advice What Am I Doing Wrong?

Some of your names are just plain bad others are good names in a low or lower end extension. Classic newbie mistake of assuming that the name if valuable in dot com must also be valuable in another extension - not always the case.

You’re also compounding the mistake by creating a misspelled domain name - “brandable” - that are harder to sell anyway than exact match real word domains - and attaching these already harder to sell brandables to a lesser used extension.

Who told you domains sell in a short period of time?

This is a waiting game and you will fare better with all dot coms, realistic prices and expectations.

Domains take years and even decades to sell and that’s if they are any good. Even good domains go unsold thus so many aged domains floating around. Quick sales happen for good names but they are the exception.

Domaining is not some get rich quick type undertaking. You have to have patience and buy good names.

karmaco said:

Who told you domains sell in a short period of time?

This is a waiting game and you will fare better with all dot coms, realistic prices and expectations.

Domains take years and even decades to sell and that’s if they are any good. Even good domains go unsold thus so many aged domains floating around. Quick sales happen for good names but they are the exception.

Domaining is not some get rich quick type undertaking. You have to have patience and buy good names.

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I never set out to get rich from this, it is a hobby and I guess maybe a possible side hustle; I have my main revenue streams locked down. But thanks for reminding me on the patience side of things. I've read conflicting statements about buying expired domains. Some people claim that it's quite damaging to the future website, as the Google algorithms do not take kindly to switching up a site with the same domain. It's almost seen as a black-hat technique? I've also heard that if somebody wants the domain, they won't care of the traffic, the traffic sources or history of the domain.

xynames said:

Some of your names are just plain bad others are good names in a low or lower end extension. Classic newbie mistake of assuming that the name if valuable in dot com must also be valuable in another extension - not always the case.

You’re also compounding the mistake by creating a misspelled domain name - “brandable” - that are harder to sell anyway than exact match real word domains - and attaching these already harder to sell brandables to a lesser used extension.

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Cheers, blunt and upfront which is how I like it.
Points taken on board

Those people you contacted were probably fellow domainers or an existing business. Maybe you quoted too high. Don’t contact anyone who holds a trademark.

On the expired, they are fine if you do some research to clear the name TESS and make sure it’s not blacklisted etc.

It took me months until I started to understand what domains are worth investing in and am still learning. It's great that you are researching techniques and you will only grow with time

Here are some of my suggestions:

1. Because you are fairly new at this, I would stick to .com's only.
2. You may have better luck selling (stay patient!) if you find domains with keywords that have a high search volume (exact match searches are ideal). Brandables are harder to sell and even if you have a good one, it still may take a long time to sell.
3. if a domain is registered in multiple extensions that usually is a good sign (not a requirement), but it could mean that the name is more desirable than others. *Always check TESS for trademarks before registering

Best of luck!

Submit the below to Squad Help, Brandpa and Brandbucket and see what they say....

SpyGr (dot) com
Crystalizes (dot) com
InvestCut (dot) com

It sounds like you have done many things right @Junglist101. Reading a lot, mainly investing in established extensions, not bad choices overall in names, trying a few different niches, not acquiring a huge number of domains right off, listing them multiple places, be clear on what you view your role in domains to be, etc.

I think the most important point is patience is required. Results vary, but on average the probability of sale is of order of 1 chance in 100 of a sale in a year. So if for example you have 20 domain names, one has 1 chance in 5 off a sale at the end of a year.

I don't personally do outbound, but I think those that do get a fairly low percentage of positive replies.

I agree with @MrAcidic that it is worthwhile seeing if a brandable market will list the names that apply to that. I would also try Gymm . While you pay hefty commissions with the brandable places, they do have higher sales prices (in general) and better sell through rates, so the net is still good.

I have not searched all of your names, but I checked out your lander was for DreamProperty (a nice name, although .net sell for less than .com). It goes to Undeveloped, that have nice landers. Views vary, but I see that you have no BIN set and also do not use a full identity. Some research suggests that names priced right with a BIN (while still allowing other offers) are more likely to sell, and also those who use real identities are more likely to lead to offers. I realize there are arguments against BIN and against real identity, so just raise it as something to think about.

Making money from domain names is neither fast nor assured nor easy. Have the patience to hold out, and that first sale, even if it is for a modest amount, feels very good. Best wishes for success.

Bob

Bob Hawkes said:

It sounds like you have done many things right @Junglist101. Reading a lot, mainly investing in established extensions, not bad choices overall in names, trying a few different niches, not acquiring a huge number of domains right off, listing them multiple places, be clear on what you view your role in domains to be, etc.

