discuss 3 main qualities your domain names should have in 2020.

[Brands.International]

As new year 2020 is starting now, and I read recently that many new domain investors are expected to join us, I would like to briefly summarise what I have learned about domain names so far - and I would like to do it in simple, uncomplicated way.

There is a lot of talk between fellow domain investors here about this and that, but let's face it, most people are not making any money, they are actually loosing money each year. It is not easy to watch. Some people are 20 years in domain industry and are still without any real money. That's pretty sad. So to make it as simple as possible, if you really want to enjoy your domain investing journey, you should learn about:

3 main qualities your domain name should have in 2020
(and probably not only in 2020).

First: the name must be excellent. How do you know it is excellent?

- you have to love it!

- your friends & family how to love it when you tell them about it, and they should express desire to own it...

- when you see the name first time, it has to "punch you in the face" with how good it is!

Second: the name must have reasonable renewal fee (the lower, the better).

- in 2020, this remark is probably mostly interesting for those who invest in some of more expensive ccTLDs and new gTLDs, although who knows what future will bring for other investors as well...

Third: the name must have large end user pool. What does that mean?

- for example, hotels / com is great, everyone in hotel industry would be very happy use this domain name. while laspalmashotels / com is much more limited, as if someone would use it, it would be about hotels in Las Palmas only (or as a redirect). So in order to accelerate your sales, invest in names with as large end user pool as possible.

- This third quality is extremely important: most new domain investors do not understand that liquidity of domain name is very very small, and it get's even smaller when end user pool is small. They are usually learning this usually hard way after few years. They wonder how it is possible that they have nice name, with low renewal fee, they properly listed it everywhere, but it is not selling! The answer usually is: small end user pool.

So my advice for year 2020 is:

if you are not making money in domaining or the money you are making are not worth your time, do not blame registries, registrars, ICANN or your cat. Simply take matters in your hand, check your porftolio and every domain name in it: if you find the name which does not have those 3 magic qualities, drop it. Simply drop it. Do not make compromises. Maybe you will have to drop your whole portfolio, but at least you will have a clean plate, and can start to register real moneymakers - great domain names, with low renewal fees and large end user pools.

Do you agree?

 

[Kai W.]

The first one is enough. Because just to satisfy it is already very difficult.

 

[garptrader]

Generally I would agree all three factors are desirable but I believe a large end user pool is less important than reasonable renewals (had a $1500 sale last year on what I viewed as a mediocre domain but when a Godaddy rep contacted me because a client was interested, I correctly suspected the client was not a small fish - turned out to be the Chamber of Commerce of a city with 1 million+ population who wanted to upgrade to a .Com) . $30 .TV renewals make it a difficult extension to invest in as many end users do not want to pay $5k for a domain so that the investor can pay renewals on the rest of their .TV portfolio. I have dropped around 70% of my .TV portfolio and about 90% of my .Net and .Info portfolios from many years ago.

I would add that pricing could be another factor. The lower the price, the more potential buyers might consider it. For truly top tier names one can wait for the right buyer but some modest sales on mid-tier names in the interim can help pay renewals.

Lastly one should consider distribution. In 2019 I saw a sharp shift toward Afternic sales versus other sales channels. I am not sure why but in the past I was not focused on listing domains at Afternic because sales were very infrequent. So in December I decided to check my portfolio against Afternic listings and found a number of domains which were missing. I guess we will see if the additional listings help in 2020.

 

[johsun123]

*your friends & family how to love it when you tell them about it, and they should express desire to own it*...

NO.

Others/unrelated persons should love it.

I don't own any names. But I handle a clients portfolio of about 50+ names and trimmed it to 20+ by checking with potential users and multiple unrelated entities.

If most agree on it, then worth keeping.

 

[NickB]

My qualities to look in a name for in .org (most likely my main focus for 2020)

Minimum taken in 10+ extensions (ideally 20+)
.com is developed (ideally 2 other extensions developed - 3 in total)
Before buying making sure it is not listed on Afternic
2 other areas that I will keep to myself....

The above is the model I will be going with - the key for me is sticking to it........

I don't need (or want to) love the name, as long as potential buyer does, that is good enough for me. If you fall in love with a name it will be harder to drop......

