BrandBucket Experience

[xtremex]

hello

I am new to BrandBucket. Before getting my hands on this

I wish to experience about brandbucket from my fellow members


Thanks

 

[boker]

I own a few keyword names on BB. Majority of these names are listed on the first page of the search results for their respective keyword. This has nothing to de with perks. It is because my names directly match the keyword that is being searched. To suggest that top sellers dominate the search results is an exaggeration...because I have proven otherwise.

You didn't prove anything ....this was proved a few months ago with tens of examples, for 20-30 main keywords and always the result was the same- the same peoples own the majority of names of the first 3 pages. And we are not talking just about keyword names, we are talking about invented names that appear on the first, second or third page for keywords like tech, media, cloud and other top keywords, and 90% of these names are owned by MK and a handful of sellers. There are sellers who own hundreds of invented names but they aren't so 'lucky' to find any names on the first pages....probably BB supporters are just lucky whatever they will do...probably they can list even chinese names like xgkld and they will still be shown in the first page for keywords like 'tech' and family. It has to be nice to be born lucky for BB supporters. The main result of this is that BB reseller market has dropped by 90%, just of handful of peoples still buying names, the rest of them selling. In the last months I'm selling my BB rejects for 2-3 more than my BB accepted, so this is saying something about where BB is going.

 

[Justin Matmor]

You didn't prove anything ....this was proved a few months ago with tens of examples, for 20-30 main keywords and always the result was the same- the same peoples own the majority of names of the first 3 pages. And we are not talking just about keyword names, we are talking about invented names that appear on the first, second or third page for keywords like tech, media, cloud and other top keywords, and 90% of these names are owned by MK and a handful of sellers. There are sellers who own hundreds of invented names but they aren't so 'lucky' to find any names on the first pages....probably BB supporters are just lucky whatever they will do...probably they can list even chinese names like xgkld and they will still be shown in the first page for keywords like 'tech' and family. It has to be nice to be born lucky for BB supporters. The main result of this is that BB reseller market has dropped by 90%, just of handful of peoples still buying names, the rest of them selling. In the last months I'm selling my BB rejects for 2-3 more than my BB accepted, so this is saying something about where BB is going.

No one is born lucky; you need to find ways to make your own luck.

 

[boker]

No one is born lucky; you need to find ways to make your own luck.

You have find yours....I wonder how many 'good reviews' you have to make for BB at namepros to have 1 name featured in the first pages. At your rate of 'reviews' for BB, it looks something like 50 comments or so for 1 name featured- a good deal for BB, you're cheap. If they find ten more like you... namepros will be full of 'how good is BB', for a few names featured. They can't find a better deal.

 

[Justin Matmor]

You find yours....I wonder how many 'good reviews' you have to make for BB at namepros to have 1 name featured in the first pages. At your rate of r'reviews' for BB it looks something like 50 comments or so for 1 name featured- a good deal for BB, you're cheap. I f they find ten more like you...all namepros will be full of 'how good is BB', for a few names featured. They can't find a better deal.

Thanks for the suggestion. Might create a new thread, "How to get lucky on BB - share your experience"

 

[vwblubug]

Hi everybody!

So I had a couple of names put up on BB. They had been accepted for years, but I was hesitant to finalize anything. Well, I recently did, and one of them now has a logo not worth $10, much less the $100 minimum. The other isn't much better, but not as bad. I emailed them about it, but of course, no response. I had better logos for these domains.

It doesn't seem they care about some of the potential sales if their commissions won't be high enough.

If I owned BB, I would have someone inspecting all of the logos before they are listed, at least to make sure they make sense with the domain, or are at least appealing to buyers.

Has anyone else had this issue recently?

 

[JimJammy]

Where have I implied this?

Sorry, you didn't imply it. You stated it outright here:

What most of the defenders fail to declare is that they receive perks from BB. I'll state here that I was also a recipient of these perks at one time, but they were removed as I became a more vocal critic of certain business practices they had.

