discuss What's the state of the brandable domain market?

good observation

This is the main issue with brandables, the sales are not constant....but also I think that trends are changing, and pure invented names, including 5 letter names, have less buyers at the moment. The main issue with marketplaces like BB is that if they accept a name now, they have to list it in 5 years as well, even if the trends have changed, so they have accepted tons of invented names and the sale rate for them is down and they can not say 'no, it's not good anymore. It's easier for domainers with big and diverse portofolios , because even if some names are not in trend, for sure they have some that sale, but if you have 100 names and 99% are invented, then you can expect some hard times. I'm not saying that there aren't any sales at all for invented one's, but less than it used to be.

Overall if the quality of the domains are high enough there's still interest in brandable names for sure.
Fully invented ones probably not as much unless it sounds really original. Semi-keyword ones would fare better and 2 keyword I still think is the best bet.
The rollercoaster case situation is the same I think for everyone in the brandables' business.
April-May specifically is tax season for a lot of individuals and businesses in Canada at least (I'm sure US also), so that for sure has an impact.
In terms of demands vs supply, I definitely think buyers have a lot of options these days, so either your name better be top notch or your price better be really affordable... alot of the semi-good names aren't going anywhere unless getting $100 for a name bought for reg is considered success..
The other issue which i have to deal with is several let's say over $250 for several names.. Usually I never accept any, but when you get 6-7 x $250 offers, it can start to add up, but I don't want to kill the average sales prices either.
It's a constant hustle though.. not a walk in the park that's for sure.

pokainc said:

Overall if the quality of the domains are high enough there's still interest in brandable names for sure.
Fully invented ones probably not as much unless it sounds really original. Semi-keyword ones would fare better and 2 keyword I still think is the best bet.
The rollercoaster case situation is the same I think for everyone in the brandables' business.
April-May specifically is tax season for a lot of individuals and businesses in Canada at least (I'm sure US also), so that for sure has an impact.
In terms of demands vs supply, I definitely think buyers have a lot of options these days, so either your name better be top notch or your price better be really affordable... alot of the semi-good names aren't going anywhere unless getting $100 for a name bought for reg is considered success..
The other issue which i have to deal with is several let's say over $250 for several names.. Usually I never accept any, but when you get 6-7 $250 offers, it can start to add up, but I don't want to kill the average sales prices either

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I was wondering why jan to march was so great and then april and this month quieter...I had some demands from turkey, ucraine, france, but nothing from Us, and usually most of them are US based. A good thing is to diversify as well, even if you don't like org, co, io, me and ngtl's, it's good to reach to all markets, so that you don't depend just on one niche.

I'm not a fan of anything but .com 99.9% of the time. The diversification part I believe more in the different industry keywords which would span food, tech, transport, fitness, fashion and so-on.. I believe that's a better diversification, but tech /business industry related names usually end-up faring the best or at least receive the higher offers

pokainc said:

I'm not a fan of anything but .com 99.9% of the time. The diversification part I believe more in the different industry keywords which would span food, tech, transport, fitness, fashion and so-on.. I believe that's a better diversification, but tech /business industry related names usually end-up faring the best or at least receive the higher offers

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I have like 75% com, but I did fairly well with others, like .co and .org. Also, there are some buyers for ngtld's as well, so you can make money with them as well...I have sold one and had like 6 xxx offers for others, but I decided not to sell yet. Regarding brandables, I have found through whois some old time domainers with portofolios of 15k-20k names, so I monitor them every few days or so, to check what they are buying, because usually they know trends before the others.

boker said:

I have like 75% com, but I did fairly well with others, like .co and .org. Also, there are some buyers for ngtld's as well, so you can make money with them as well...I have sold one and had like 6 xxx offers for others, but I decided not to sell yet. Regarding brandables, I have found through whois some old time domainers with portofolios of 15k-20k names, so I monitor them every few days or so, to check what they are buying, because usually they know trends before the others.

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Brandables don't have trends that need watching in my opinion. Two keyword names, 4 and 5Ls that sound and look good, some 6Ls, some names with an added letter, keywords ending in the popular suffixes like Ly etc.. Brandables are pretty straight forward that I don't see to many trends forming that we don't know about.

The main question which I ask myself is simply would I name my own company "this". This being the brandable in question. If you're harsh enough with yourself, then you'll only keep good ones. When there's $1-2 promos, I'm way less harsh haha

hookbox said:

Brandables don't have trends that need watching in my opinion. Two keyword names, 4 and 5Ls that sound and look good, some 6Ls, some names with an added letter, keywords ending in the popular suffixes like Ly etc.. Brandables are pretty straight forward that I don't see to many trends forming that we don't know about.

