Aged domains question

[Bob Hawkes]

I have a question that I hope someone more experienced in domain investing can provide insight on....

Very frequently I see mention in domain name sales that the domain is aged or how many years old it is, as though this is universally a good thing.

I understand completely how if the domain has been used in a website in a positive way, has received meaningful links from other websites, etc. that being aged is a plus that will make the domain more valuable.

However, what if the domain was first registered say 12 years ago, but has essentially sat parked for most or all of that period? In this case I don't see how being aged is positive, and maybe even it could be negative if an unsuccessful attempt has been made to sell the domain over years. Of course, you may have new ideas for promotion and hope to find success where others have not with the domain name, but I still don't see why per se being aged is always positive and meaningful.

Or am I missing something? Thanks for any insights.

Bob

 

[xynames]

Agreed Haris, and as you imply, it isn't so much that EVERY aged domain is better than EVERY newly created domain, just that - age does matter, is a factor that does contribute to the value of a domain. And that the domains that were available to hand reg YEARS ago, tend to be higher quality than what is available to hand reg. today.

 

[atinc]

If I am the buyer

I would negotiate to reduce the price because of the age. I would say it didn't succeed let's say in the past 15 years and you are asking more than it really worths.

If I am the seller

I would ask more if it has a clean history, never used let's say in the past 15 years and would add, the age of the domain matters for SEO.

note: Never bought or sold aged domains...

 

[boker]

Aged domains are better than handregs.. But it's obvious that not all aged domains are going to be great.. people registered bad domains back in the day too.

But to understand this let's look at the expiring and pending delete lists.. it's much rare that a domain registered in 1990's and early 2000s expire when compared to recent 1-2 year old domains. Sure too many domains are being registered today but why are so many of those that are registered nowadays are dropping? Because the newly registered domains are mostly of bad quality, it's a fact.

Ok, let's take some examples. Bitcoincash was bought this year for 10$ and sold for 48k if I'm remember right, so a hand reg. Naturalbeauty, bought for 65k over 10 years ago and sold for 10k a few days ago...so the name it's important, not the age.. Also, if you check namepros or godaddy you could buy names bought over 10 years ago for 10-30$ and sometime for free, so no, the age doesn't have any value if the name is bad.

 

[boker]

Not really, I mean
https://www.thedomains.com/2017/09/...s-cms-summit-merge-announce-domain-challenge/
is dumping thousands of these made up and misspelled names for $299. each (dropped down from initial attempt at $495. each), and they are no better or worse than some of the ones people are trying to get a few grand for. My communications with people who are selling exclusively these made up or misspelled domain names indicate that they can't make it with this sort of junk alone especially when they try to sell for more than a few hundred each - sales are so slow when trying to sell made up/misspelled domains for "top prices" that domain reg fees for the entire portfolio eat up all incoming profits.

Let's take as example, MK, from Brandbucket. he sold last year around 300-400 domains, with and average price of 3k and he doesn't have any EMD's, he's dealing exclusively brandables. So, let me know how many guys you know, dealing with EMD's and aged domains who are selling more and for more money, excluding the big guys in the industry and which have invested much more and for a way longer than him.

 

[namelancer]

Aged domains are better than handregs..

Yet, are aged domains better suited as one of a kind, unique naming alternatives imbuing distinctive identity served to separate the singular from the flock of companies carrying over-tired common names ?

 

[xynames]

If I am the buyer

I would negotiate to reduce the price because of the age. I would say it didn't succeed let's say in the past 15 years and you are asking more than it really worths.

If I am the seller

I would ask more if it has a clean history, never used let's say in the past 15 years and would add, the age of the domain matters for SEO.

note: Never bought or sold aged domains...

Those are used car salesman tactics other than "the age of the domain matters for SEO" which can be true, yes, but isn't really the greatest selling point.

Better is to present the comparables for closed sales and current offerings, and reach a value based on those.

Also you are completely missing the point, by arguing that whether the domain has been used for something or not is relevant. Not necessarily. I have domains that I just sold for five figures that haven't been used for anything but PPC parking since we had registered them 13 years ago. The right buyer just hadn't come along yet.

And if you come in like this buyer:

I’ve had a few potential buyers play stupid after making lowball offers, saying things like, “Oh, I figured that since you’d held on to it so long without using it I figured you didn’t want it.”

you end up sounding like a bozo, not edifying and will not get you anywhere. Had another bozo say something like, "Well it's your fault for having held on to that domain that long" when he made another ridiculously low offer, trying to act like he should get it cheap because it had been sitting unsold all this time.


