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opinion Hand Registering Domains Is Not Domain Investing

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Admittedly, this may be somewhat a sensationalized title. But hand registering is only a bridge or gateway to investing in domains. This article discusses why. What are your thoughts? Looking forward to them. Here is the link to the article:

Hand Registering Domains Is Not Domain Investing
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I think you have a much better chance at buying a quality domain at auction for $1000 then renewing it for 10 years ($100) so total investment about $1100. Then listing it for sale for $50,000-$100,000 and going on with your life for the next 10 years. There's a good chance you will wake up with a nice notification from Afternic when you least expect it.

For comparison, you can hand reg 10 domains for $100, and 10 years renewal will end up costing $1100 for just 10 hand reg domains. Chances of selling 10 hand reg now for $50,000-$100,000 in 10 years is slim.
 
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I think you have a much better chance at buying a quality domain at auction for $1000 then renewing it for 10 years ($100) so total investment about $1100. Then listing it for sale for $50,000-$100,000 and going on with your life for the next 10 years. There's a good chance you will wake up with a nice notification from Afternic when you least expect it.

For comparison, you can hand reg 10 domains for $100, and 10 years renewal will end up costing $1100 for just 10 hand reg domains. Chances of selling 10 hand reg now for $50,000-$100,000 in 10 years is slim.
Paying $1000 for one domain with a industry average of 1-2% STR, means that you could wait over 100 years for a sale. Also, mostly, an aftermarket acquisition of 1k you sell it for 10x-15x, not really happening to often to sell it for 100x. In translation, you will wait over 100 years to get 10k.
 
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Paying $1000 for one domain with a industry average of 1-2% STR, means that you could wait over 100 years for a sale. Also, mostly, an aftermarket acquisition of 1k you sell it for 10x-15x, not really happening to often to sell it for 100x. In translation, you will wait over 100 years to get 10k.

That is industry average including all hand regs and junk domains, but with premium quality domains it is much higher. It's just common sense, if a domain is available in 2021 chances are it's trash. Not always, but most likely. If a domain is reaching $1000 at auction then you can bet there are buyers and end users willing to pay more. You may get an offer for 2-5x, regardless it has value.
 
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That is industry average including all hand regs and junk domains, but with premium quality domains it is much higher. It's just common sense, if a domain is available in 2021 chances are it's trash. Not always, but most likely. If a domain is reaching $1000 at auction then you can bet there are buyers and end users willing to pay more. You may get an offer for 2-5x, regardless it has value.

Agreed. Also with premiums, the sale price is so high vs renewal, that keeping it for long time is no longer an issue.

I'm having quite some success with hand regs too.

But TBH, 99.5% of what is still available is indeed utter junk.
 
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What was the topic again and what will we get from this thread?

To me this is a nonsense thread. Who care about definition as long as you make money.
It’s a wasting time thread and no one learn anything.
We should stop here.

You made your point. If what you are doing is working for you then keep doing it. Also, it is not just about definition but the psychological or mental approach to domain investing. So far, there have been a lot of posts with valuable info.

You are talking about investments and profit, but I can't remember one sale of yours. Maybe you can enlight us with your portfolio, names, sales, ROI, STR....at least we will know who is teaching us.

I am not trying to teach here. The prefix to this thread is "opinion". Everyone is entitled to it. Since 2000 I have sold hundreds of domains in the low to high X,XXX range. I have registered a lot of duds. I have sold strong domains at a ridiculously low price because a more experienced domainer was able to bamboozle me. I have allowed good domains to expire and get snatched in auction. Mostly in my early inexperienced years. In those years I acquired a modest portfolio of many poor names and lost a lot of money in renewals until I smartened up and let them drop. Now my portfolio is much smaller. I have become much better at recognizing good deals on the aftermarket, auctions, and new reg's. I learned how to do due diligence and investigate domains, whether previously reg'd or new reg's. So I think I have put in the grind, earned battle scars, and have learned over the years to know what I am talking about. I am not a proactive seller. I register both for resale and development projects. All my sales came from inbound inquiries.
 
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That is industry average including all hand regs and junk domains, but with premium quality domains it is much higher. It's just common sense, if a domain is available in 2021 chances are it's trash. Not always, but most likely. If a domain is reaching $1000 at auction then you can bet there are buyers and end users willing to pay more. You may get an offer for 2-5x, regardless it has value.
No, that's mostly quality domains average 2%, ask the most experienced one's, the one's who reach 4% or higher are doing outbound, lot's of marketing and paying for exposure.Looks like your common sense it's not my common sense. Show me any guru in domaining and I will show you hundreds or thousands of domains that he missed and which sold for 500x-1000x-5000x....so nobody is perfect. If a domain is reaching 1k at auction, most of the times means that 50% of the guys biding were bots or newbies and also means that guys like Rick, Abdul, Rosener and others didn't saw enough value in it and were not confident enough that they could sell it to get a decent return, but somehow you or a newbie could sell it. It happens from time to time, but most of the times not. You can go ahead and use that 1k and wait for a sale in the next 10 to 100 years and I will use that amount to buy around 200 hand regs and recover my money in less than one month and reach your 10k amount target in a few months.
 
