Value of Domain Hacks

Unless i'm mistaken, what they appear to be doing is appending emoji's to the end of an urban slang inspired hack-word (y.at) and suggesting that this has some kind of value...

In practice, then, they are selling web addresses like this: e.g. y.at/emoji1emoji2.

The fact is 'though, "Yat", as a reference, is virtually meaningless (I believe it's supposed to mean "you at"...), and emoji's are, at best, somewhat confusing.

In addition, Google will probably (effectively) ban these addresses through their Chrome browser by declaring that, on addresses that use emoji's, there's a "fake site ahead". They did this recently with symbol-based names such as €.com, etc...

To me, Y.at's offering is, to put it kindly, worthless... Y.at are, I think, the latest example of a severely over-heated NFT market, and when the dust settles on all of this madness then domain hacks will definitely get more attention.

Also, they claim on their site that there is a use-case scenario (for these addresses), where you could use them as a user-friendly crypto payment address.

As far as I am aware, however, this is merely a claimed use-case on their part, and that they don't yet have relationships with wallet providers, etc.. so these addresses could actually be used to send crypto!

(Seriously 'though, who on earth is ever going to say "Pay me 22crypto via y.at/emoji" ?! You would be much better off getting a .crypto addy).

ST0P.com

STØP.com

ST(zero)P.com

I have had this one a loooong time.

DomainGaze.com said:

... We need to see what this really is all about.

Click to expand...

Money laundering.

Okay, let's get this thread back to business! I found a few more domain hacks being put to good use.

intra.net --> vialect.com (They sell Intranet solutions).
a.mp --> winksite.com (Creating mobile websites).
chit.chat --> A site where you pay to connect to people. II guess it is under development.
fr.at --> A DeFi platform
n.at --> neckermann.at (Seems like a local company using it for their store.)
br.at --> bitrace.at
u.ae --> Official Government Website of UAE.
de.fi --> Upcoming it seems.
blinki.st --> Blinkist.com (A service which provides summarized audio content for books and such).

What I notice, as a growing trend, is that most new businesses which are social media savvy or ones which target a younger audience, tend to get the domain hack of their name together with a .com or whatever. Also, it seems that unlike gTLDs which can directly capture two-word (or more) phrases, domain hacks with ccTLDs cannot easily be acquired simply on account of trademarks. I'm not suggesting that one tries to squat on those names, but I am saying that companies cannot just randomly claim that this is a violation when your actual keyword is not their name. The extension in a ccTLD is not meant to be a part of the name, but we use it like that in a hack. In the new gTLDs, the domain extension is very much meant to be part of the name.

Also, it is just incredible how gTLDs are pricing their names. All good hacks and phrases are already marked premium and with, sometimes, absurdly high fees. Here is a relatively new TLD that you may not have heard about, https://icannwiki.org/.ist. Before you look up prices for nice hacks possible with .ist, here's an example!

Makes you like the .st extension so much more! I managed to get Physici.st last year without paying any premium. I did, however, got one domain in .ist, called completion.ist as it was not marked a premium.

I guess we could share our occasional good hand-registrations or acquisitions for domain hacks here. I'd begin err... end by expressing my sincere.st desire to see domain hacks flourish.

mortgage is for sale!
If you are interested you can bid.
https://flippa.com/10836260-mortga-ge

DomainGaze.com said:

u.ae --> Official Government Website of UAE.

Click to expand...

Nice find!

following

I have a couple but got my favourite today

Digitalass.et

Sold DOGE on Sedo today

Talk about having the right hack at the right time. Must be a good sale!

NAMING.GE said:

Sold DOGE on Sedo today

Click to expand...

congrats! : )

I have Privatsphae.re and it means Privacy on German language.

do.ge acquired by yum.financial.

Are the dedicated websites where on can list domain hacks for sale?

Samguy said:

Are the dedicated websites where on can list domain hacks for sale?

Click to expand...

Well, I wish there were. I don't find dedicated marketplaces for them. You could list your domain as a hack in Flippa, I believe. I haven't done that, but I see them listed as a category. Your best bet is to hope for someone to just type them in. I find most hacks just listed on Dan and Sedo, but often you have to hunt hard. Some amazing people don't even put a lander and then have the domain listed for sale on a platform.

I truly feel marketplaces should offer a simple check-box to allow searching for hacks and then the keyword could be matched against domain hacks in their database sans the dot(s).

We are looking into launching DomainHacks.com as a marketplace however it will probably be called something else using a domain hack, of course!

@DomainGaze.com Good link, added to my bookmarks. Thank you https://flippa.com/domains/domain-hacks

@Sedo had held their first ever special auction on domain hacks back in 2018. I think Sedo should make it an annual event! It would be awesome. For starters, it brings domain hacks closer to end-users, making them ever more approachable and popular. And that certainly helps us in turn.
Also, in an auction, you tend to truly see what is the perceived value of a domain. Yes, unless it is a widely publicized event, one may be stuck with a very small sample of bidders to have any realistic valuation. But that is why having a dedicated event will bring more people and hence better value.

I am always fascinated when sites have both a hack and a matching keyword domain. Ideal examples are like:
mi.st and mist.com,
mel.ee and melee.com,
mechani.sm and mechanism.com,
pri.sm and prism.com.

I'm truly jealous of such names. So, I tried finding keywords for my hacks. As expected, it is mighty hard to get any good ones as all dot coms are taken. The few I managed were:
Aci.ng + Acing.io
Readi.ly + Readily.app
recour.se + BestRecourse.com
Surreal.Place + SurrealPlace.com

Share any hack+keyword domains you have!

B.et is on auction at Sedo (bet.fm/Sedo). Current bid is $100K.

@DomainGaze.com "So, I tried finding keywords for my hacks. As expected, it is mighty hard to get any good ones as all dot coms are taken" Can you suggest any websites that alert when all new domain name extensions are planned or deployed? Cheers.

DomainHacks.com said:

B.et is on auction at Sedo (bet.fm/Sedo). Current bid is $100K.

Click to expand...

This is freaking amazing! I'm so happy to hear that.

redemo said:

@DomainGaze.com "So, I tried finding keywords for my hacks. As expected, it is mighty hard to get any good ones as all dot coms are taken" Can you suggest any websites that alert when all new domain name extensions are planned or deployed? Cheers.

Click to expand...

Hi redemo, I'm not sure about those tools. Perhaps you would find some useful ones mentioned here:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/tool-to-find-how-many-extensions-domain-is-registered-in.1180269/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/be...many-extensions-a-domain-is-taken-in.1161917/