Aged domains question

[Bob Hawkes]

I have a question that I hope someone more experienced in domain investing can provide insight on....

Very frequently I see mention in domain name sales that the domain is aged or how many years old it is, as though this is universally a good thing.

I understand completely how if the domain has been used in a website in a positive way, has received meaningful links from other websites, etc. that being aged is a plus that will make the domain more valuable.

However, what if the domain was first registered say 12 years ago, but has essentially sat parked for most or all of that period? In this case I don't see how being aged is positive, and maybe even it could be negative if an unsuccessful attempt has been made to sell the domain over years. Of course, you may have new ideas for promotion and hope to find success where others have not with the domain name, but I still don't see why per se being aged is always positive and meaningful.

Or am I missing something? Thanks for any insights.

Bob

 

[Rajnish Prasad]

No, the question was if a domain registered 5-10 years ago is more valuable than a domain registered yesterday. It's not about beer or other premium commercial words. I can show you tens-hundreds examples registered 5-10 years ago, even before 2000 and which they don't have any value at all and also domains registered this year that were sold for xxx-xxxx or which they had at least inquiries. In conclusion, even if the domain was registered 15 years ago and the domain is jgkjbkjhhbhbkhj.com, it will have no value just based on age.

Well said...i agreee to it...the keyword is what matters rather than the age factor.

A crappy word registered djrrjeue.com 20 yrs will have scrap value..the conclusion in todays reality is that the age sometimes matter but what most matters is the keyword and the endusers requirement.

Everyday or other new tech are pumping in and people are hand registering those names..they are not crappy and they are valuable as well...

Exceptions are everywhere and domaining is not apart from that...there is no thumb rule of the age factor.

A enduser who is in search of a brand domain name for his newly opened business will give priority to the keywords matching and is relevant to his business rather than opting for crappy keywords just bcoz it is 10 or 20 yrs old..

So be realistic...

 

[elevator]

What matters in this biz is making money having good rollovers. There are many old names.that have sold well and.there are many new hand reggs that have made good money. Like what @Rajnish Prasad have said keywords are very important.
The beauty is in the eyes the beholders.

 

[xynames]

I’ve had a few potential buyers play stupid after making lowball offers, saying things like, “Oh, I figured that since you’d held on to it so long without using it I figured you didn’t want it.”

 

[lock]

I have some cheap aged domains simply because have done nothing with them. Aged still needs to be good to sell for high margin the good ones are priced accordingly. No point now to drop names have renewed 20 years so I think all have some value just not what some sellers hope for.
Mine mainly adult have sat around a bit long not in marketplaces or even offered for sale just renewed. People want old but developed in recent times.

 

[xynames]

"People want old but developed in recent times."

Developed? You mean with a website? Or are you talking about adult domains only.

If you mean that people don't want to buy domains unless they have a website I of course disagree.

 

[namelancer]

Made up names acquire distinctiveness through use they are not in existence at the time of creation.

If this were true, none of the Brandable Markeptplaces which specialize precisely in selling these types of names (among other, more liquid, catchy and short acronyms, or descriptive names) for hefty sums would be in existence.That is so in part because what you described above often corresponds to the very definition of a brandable, being, a name, that enters the market with a price tag set to higher aspirations at a time preceding its as of yet unfulfilled (but promised) heyday of trading or trademark glory and long before the name gets developed into or acquires distinctiveness of a brand through channels of marketing and brand awareness..

ps: Strictly from a technical point of view, your statement pertains to definition of a trademark that in itself represents an acquired value.My argument favors assignment of perceived values to names prior to the start of going through trademark process.

 

[namelancer]

Now, weird misspelled or made up names of today may acquire distinctiveness and value

So, saying that a brand new hand registered domain can be great - simply means that through use, it may acquire greatness

The above is being contradicted by the fact that esoteric and misspelled naming distortions of grammar rules command top prices from the moment of their creation as is evidenced by continuous existence of Brandable Marketplaces and namebio's sales records of said brandables.

The only difference is that unlike objectively valued aged domains, purely invented brandables possess what is known as mostly subjective value.

 

[Haris]

Aged domains are better than handregs.. But it's obvious that not all aged domains are going to be great.. people registered bad domains back in the day too.

But to understand this let's look at the expiring and pending delete lists.. it's much rare that a domain registered in 1990's and early 2000s expire when compared to recent 1-2 year old domains. Sure too many domains are being registered today but why are so many of those that are registered nowadays are dropping? Because the newly registered domains are mostly of bad quality, it's a fact.

