discuss Baffled by people against hand reg

[Laguna]

As many of you know, I hand reg all my domains. Most posts I have read are all against it. I am baffled by this as ALL domains were originally hand reg . Your comments and opinions are welcome but NO personal comments about my way of doing things please.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

First of all Happy New Year to all my domain friends on NPs and the very best wishes to everyone for 2019 to be a successful one for you. I started the new year right spending most of the day with grandchildren, exploring our urban parks and walks, and did not notice this thread until much was written (and then contributed my sorry attempt at humour re the hypothetical Bob in @JB Lions post, sorry). But on to the topic at hand....

To hand-reg or not has been discussed quite a few times, but still I found insights in a number of the well reasoned arguments in this thread. I have no doubt that hand-reg continues to work well for some. I also have no doubt that the majority, perhaps after trying hand-reg in the early days, find it more profitable now to invest in auctions or drops. I also know that the majority of truly high value sales are names that have remained registered for many years.

I also would suggest that almost all of us could agree that there are situations where hand-reg makes sense. These would include emerging technologies, made up brandables, new social trends, and possibly some geo based names.

One of the strongest arguments against hand registration by new domainers is that easy hand registration may promote quantity over quality in a portfolio. If you are investing $60 you will think more whether the name is indeed worthwhile. That being said, it seems to me that there are lots of names that will never sell being offered on auctions and drops, so that alone is no guarantee of quality (just as age alone may be a filter but is no guarantee of quality).

I think this question could be answered by an analysis (and may try to do one in the future). I did some time ago look at a batch of sales on NameBio and it is true that the majority had been held for some time. However, remember that NameJet and GoDaddy auctions, and DropCatch represent many of the sales automatically reported to NameBio, and by definition many of these are dropping previously held names. Since sales at Affternic, Effty sites, Undeveloped, etc. are not normally reported, the data may have a significant bias.

A second way to test, that would remove this bias but add its own self-report biases. In preparing this post I did read through the last 6 pages of the Report Completed Sales thread. In many cases it shows clearly whether the name was a hand reg or not. It seemed to me that a significant number of the sales on NP sales thread were indeed hand regs (I define that as 2 or fewer renewals and original registration), including sales that were at high $$$ and $$$$ ranges.

As well as logic and statistical data, another possible piece of evidence is whether highly successful domain investors still hand-reg. Some have chimed in to this thread. I would point out that Mike Mann hand registered as recently as 2012 almost 15,000 domain names in a single day. Also, his sales posts that in general give acquisition data, have shown success with some hand registrations since then. Note however that while he registered them in a short period, he did this based on a desired list he had researched over an extended time. If you hand-register never do it on impulse - research and consider the names over a significant time.

I think it is true that even those with high value profiles occasionally hand-register. For example in his recent post about acquisitions in 2018 Elliot Silver points out that he hand registered more than usual in 2018 (he does not give the number but is supposedly high enough if he does not know it without checking) . He has a very strong portfolio and this year has turned down high 5 figure offers. I respect his judgement a lot, and to me this suggests that there is a place for hand registration even in 2019.

Whether to hand register or not is one question that we should all be sure not to confuse what works best for us personally with what is the only route for others to follow.

Some car salespeople sell only new cars, some only high end used cars, some used cars at the low end, and some a mix. There are definitely successful sales people in all categories. The traits to be successful are different in the different categories. The same is true in real estate. Think carefully and decide what is best for you. Listen to arguments of others, but don't blindly accept advice from anyone.

Whether you hand register or drop catch or follow auctions, my main advice is to do your research, stick to niches you understand, think from an end user perspective, emphasize quality over quantity, go slowly in building your portfolio, and play to your strengths. But that is just what I think. It is what you think that counts for you!

Have a happy and prosperous 2019 everyone.

Bob

 

[Kate]

We are domainers, so the aim is to sell domains, not collect them right ?

Saying that "Every domain name out there was hand regged at some point" does not change the fact that the very best names were registered a long time ago, and the opportunities left today will never equal those of the past.