I think the most important point is patience is required. Results vary, but on average the probability of sale is of order of 1 chance in 100 of a sale in a year. So if one for example you have 20 domain names, one has 1 chance in 5 off a sale at the end of a year.

I don't personally do outbound, but I think those that do get a fairly low percentage of positive replies.

I agree with @MrAcidic that it is worthwhile seeing if a brandable market will list the names that apply to that. I would also try Gymm . While you pay hefty commissions with the brandable places, they do have higher sales prices (in general) and better sell through rates, so the net is still good.

I have not searched all of your names, but I checked out your lander was for DreamProperty (a nice name, although .net sell for less than .com). It goes to Undeveloped, that have nice landers. Views vary, but I see that you have no BIN set and also do not use a full identity. Some research suggests that names priced right with a BIN (while still allowing other offers) are more likely to sell, and also those who use real identities are more likely to lead to offers. I realize there are arguments against BIN and against real identity, so just raise it as something to think about.

Making money from domain names is neither fast nor assured nor easy. Have the patience to hold out, and that first sale, even if it is for a modest amount, feels very good. Best wishes for success.

Bob

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Nice tip about using using your real identity, I am under private seller on DAN.

Might give it a crack with my name....Nick

I think the biggest issue is unrealistic expectations.

Brad

Junglist101 said:

I've been researching and learning the ropes within the domaining world for the last 5 or so weeks. This is a fairly short period of time, so I don't expect to be anything else apart from a beginner. However, I feel I have made huge progress in my knowledge and understanding of things. I can look at the first lot of names I purchased and realise how they were terrible, as example.

I've been reading a lot on this forum, all over the internet in general actually, and I've been playing the Domain Game App, which has sharpened my instinct somewhat. I've taken a look at what sells, and how people are selling domains. I've studied techniques for cold calling in outbounds, market place auctions, and yet I have yet to make a sale. I understand that it is a game of patience, but I would imagine by now, with all of the efforts and time I have spent that I should have landed one sale.

Here are the various methods I have used.
I have run GoDaddy and Flippa auctions with no success. I have listed on Sedo and Afternic, with no success and next to nil views. I have made outbound emails to fairly solid leads with only a handful of replies. When mentioning the quote I don't hear from them again. I've placed a fair amount of domains on Undeveloped (now Dan) and I've even Tweeted about my domains with relevant hashtags. So, what gives? Do my domains suck that bad? Here are say some of my better ones, keep in mind I've mainly been grabbing expired domains or hang registering new ones.

DreamProperty (dot) net
SpyGr (dot) com
Crystalizes (dot) com
InvestCut (dot) com
CalculateDebt (dot) com
MyBank (dot) space
JetPlane (dot) org
Gymm (dot) org
CrayFish (dot) info
EcoTherm (dot) org

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If you choose the best out of the best names, you get 1%-2% chance of sale per year on auto-pilot.

That is not a lot. But makes the business potentially profitable. In your case, you have made selections that a) cost more to renew; b) have 10 times less chance to sell at 0.1%-0.2% chance.

Here are some basic rules for you:

- Don't buy word+word in anything, but .com. That said, dreamproperty.net might have some chance if you can find some existing companies using longer version .net/.org/.biz
- Verb+s rarely works. Has to be a really high value one, like goes, provides, donates etc.
- word+word even in .com has to make sense. What is InvestCut? How do you Calculate Debt? You can calculate your interest payments, your debt to equity ratio etc.
- Going creative with words also works in .com only in 99.99% of cases. I.e. gymm.com is fantastic, gymm.org - reg fee.
- What is SpyGr? Greek Spy?

I was going to write almost exactly what @Recons.Com wrote as he pretty much nailed it.

Unfortunately (to be blunt as you requested), your domains just aren't strong enough. I'd also agree that DreamProperty.net isn't horrible, but even that is not above a 1% domain (depending on your pricing) .. CalculateDebt.com also isn't terrible. But if those represent your best domains, then I don't think patience or effort is really going to change anything I'm sorry to say.

All that said .. you seem to be getting a good grasp of the industry overall. Maybe take a bit of a pause to regroup.

As for expired domains .. I almost only buy expired auction/closeout domains and am starting to do quite well. There most certainly are some buyers who care about stats and traffic .. generally they buy such domains to build lead generation sites. But indeed, they represent a small minority of buyers, as the bulk of buyers are simply individuals starting a company looking for a domain. They should be your target market ... and in general they really don't care about traffic or most other historic information .. they just want a cool domain for company brand name they can be proud of promoting.