So YOU received perks when they were trying to recruit you as a BB Ambassador and I'm guessing (but don't really know) that former BB Ambassadors received these same perks as you, but now they no longer exist, despite you trying to state that they do.

 

[Justin Matmor]

Hi everybody!

So I had a couple of names put up on BB. They had been accepted for years, but I was hesitant to finalize anything. Well, I recently did, and one of them now has a logo not worth $10, much less the $100 minimum. The other isn't much better, but not as bad. I emailed them about it, but of course, no response. I had better logos for these domains.

It doesn't seem they care about some of the potential sales if their commissions won't be high enough.

If I owned BB, I would have someone inspecting all of the logos before they are listed, at least to make sure they make sense with the domain, or are at least appealing to buyers.

Has anyone else had this issue recently?

I have sold BB names with ugly logos. I also have names on BB with great looking logos collecting dust. Hence logos are not really that important.

 

[vwblubug]

Thanks for your reply, Justin. It's great to know that the logos don't matter to buyers, it just seems almost disrespectful and like a ripoff for them to slap any lazy logo on there and then force fees on you that are not worth what you're getting.

 

[Justin Matmor]

I think that you have less than 300 names and I know more than half...and believe me, it's enough. Also, 90% of your names are with godaddy and domain.com, so forgive me if I doubt that you pay 2$ for a name at domain.com and pay an extra 9$ for privacy.

As I said - you know nothing about my names that I have on BB.

FYI, I have more than 1 BB account.

 

[boker]

As I said - you know nothing about my names that I have on BB.

FYI, I have more than 1 BB account.

Try me...if you want I can list here how many you want, just ask me.

 

[Recons.Com]

@Grilled

I'd argue that eviox.com is much better quality than eviux.com

O normally > than U. It is also less ambiguous regarding pronunciation.

What is Voduc? Since when they like "-uc" names? Is it pronounced as VOu-DUCK or VOu-dook or VO-DUCK or?

Or since when MK likes -ou names? How do you pronounce them?? Vefou = Vefoo or Vefow?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I'd argue that eviox.com is much better quality than eviux.com

Agreed.

Though, I can see some confusion in spelling when pronouncing it. Evi - ox... If you don't articulate OX, it could sound like ux. Seems like the buyer would have to buy both domains for $8k to avoid confusion.

 

[Recons.Com]

And then also buy Eveeox, Eveeux, Eveiox, Evyox, Evyux, Eveox, Eveux etc. )))) If a buyer wants his bases covered, that is a wrong name to go for ) Confusion written all over it )

 

[offthehandle]

@JimJammy congratulations on paying off your mortgage, in a time where statistics show how few people save their earnings and 25% less than $500 emergency savings, it shows you are not in that category. I hope you continue to have success and create a good independent business as an entrepreneur.

Pardon me for entering the discussion, but hope some of you can give me a realistic idea of this market for someone new, or if that being new matters as a barrier to entry. It seems like one needs to buy and successfully get accepted 100-200 names before even selling one. Thats a small investment in money for a few sales, but not in the time invested in getting these names in the first place.

I have noticed quite a few auctions and sales here on NP of people leaving the BB market. Some appear to be seasoned pro's here, which makes me wonder. Appears like a 50/50 split of support from what I can tell. Then I see a few of you are successful who do buy those names increasing your portfolios helps and post positive reviews in this thread, but this is pretty confusing.

I have zero bb inquiries and zero bb sales and waning confidence since reading this thread the several times I have done so. Maybe that is a good thing, this thread keeps others like myself from spending time to adding more names to the already saturated 40k plus listed. For BB though it isnt a good long term strategy to alienate new customers, as that is only great for motivating and creating emerging competitors. Who knows...