 

[xynames]

Agreed Haris, and as you imply, it isn't so much that EVERY aged domain is better than EVERY newly created domain, just that - age does matter, is a factor that does contribute to the value of a domain. And that the domains that were available to hand reg YEARS ago, tend to be higher quality than what is available to hand reg. today.

 

[boker]

Not really, I mean
https://www.thedomains.com/2017/09/...s-cms-summit-merge-announce-domain-challenge/
is dumping thousands of these made up and misspelled names for $299. each (dropped down from initial attempt at $495. each), and they are no better or worse than some of the ones people are trying to get a few grand for. My communications with people who are selling exclusively these made up or misspelled domain names indicate that they can't make it with this sort of junk alone especially when they try to sell for more than a few hundred each - sales are so slow when trying to sell made up/misspelled domains for "top prices" that domain reg fees for the entire portfolio eat up all incoming profits.

Let's take as example, MK, from Brandbucket. he sold last year around 300-400 domains, with and average price of 3k and he doesn't have any EMD's, he's dealing exclusively brandables. So, let me know how many guys you know, dealing with EMD's and aged domains who are selling more and for more money, excluding the big guys in the industry and which have invested much more and for a way longer than him.

 

[xynames]

If I am the buyer

I would negotiate to reduce the price because of the age. I would say it didn't succeed let's say in the past 15 years and you are asking more than it really worths.

If I am the seller

I would ask more if it has a clean history, never used let's say in the past 15 years and would add, the age of the domain matters for SEO.

note: Never bought or sold aged domains...

Those are used car salesman tactics other than "the age of the domain matters for SEO" which can be true, yes, but isn't really the greatest selling point.

Better is to present the comparables for closed sales and current offerings, and reach a value based on those.

Also you are completely missing the point, by arguing that whether the domain has been used for something or not is relevant. Not necessarily. I have domains that I just sold for five figures that haven't been used for anything but PPC parking since we had registered them 13 years ago. The right buyer just hadn't come along yet.

And if you come in like this buyer:

I’ve had a few potential buyers play stupid after making lowball offers, saying things like, “Oh, I figured that since you’d held on to it so long without using it I figured you didn’t want it.”

you end up sounding like a bozo, not edifying and will not get you anywhere. Had another bozo say something like, "Well it's your fault for having held on to that domain that long" when he made another ridiculously low offer, trying to act like he should get it cheap because it had been sitting unsold all this time.


Anyway, I don't even mention the age of the domain when negotiating a sale. It doesn't occur to me to mention it. It simply remains at the back of my mind, and at some point what I might say is that this domain is superior to anything you could hand register today, which by implication means that the age matters, which - it does!

 

[boker]

You forgot to mention, Naturalbeauty was regged for $10 and sold for $65k

Boker you're a smart guy, I think you don't want competition at auction for aged domains

Yes, but it was not sold when it was freshly regged, when it was sold for 65k was already a few years old. My oldest name is less than 3 years old, hand regged by me, so you can't say it's aged and believe me or not, I'm not into auctions of aged names.

 

[boker]

If every hand reg would sell for at least $500 .. then I'll say age doesn't matter. Let me know when that happens.

If every aged domain would sell for at least 500$....then I'll say that age matter. Let em know when that happens.

 

[boker]

You are better than those newbies at hand registering I believe. You know what to register. There is a lot of gold in the garbage bin of deleted domains, I know. I just prefer an aged $20 domain over a $10 handreg. Start buying aged domains and you'll know the difference.

Everybody has his own strategy. We can make a simple experiment. Give me an example of aged domain sold for around 2,5k this year and let me know how much profit could bring in the next 5 years. I can bet that with that 2,5k, buying hand reg's using discounts, so around 1000 hand reg, I can make at least double the profit you will make by investing in that aged domain, in the same time frame.

 

[xynames]

Well you gotta figure that some terms like bitcoin meant nothing in the 1990s, so there are some newer registrations that no one would have thought of back then. And then there are some terms from the 1990s that have fallen out of favor.

But yes, Haris, brilliant! post and great! culling of statistics. I think that really means something that only a few hunny domains from the early days are dropping per day versus TENS OF THOUSANDS dropping per day of the newer registrations.

 

[namelancer]

What we're talking about here is when the domain was original "created" as far as its age.

Yes, of course,I am aware of this. Wanted to add an extra angle.

 

[xynames]

"
if you count the number of registrations, 1990-2000 to 2016 probably there will be more than 60 times more registered domains in 2016, so it's somehow the same.

"

Also based on what haris wrote:

.com's dropped in last 12 hours

Domains from 1980's - Dec 31 2000.
About 245 Domains

Then 2016 .com domains dropped in last 12 hours
About 33,137 Domains

That would mean about 500 per 24 hours for the old days, versus about 66K for the new days, which is not 60X more, but about 130X more.