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You made your point. If what you are doing is working for you then keep doing it. Also, it is not just about definition but the psychological or mental approach to domain investing. So far, there have been a lot of posts with valuable info.



I am not trying to teach here. The prefix to this thread is "opinion". Everyone is entitled to it. Since 2000 I have sold hundreds of domains in the low to high X,XXX range. I have registered a lot of duds. I have sold strong domains at a ridiculously low price because a more experienced domainer was able to bamboozle me. I have allowed good domains to expire and get snatched in auction. Mostly in my early inexperienced years. In those years I acquired a modest portfolio of many poor names and lost a lot of money in renewals until I smartened up and let them drop. Now my portfolio is much smaller. I have become much better at recognizing good deals on the aftermarket, auctions, and new reg's. I learned how to do due diligence and investigate domains, whether previously reg'd or new reg's. So I think I have put in the grind, earned battle scars, and have learned over the years to know what I am talking about. I am not a proactive seller. I register both for resale and development projects. All my sales came from inbound inquiries.
So, you were bamboozled by other experienced one's in your early times, but somehow now you are sending the newbies to bid in $500-1k auction against the pro's here, that sound's perfect, isn't it?
 
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So, you were bamboozled by other experienced one's in your early times, but somehow now you are sending the newbies to bid in $500-1k auction against the pro's here, that sound perfect, isn't it?

I am sorry if you missed the point of the OP. This is not anti hand reg'ing, this is not to encourage buying aftermarket domains. It is about buying smarter, whether you are hand reg'ing or buying aftermarket. Of course in the majority of cases hand reg'ing can become addictive, especially with promotions of .99c. But when the high wears off, you are stuck with the hangover.
 
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Additionally, if you register domains for .99c and hope to sell low to high XX or XXX, this is not investing. This is arbitrage. It is fine if you can profit from it.
 
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Additionally, if you register domains for .99c and hope to sell low to high XX or XXX, this is not investing. This is arbitrage. It is fine if you can profit from it.
'Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same asset in different markets in order to profit from tiny differences in the asset's listed price' Far away from the true meaning. At the end of the day, you can call it whatever you want, the final result will be the same for me.
 
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Additionally, if you register domains for .99c and hope to sell low to high XX or XXX, this is not investing. This is arbitrage. It is fine if you can profit from it.

Not arbitrage perhaps, but definitely flipping.
 
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'Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same asset in different markets in order to profit from tiny differences in the asset's listed price' Far away from the true meaning. At the end of the day, you can call it whatever you want, the final result will be the same for me.

You are correct. Actually investment strategies differ and most investors have multiple strategies, from long term investments to short-term. Short-term tend to be risk-free and only profitable for a short period of time, usually due to hype, IMO. Burning money through hundreds or thousands of useless names doesn't translate to investing, again IMO. I strongly believe that domaining crosses into the realm of investing if there is clear value in order to hang on to it long term or develop it. Otherwise it is a coin toss. IMO.
 
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I'm going to add here that buying and selling domains in the low XXX range (Edit: especially .COMs) can be a very lucrative model if you know what you're doing. And if you do all the legwork and are able to scale it.

I did lots of drop regs, some handregs, some closeouts, all over the place. They sold and by pricing them correctly I was always above 5% STR (even 8% in some months). Of course, add in the occasional 4-fig back then. Pricing is a nightmare though, managing drops and clearances also. But, overall, it works. (Edit: for a long time I priced 10k+ names with weekly changes back and forth. That's a lot of sweat.)

Until recently, low xxx has been my bread and butter. Nowadays my xxx domains are all on clearance sales, the reason is my 4-fig tier is growing, and I have no more room for them.

However it is a valid, lucrative model and due to the extremely large supply it can be scaled to virtual infinity. Though once you get past 20k names you're going to sweat a lot and need help. (I have a team)

I must however add that you really need to know what you're doing. There are a few domainers here doing this successfully, but it's not a widespread model. 4-fig .COMs and long wait is an easier model.

Edit: This is probably not investing but domain resale at scale; but who really cares about the terms if you're making money.
 
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You are correct. Actually investment strategies differ and most investors have multiple strategies, from long term investments to short-term. Short-term tend to be risk-free and only profitable for a short period of time, usually due to hype, IMO. Burning money through hundreds or thousands of useless names doesn't translate to investing, again IMO. I strongly believe that domaining crosses into the realm of investing if there is clear value in order to hang on to it long term or develop it. Otherwise it is a coin toss. IMO.
Coin toss, when you know what average STR you will have, when you know the ROI and you are doing that for years, without fail? For me, that's investing and making a good profit out of it, you can call it whatever you want. Coin toss will be to bid in an auction as a newbie against pro's like Rick and Abdul and waiting to make a profit out of it constantly.
 