How many of you have increased sales and continued confidence in this marketplace?
How many names on average do you have? Correct me if I am wrong but the more the better search rankings, and chance of them selling.
Are you ranked on the searches?, if not how do you determine that the insiders and "chosen few" have theirs being given better ranking at the top of the search?
It seems like a huge time investment, thank you for exposing that.
Has anyone had better success with alternative marketplaces?
I agree, the logos are not worth $100., but maybe a Fiverr logo price.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

this thread keeps others like myself from spending time to adding more names to the already saturated 40k plus listed.

46,662 live right now.

I've noticed MK has dropped a few bb published domains. Though he continually adds much more than he drops.

 

[offthehandle]

I just noticed the rant thread about this person buying up rejected bb names.

 

[JimJammy]

@JimJammy congratulations on paying off your mortgage, in a time where statistics show how few people save their earnings and 25% less than $500 emergency savings, it shows you are not in that category. I hope you continue to have success and create a good independent business as an entrepreneur.

Pardon me for entering the discussion, but hope some of you can give me a realistic idea of this market for someone new, or if that being new matters as a barrier to entry. It seems like one needs to buy and successfully get accepted 100-200 names before even selling one. Thats a small investment in money for a few sales, but not in the time invested in getting these names in the first place.

I have noticed quite a few auctions and sales here on NP of people leaving the BB market. Some appear to be seasoned pro's here, which makes me wonder. Appears like a 50/50 split of support from what I can tell. Then I see a few of you are successful who do buy those names increasing your portfolios helps and post positive reviews in this thread, but this is pretty confusing.

I have zero bb inquiries and zero bb sales and waning confidence since reading this thread the several times I have done so. Maybe that is a good thing, this thread keeps others like myself from spending time to adding more names to the already saturated 40k plus listed. For BB though it isnt a good long term strategy to alienate new customers, as that is only great for motivating and creating emerging competitors. Who knows...

How many of you have increased sales and continued confidence in this marketplace?
How many names on average do you have? Correct me if I am wrong but the more the better search rankings, and chance of them selling.
Are you ranked on the searches?, if not how do you determine that the insiders and "chosen few" have theirs being given better ranking at the top of the search?
It seems like a huge time investment, thank you for exposing that.
Has anyone had better success with alternative marketplaces?
I agree, the logos are not worth $100., but maybe a Fiverr logo price.

Thanks, I really appreciate your comments.

I can't give you much advice as a newbie, other than "have a strategy". I got into BB a few years ago now so I could afford the luxury of getting it wrong (which I did but had the time to put right). I don't think a newbie today has that luxury.

Have a strategy. A sensible one.

Whatever your day-to-day domaining strategy is, I would stick as close to that for your brandables too, because you already have some experience in that area.

If you love 4 letter domains. Get them listed on BB. You'll have a smaller portfolio but higher sales rate (of course it will cost you more to acquire the domains in the first place).

If you love keyword domains. Then list them on BB (if accepted). And still do whatever you do in your day to day domaining to sell them, don't sit back and let BB do all the work. Yes, that's a genuine comment.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, whatever your forte is in domaining, don't stray far from it.

For me personally, I'm with BB because they get MUCH better prices than I do when I sell domains myself (and that's with the fees/commission taken out). If I could sell brandable domains at $2K+ on my own I'd dump BB in an instant. Sorry. Fact.

Don't follow the crowd. Don't buy domains just to list on BB. Do what you know works for you and use BB (yes I said use BB) to get better prices for you.

That's my personal advice and I'm sure many more will chip in with their own advice. Whatever you choose to do... I wish you good luck and good fortune!

 

[Recons.Com]

You can see "confidence" that the current sellers have in BB by the sales on NP where very often they will sell even bb published names with fees paid in $10-20 range, as they simply don't want to renew them and have no confidence that they will ever sell.

It also shows that buyers are also getting better at figuring out that "BB approved/published" stamp does not mean quality as many of names being sold got to BB because of a special status of owners.

Remember the times BB approved/published names were easily selling in $30-50 range?