Anyway, I don't even mention the age of the domain when negotiating a sale. It doesn't occur to me to mention it. It simply remains at the back of my mind, and at some point what I might say is that this domain is superior to anything you could hand register today, which by implication means that the age matters, which - it does!

 

[namelancer]

My communications with people who are selling exclusively these made up or misspelled domain names indicate that they can't make it with this sort of junk alone especially when they try to sell for more than a few hundred each - sales are so slow when trying to sell made up/misspelled domains for "top prices" that domain reg fees for the entire portfolio eat up all incoming profits.

Two issues are found as problematic with your line of thought:

1. To condemn invented brandables to the junk field of names is to do injustice to their perceived and subjective value by under-appreciating it compared to the intrinsic and objective value of some aged domains.

2. The fact of renewals eating up the profits is not exclusive to brandables alone nor is it their fault specifically.. In other classes of names, such as aged keywords, or dictionary terms,the losses can also overwhelm the profits But here it wouldn't be the renewal fees eating the profits but acquisition costs exceeding revenues from sales/lack of them.

 

[Haris]

Ok, let's take some examples. Bitcoincash was bought this year for 10$ and sold for 48k if I'm remember right, so a hand reg. Naturalbeauty, bought for 65k over 10 years ago and sold for 10k a few days ago...so the name it's important, not the age.. Also, if you check namepros or godaddy you could buy names bought over 10 years ago for 10-30$ and sometime for free, so no, the age doesn't have any value if the name is bad.

You forgot to mention, Naturalbeauty was regged for $10 and sold for $65k

Boker you're a smart guy, I think you don't want competition at auction for aged domains

 

[namelancer]

You forgot to mention, Naturalbeauty was regged for $10 and sold for $65k

Except, when it was first registered, it wasn't perceived as aged (it became so with a passage of time) - it was still fresh and new

 

[boker]

You forgot to mention, Naturalbeauty was regged for $10 and sold for $65k

Boker you're a smart guy, I think you don't want competition at auction for aged domains

Yes, but it was not sold when it was freshly regged, when it was sold for 65k was already a few years old. My oldest name is less than 3 years old, hand regged by me, so you can't say it's aged and believe me or not, I'm not into auctions of aged names.

 

[Haris]

If every hand reg would sell for at least $500 .. then I'll say age doesn't matter. Let me know when that happens.

 

[namelancer]

If every hand reg would sell for at least $500 .. then I'll say age doesn't matter. Let me know when that happens.

Conversely,if every aged domain could sell for at least 5k, then I'll say age matters. Let me know when that happens

 

[boker]

If every hand reg would sell for at least $500 .. then I'll say age doesn't matter. Let me know when that happens.

If every aged domain would sell for at least 500$....then I'll say that age matter. Let em know when that happens.

 

[Haris]

Yes, but it was not sold when it was freshly regged, when it was sold for 65k was already a few years old. My oldest name is less than 3 years old, hand regged by me, so you can't say it's aged and believe me or not, I'm not into auctions of aged names.

You are better than those newbies at hand registering I believe. You know what to register. There is a lot of gold in the garbage bin of deleted domains, I know. I just prefer an aged $20 domain over a $10 handreg. Start buying aged domains and you'll know the difference.

 

[Haris]

Conversely,if every aged domain could sell for at least 5k, then I'll say age matters. Let me know when that happens

If every aged domain would sell for at least 500$....then I'll say that age matter. Let em know when that happens.

That's what you guys have been doing this page 1 of this thread. Picking $20-30 sales of aged domains to prove your point, while thousands of 2016 regs are dropping.

 

[Haris]

If you know what to buy, hand regs can be profitable but the probability of an aged domain being profitable is much higher than that of a handreg. Ask yourself why thousands of 2016 regs are dropping everyday while there are only a few from 1990s.

 

[boker]

You are better than those newbies at hand registering I believe. You know what to register. There is a lot of gold in the garbage bin of deleted domains, I know. I just prefer an aged $20 domain over a $10 handreg. Start buying aged domains and you'll know the difference.

Everybody has his own strategy. We can make a simple experiment. Give me an example of aged domain sold for around 2,5k this year and let me know how much profit could bring in the next 5 years. I can bet that with that 2,5k, buying hand reg's using discounts, so around 1000 hand reg, I can make at least double the profit you will make by investing in that aged domain, in the same time frame.

 

[xynames]

EVerything was hand registered at some point. Wassapoint of mentioning that something that was hand registered was sold for whatever later?