I'd like to see the statistics on this. Somehow I don't think so, I don't think that 130x more names are being registered (created for the first time) today versus say fifteen years ago.

 

[xynames]

Okay I gotta run, just got two more price inquiries / offers on two more aged domains.

 

[namelancer]

Ask yourself why thousands of 2016 regs are dropping everyday while there are only a few from 1990s.

As per what you wrote:
'Okay so I did a search at Expireddomains.net

.com's dropped in last 12 hours

Domains from 1980's - Dec 31 2000.
About 245 Domains

Then 2016 .com domains dropped in last 12 hours
About 33,137 Domains'



For your information, @Haris::

Traffic on Internet backbones in U.S.. For each year shows estimated
traffic in terabytes during December of that year:

year TB/month

1990 1.0
1991 2-0
1992 4.4
1993 8.3
1994 16.3
1995 ?
1996 1,500
1997 2,500-4,000
1998 5,000-8,000
1999 10,000-16,000
2000 20,000-35,000, etc

 

[namelancer]

The stuff that is available to hang reg today, was available years ago, too! However most of what was available years ago, especially the good stuff, is not available to hand register today.

Because history repeats itself, what is available to register today, in a few years' time, could be as good as the hand. reg's of the past. We, and the domains, by extension, are the products of our times and times, they are changing !

 

[namelancer]

Another striking proof: If you renew your website domain for longer 1 year in advance it ranks better in search results. I personally verified this on my own websites. Register a domain today, develop it today and renew its domain for 5 years, till 2022. By renewing its domain for 5 years, you are announcing everyone (including search engines) your site will certainly become 5 years old in 2022. Therefore your site deserves enjoying some portion of the authority of a 5 years old domain as it gives a guarantee to become a 5 years old domain.

I'll start by responding to your earlier post.

I think, that by ranking a domain/website higher, it's a google' way of saying they put a stamp of appreciation on a domain with a bright future and a long life AHEAD of it rather than the one with a glorious past

 

[karmaco]

What is "in com" do you mean dot com?

Those made up names, misspelled names, one is the same as the other, in my opinion. Before branding they will never be worth much. You may keep doing what you are doing but when your inventory has nothing special in it where one name is as good as another from your competitor, it's hard to stay ahead. Of course "worth much" is all relative. To me a $500. or $1000. offer on my domains are the offers I almost universally turn down; I get such offers daily.

My inventory is mostly hand registered too, but hand registered years ago, just been patient, holding, and selling selectively at fair prices only.

You're getting way off on a tangent. Making a living or not making a living on domaining is not what this thread is about. It's about whether age matters, and it does!

You are very single minded in your replies. Many aged domains are absolute garbage and fall daily. You asked for examples eth.com which has more understood value today than 15 years ago comes to mind as well as bitcoin names. Which were not in existence 15 years ago.

What @Silentptnr was trying to say is names registered 15 or more years ago do not always translate to what is relevant. current and valuable today in almost 2018.

Only one person can own beer.com btw and very few could afford it. Your theory does not factor in that alternatives are the bigger market than boring single words only billionaires can afford.

 

[xynames]

Guys are going off on defensive tangents scrambling to prove that newer domains may be valuable too when that’s not what I am saying or not saying - I agree that some newer domains may be or become valuable. Certainly there are words that did not exist (eg bitcoin) 20 years ago that have value now and did not then.

I state simply the reality that age does matter and is a positive factor in the value of a domain. Anyway if my entire portfolio were made up or misspelled names I doubt I’d be getting daily offers or price inquiries, as I am.

 

[HotKey]

But I have never heard of an end user telling a broker, when listing criteria for a domain and trying to come up with candidates, that they want an old domain. And I've never heard of a buyer who was interested in a specific domain walking away because they found out it wasn't old enough.

Really? Surely you've met a collector or hobbyist before..

 

[namelancer]

Even older humans are more expensive than younger ones. Seeing a 50 years old doctor is more expensive than seeing a 35 years old doctor or an advocate, technician, accountant, etc.

What would be more expensive, is it seeing:

1. A 35 years old surgeon vs 50 years old general practitioner (regular MD) ?
2. A 50 y.o. MD with PHD vs 50 y.o. MD (Medical Doctor) ?
3. A 50 y.o. MD vs 70 y.o. MD ?
4. A 60 y.o. MD vs 80 y.o. MD, by now probably only practicing geriatrics ?

If age adds value, why is there age discrimination at workplace existing as a confirmed bias against older people ?