I am not bothered about the renewal fee to much, if the name fits the bill I will grab it and adjust the sales price accordingly each year

Large User Pool is a must! (took a while for this to sink in, but it finally has!)

 

[Zilla]

My qualities to look in a name for in .org (most likely my main focus for 2020)
Before buying making sure it is not listed on Afternic

Hi...appreciate sharing the strategy...but two question...
Why take .org as main focus in 2020?
Whats wrong with Afternic here?

 

[NickB]

Hi...appreciate sharing the strategy...but two question...
Why take .org as main focus in 2020?
Whats wrong with Afternic here?

I like the extension, cheaper to grab via Dropcatch and if people are being put off it because of the potential rising costs then so much the better....I think there will be a lot of good names dropping this year because of this

I have grabbed a few in the last 3 months , have under 40 .org's and 1 sale so far. The sale was not using this formula, but I was working on a roughly similar idea to it. This is something I have been looking into over the Christmas period and happy to run with it for a year and see what the results are

Nothing wrong with Afternic (I really like them!) The point here is that if the name is currently not listed on Afternic, there is a good chance to get it in front of more potential new customers than if it had been listed on there for the last 12 months, more chance of a quicker sale (not guaranteed though!). This works for names that are dropping more than anything else as they can still be listed on Afternic even though they have dropped and picked up by someone else.

 

[Zilla]

Get your points...appreciate for share...a big thanks!!

 

[nivadriver]

My qualities to look in a name for in .org (most likely my main focus for 2020)

Minimum taken in 10+ extensions (ideally 20+)
.com is developed (ideally 2 other extensions developed - 3 in total)
Before buying making sure it is not listed on Afternic
2 other areas that I will keep to myself....

The above is the model I will be going with - the key for me is sticking to it........

I don't need (or want to) love the name, as long as potential buyer does, that is good enough for me. If you fall in love with a name it will be harder to drop......

I am not bothered about the renewal fee to much, if the name fits the bill I will grab it and adjust the sales price accordingly each year

Large User Pool is a must! (took a while for this to sink in, but it finally has!)

Just wondering, why do you not want it to be (or have been) listed on Afternic?

 

[nivadriver]

Never mind, just continued down the thread.

 

[Lega.cy]

Thanks for starting the topic @Brands.International!

For me, personally (if I take out liquid 4L.coms) it comes down to a simple framework:

Can I come up with 3 DIRECT business ideas that I could build, and would I be confident enough to build them on that domain name?

In all fairness it does cover similar points that you're making:

1) Is the name self-explanatory? (would the name stand on its own to explain what the business area is?)

2) How large the end user market is? (size of the industry/margins in the industry/how many industries does the name fit in)

3) How many alternative names with similar meaning exist? (when there are potential synonyms, i.e unusual/strange/weird/rare, it gives end users more options and alternatives to go with)

In other words, if I flip the main question - Would I buy the domain name for my own business?

Saying all that, I do have to admit that after almost 3 years in Domaining my portfolio only consists of less than 50 domains (including the liquid 4Ls) - so I may be taking a slightly different approach to most - but at the same time, I'm extremely confident that the domains I own will be sold.

Just my 2c

Al

 

[Brands.International]

My qualities to look in a name for in .org (most likely my main focus for 2020)

Minimum taken in 10+ extensions (ideally 20+)
.com is developed (ideally 2 other extensions developed - 3 in total)
Before buying making sure it is not listed on Afternic
2 other areas that I will keep to myself....

The above is the model I will be going with - the key for me is sticking to it........

I don't need (or want to) love the name, as long as potential buyer does, that is good enough for me. If you fall in love with a name it will be harder to drop......

I am not bothered about the renewal fee to much, if the name fits the bill I will grab it and adjust the sales price accordingly each year

Large User Pool is a must! (took a while for this to sink in, but it finally has!)

I had similar thinking when I started .. the name has to be registered in X or Y number of extensions, some of those should be developed, etc, etc.

But after few years I think this is simply not enough - we deserve better

Particularly that "punch in the face" factor is very important - I do not report my sales, but I can tell you in general that all names I sold so far had at least part of that appeal.