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I think that there are: like added letter brandabels, 90% of them were available 1 year ago and nobody wanted them, now you can't find any available and there are buyers; also, io as a suffix was very popular a few years ago, but not as much now; also invented names weren't so popoular 5-6 years ago, than it was an explosion of demand for them starting 2-3 years ago and now the cycle is over; also, there are tons of keywords that were in trend a few years ago and not anymore. It's not like everything is changing 100%, but it's changing enough to eat a part of the profits.

pokainc said:

The main question which I ask myself is simply would I name my own company "this". This being the brandable in question. If you're harsh enough with yourself, then you'll only keep good ones. When there's $1-2 promos, I'm way less harsh haha

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I agree with that 100%. The problem is when the name that's available is maybe #25 on your list of what you would name your company. Names #1- #24 are already registered so we settle for #25. Yeah, it's a good name but no where as good as say #1 - #10. Then when an end user goes searching for a certain keyword type name they end up going through #1 - #24. The key, like you said, is to keep only the best so at least the end user is looking at your names on the top of the list instead of on the bottom.

boker said:

I think that there are: like added letter brandabels, 90% of them were available 1 year ago and nobody wanted them, now you can't find any available and there are buyers; also, io as a suffix was very popular a few years ago, but not as much now; also invented names weren't so popoular 5-6 years ago, than it was an explosion of demand for them starting 2-3 years ago and now the cycle is over; also, there are tons of keywords that were in trend a few years ago and not anymore. It's not like everything is changing 100%, but it's changing enough to eat a part of the profits.

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I think the main explosion occurred when a couple of years ago BrandBucket started accepting everything that could be registered accept the absolute junk and even a lot of the junk was accepted too. That cycle has ended because they used to add hundreds of domains daily and now they are adding maybe ten per day if that.

@hookbox , hypothetically let's say #1 to 10 may be sold for 3-5k, but the less better name you may sell it for $800-1500 which you bought for $1-2. I would take that deal anytime. The difficulty is to figure out if you're name is a top ten or less as brandables have alot of different opinions targeted at them.
I'm sure you've gotten also the answer from a potential buyer, this name is not worth more than $100, I won't pay more when you know it's worth over 1k as a dead price.
On the other hand you may get a $500 offer for a name you were thinking of not renewing..

hookbox said:

I think the main explosion occurred when a couple of years ago BrandBucket started accepting everything that could be registered accept the absolute junk and even a lot of the junk was accepted too. That cycle has ended because they used to add hundreds of domains daily and now they are adding maybe ten per day if that.

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I didn't referred just to what was added, I check mostly what is selling. If two years ago you could see that the sold invented names were mostly the same as the keyword based, now it's not the same. Regarding the added names, they still add between 250 and 400 names every week, so that didn't changed to much, what changed was that now a lot of us are using efty and other platforms to list them on our own marketplaces, there are also some small markeplaces and others are using just the big standard markeplaces.

I agree that there's no heavy trends in brandables, but there's definitely "HOT" keywords that come and go. Also alot of names that used to be "hot" that finished in "ly" or "ful" are not as hot anymore.. so there's some trends to check, but I think that's more evident with namebio sales stats.

Brandables are a long term investment. And quality will always sell. Those who think they can reg 1000 random pronounceable 5L - 7L made up words will soon realize the reality come renewal time.

The majority of brandable words that sell are good quality and contain some or all key words.

Always stay diversified; as trends, needs and wants are always changing.

urlurl said:

Brandables are a long term investment. And quality will always sell. Those who think they can reg 1000 random pronounceable 5L - 7L made up words will soon realize the reality come renewal time.

The majority of brandable words that sell are good quality and contain some or all key words.

Always stay diversified; as trends, needs and wants are always changing.

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I am dropping the majority of my random pronounceables. They are so slow to sell it's not worth the holding cost. I have always had good luck with two keyword brandables and focusing most of my efforts there.

As others have said, quality brandables still sell. It's just a matter of quality and price. There is no consistency to the brandables market.

If you look at Mike Mann's April Sales, you'll notice that he had a great month selling all of 14 domains out of how many thousands of names?

The only consistent market for sales is in the liquid domain market. Brandables, two word, emds, are all hit and miss. Quality and pricing is everything. Then it's just a matter of demand and effort.

I have even read that the holding time is around 5 years for brandables. Not sure, but I think I read that. Plus, with brandables, I have seen end users decide to tweak a letter to pay reg fee instead of buying a premium priced made up name.

I like brandable domains, but they are definitely not liquid. I have to work to sell them. Otherwise, it's the NP chopping block.

hookbox said:

I think the main explosion occurred when a couple of years ago BrandBucket started accepting everything that could be registered accept the absolute junk and even a lot of the junk was accepted too. That cycle has ended because they used to add hundreds of domains daily and now they are adding maybe ten per day if that.

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they needed to get more picky on submissions, i see so many random names, i'm surprised were even accepted in the first place.

boker said:

I have like 75% com, but I did fairly well with others, like .co and .org. Also, there are some buyers for ngtld's as well, so you can make money with them as well...I have sold one and had like 6 xxx offers for others, but I decided not to sell yet. Regarding brandables, I have found through whois some old time domainers with portofolios of 15k-20k names, so I monitor them every few days or so, to check what they are buying, because usually they know trends before the others.