Here is another math for you:

Part of BB's sales are from organic traffic of the names there, since they all forward to BB, plus google search for those names. This traffic can grow proportionately to number of names added, assuming quality is not being diluted, which possibly is.

Another part of it is search engine traffic on BB info, paid ads by BB on keywords, Twitter, FB etc. This portion is not growing proportionately to number of domains, if growing at all.

This explains why while number of domains at BB have tripled since their impressive sell through ratio times, their monthly sales have added around 50%, resulting in cutting in half their sell through ratio and bringing to normal levels and possibly worse than normal, once you adjust for higher fees and better exposure for the insider inventory.

This is still very profitable for them, because other people pay renewals on most of the inventory and instead of $450,000 annual bill for renewals they only face around $100,000 for their own.

 

[offthehandle]

Thank you very much. This is all a fun venture in retirement for me, I am getting abit disgusted the more I discover of the snakeoil and unethical people involved in this field. Sure I have dealt with this before in my industry, but I am frankly surprised at these amateur moves. Let me ask you though, the reason BB works is because of their SERP, and maybe the longevity. Until I started domaining, I never heard of them and I feel reasonably well read on various online entities. So its not like they are famous or have a household brandname. It does not appear outwardly that the barrier to entry to compete with them is that high. Do they have some VC connections that buy most of the names and drive new companies to use them?

 

[offthehandle]

You can see "confidence" that the current sellers have in BB by the sales on NP where very often they will sell even bb published names with fees paid in $10-20 range, as they simply don't want to renew them and have no confidence that they will ever sell.

It also shows that buyers are also getting better at figuring out that "BB approved/published" stamp does not mean quality as many of names being sold got to BB because of a special status of owners.

Remember the times BB approved/published names were easily selling in $30-50 range?

Here is another math for you:

Part of BB's sales are from organic traffic of the names there, since they all forward to BB, plus google search for those names. This traffic can grow proportionately to number of names added, assuming quality is not being diluted, which possibly is.

Another part of it is search engine traffic on BB info, paid ads by BB on keywords, Twitter, FB etc. This portion is not growing proportionately to number of domains, if growing at all.

This explains why while number of domains at BB have tripled since their impressive sell through ratio times, their monthly sales have added around 50%, resulting in cutting in half their sell through ratio and bringing to normal levels and possibly worse than normal, once you adjust for higher fees and better exposure for the insider inventory.

This is still very profitable for them, because other people pay renewals on most of the inventory and instead of $450,000 annual bill for renewals they only face around $100,000 for their own.

Thank you for responding. Why don't all of you get together except those with an axe to grind and defect or group together a domainer platform? I am looking at this mess as a business opportunity, why don't all of you start a co-op marketplace? So what prevents someone coming along and effectively competing???? I don't want to oversimplify it, then again this isn't on the surface a very sophisticated of an operation imho.

 

[Recons.Com]

Thank you for responding. Why don't all of you get together except those with an axe to grind and defect or group together a domainer platform? I am looking at this mess as a business opportunity, why don't all of you start a co-op marketplace? So what prevents someone coming along and effectively competing???? I don't want to oversimplify it, then again this isn't on the surface a very sophisticated of an operation imho.

Originally, I provided feedback as a "stakeholder" hoping BB had bigger ambition and improve. But once Matmor became the provider of responses to any concerns here or even on slack channel, it became clear that it is not happening and BB ownership management are happy to have it as a cash cow and milk it as much as possible.

It is obvious that an alternative is overdue, as neither BR, nor namerific and few others are truly feeling the void.

I do have an idea for which I want to team up with 10-20 fellow NP members to jointly start a platform that would be transparent, conflict free and fair. Will be sharing soon.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

You can see "confidence" that the current sellers have in BB by the sales on NP where very often they will sell even bb published names with fees paid in $10-20 range, as they simply don't want to renew them and have no confidence that they will ever sell

@Keith DeBoer offers some of the best bb published deals on NamePros! Usually a 'lot' of bb published names for under $10 per name!