Keeping that in mind .. ask yourself would you personally use any of your domains? The answer is possibly yes for DreamProperty.net if you were in real estate .. but otherwise there are too many better choices at $2k-5k for them out there for them to ever consider the rest of yours.

Best of luck with your domains!

Thanks a lot for the detailed replies @Bob Hawkes and @Recons.Com - much appreciated and insightful for sure. I understand I need to be far more picky and less impulsive with any future purchases.

Ategy.com said:

I was going to write almost exactly what @Recons.Com wrote as he pretty much nailed it.

Unfortunately (to be blunt as you requested), your domains just aren't strong enough. I'd also agree that DreamProperty.net isn't horrible, but even that is not above a 1% domain (depending on your pricing) .. CalculateDebt.com also isn't terrible. But if those represent your best domains, then I don't think patience or effort is really going to change anything I'm sorry to say.

All that said .. you seem to be getting a good grasp of the industry overall. Maybe take a bit of a pause to regroup.

As for expired domains .. I almost only buy expired auction/closeout domains and am starting to do quite well. There most certainly are some buyers who care about stats and traffic .. generally they buy such domains to build lead generation sites. But indeed, they represent a small minority of buyers, as the bulk of buyers are simply individuals starting a company looking for a domain. They should be your target market ... and in general they really don't care about traffic or most other historic information .. they just want a cool domain for company brand name they can be proud of promoting.

Keeping that in mind .. ask yourself would you personally use any of your domains? The answer is possibly yes for DreamProperty.net if you were in real estate .. but otherwise there are too many better choices at $2k-5k for them out there for them to ever consider the rest of yours.

Best of luck with your domains!

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Yeah Recons post was really helpful. And cheers for your input too. I don't have any delusions that I am great at this yet, like with most things in life, there's a huge learning curve, and that curve becomes more and more apparent the further you get into it.

Junglist101 said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed replies @Bob Hawkes and @Recons.Com - much appreciated and insightful for sure. I understand I need to be far more picky and less impulsive with any future purchases.

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You are welcome! You are lucky and smart that you questioned your choices early enough. Many spend years, register thousands and lose thousands and eventually quit.

Here is another tip for you. Based on your learnings, choose 5-10 good .coms that would be a great upgrade for existing companies. Do outbound over the phone. You probably won't sell, but it will give you a sense how this companies work, make decisions, think. You'd be surprised and disappointed, but you will definitely become more picky after this. I almost exclusively do outbound for this reason

Ategy.com said:

I was going to write almost exactly what @Recons.Com wrote as he pretty much nailed it.

Unfortunately (to be blunt as you requested), your domains just aren't strong enough. I'd also agree that DreamProperty.net isn't horrible, but even that is not above a 1% domain (depending on your pricing) .. CalculateDebt.com also isn't terrible. But if those represent your best domains, then I don't think patience or effort is really going to change anything I'm sorry to say.

All that said .. you seem to be getting a good grasp of the industry overall. Maybe take a bit of a pause to regroup.

As for expired domains .. I almost only buy expired auction/closeout domains and am starting to do quite well. There most certainly are some buyers who care about stats and traffic .. generally they buy such domains to build lead generation sites. But indeed, they represent a small minority of buyers, as the bulk of buyers are simply individuals starting a company looking for a domain. They should be your target market ... and in general they really don't care about traffic or most other historic information .. they just want a cool domain for company brand name they can be proud of promoting.

Keeping that in mind .. ask yourself would you personally use any of your domains? The answer is possibly yes for DreamProperty.net if you were in real estate .. but otherwise there are too many better choices at $2k-5k for them out there for them to ever consider the rest of yours.

Best of luck with your domains!

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The fact that we think so much alike is a great reassurance Normally, if two logical people arrive at similar conclusions, develop similar methodology etc, it must be the right ones ))

Below is my assessment of each of these names. Others might disagree. Hopefully it provides some insight. You will always have conflicting views in the world of domains.