 

[Internet.Domains]

I heard the same negative things about hand regs in 2014-2015. I registered a whole bunch of 'drone' domains at that time. Sold almost all of them for a great ROI.

Hand registering is one of many tactics or strategies a domain investor can pursue. However, it comes with great risk, but can have a good ROI.

Is hand registering good for every investor? Probably not.

Is hand registering good for some? Yes

Your call, your world, your domain. Make the most of it.....and most importantly, enjoy the journey until you get to the destination.

 

[Laguna]

I totally hear what you are saying, but there are new businesses starting up every day across the world. Also new technology and advancements in medicine ect. Every domain name out there was hand regged at some point and will continue. Surely it's just a case of hand regging the right one that will benefit a new technology or business

 

[MapleDots]

Your own thread:

Never had a sale or inquiry

https://www.namepros.com/threads/never-had-a-sale-or-inquiry-trendingspy-com.1116283/

Can you sell a hand reg? Or course. But if it's available, somehow everybody in the world missed it, so chances are lower for a sale vs. domains picked up elsewhere, like the aftermarket.

HeHe, that's almost comical JB

As far as responding to the OP....

Trends my good man, trends...
Stay on top of them and covfefe before anyone else does.

If you don't know what covfefe is then you need to research trends a bit more.

In conclusion... forget what you think you know about hand registering and stay on top of news, whats fresh, whats happening, whats trending. Register it before anyone else does and you might strike it big.

 

[karmaco]

I sold several handregs in the 3 to 5 K range my first 8 months domaining on my own landers. They were all two to four months old. It can happen and anyone who says otherwise is just pissed their 20 year old name still remains unsold.

I agree that the best names are allready taken in old staples. But emerging tech names, future trends and hot niches are great for hand regging if you know what to pick.

Some people like to be high and mighty about names but the truth is most names irrespective of age or quality remain unsold. That’s why there is an “aftermarket”.

Everyone is looking for a payout that may or may not come. This is educated gambling. Even with end users in mind when purchasing on aftermarket there is no guarantee of any name selling. If there was the name would allready be sold.

The aftermarket prices have gotten pretty ridiculous and I would bet many more domainers than care to admit still handreg.

The most common hand reggers are fast flippers who sell to other domainers for modest earnings. If you are waiting for an end user you will have to expect just that— a wait—and a financial investment in keeping that hand reg going the same as an older name.

One other point that is rarely discussed not everyone can afford or is willing to pay for the best alternative or a one word or their choice is in actual use. That’s where the 2nd and 3rd tier reasonably priced names come in.

 

[Jay Ha]

Hand regging can seriously burn your fingers and although I've only been around for a mere 4 months but I already seen some people on here with 1000's of hand regs and 0 sales.

Don't be like those guys.

On the other hand, lots of made up words (brandables) are still available. Startups have the option to pay big money (high xx,xxx to xxx,xxx) for a single dictionary word .com, or go for the 'brandable' route (low x,xxx to low xx,xxx). Also, new technologies keep on coming up with new terms that have the potential to become trends. You can hand reg that niche. It needs some research and knowing the market prior to regging your names though.

Listen mate I'm on the same boat as you are. I'm at around 65 domains in my portfolio and only ~10 names were bought from the aftermarket. No name was purchased for more than 20 bucks. Still haven't had a single sale and maybe just a couple lame inquiries. Why? Because the majority of my names are hand regs. You are gonna have to wait 2-3 yrs to start receiving inquiries for this type of names (if you receive any), and you have to be OK with this.

I'm still new and learning here. Won't spend xxx for reselling unless I'm very well informed. However, closeouts can have some really nice names that you wouldn't even dream find while hand regging. I suggest you go through the NP threads that contain lists of handpicked closeouts names. Some members here are spending some valuable time screening those lists.