The big mistake is to register a mediocre domain name, with rationalisation "well, I do not need to like it, as long as the potential buyer does"... again, we deserve better then that, and we need to like and love it first, imo.

 

[Brands.International]

Thanks for starting the topic @Brands.International!

For me, personally (if I take out liquid 4L.coms) it comes down to a simple framework:

Can I come up with 3 DIRECT business ideas that I could build, and would I be confident enough to build them on that domain name?

In all fairness it does cover similar points that you're making:

1) Is the name self-explanatory? (would the name stand on its own to explain what the business area is?)

2) How large the end user market is? (size of the industry/margins in the industry/how many industries does the name fit in)

3) How many alternative names with similar meaning exist? (when there are potential synonyms, i.e unusual/strange/weird/rare, it gives end users more options and alternatives to go with)

In other words, if I flip the main question - Would I buy the domain name for my own business?

Saying all that, I do have to admit that after almost 3 years in Domaining my portfolio only consists of less than 50 domains (including the liquid 4Ls) - so I may be taking a slightly different approach to most - but at the same time, I'm extremely confident that the domains I own will be sold.

Just my 2c

Al

"Would I buy the domain name for my own business?" is a great question everyone should be asking themselves, I agree.

All other points are excellent as well.

Regarding selling: if you have liquid 4Ls .coms you will always sell them, this is for sure

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Great thread @Brands.International - thank you.

I think #1 is the critical one, and that excellence can be indicated by all of the following (and more)

• In our domain investor experience we love it!
• it is correct, elegant, positive, powerful (many specifics)
• People not into domains (the family and friends angle) instantly love it!
• There is data to support it (comparator sales, perhaps other measures).

Regarding #2, I think reasonable depends on other metrics. Like a renewal fee of $50 may make sense for a domain with good sell probability and evidence for high price, but not make sense for some other, still strong, name if the likely selling price is less.

Regarding #3, while I think that the pool size is important, and the focus on end use is critical, I think it is not so much the size of the pool, but some combination of the size of the user pool and the value the name brings to members of that pool. A few names may only have a dozen possible users, but if the name brings huge value to them, and some have deep pockets, it could be worthwhile, actually probably is worthwhile.

Thanks for starting a great thread with a logical and insightful post.

Bob

 

[Brands.International]

Great thread @Brands.International - thank you.

I think #1 is the critical one, and that excellence can be indicated by all of the following (and more)

• In our domain investor experience we love it!
• it is correct, elegant, positive, powerful (many specifics)
• People not into domains (the family and friends angle) instantly love it!
• There is data to support it (comparator sales, perhaps other measures).

Regarding #2, I think reasonable depends on other metrics. Like a renewal fee of $50 may make sense for a domain with good sell probability and evidence for high price, but not make sense for some other, still strong, name if the likely selling price is less.

Regarding #3, while I think that the pool size is important, and the focus on end use is critical, I think it is not so much the size of the pool, but some combination of the size of the user pool and the value the name brings to members of that pool. A few names may only have a dozen possible users, but if the name brings huge value to them, and some have deep pockets, it could be worthwhile, actually probably is worthwhile.

Thanks for starting a great thread with a logical and insightful post.

Bob

Thanks Bob! You made some great points. I hope it will be useful particularly for newer members, who are still in red number .. although I guess I should name the thread little bit more clickbaitly, something like "why I make money and most of you not!" - that would certainly generate some heat

Anyway, back to the topic: I think fact is that many people compromise on #1, and they do not go for "punch in the face" domain names! Instead, they register 1000 mediocre domain names, maybe sell 2 or 3 of them, but renewal costs of the 997 domains will eat the profits anyway. And in many cases, they will sell nothing.

So what I am trying to convey is that it is simply better to have only few domain names, but quality must be high.

For example, we have domain investor @New.Life here at NP, who is kind enough to report some of his sales to community (I guess it is not that harmful for him, but he should stay anonymous in this case from many many reasons, imo, which he does so far). So, what strikes me is how good some of his names indeed are - those are the "punch in the face names", imo. And so he is making sales.

But most of the people here compromise on #1, and I guess once we compromise on #1, there are almost no results