discuss A CMS for name selling

[Kuffy]

I want to set up a site to list my names for sale, and I've been looking at some content management systems to use. My objectives are -

List names for sale so that I can make the occasional sale.
Display some advertising links so that I can pick up a bit of revenue to cover the registration fees.
Include a wants section to try to pick up a few new names.
Attach 3 or 4 pages to the name to help with the search engines.
Use URL forwarding to harvest direct navigation traffic.

I looked at Drupal, but that seems to be a bit of an overkill solution. This may be the ultimate solution.
WordPress is another possibility, but it doesn't really lend itself to the final objective.
I experimented with a couple of shopping carts - Presta Shop, and Cube Cart. They are both good pieces of software, but require quite a lot of customising to fit the bill.

I'm coming to the conclusion that a basic forum using something like Simple Machines would be the best quick solution. Each name could be in it's own thread, and I could include pictures and comments. The listing board would be closed to posters other than admin to avoid spammers.

Has anybody tried something like this?

 

[Sulabh Sharma]

Try using wordpress. You have lot of options with it.

 

[comati]

i'll use wordpress just because i'm familiar with it (i don't see how smf is better), but basically any cms will do with some tweaking.
out of the box solution ... i don't know anything good.

 

[Kuffy]

How do you get on with URL forwarding with WordPress. I was thinking I could create a sub-directory for each name, and use some standard templates for secondary pages. I can leave that there when a name is sold.

I'm a fairly small player, I've only got a hundred or so names for sale these days, and I am expecting some names to take two years or more to sell, so I wanted to pick up a bit of ad revenue in the meantime.

 

[todaygold]

Kuffy, if you want to quickly setup a small site, that's fine...but I wouldn't get too carried away. Not many people are going to go to your website to browse for domain names. It's pretty rare to hear of a domain being sold through a website like that...unless it's already a really great name. Personally, I would use Wordpress...and if you want each domain name to take you directly to that name on your site...just create a separate 'blog post' for each domain name...then forward the name to that page.

 

[DzAH]

Kuffy, do know PHP/HTML etc. ?

Im planning to do something very similar as you. Im going for Processwire. (but it require some programming skills)

 

[Kuffy]

Thanks for posting that. I think if I was going to spend a lot of time on the setup, I'd go for Drupal.

I'm looking for a fairly simple system that will allow me to gain a bit of ad revenue, and a place for companies like Domain Agents to hunt for names on behalf of clients. Forums seem to be loved by search engines, but attract a lot of spammers, that's why I'm cautious about using SMF.

 

[LucidDomains]

There are plugins for nearly everything in WP

 

[HKIBC]

Take a look at Drupal's Domain Access module
https://drupal.org/project/domain

 

[owntype]

The best script on the market.

http://www.clonescripts.com/script/foliotrader-domain-portfolio-seller-script/

 

[Kuffy]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm returning to domain name investment after a few years away, and it looks as if things have changed quite a bit. I installed a forum using SMF as it only takes about 10 minutes, and that includes a few initial posts. I'm using a template to put together a few pages for a test name, and I'm putting those pages into a sub-directory under the root for the listing domain. One thing about using forum software is that the spiders seem to be all over already, and I haven't listed it anywhere. Hopefully I can start adding some advertising in the not too distant future.

I experimented a bit with multi-domain installations of Drupal and WordPress, and this is probably the way to go if I can get some traction with my portfolio. I felt that it needed a dedicated server or at least a VPS to run such a site with 200+ names, and I don't want to incur that overhead at the moment.

I'll see what happens with the forum setup when I add adozen or so names. At worst, I can leave the site up, and try a different package.