Every time I find a topic about hand regs I feel that there should be one that opens the discussion to categorize types of hand regs:

1. first time hand regs (never previously regged)
2. drops, which can be categorized into:

Frequency:

• 1st-time droppers (previously held names)
• previously and continuously dropped names

Duration:

• dropped and left behind (as in dropped in like 2013 and never regged since then)
• just dropped (as in dropped in less than a year ago)

I believe that not all hand regs (and mostly dropped names) are equal.

 

[maxtra]

I now prefer spending more money on a few quality and aged domains at a time vs spending on many hand regs and renewals

I find these names sell quicker and also sell themselves easier

Some make a lot of profit with hand regs, i.e. geos

Just really depends on the business model

Thanks

 

[Kate]

And how many of those handregs have you sold so far, and for how much ? Everybody can and does handreg, bypassing domainers.

 

[maxtra]

Quote from Jeff Bezos:

"Before, if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product.

So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer.

That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies...the individual is empowered...

The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it.

If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."

This is what I am focused on

The better and more in demand the name the more inbound inquiries you will get and less "selling" you will have to do

There is money to be made in picking the right names in future industries/trends/geos though

Thanks

 

[Kate]

He said, "NO personal comments about my way of doing things please."

The first thing you did was point to his personal way of doing things. You did this against his request. That's not cool.

That's what I did too, albeit in an indirect manner. You can't have a real debate without criticism.
The conversation was steered in a way that discards arguments against handregging.

Yes, patience is required (not to be confused with stubborness). Even good names can take a long time to sell. I understand that the OP has not been at it for a long time. So he must be thinking it's normal he's not made sales yet, and his time will come. Unfortunately the odds are stacked against registrants, especially when the domains are not compelling. 99% of domain names parked for sale are waiting for a buyer who will never come.

If a name is still available in 2018, it usually means nobody would even buy it for $10 and you should think twice if your aim is to resell it for a profit.
Hint: you can use sites like hosterstats.com or archive.org to find out if the name was registered in the past.

There are members who post names for appraisal, names that were never registered before (in two decades of Internet history and in spite of billions of eyeballs), or names that used to be registered and dropped ten years ago. What are the odds of a big sale to an end user with names like those.
It takes research, discernment, experience and gut feeling.

I think the OP will struggle to sell just one name in the portfolio, even if he does - that won't be enough to recoup the investment.
At first glance, I would advise not to renew any. Don't waste more money on renewals. Instead, use your disposable income toward the acquisition of fewer but better domains. Good luck. If domaining was easy everybody would be doing it.

 

[.X.]

Hand reging is very very strategic, time consuming as hell and sometimes very frustrating. Name reging has been the backbone of domaining for me. It has kept me afloat.

But not without expense and the need for much much patience, to continue to be able to hand reg names effectively, I had to have a script written that wasn't native to other domainers, that cost me 2k initially, that back in 2012, I have had to 4 updates done to the script since 2012 costing $500 per update. the updates were very important for me to able to stay two steps ahead of average domain spinners. then add in the "Mistake" names, names that you hand reg, but let drop because you see the name is not near as attractive as it was when you reged it, most everyone makes these mistakes but is an expense at the end of each year.

The hold time: There is a hold time required in almost all hand reged names, with a few exceptions. the hold time is most usually 1 to 2 years, sometimes longer, I get offers on newer handreg names, but they are usually pretty low offers. $100 to $300 on names less than 1 year old. so patience is a must.

Don't Harvest hand reg names, This is the key to keeping your head above water, harvesting hand reg names unless you have a high capital budget, is not a good thing at all, a diversified portfolio of liquid names, nice names purchased from auctions is a must IMO.

As many people say, the best names are already registered, this is very true. they aren't hating on the hand reg, just telling the truth, the fact is, people resorted to reverse keyword version of already reged names. Example: Coffeebean to BeanCoffee, in general, this type of hand reging is a waste IMO. although in RARE cases reversing keywords can work pretty nice.