The discussion is whether or not the age of the domain matters and it is absurd to argue that it does not. What was available years ago was better, and a larger pool, than what is available today.

The stuff that is available to hang reg today, was available years ago, too! However most of what was available years ago, especially the good stuff, is not available to hand register today.

 

[boker]

If you know what to buy, hand regs can be profitable but the probability of an aged domain being profitable is much higher than that of a handreg. Ask yourself why thousands of 2016 regs are dropping everyday while there are only a few from 1990s.

The answer is simple: in 1990 there were around 1150 domains registered and in 2016 there were a few millions, so it's normal to have more than thousands more dropping from the 2016 hand reg's.

 

[Haris]

The answer is simple: in 1990 there were around 1150 domains registered and in 2016 there were a few millions, so it's normal to have more than thousands more dropping from the 2016 hand reg's.

1990s .. nineteen ninetees.

how many domains were registered in 1999? add 2000 too.

Add all domains from 1990-2000 that drop on any particular day.. now see how many of those regged in 2016 were dropped.

 

[boker]

1990s .. nineteen ninetees.

how many domains were registered in 1999? add 2000 too.

Add all domains from 1990-2000 that drop on any particular day.. now see how many of those regged in 2016 were dropped.

It's something the same...I could not find the exact amount registered from 1990 until 1999, but I would say somewhere around 100k, in the same time in the last 10 year they were over 100 million registered, so the result will be the same.

 

[Haris]

Okay so I did a search at Expireddomains.net

.com's dropped in last 12 hours

Domains from 1980's - Dec 31 2000.
About 245 Domains

Then 2016 .com domains dropped in last 12 hours
About 33,137 Domains

 

[Haris]

We can say that every day less than 500 domains from 1980's to 2000 drop while at the same time 30000 domains registered last year drop.

Too many people registering too many domains? Obvious but why are they dropping? Bitcoinsomething sold for $xxxxx but thousands of domains registered at that time sold for $0.

 

[atinc]

Those are used car salesman tactics other than "the age of the domain matters for SEO" which can be true, yes, but isn't really the greatest selling point.

Better is to present the comparables for closed sales and current offerings, and reach a value based on those.

Also you are completely missing the point, by arguing that whether the domain has been used for something or not is relevant. Not necessarily. I have domains that I just sold for five figures that haven't been used for anything but PPC parking since we had registered them 13 years ago. The right buyer just hadn't come along yet.

And if you come in like this buyer:



you end up sounding like a bozo, not edifying and will not get you anywhere. Had another bozo say something like, "Well it's your fault for having held on to that domain that long" when he made another ridiculously low offer, trying to act like he should get it cheap because it had been sitting unsold all this time.


Anyway, I don't even mention the age of the domain when negotiating a sale. It doesn't occur to me to mention it. It simply remains at the back of my mind, and at some point what I might say is that this domain is superior to anything you could hand register today, which by implication means that the age matters, which - it does!

That`s a businessman approach which you may have never had experience for.

If I am the buyer I would like to source it as cheap as it is possible and if I am the seller I would seek the best possible high profit I can make from it.

I am a businessman besides if I would like to buy a domain which is aged, I would check if it is used before on the internet. Any bad history from search engines - seeking traffic tactics - using porn related stuff and so on- those are some possibilities you can face, people always want to achieve their mission by taking lousy shortcuts for SEO and got banned by search engines.

Or the business who preowned that domain had bankrupt leaving bunch of depths to their customers. If I am in the same industry and naming my business, related to that website, I wouldn`t want to receive the bad name from previous owners stinky job..

So yeah it matters if the domain has not succeeded in the past 15 years. And yes it matters if its a used domain or not.

If the domain is not used before it doesn`t mean it is not succeeded.

I think I made it clear on my next statement where I said :

"If I am the seller
I would ask more if it has a clean history, never used let's say in the past 15 years and would add, the age of the domain matters for SEO."

See who is the bozo missing all the important points that you should consider while buying an aged domain.

Coming to your experience from that bozo buyer you mentioned above - I don`t really care cause I don`t even know for which name you guys were negotiating and there is no way you would know if I would even consider buying that domain. Which is totally irrelevant.

Next time carefully choose your words when you are speaking to me.

 

[xynames]

Well you gotta figure that some terms like bitcoin meant nothing in the 1990s, so there are some newer registrations that no one would have thought of back then. And then there are some terms from the 1990s that have fallen out of favor.

But yes, Haris, brilliant! post and great! culling of statistics. I think that really means something that only a few hunny domains from the early days are dropping per day versus TENS OF THOUSANDS dropping per day of the newer registrations.