Dynadot

information Did You Achieve Your Domaining Goals This Year?

NameSilo
Last December, I published an article entitled “By this time next year, I will…” which outlined my own domaining goals for 2017. Almost a year on from that article, I thought it would be an opportune time to review the year to see whether those goals had been met. As of writing, the original article received sixty-six comments with many other domainers making their own goals for 2017. Did you achieve your goals? Comment below.


Buying One-Word .COM’s

One of my main targets for 2017 was to buy a great one-word .COM domain. Did I achieve this? No. Although I spent significant time researching potential purchases, I ultimately decided that a better short-term return on investment would come from liquid domains such as three-character .COM’s. This proved to be correct, as I bought and sold several valuable names within this category.

Whilst I didn’t personally buy any one-word .COM’s, I did broker several one-word domain names for five and six-figure fees.


hustle.jpg
Selling Speculative Domains

At the start of 2017, a portion of my domain portfolio was dedicated to six-number and five-letter .COM’s thanks to the popularity of these domains amongst Chinese domain investors in 2015 and 2016.

I sold all of these domain names at wholesale value within the first three months of 2017 and put the funds into the purchase of a four-character domain name, which I later sold for a 4,000% return on investment. I took a loss on the five-letter and six-number domains, but I reinvested those funds into something that would be more likely to sell for a higher amount.

This proved to be right, and it was a reminder to me that taking a loss isn’t necessarily always a bad move.


Speeding Up My Email Replies

Organization was often a problem for me in the past, which sometimes lead to emails remaining unanswered. Fortunately, there are many plugins and apps available that will help even the most disorganized person to become a functional professional.

Thanks to the addition of tools such as the CRM plugin Streak and this useful IFTTT applet, I was able to keep on top of emails and maintain a greater control of my inbox. Since domaining is largely an industry based online, it’s important to keep on top of incoming messages, reminders and alerts.


Sell a Domain for Five Figures

One of my goals for 2017 was to sell a domain from my own portfolio for five-figures. From a brokerage perspective, I achieved this comfortably. From my personal portfolio, I didn't get an individual five-figure sale but I did get several mid to high four-figure sales along with a five-figure sale for multiple names. As a side note, I did turn down a five-figure offer on a domain name I own, purely because I feel it's worth more.

In terms of sales, I believe it's important to set yourself realistic targets to aim for. These targets can be motivational and an excellent way to focus.


How did you do with regards to domain investing in 2017? Did you achieve what you wanted to? Looking forward to next year, how will you improve? Please feel free to post your review of your own year below, or post your domaining goals for next year.
 
20
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Not sure about you but for those of us who rely on inbound via WHOIS, the decision to remove WHOIS from .IO domains has really put a damper on the inquiries that I received. Pretty much immediately after the registry decided to stop showing WHOIS I noticed a steep drop-off in inquiries (and thus sales). Now, I have also noticed similar from my GoDaddy registrations. Many of my names show only a barebones WHOIS and I do not have privact set at GD. Inquiries have come to a halt, especially .IO

I have several .IM domains and the time I bought them (many years back), they don't have any field to show email IDs in WHOIS so I asked the registry if it's allowed to enter my email ID in like address field and it was fine for them. So I added and can check an example here - https://www.nic.im/public/whois.mth?domainname=travel.im&search=Who+Is+Search

I'm not sure about .IO domains but you may ask or try if there is no restriction to add email ID in like Address 2 field.
 
3
•••
Well, yes I did although, my basic goals were not " money / sales based " per se.

I wanted to explore and enter a few new, for me, " niche markets " , micro - niche really, and began to do so by acquiring a dozen or so " new niche " names and, continue researching others.

Also wanted to explore more speculative, fast moving domain sectors and again, acquired a dozen-ish names with IMO " make or break " opportunities ahead.

My 2018 goals are essentially the same with a more organized / focused / aggressive acquisition process.

And another " boring goal achievement " of 2017 was doing domain re-pricing.

So in effect yes, did achieve basic 2017 goals.
 