Nice domain names, in general, are hard to come by at a price affordable to be able to make some money without a decent hold time. Hand reg names are getting to the point of being very very hard to find. the best of best have been registered for years, tier 2 and 3 names are most usually not available until they have dropped and passed through auction houses without being purchased. Thier are some tier 4 and tier 5 names that might be able to be hand reged , but if you register those names, you have 3 tiers of names ahead of you for people to purchase.

This is why you see the scrutiny surrounding hand registered names here at other places. IMO , But I will continue to hand reg until the well runs dry, I just love doing it that much. It is much harder for me to replace my inventory of sold hand reg names these days, I guess I am a glutton for punishment lol

 

[.X.]

Thanks @Bob Hawkes , the census should be very interesting.

I sold 41 hand reg names in 2018, only 8 of them were 2 renewals or less, the rest were 2+ renewals.

I have hand reg names still in my portfolio that go back to 2007 , a lot of renewal fees there, but I go by how many and what $$$ offers I have gotten and do get for them as to thier worth, so paying , so at average of 8.32 a renewal for 11 years is $92.29 per domain name, I hand reged 218 LLLL.coms back in 2006 to 2008, I have only sold 6 of those, so I have 212 4L.coms with 10+ years of renewal fees, but all the original 218 I reged, were straight up fresh hand reged.

I got offers on 314 names that were hand reg in 2018, looking in my Sedo acct, I expect I will able to sell 172 of them in 2019, as the offers on those 172 were close to hitting the sweet spot to sell. But, 167 of those names have 2 + years of renewals.

The ROI on the names I sold that had less than two renewals was beer money, Cheaptoo.com $188 on undeveloped, I posted the receipt in some thread here, another hand reg thread I believe it was. The hold time was 1 renewal on that one.

In my case, I do far better holding my hand reggies for 2 years or more, a slow and going process, but worth it in the end.

I always replace my sold hand reg inventory with more hand reg inventory. I have been doing that since I started domaining, or should I say actually started making domain name sales that actually made more than a $50 ROI, which didn’t start until my third year of domaining.

So I have been doing the so called rinse and repeat with hand reg names for some 15 years now.

I don’t have any stats on how many hand reg names I have let drop through the years, more than I would care to think about I am sure, so those count as money losses of course. Some 0.99 back in the Godaddy hay days, most I would guess regular reg fee between $5.99 to $7.00 a name.

hand Reg names are awesome when you get the prize, but lonely while you are waiting for the prize.

 

[Lord Antares]

A hand reg in 2018 is a lot different than a hand reg in 1998.

As time goes on, hand regs become worse.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I just spent a few hours going through over a month of sales reported on the NP thread for completed sales, looking at TLD, price, sales venue and whether hand reg or not (not clear in all cases but in majority it is). It will take me awhile to put it into a spreadsheet and give complete analysis, but it is clear just in doing it so far that a surprising number were hand regs (I think it will be more than 50% by number but will tell you precisely when I have done it. I defined hand reg as no more than 2 renewals paid.

In terms of Venue, look forward to seeing the exact results by dollar volume, but at least by numbers Undeveloped and Afternic will clearly lead I think.

Anyway, more later, but wanted to share these somewhat surprising to me results that do have bearing on the question of the hand reg question of this thread.

Bob

 

[HotKey]

Trends my good man, trends...
Stay on top of them and covfefe before anyone else does.

We're lucky that the people making the trends, making it happen and making the news are just too damn busy to register the domain along with it.. so this is where we come in. Filling the gap. Can't just fill it with anything though. So if you're going to hand-reg that gap, takes a sharp tool to get it right.

 

[DomainVP]

First of all, this is a hobby for me at the moment as I have a well paid job that I love .I have a portfolio of just over 200 hand reg domains for a total outlay of £500. If I can't double my money within a year then I will have failed without much damage. If however, I spend thousands on good established names and don't sell them, then I'm in trouble.

You would have done better to do your research and buy 5 decent names for $100 each.

This whole "just a hobby" statement is not a justification for laziness. It's a blanket that failing domainers like to use to make themselves feel all better.