 

[offthehandle]

It is obvious that an alternative is overdue, as neither BR, nor namerific

I do have an idea for which I want to team up with 10-20 fellow NP members to jointly start a platform that would be transparent, conflict free and fair. Will be sharing soon.

Thank you again for responding. Maybe those existing platforms could be improved upon? Any ideas on that? PM me when / if you would be interested in moving forward and need $, time or ideas if you are interested and the scope of the venue is honorable. Co-ops work well with commodities and in this most likely if managed properly I have no problem paying for joint costs for Adsense if the platform is honest and risks are shared. I dont have enough inventory nor do I wish to buy that much to start my own. Once the names are removed from BB and the nameservers of a bunch of names in a co-op are redirected to new independent site, then all would benefit. This is the downside with nameserver redirects as they get any of the SERP benefits from nameservers, as well as statistics, traffic, etc.

 

[Simdes]

You can see "confidence" that the current sellers have in BB by the sales on NP where very often they will sell even bb published names with fees paid in $10-20 range, as they simply don't want to renew them and have no confidence that they will ever sell.

I sold several names that were previously published, and the previous owner left them to expire. Therefore, no confidence or no patience of the previous owner does not mean the lack of your success.

@Keith DeBoer offers some of the best bb published deals on NamePros!

Yeah, @Keith DeBoer has a good deals...

 

[Brandworthy]

Sorry, you didn't imply it. You stated it outright here:

Have you ever received any free listings or other perks, such as special access via Slack or otherwise, from BB?

So YOU received perks when they were trying to recruit you as a BB Ambassador and I'm guessing (but don't really know) that former BB Ambassadors received these same perks as you, but now they no longer exist, despite you trying to state that they do.

No. You're wrong in each of the comments you make here. So let's break them down:

So YOU received perks when they were trying to recruit you as a BB Ambassador[... ]

I started receiving perks long after they asked me to be an ambassador (which I turned down after they informed me I would have to remove any listed names from all other brandable marketplaces). Those perks were ostensibly given to me due to their affiliate system not working, although I doubt small sellers or other users of affiliate system received anything.

[... ] and I'm guessing (but don't really know) that former BB Ambassadors received these same perks as you

I do not reference ambassadors alone. I generally address "insiders" which includes employees and ambassadors. Aside from this small correction, I'm pretty confident insiders received far more perks than me. All my names went through the regular submission/acceptance/pricing process as regular sellers, so what I received never came close to the flexibility insiders had.

[... ] but now they no longer exist, despite you trying to state that they do.

If you care to identify where I'm trying to state anything as current? I'm providing historical information based on my time on BB. I'm not fully up to date with what does/doesn't happen now on BB and have never claimed otherwise. Certainly while the Ambassador program existed those recruited received perks. As to whether their ambassador program is now defunct, I've no idea TBH and nor do I care.

I think you an I are diametrically opposed here in our views. That's a shame as I do admire your success with domains and on BB. But from my point of view you appear to object to most criticism of BB, and seem to especially defend Margot. I admire what they've as a business, and I've stated this many times. But I believe they've made many mistakes, and their lack of transparency combined with aggressive spin in most of their official announcements leaves me thinking they have something to hide. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who incorrectly stated on Slack that Margot did not use Privacy with any of her names? I discovered otherwise and rather than address what I found she changed her profile URL. The only reason I was looking into this was because I was researching BB's site search to test the diversity of sellers appearing in top 1-10 spots. I'm fairly sure I documented some of my findings here in this thread.

I think there are many others who share some of my views, although few are as vocal. If history shows that I've been wrong I'll humbly accept and correct my mistakes, but so far I don't believe anyone has refuted anything I've said with any evidence to the contrary.

Right now I think we're both wasting time that could be used more productively, so I'm going to go focus on where I'm going rather than where I've been. I wish BB and sellers on BB continued success, and want to thank BB for the many sales they helped me achieve.