1
•••
I failed at these 2017 goals:
1) reduce inventory by half
2) obtain a 3-Letter .com for my personal use/collection
3) have a 6-figure sale (had some 5-figure offers on some of my best domains, but negotiations stalled)

On a positive note, I was able to do these:
A) have enough sales to cover my portfolio renewal fees and the costs for a few new domain names I purchased this year
B) setup a domain market place (I am actually evaluating two services (ToughDomains and Efty). Will pick one to stick with next year.

Well, now I have the same goals for 2018 (1, 2, and 3 above).

Happy Holidays everyone and hope you reach all your domaining goals in 2018 :)

Regards,
DN
 
8
•••
Rejected low balled offers, still hopeful off something great before the year runs out.
Trust God that 2018 starts with a bang for me.
 
4
•••
I could get hardly 1000 clickes this year
 
0
•••
A good domaining year overall

Positives:

1. Acquired domains i really wanted for my own business projects. It is why i got into domaining.
2. Improved quality of my portfolio with dictionary-word.com and good 2-word.com domains.
3. Helped some start-ups with naming and domain acquisition.
4. Could afford renewal of most domains i liked.
5. Decent sales with efty inbound inquiries.

Things to Improve:

1. Create better sales channel. Need to list my domains on sedo, afternic, etc
2. Try some outbound marketing.


Feel Positive about an upcoming 2018. Wish you all a great successful year ahead !!!
 
8
•••
Not sure about you but for those of us who rely on inbound via WHOIS, the decision to remove WHOIS from .IO domains has really put a damper on the inquiries that I received. Pretty much immediately after the registry decided to stop showing WHOIS I noticed a steep drop-off in inquiries (and thus sales). Now, I have also noticed similar from my GoDaddy registrations. Many of my names show only a barebones WHOIS and I do not have privact set at GD. Inquiries have come to a halt, especially .IO

I reckon all whois will be removed at somepoint

Not sure about you but for those of us who rely on inbound via WHOIS, the decision to remove WHOIS from .IO domains has really put a damper on the inquiries that I received. Pretty much immediately after the registry decided to stop showing WHOIS I noticed a steep drop-off in inquiries (and thus sales). Now, I have also noticed similar from my GoDaddy registrations. Many of my names show only a barebones WHOIS and I do not have privact set at GD. Inquiries have come to a halt, especially .IO

I reckon all whois will be removed Ed at some point

I had a similar convo earlier this week about the future of whois etc if it is removed completely

Registrars should have a check box available in the checkout section when a person buys a domain name whereby all domain names are listed for sale on all formats for free unless the person buying the domain unchecks the box and that would then save so much time for domain name investors as the name would be automatically listed for sale it would just mean that the registrar would take 20% from the sale price and the buyer would negotiate with the registrar direct and seller only negotiate with registrar etc to
 
1
•••
me?

I don't set goals lol

so I don't achieve them lol

Back to domaining

I enjoyed this thread you posted last year and didn't realise it had been a year already

Time flies

This year

My portfolio has evolved somewhat

I had and still have a few legal domain names as I do enjoy buying them and sitting on them in cctld etc

I bought a few 5L brandables of which half or so of these I will let expire

I allowed about 30% of my original portfolio to expire many of this 30% or so were dot coms and cctlds

I do have quite a few pre order gtlds that I have pre ordered for free and get to decide whether I want to buy them when the gtld is about to go live and the price of the gtld us revealed etc

I have bought 3 idn. Coms for reg fee

Plus I have bought approx 20 x (2x emoji) website addresses as emoji domains are visual and as such are universal and instantly recognised irrespective of language in any country etc

I was using emoji 's in 2003 and the emoji film was in 2017 and emoji websites although some were registered in 2003 ish era many people and businesses haven't got a clue that emoji 'domain names exist - my emoji domain names were bought for less than £5 each reg fee

I bought 4 x

.gold gtlds at £5 ish reg fee but they renew at £105 ish per. Gold gtld so I may let these expire

Continued to renew surname in dot com
And this year bought it in. uk as also have it in. Co.uk as well but happy to sit on that for quite some time

Sales?

no sales this year

But as I can't be bothered to list them or do outbound and no inbound enquiries mind you as I don't bother answering the phone to unknown numbers on principle lol I wouldn't know if I did have inbound enquiries lol

