understand this question:

"The key thing I want to know is do you rely of type in traffic from buyers or do you rely on traffic from the 3 main sales platforms?"

My domains are pointing to my own landing page which has a form for making price inquiries. The sales platforms ( sedo, etc. ) don't direct traffic to me nor do I direct traffic to them so I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.

The only platform that makes it easy to know which domains are getting views is Sedo. With godaddy, you have to go through your domains one at a time to know what's going on with them (more effort than I'm willing to make) and Afternic's stats are near useless.

Sorry, but I am probably not the right guy to help you figure out how to maximize returns with those sales platforms, because since I rely mainly on my landing pages for sales I've never really put much energy into working with them. I add my listings and categorize them, but not much beyond that. I'm sure there are people on here that can offer better insights into how to work with them.

 

[gilescoley]

First,stay away from XYZ names

Hand reg names will never sell themselves, you have to email end-users

 

[NameOmnia]

Hand reg names will never sell themselves, you have to email end-users

NOT TRUE AT ALL!

Please guys can you post your hand regd, expired, dropped success stories here?

https://www.namepros.com/threads/your-hand-regd-dropped-domains-success-stories.842433/

It would be interesting to have all them under the same roof ( = thread )