discuss Your Dos & Don'ts List - Domain Names Investments

My experiences:

1. It is one of the most illiquid investments. Always keep an eye on cash flow.

2. First few months, do not buy any domains. Just study sales and read as many articles as possibles.

3. Completely read Ricks blog.com - every article.

4. Stop following some of the so called famous people. There are so many crooks among bloggers and brokers.

5. Stay away from speculation.

6. Buy small number of high quality names than large number of average names.


7. Stay away from the game of buying for $100 and selling for $200 - learn patience and seek end user sales.


8. Mentally prepare for "Sale-less" depressing days.

9. Always check for trademarks before buying names.

10. Continuously seek to learn new things and upgrade yourself.

So many such.......

*Newbie opinion*
1. In the beginning (where I am), buy a few domains (currently I have about 20) and then try to sell at least one to an end user. Once succeeded I guess you will operate will much bigger confidence (still waiting for my first sell btw :D)
2. Webiste + company because it will looks much more professional (currently thinking about the second option how to do it in the best way).

End of story. Hope it was helpful.

Many new entrants to the domain industry are attracted by the perceived easy money. Register a domain for $10, sell it for thousands. The reality is most industry participants lose money and only a very small percentage of domainers make a full-time living buying and selling domain names.

Professional athletes make a lot of money. However, they say only one in ten thousand high school athletes actually end up playing on an NBA, NFL or major league baseball team. And most professional athletes' careers only last three to four years as many former college starters end up being second and third string players in the professional ranks. So only one in roughly fifty thousand high school athletes will still be playing professional sports by their late twenties. Those odds don't sound too good.

Most new domainers initially focus on registering all kinds of crap reg fee domains. It used to be they had limited TLD options but with the launch of hundreds of new TLDs it has become very easy for newbies to piss away thousands of dollars very easily. And then more when renewal time comes around. I look at the latest registration thread and even the domain you are most proud of threads and shake my head. Why do you believe a business is going to pay money to brand on that domain?

Many domainers after not seeing satisfactory sales performance will do some sort of outbound marketing. Let's see how this might work in another industry. Let's say you download a few songs of a particular music genre onto an IPod total $5. Somehow a band which plays that type of music gets a hold of a list of all users which have downloaded that genre of music onto their IPod. The band then starts promoting their music and offers to do a live performance at your home. How many people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a live performance from some unknown music group? They just wanted to spend $5 to listen to a few songs. That is how we are perceived by end users which already have a domain or whose internet presence is merely a social media site Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc.

So it goes with domaining. Most end users don't place much value on domain names and while they might revert to alternative extensions to meet their $25 max budget for a domain, they rarely are willing to pay a premium for a domain - particular once they have already acquired one and started building a site on it.

I still believe domains can be powerful branding tools. But probably the best advice to someone new to the industry is actually a quote I heard early in my domaining days but ignored... "Don't register a domain with the purpose of reselling it." Why? Because you will probably never sell it.

So hopefully you understand the odds of you making money off domains are against you. So if you want to see better results than what is typical in this industry then obviously you are going to have to do something very different than what most domainers do.

Great Shares so far, very useful points by @nvdomains that also include patience is the key to success the most difficult thing to practice, but could result in the success we are looking for in domain names investments.

Highly respect your rational views @garptrader "Don't register a domain with the purpose of reselling it." Why? Because you will probably never sell it."

@Georgi Vasilev Recommended domaining strategy, really appreciate your feedback.

Please share your experiences, what you DO & what you DO NOT in Domain Names Investments.

nvdomains, some really good points. The most important I think is:

nvdomains said:

2. First few months, do not buy any domains. Just study sales and read as many articles as possibles.

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Adding to that (2a), when you go to buy for the first time, instead of buying that "OMG this one is amazing" domain you found, write it in a text file and in 24 hours (at least) look at it again.

After 24 hours (or 48) is it really still amazing? Or were you just overwhelmed by all the choices?

When you are sifting through rubbish domains one after the other for hours, the one that stands out may just be 'better than the other crap', but that does not mean it's good itself. That's why a 24 hour wait when you are new to the game is a good idea

Let your brain clear of the hundreds/thousands of names you've looked at, and with a fresh mind re-evaluate the name again. If it still seems good, and similar keywords have done well then go for it (and by "similar" I mean actually similar, not some tiny or distant relevance or connection )

garptrader said:

with the launch of hundreds of new TLDs it has become very easy for newbies to piss away thousands of dollars very easily

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This is so true, and at least with less TLDs fewer newcomers buy those crap as someone else has already bought it. Whereas the constant increase in TLDs means people can waste money on the same keywords in a different TLD.