A newbie with a few questions...

[ruthh]

Hi everyone,

I'm very new to the world of domains (though I do have some knowledge and experience of SEO & very very basic website design) and you seem like a very helpful bunch, so I wondered if someone might be able to help me with a few queries I have. I have a had a good look around the forum and of course Google, but there's just a few things I'm struggling to get my head round!

Firstly, I assume that value can be derived from buying a domain which has a high number of monthly searches for keywords which are an exact match for the URL which you buy, so you would then monetize it by building a website, using SEO techniques to get it a decent ranking on Google, and having Google Adwords installed on the site. Is this correct? And how many monthly keyword searches is considered as 'good'? Also, I assume that this is only one aspect of it, and it should also be keywords which lots of people are advertising for through Adwords? For example, I noticed earlier that ibizasushi dot com was for sale. It had 1000 monthly searches (as I said, I'm not sure if that's good, but just say for example that it was), but when I Googled 'Ibiza Sushi', no sponsored ads came up. Does this mean it probably isn't worthwhile?

Also, when you buy domains through places such as GoDaddy, etc. do you have to then pay registration fees to get the domain up and running? Are these costs the same for all domains or do they vary? And I assume that you're buying just the domain, no actual site?

And finally, if you don't plan to develop a website for your domain, how exactly can that be beneficial? I think I quite obviously don't understand this aspect of it, because it seems that you just buy it in an auction and then sell it on again.. But this can't be right because then it would all just be based on luck. E.g. you were the only person to see it when you bought it so got it for a reasonable cost, but 2 months later, you list it in the hope that suddenly lots of people will be interested?! Obviously I know that this can work well in many cases... e.g. if someone bought London2012 dot com as soon as the Olympics were announced, that was clearly going to massively increase in value over time. But for more general, non-event based domain names, how would this work?

Any advice or guidance would be very much appreciated! Thanks.

 

[999names]

ok I will try to answer your questions the best I can.

1) You ask what s a good number for monthly searches? Monthly searches of key words depend on how much they pay. Meaning for example I have several names that incorporate "rehab" "drug rehab" "florida drug rehab" and they pay awesome amount of pay out per click.

Now you are right, if you want to have people come in flocks then it is best to own rehab dot com but it 's not possible so in my case I picked a town in florida that receives thousands of addicts each year for rehab and I knew these people or their families who sent them to those facilities must be searching for the town name plus rehab or addiction services. The monthly searches for this is less than 5000 but the pay out per click is very high. So it really depends what you want to do. If the monthly searches are less than 5000 for a particular name and you don't want to develop I say pass, however if you want to develop then if the pay out is good you have a chance to go high in the search results if you know how to SEO.

2) You asked about registration fee. If you buy a name in the secondary market you have the domain until it expires. Let's say you buy a name from someone and it expires in Januray of '13. You will not pay for its registration until then You only have to pay the buyer what he asks for. Now if you are buying a domain that no one owns and are registering the domain then you will pay the registration fee in order to buy it and then you can put up a site on it. And exactly you said it. You are only paying for the registration of the domain name. Don't go crazy with all the extras godaddy sells though just register it for 11 10 or whatever they 're charging.

3) You seemed to have done your homework. I like it You 'll be successful. Yes indeed you can hold on to it or sell it in an auction or develop it. You might not want to park it. Meaning some domainers park their domains in places like sedo and afternic so they can get clicks which does not pay as much as it used to sometimes it s 4 or 5 pennies per click. The best way is to put up a site on your domain and have google rank it. It s better for your domain.

*Just imagine it s all about timing so the person for example who bought London2012 it s to his advantage to make a sale immediately before it s too late.
I hope that Helped

Oli

 

[Name Trader]

Correction to 2). If it an expiring domain name auction or closeout auction at GoDaddy then GoDaddy adds a one year renewal fee to the winning bid. Most domain auction houses include the renewal fee in their minimum bid. What you have to watch out for is domains being sold by domainers, where no renewal fee would normally be included in the price.

 

[999names]

wow had no idea Thanks Stub

 

[ruthh]

Thanks very much, very useful

In terms of cost per click, I guess that I just look on Google in the area where you can see how much you'd expect to pay if you were advertising your site with Google Ads? What is considered as 'good'?

Thanks again, greatly appreciated

 

[Name Trader]

$100 would be considered very good. $0 would be considered very bad. (Joke). CPC is only a part of the consideration. It doesn't matter what the CPC is if your domain gets no traffic (or clicks). So backlinks and traffic are more important than CPC. What would you rather have? 1 click at $25 CPC or 1000 clicks at $0.05 CPC? Of course if your parking the domain rather than using adsense, you have to show relevant ads (related to what the website content before). Not always as easy as it sounds.

 

[SpaceCityVirtual]

can I chime in here? I have a question too. I have several domains I am looking to take to auction. I want to put them on Sedo but thier interface confuses me. There is no place on thier site that provides step by step instructions for listing a domain. It seems as if I just upload my domain names and sit back but I want them to go to auction.

Is Sedo the best and most efficient way to take a domain to auction? Also, what about Adult Domains? I tried GFY and HuntingMoon but they seem to not be in service right now.

Thanks!

 

[ninjadomain]

Welcome to NP! %%-
It looks like your questions have already been answered!

 

[domainbartender]

can I chime in here? I have a question too. I have several domains I am looking to take to auction. I want to put them on Sedo but thier interface confuses me. There is no place on thier site that provides step by step instructions for listing a domain. It seems as if I just upload my domain names and sit back but I want them to go to auction.

Is Sedo the best and most efficient way to take a domain to auction? Also, what about Adult Domains? I tried GFY and HuntingMoon but they seem to not be in service right now.

Thanks!

Only when someone sends an offer for your domain on Sedo can you send it to auction + there are some themed auctions that take place every month but they are very very picky about the domains they accept.

 

[Name Trader]

If you are looking for parking revenue, Sedo are crap. I would suggest Bodis or Voodoo. You can still list your domains for sale at Sedo however. But type-in or backlink visitors would go to the parking page of your parking provider. Not to Sedo's parking page (which as I've said are crap). So visitors to your domain listing on Sedo would only be from somebody searching for a domain on Sedo, not from type-in or backlinks traffic.