So if you are thinking of buying any of my domains etc I only read texts and sometimes just might read an email either text or email would need to state
Offer for domain and price offered on first line of text for me to be bothered to reply

I. I have not fussed if I sell a domain or not as I have a particular investment strategy that I apply to sticks and shares and domain names which I tried out with stocks and shares and it works for me which to be fair is all it needs to work for lol

I like sequences patterns trends numerical puzzles and solving codes etc and finding good quality domain names within a domain name registrar search box is highly enjoyable to me lol

Sales are just the icing on the cake but many an enjoyable cake doesn't have icing lol

I bought a couple of really good two keyword dot coms both very liquid one futuristic that is fast becoming liquid and a couple of grocery delivery tech concept domains

A few of my domain names are tech concept idea based as when I have the tech concept idea I but the dot com of the idea straight away and just sit on it until I can be bothered to do anything with it or wait until someone else has the same idea I had before them that they want to develop etc

But learnt to day trade cryptocurrency this year which I am quite interested in

So all good
 
2
•••
I archive all income and expenses in domaining since 2006. I never keep more than 250 domains so the renewal isn't that bad. My best sale ever was november 2016, mid 5-fig profit from single domain, in 2017 I had few $x,xxx sales over Uniregistry. Hope we'll all get better next year. Good luck.
 
5
•••
I am going to complete my two years of domaining so i am very happy what i made in 2016 , 2017 , and now Hopeful for 2018 .
The experienced was really good and learned lot of things from you guys over here .

Wish You Merry Christmas to all Buddies . Stay around :xf.smile:

Best Regards
 
3
•••
The first 9 months of this year I didn't even knew I would be a novice domainer at the end of the year.
(you can find my story here)

Last three months I spend reading about the industry (learned most here; the info available here is truly awesome for a noob as me), checking sales figures, watching auctions etc.

And I've been hoarding domains; strolling through expireddomains.net, keeping an eye at expiring domains and bought them when I thought it was worth the extra bucks. Time will tell since I haven't sold a domain yet, but that's fine; didn't expect anything else.

My goals for 2018:

* Learn how to build a (semi professional) website
* Learn how to write descent emails in English to potential endusers
* Explore sale platforms other than Sedo
* Sell at least 1 domain
* Get rid of the domains I regged but regretted the moment I paid for them; the regs I regged for the sake of regging.

* Try not to become an addict to this game/hobby

Wish you all a great last week of 2017 & a stunning 2018!

Cheers from the Netherlands,

Jan

 
6
•••
I am a newcomer when it comes to the matter of making money through domain business and 2017 is almost gone but I think in 2018 I can set and achieve some goals in the domain flipping of a thing.
 
2
•••
2017 was a year of great learning and growth. I started buying domains in October/November last year, buying an embarrassing number of .co, .me and .us names at $1/$2/$3 promotions.

I surprisingly made my money back on those with 10-15 sales ranging from $50-300. I dropped 99% of the rest when renewals came around.

Early in 2017 I regged a few .coms from expired lists, and in August one of those sold for $1,000 - biggest sale of the year - which made me realize I was wasting my time with everything else and I should focus on .com.

I would have probably broken even for the year if in the last couple of months I hadn’t spent as much as I have on acquisitions. But I’ve turned my portfolio of 3-400 from less than 5% .com to about 70% .com and maybe 20% .org, so I’m going into 2018 with much higher hopes.

But the most important thing is I’ve acquired a handful of domains I’m quite proud of for my own projects/business endeavors, and I have begun crafting a strategy for flipping the domains I won’t be keeping.

Goals for 2018: flip 51% of my portfolio for a profit (whether it’s significant or marginal flipping); be in profit overall including renewals for the following year, and figure out a non-intrusive outbound strategy that puts domains in the hands of users who actually need them/will use them.
 
3
•••
We have had a great year in 2017. Sold 27 domains in total. Most in the $5000 bracket but one for over $300,000 (the.club)
 
5
•••
We have had a great year in 2017. Sold 27 domains in total. Most in the $5000 bracket but one for over $300,000 (the.club)

Well done, more power to your elbow.
 
0
•••
Back