DreamProperty (dot) net - .net is a tough sell nowadays. I have sold some great .net names such as invitation.net and everest.net, and even then they weren’t flying off the shelf. Stick with .com.
SpyGr (dot) com - does not make sense and thus cannot see this ever selling. Typically names should have broad appeal and be understandable. It is hard enough selling generic good names to end users.
Crystalizes (dot) com - plural is bad and the use of a “z” over an “s” limits the market.
InvestCut (dot) com - what does “invest” have to do with “cut”. Not a good combination.
CalculateDebt (dot) com - who needs to calculate debt? What possible application could this be? A newby mistake is to take two common/dictionary words and put them together, thinking that it makes it quality by association. Only combine two words that make sense and have a real world application.
MyBank (dot) space - not many .space sales. No reputable bank would buy this name. No fintech would want to call themselves a bank.
JetPlane (dot) org - who would want to call their company jetplane? Not a common word. .org does not work with this industry. .org should be used for things that want to convey trust. Rarely this is not a commercial good or service.
Gymm (dot) org - will be extremely hard to sell. Even if u had gym.org, I don’t think that would fly off the shelf.
CrayFish (dot) info - your target market is close to zero. This will likely only appeal to someone interested in an informational site about crayfish. I don’t think that person will be willing to pay any money for this name.
EcoTherm (dot) org - if this is meant to be a brandable name for an eco company, then at least try get the .com. Niche, in a worse extension than .com, so specific with a small target market.

It is slow going to make a sale even if u have a massive portfolio. I had 2000+ names at one point and was only selling 1-2 a month. Stick with it, but IMO you should do a lot more research before outlaying more money. Took me 2 years before I had my first decent sale. $2k name flipped for $6k. Only those who stick in there post the pain point will have any hope of any success. Good luck!

brandpluck said:

Below is my assessment of each of these names. Others might disagree. Hopefully it provides some insight. You will always have conflicting views in the world of domains.

DreamProperty (dot) net - .net is a tough sell nowadays. I have sold some great .net names such as invitation.net and everest.net, and even then they weren’t flying off the shelf. Stick with .com.
SpyGr (dot) com - does not make sense and thus cannot see this ever selling. Typically names should have broad appeal and be understandable. It is hard enough selling generic good names to end users.
Crystalizes (dot) com - plural is bad and the use of a “z” over an “s” limits the market.
InvestCut (dot) com - what does “invest” have to do with “cut”. Not a good combination.
CalculateDebt (dot) com - who needs to calculate debt? What possible application could this be? A newby mistake is to take two common/dictionary words and put them together, thinking that it makes it quality by association. Only combine two words that make sense and have a real world application.
MyBank (dot) space - not many .space sales. No reputable bank would buy this name. No fintech would want to call themselves a bank.
JetPlane (dot) org - who would want to call their company jetplane? Not a common word. .org does not work with this industry. .org should be used for things that want to convey trust. Rarely this is not a commercial good or service.
Gymm (dot) org - will be extremely hard to sell. Even if u had gym.org, I don’t think that would fly off the shelf.
CrayFish (dot) info - your target market is close to zero. This will likely only appeal to someone interested in an informational site about crayfish. I don’t think that person will be willing to pay any money for this name.
EcoTherm (dot) org - if this is meant to be a brandable name for an eco company, then at least try get the .com. Niche, in a worse extension than .com, so specific with a small target market.

It is slow going to make a sale even if u have a massive portfolio. I had 2000+ names at one point and was only selling 1-2 a month. Stick with it, but IMO you should do a lot more research before outlaying more money. Took me 2 years before I had my first decent sale. $2k name flipped for $6k. Only those who stick in there post the pain point will have any hope of any success. Good luck!

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Thanks for the detailed response! I have heard from a few other people that .org tends to sell more easily than .net these days. But I hear you on .com being king. I have taken a huge step back and have stopped buying domains full stop, simply researching and studying when I have the time. I've come to realise my personal reasons for buying shoddy tier domains, which include a lack of understanding, not checking search volumes in Google Keyword Planner, not fully grasping the fact that the domain should have a value to a possible end user, and also just rushing things in general.

I have a new game-plan though for when I am going to start purchasing. I would aim to grab maybe 1-2 domains per month via ExpiredDomains.net (irony on the .net in this conversation lol) I search for backorder domains on there, and when I find one that has promise, I check the Estibot valuation, then I check the search volumes in Google, then I check similar domain sales in NameBio. Oh also the blacklist check too. But this is going to be my gameplay going into the future, and looking back on the names above, I can see how they suck for the most part

I think these are tough domains to sell. Personally if I were looking to register a domain, I would find my own variation that's available to register rather than choose one of these.

Developing the names marginally and then reselling the sites could be a better strategy.

What I am seeing here is, what have you done right? And this thread is a huge step in the right direction. I think there's some valuable responses here, to which you've acknowledged and actually decided to use to change direction in your strategy. I wish more of us had your eagerness to take constructive criticism and learn from it- myself included.

Good luck.

p.s. DreamProperty and EcoTherm, are not bad at all, even with the extensions they sit on.

karmaco said:

Who told you domains sell in a short period of time?

