Let's hear YOUR best domain-buying tip

.com is god

I would probably tell them to understand the market before spending a single penny.

I would tell them that any deviation from what the above 2 posters have said will most likely be met with disappointment and failure.

dezinerite said:

I would probably tell them to understand the market before spending a single penny.

Click to expand...

dmi said:

.com is god

Click to expand...

Never, ever buy a name because it's "rare" or you're working toward a "buyout" of a specific type of name.

In other words, registering five-letter .coms or buying LLLL .coms with no development or flawless reselling plan is a waste of your time and money.

The best domain is a memorable one, not necessarily a short one.

If an idea pops into your head for a great domain, triple check the spelling. Read it out loud to yourself to ensure it makes sense.

Developing a domain always earns more in the long run than reselling.

Buy keyword domains with a clear descriptive use. If you are buying "brandables" stick to formats that have liquidity.

Brad

Spend at least one month of this forum and soak up info like a sponge.

Unless you have deep pockets and can secure generic .coms, learn to develop in some sense...mini sites, blogs, whatever

Better to have few high quality names than a boatload of crappy ones

Read the sales threads here and notice the difference between what people think their domains are worth and what people will actually pay for them, if anything.

DO NOT rely SOLELY on automated appraisals to determine the value of a domain name but use them as one part of your research arsenal.

Learn to understand the metrics when doing keyword search counts. Just because Google or Yahoo tools show that the set of keyword domains you're looking at gets thousands of searches, does not always mean they actually do.

You cannot always use metrics for "call to action" or "popular sayings" type of domains. It's an art. It helps to have some marketing and advertising experience to understand them better.

Have a concrete and WORKABLE plan for each domain name (development or sales). FOLLOW THROUGH on those plans!

Stay away from trademarks (usually).

It's hard to make a profit from day one. (I was lucky since I started when there were about 75k LLLL.coms available, and literally I was able to hand-reg them and flip them for double profit very quickly.) Instead consider developing some of your domains.

Use as many tools / online resources as possible - not only will it save you a hell of a lot of time but it can really help you find the best bargains and make a lot more money in the long run.

Hype is your enemy. If you're a sucker for following the crowd, domaining isn't for you.

dmi said:

.com is god

Click to expand...

The Father of all Gods!

register typos of high traffic websites

-REECE- said:

I would tell them that any deviation from what the above 2 posters have said will most likely be met with disappointment and failure.

Click to expand...

The first point is pretty much spot on, I disagree with the second though. It depends entirely on who you're going after as your client base; if you're going for end users most extensions will be okay as long as you're able to justify the purchase of them, if you're just selling to other domainers then .com is where you should stay. I don't agree with the "anything but .com is worthless" mentality though, maybe because I focus more on development than buying to flip.

samuelhr said:

Hype is your enemy. If you're a sucker for following the crowd, domaining isn't for you.

Click to expand...

:bingo:

Have a development plan or idea for every domain you own.

Buy low, Sell high and don't exhaust all your funding into one project.

Found out how you would develop the name. if you cant think of any reason move on.

There are several different general ways to do domaining, any of them can be successful with sufficient study. Any of them can lose your money, too.

Generic keywords with sexy PPC income are not likely to be hand registered or found for sale for much below their value. If you have a lot of money to invest then you might get a stock market level percentage yield here or somewhat better, probably capital appreciation, as well. A lot of knowledge is needed to evaluate these names and phony data is not uncommon.

Flipping names also takes a lot of knowledge, some are successful even now but others got caught when the market fell with the recession.

Buying for later resale (like growth stocks) is my primary focus. The internet is growing at a rapid pace, so overall values are rising (the recession has brought values down, I am speaking long term). Balance that with the fact that renewals are costly. The main question to ask is: Who is your market? There are two that count - businesses will pay quite a bit for the domain that they need, and domain collectors will create a baseline price for names that they want.

This second market is the advantage of short domains. If you have decent or better LLL. in the popular extensions or LLLL.coms then you can sell anytime for at least a minimum price, while still having the possibility of an end user paying much more for one of your domains. And there is a good chance, after the recession, that the overall value of your domains will rise.

accentnepal said:

This second market is the advantage of short domains. If you have decent or better LLL. in the popular extensions or LLLL.coms then you can sell anytime for at least a minimum price, while still having the possibility of an end user paying much more for one of your domains. And there is a good chance, after the recession, that the overall value of your domains will rise.

Click to expand...

This assumes that the day when the penny drops and everyone realises L*s are worthless and only hold value between domainers, except for a few rare cases, never comes.

Really, find me a domainer who invested heavily in L*s who has had more than 1% of sales to end users. Take a look at what happened with LLLL.net's, there was a shitstorm over LLLL.coms and everyone got suckered in, then LLLL.nets came, loads bought into them and now are massively out of pocket. Even Reece, the super domainer is selling them at low prices, he knows the boat is sinking.

L*s will only ever work short term, you can't rely on them to be anything more than a quick buck within a few days. It's going to happen, it'll be the domaining apocolypse when everyone eventually realises that L*s are going in a big circle. Domainer #1 buys it for reg fee, sells to another domainer based on hype, they sell on again, then the next buyer realises the value is tumbling and ends up selling at less than he bought it and this keeps happening until the domain is dropped.

It's a never ending cycle and if you do anything but take advantage of this - Like Reece has, which I commend him for - you're going to end up in the street crying. It's not and never will be a long term investment, buy L*s at a cheap price, sell them a few days later, don't buy them at 'market' (haha, like there is a market for them anymore but between domainers) and think "I bet if I hold onto this it'll be worth a bit more soon".

This comes from first hand experience, I've sold LLLL.net's for ~$30 during the "hype" and then I can now see these domains being sold for <reg fee. Proof is in the pudding, LLLL.coms have gone to about $15 min price, used to be $60.

There is a market for high end LLLLs, of course, but they're not reallu LLLLs. Sure, they have 4 letters but they don't match the pattern, the majority have meaning.

Well, this is not a discussion of LLL and LLLLs, and these questions have been dealt with frequently in the short domain section, but I will make two short points:

The overall internet is growing rapidly (30% per year in 2007, about half that in recession year 2008, I believe). There is no sign that this expansion will taper off anytime soon - indeed the move to the mobile web will probably accelerate the demand for domains. Yet the number of short domains is unchanging. Short domains' advantages (less to type on small keyboards, less to misspell) are highlighted on mobile. As the market grows, sectors that were of low value become premium. (The trick to reg-fee domaining is to anticipate which sectors)

As to the collector value suddenly vanishing --- How many silver dollars are sold for their silver content? How many 100 year old stamps are used for postage? Baseball cards and comic books used for kindling? People collect all kinds of things, and barring a major economic depression, (we are nowhere close now), they will continue to collect, it is part of human nature. And their holdings, if well chosen, will continue to appreciate, overall, if the domain market grows.

Just goes to show that there are a variety of opinions as to how to make money in domains - but I believe that there is a great deal of agreement among experienced domainers as to how to lose money in domains--- buy domains without studying the market carefully. Guaranteed losers, lots and lots of people do it.

Actually, the number of "short" domains out there is always growing. Many of the domain genres that have value by mere virtue of their shortness today (LLLL.com, CVCVC.com) weren't worth much at all 5 years ago, and neither were triple-premium LLL.com's 12 years ago. As the total space of registered domains continues to expand, the definition of the "short' domain will slacken proportionally.

to buy domains one at a time and really do the due diligence to make sure you actually like the domain niche before you spend a dime. dont worry about what you missed out on regging, concentrate on 1 domain at a time.