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

Domainzy said:

Saying: hand registered domains are worthless is completely inaccurate
Saying: drop domains are worth more than hand regs is completely inaccurate.

Its all about the name, timing and or traffic. Not about how old the domain is.

When people say this domain is 15 years old!!! I always think, so in 15 years no one has started a successful business using that name. But once again, its all about the name/timing/traffic and the effort to sell/develop. Not how old it is.

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Totally agree. It is not hand regging that is the problem, it is hand regging crap.

We all hand reg crap in the beginning, but we learn.

What do we really mean by hand regging anyway?

Unless you come up with some new "brandable" word, practically every idea has been regged already.

You can type almost any word or combination of words into the search box and chances are nearly 100% the name has already been regged before.

So if it has been regged before - is it really a hand reg?

If not, then what are we really saying.

I spend hours and hours each day (too many hours) at this, and while it is very, very, very, very hard work, I find good, previously regged names all the time, and yes, I do sell them.

The key is thorough research before you buy.

Sure, I still reg crap sometimes, and I usually only realize it after I get some sleep and look at it the next day.

Its gonna happen, you can't avoid it.

We all get excited about a name and pull the rigger too fast only to realize later it is not as good as we thought.

One more thing to add - how many times have you read the domain sales data and seen the worst crap that
someone paid $x,xxx for and said to yourself - "wow, I never would buy that name".

It blows my mind to see what end users will spend big bux for.

This is all just a big, big gamble anyway unless you can afford to buy the big money, single word, short names.

I have renewed names, sometimes old names, that never sold, and you would say they are crap, and then I let them go, and someone else regged them and then sold them when I didn't.

This has happened to me several times, so I think nobody here at NP, or anywhere else can ever say definitively what a "good" name is or what is crap.

I don't even bother with the drops much any more, and I just buy a name here and there at GD expired or closeouts, or I find good, previously owned "hand regs".

Also remember that most brandables were considered worthless crap just a few years ago and now they sell like crazy.

As @Domainzy has said, it is all about the timing.

You can say a name is crap because it sat unused for a while and so you think it is worthless.

But someone will want that name at some point and if you are the owner when that happens, guess what - you win.

Yes, there are names that will never, ever sell, but after a while doing this you will get the knack of what is complete garbage and what has potential.

It just takes lots of time and research and you will get the hang of it.

I have sold handregs without any outbound marketing but only in .COM.

kaz2 said:

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).

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I've sold many hand registered domains privately, on GoDaddy Afternic and most BrandBucket's names are hand registered names, and all of these sales the endusers inquired on them. Believe me people buy them and I mean endusers, have sold many in the range of $1000 to $5000. The trick is to have a lot lets say more than 500 names and the chances will only increase, but they have to be good names. And there are many good names to be hand registered, but mostly only buy .COMs! The golden nuggets are there, you have to know how to find them and what not to register. Hope this helps, this is my 2 cents of experience.

Well worth exploring the marketplace right here at Namepros, good luck with it

Hand regged names are good because of the technologies that continiously change and evolve.
This about this:
Drones didn't exist 15 years ago.
So now do you think the first person who tought of registering drone.com won?
I have hand regged droniste.ca.
I have hand regged dronautique.com In English its dronautics.com
If a new technology comes up called: performatem, you bet the first person to reg performatem.com will win.

Have done quite well with hand regs particularly in .ca

Emerging technologies are always a good reg. I usually go on a little reg spree when reading news.

Recently I have regged several drone related .ca and driverless car .com names.

The key to hand regs is knowing up front you will likely not sell it for 5 - 10 years. However I am not one to hold out for the big one so if a fair offer comes my way then sell and move on to the next one.

HiTechBiniou said:

Nope! Nerver get to sell those two domain names.
And as a matter of fact, they are available right now if you want to register them...
Good luck selling them.

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That's a shame, seems like those would have been popular. I'm sitting on dronesim . com and dronesimulator . com now. Have a blog there which is fun. Not really much interest other than the occassional request to put up a banner ad.

Ang said:

Have done quite well with hand regs particularly in .ca

Emerging technologies are always a good reg. I usually go on a little reg spree when reading news.

Recently I have regged several drone related .ca and driverless car .com names.

The key to hand regs is knowing up front you will likely not sell it for 5 - 10 years. However I am not one to hold out for the big one so if a fair offer comes my way then sell and move on to the next one.

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I bought a dozen or so .com domains with the word 'coin' or 'blockchain' in them. Just had them parked and one sold out of the blue for $299 ( titlecoin . com)

there seem to be a lot of .io domains available. Anyone had any luck with that TLD? I've seen a few successful startups using it.

Know your goals.

Dont have unrealistic expectations. Have a plan.

Acquire quality domains.

Stay within your budget.

Understand the market.

Keep learning, managing, expanding.

The best rule of domaining is that there are no rules.. Be ethical, avoid legal issues, work hard and have fun. If youre good, you'll do fine.

Every domain started out as Hand-reg. Having said that also better to go through drop lists and aftermarket premium domains to build portfolios.