This is a waiting game and you will fare better with all dot coms, realistic prices and expectations.

Domains take years and even decades to sell and that’s if they are any good. Even good domains go unsold thus so many aged domains floating around. Quick sales happen for good names but they are the exception.

Domaining is not some get rich quick type undertaking. You have to have patience and buy good names.

Click to expand...

^ THIS.

I've discovered a few tricks over the past 6 months, and now look back at the names I used to reg and cringe lol.

Some tips for you bud:

Always check the history of a domain name. I do this for my own reasons, but you can determine when it was first registered, how many times it's been dropped and picked up, how it was used and server etc. Greater the age the better the google rank, if many people have dropped and purchased... well you can make your own inference here, people also believe use may impact value.

Check for deleted and expired domain lists. We call them drops... I think. Your hand register may land you something unique and never registered, or you might come across an expired/deleted wonder, but using lists help you zone in on value that may have been overseen, or someone simply couldn't afford to reg and had to choose between the dropped domain, and their other domains.

Check the Cost-PerClick (CPC) as we're ultimately selling to advertiser. That is, people who want customers. The cost per click data can be found through Google, or domain valuation tools. DomainIndex will give you this information, though I'm not sure how accurate this is.

Check the broad term search for keywords and exact search for key words global and local traffic. Simply adding the letter 'S' onto a valuable word can impact the traffic, and at the end of the day, traffic is a significant variable that determines the marketability of the domain.

Sales prices for specific words will help, not guarantee, bu willt help you determine the expected return for keywords within your domain. Take the words Credit, Home, Job. The sales data for these show a higher sale price, with more domains hitting the 15k-20k mark than their alternatives like Debt, House, Jobs. You can check sales prices at DNPric.es. It's one of few places. Again, this is just one of many tools, but it's good too see. The words Socio or Globally, have a rubbish sales history, which is why a lot of names are probably available to hand reg. I don't bother with words like this.

If you're going to do brandable domain names, try to make the word sound like the correct spelling, or try to make sure the words are commonly searched terms, and brandable at the same time. I try to find high traffic words, or potentially high traffic words that are brandable. Something like CityCenter or GreenRecycling would work well for a brandable domain. I don't own these, but just to give you an idea as you're starting. Later you'll learn how to match words and stuff.

gTLD's and search results correlate and so your name needs to work together. Make sure the gTLD you use works with the keyword you use, because it affects search results. Market.center or Job.agencywork because people type those words into search engines, and search engines read the domains like this. That's my understanding, so it's important not to get trigger happy with keywords... Because there are thousands of them out there all competing with each other in search engines.

If you find a sure thing, don't be afraid to get the .net or .org. And sometimes, not always, the .net or .org are valuable, but never for brandable. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but say Capitel.net and Capitel.org were available... I wouldn't register them... Not because of the extension only, but because non .com's brandables rarely fetch fair 4 figure values. The name Needs to be something like Tech.net or .org

Look, that'll get you going hahaha. The domain names you have now aren't exactly premium in my eyes, but I'm still learning too. This post is to show you that a strategy, and method, is required if you're going to source something significant.

Goodluck!

p.s. These are my latest Crypto additions, fairly marketable and ready for sale in/over 5 years time. I prefer the long-term investing approach, because if it's a quick sale domain, to me, it's a useless domain and feeds this sick "$1-$10 mass sale culture."

I stick with .com and .com.au most of the time. And I use the word "The" at times, because it's probability of hitting the 10k-20k mark is fair, according to .com sales histories. things like this can be confirmed at DNPric.es.

(E.g. Thecolosseum.com 2015 - $18,000, and, TheRecroom.com 2015 - $89,000, and TheRake.com 2015 - $40,000.)

These sales prices don't mean much, but I use them and compare the significance of TheCryptoasset.com, a brand new asset class and industry! And also make my own assumptions using additional tools and analyses like evaluating the keywords in those domains etc.

.com
SecurityTokenExchange.org
TheExchangeToken.com
TheEquityToken.com
TheCryptoasset.com - Safe bet & will at least cover total 5 year reg for other domains + profit - > repeat.
CryptographicAssets.com
CryptoassetMining.com
CryptoassetFinancing.com

.com.au
Cryptoassets.com.au -Safe bet & should at least cover total 5 year reg for other domains + profit-> repeat.
ExchangeToken.com.au
LibraAssociaiton.com.au
CryptoassetExchange.com.au
CryptoassetCasino.com.au
CryptoassetBank.com.au


Anyway, I hope this helps. All the best and any questions shoot me a line.