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when you know what average STR you will have, when you know the ROI and you are doing that for years, without fail?

If you have this type of historical average and the strategy works well for you, profit wise, then by all means you can continue. However, IMO, STR and ROI on hand reg's alone does not cross over to investment. The reason is because you are effectively short selling and unless there is confidence in the long-term value of the asset then it is high risk and a gamble. There may be names that have high value to an individual or an entity because they have a very specific business concept that is the right match (which is luck, IOW, your hand wins), but beyond that, the name is worthless.
 
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I think there are plenty of crappy names in the aftermarket and plenty of crappy names available for hand registration. My job is to find the gems in both. :)

Perfectly worded. A good investor has to find the gems. A newbie might handreg trash and they may also pay more for a mediocre domain name in the aftermarket so its all about making sure what sells more and to trust your intuition IMO.
 
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my hand reggs are being taken in other TLD's let me show

KeenUp .de
APProachy .top
NobleCondo .ca
Feedgasm .in
Rounday .tk
Snapky .de
Payose .xyz
Devut .cn,.cf
Sucly .cn
Nixfy .in
Dramaly .co.uk
Flyev
Vegact .org.au
Onrai .jp
Cozyer .co.uk
ActiveRule .club
MaxFeature .us
VoyageHut .ro
Gotted .ca
FinanceDo .xyz
Silkez .pk
ProvenOut .tk
Skyuz .live




and many many more I have all of the above ones in .com and the above ones are all hand regged :)
these are all in .com's
 
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my hand reggs are being taken in other TLD's let me show

KeenUp .de
APProachy .top
NobleCondo .ca
Feedgasm .in
Rounday .tk
Snapky .de
Payose .xyz
Devut .cn,.cf
Sucly .cn
Nixfy .in
Dramaly .co.uk
Flyev
Vegact .org.au
Onrai .jp
Cozyer .co.uk
ActiveRule .club
MaxFeature .us
VoyageHut .ro
Gotted .ca
FinanceDo .xyz
Silkez .pk
ProvenOut .tk
Skyuz .live




and many many more I have all of the above ones in .com and the above ones are all hand regged :)
these are all in .com's

The big question is: Are you making profit by selling them?

You're buying a ton of these but I don't recall seeing you report sales in the sales thread.
 
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I am making 100k a year and this year I planned to make it double, so I have a time till december so it's going very well, got 2500 names now the second milestone is to touch 5100 names, which makes the renewal cost 42500 usd a year and $1500 other expenses so it makes 4k a month in renewals and I am currently doing almost $6k a month in sales, so if I double the same way, it will make it around 12k-13k usd a month and the expense would be 4k a month, - around 8k usd in profit a month after paying renewals, not bad at all.
 
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Sometimes I really have no time to report sales, as I have a lot of things to do (other business and stuff) as domaining is my fun end business which makes money too.
 
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I think you have a much better chance at buying a quality domain at auction for $1000 then renewing it for 10 years ($100) so total investment about $1100. Then listing it for sale for $50,000-$100,000 and going on with your life for the next 10 years. There's a good chance you will wake up with a nice notification from Afternic when you least expect it.

For comparison, you can hand reg 10 domains for $100, and 10 years renewal will end up costing $1100 for just 10 hand reg domains. Chances of selling 10 hand reg now for $50,000-$100,000 in 10 years is slim.


Then do not register less names, try to incorporate more than 1000 names and all 5 letters which pronounce and the keywords in it and you will win 10000xx :)
 
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last 24 hours hand regs:


Lushto
Ractix
Purenly
ShackMax
Crownset
Nuvso
Raceva
Finraz
SwipeMedic
TraceSet




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all dawt com's

Hand Regs works good if done after home work!
 
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last 24 hours hand regs:


Lushto
Ractix
Purenly
ShackMax
Crownset
Nuvso
Raceva
Finraz
SwipeMedic
TraceSet




_____
all dawt com's

Hand Regs works good if done after home work!

Cool!

Do you do any outbound? Or list on brandable marketplaces (guess that's where they'd fit)
 
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all of the names I am doing have a history of old registration and I see companies who can update their names let's say:

Finraz -

I have sold Fincra for 2990 usd

Nuvso = nuvo and NUV is a good solid keyword so this 5 letter is good for it

Raceva = it's a company and check the logos online as some company using it and also race keyword is a good with last 2 letter suffix which pronounce not very bad.

Puren = see this keyword is used and have sold many names and also check namedroppers also of companies using purenxxxx in their domain names means this keywords doing well too.
 
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I hand registered names yesterday that i found exact matchs for an industry i am knowledged in shame it doesn't work.
 
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