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Can you show me how to monitor them " portofolios of 15k-20k names, so I monitor them every few days or so, to check what they are buying,"
Where to check them buying domain names? Assuming start with whois their name and email info.... Which website you can see buyers buy new names everyday?

hookbox said:

Brandable sales for me are up and down and nothing really consistent as has been in the past few years. I've noticed that the BrandBucket approved and listed names seems like a dying market also and is almost dead. I saw one thread where a domainer here is giving away BrandBucket listed names for free.

Has the brandable space just been flooded with so many names that there is way more inventory then demand on both the wholesale and end user side?

The thing that is confusing is lower priced expired names seem to be selling for decent money at Godaddy auctions. Doesn't make sense to me. Has the wind been taken out of the sails of the brandable market or is something else going on that I don't see?

What are your thoughts?

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you are right everything is falling appart
you are to late to the game
long time ago the best domains were all taken
and the bigs guys take away all the money

and 99.999% of all domainers lose money

did I miss anything?


welcome to the club

( just got an offer of 2.5K Euro on a hand reg of 2015 )

I'm willing to bet the actual numbers haven't changed all that much ... particularly for the made up word brandables that I think made refer to when they simply say brandable (we need to come up with clear industry-wide sub-categories .. lol)

HOWEVER ...

There are a few very important things to keep in mind:

1- Those sales numbers were likely never as high as you thought they were in the first place.

2- SOME companies are choosing to go with single word ngTLD's (or re-purposedTLD's like .co .tv etc). Possibly in figuring that if their client is going to have to remember something non-standard, maybe it's better for that part to be 2-4 characters left of the dot instead of a longer or invented name left of .com.

3- BrandBucket's early success created much more awareness and attention on short made up brandables. In turn many more domainers focused on such domains and now there are much more floating around being held by domainers, while the numbers of buyers has certainly not grown proportionally higher. Which equals a lower overall percentage being sold.

4- A good chunk of BrandBucket's success is that domainers pay them to dilute their own inventory. I'll be honest and say I haven't really spent too much time looking at BrandBuckets .. but the couple of times I did I'd have to say that the majority of domains I saw were just out right horrible. They were definitely taking $10 from domainers on names they knew would never sell. At this point they have so many domains it's pointless to submit new ones as they will only get lost in a sea of pretty much similar domains. not only do your domains have to be among the best .. but they also have to be lucky to even just be seen! I suppose having really bad ones there at $1500 helps makes the good ones look like an amazing deal at $5000. So in the end many domainers pay them $10 to essentially help them sell someone else's domain for more expensive. then they charge you 30% plus $50-100 for a sub-par logo that someone at Fivrr could have done a better job at for $5. So while BrandBuckets have been very successful as a BUSINESS .. your Brandables DOMAINS on BrandBuckets never were (unless they were there back in the days when there was far less competing inventory).
(Note I'm certainly not saying ALL their domains are bad .. there were definitely some good ones .. but it can't be denied that there's a whole lot of garbage)

4b- So as domainers bought into the whole BrandBuckets thing .. they had this illusion of success when BB "selected" their domains. But at the end of the day selection at BB means absolutely nothing until they actually sell your domain .. at 2% turnover that means the average domain will sit there for 50 years before being sold. Yes this is the same timeframe as it would have been .. but if it's the same then what's the point of paying all the extras and giving them exclusivity. Particularly also considering they are accepting more domains much faster than they are selling them .. so at this point it's likely less than 2% and only going down as time goes by.

5- A lot of domainers simply don't pick good made up brandable words. There is a extreme difference in quality (and chances of being sold) just between various 5L made-up pronuncable .com's. A lot of both obvious and non-obvious pronunciation and language-based factors. So many domainers see their brandables not moving and assume it's because of a soft "Brandable domain market" .. when in fact it's simply that they chose the wrong domains that would likely never have sold even if it was up on brandbuckets and their entire database went offline except for that one domain.


I could go on .. but I need to sleep before "sleep" becomes an invented 5L brandable to me .. lol

I have been collecting brandables and actual people names mostly female names and appreciate this thread. I do believe brandables are a long game.

However, I see beyond just a web presence for a startup business. I hear about "Amica" every morning on my TV. It's an insurance company using a female first name. All drug brand names are brandables for awhile now "Trulicity" "Viberzi" "Lyrica" are a few examples. Car names are brandables. Names for toys, games, educational and otherwise- always catchy and brandable. Let's not forget apps. .And products of all kinds need names food snacks etc and stores and as seen on tv every five seconds someone creates some product they sell and on and on and on.

So I guess my point is I agree with you that it's a long game but I don't believe brandables are going away any time soon. The quality ones, when they become a must have for someone will pay off.

But when I go to the website Shortnames.com I see 4 and 5 letters, pronounceable domain names selling at Godaddy, Ebay, Namejet, Ename auctions between $400 and $2000 and it costs $15 to register a domain name. When people here say they are not selling I don't get it. Can you explain the reason you are saying the brandables are not selling? maybe I am wrong as I am new in this business. And can anyone explain to me what is BrandBucket domain names? Is this a company or what? I don't understand it.

One more thing, they are many 4-5 letters domains that are currently on Auction that will be ending in few days and have many bids