You love your job, great, but there isn't a person in this world that wants to waste time and money.

Right now, that's what you are doing.

If you want to have a profitable hobby then stop with the .xyz nonsense and take some of that well paid job money and invest it in something that will give you a good return.

This whole thread is almost a waste of time , ans snubs the decades of knowledge on this website that have this same conversation over and over with newbs.

At the end of the day, you do you. I'm pretty sure you got all of the answers you need for this thread.

 

[maksimfa]

I don't think anyone here is inherently against hand regs and if you think everyone here is... it is merely your bias showing.

Do hand regs sell? Yes... but generally under a few circumstances...
1. New technology or topic.
2. Domain dropped/expired, overlooked by others, and original owner wants it back.
3. Brandables

Yes, there is a market for them but it is very much more frustrating process and a far longer sales cycle. Your sell through rate will be quite low... that is what you have to account for.

If you sell 1% of your hand regs per year... that means you will spend $10 x 100 for registrations or $1,000.
Are you going to sell 1 domain for $1k?

Or... you can buy liquid domains that you can flip for small profits.

I promise you, if you buy 100 4L .coms... you will be able to sell 100 4L .coms here or elsewhere.
Same thing if you have quality one word or two word domains.

Just recently someone posted their beauty of a hand reg... CBDTwitter.com. lol. Would you take a risk on that one for $10 or would you rather spend $1k to buy WeedShop.com (example) or $100k for Weed.com
Which do you think you can flip/sell faster?

There is no specific strategy with domaining and you have to find what works for you... liquid, brandables, keyword, geo+keyword, dictionary, CHIPs, etc. Each of those categories carries its own strategy and risk/reward profile.

 

[PeakDots]

I may be wrong but I don't think people are against hand regging names.
I think they just don't want to see people wasting their money on crappy names that will never sell.

The "Your Reg. Of The Day" thread is a pretty popular thread. With almost 1.5 million views. Why are so many people curious to view crap?
I've seen some really good hand regs in that thread and some pretty bad ones also imo (myself being a contributor)

I believe most are genuinely trying to help in their on way by giving free advice from their experiences.
Whether it be said bluntly,sarcastically,unsugarcoated,with "tough love",or just plain out nicely, there is a lot of great advice in this forum from experienced domainers.

 

[Kate]

The automated appraisals won't sell domains and are just for entertainment. You should discard them completely. Pretty much any domain will be appraised above regfee anyway, it's like you have nothing to lose but then why are these names free to register if they are valuable ? Obviously it can't be that easy or everybody would be doing it.
Remember that the registrar has an incentive that you buy domains from them.

While many sales are puzzling and one of a kind, many domain names sold are obviously quality domains and that is why they sold. Some patterns are hard to miss. For instance, good, short names in .com or mature TLDs is stuff that is in demand whereas arbitrary strings on exotic TLDs are things that don't get much interest from end users.

Again, if a domain name is available in 2018, has been sitting unregistered for ages or worse never been registered before you should really think hard before pulling the trigger, especially if the plan is not to develop it but resell it.
This game is more difficult thank you think and the majority of domainers are losing money. Thus the dropout rate is very high. Domaining is a boulevard of shattered dreams.
So don't make it more difficult than it already is. The likelihood of a sale is much stronger when you have good domains. Bad names are liabilities and detrimental to your financial health.

 

[Fancy.domains]

I sell a lot of handregs, but almost all of them are names that just dropped. Not all good drops are snapped by robots.

However, I personally think it’s a waste of time to handreg “random” .com names etc.

 

[mistressbellek]

My first introduction post on NP was May of last year and it was specifically about the large number of hand regs I had. I still hand register domains, but I also buy some on the auctions and close outs. I’m not here to rush sell my domains. My long term goal is to develop some of them as well as create branding ideas and logos for others. I intentionally hand register a good number of names for emerging and evolving technologies and industries. Sex and tech are two great things and the future of sex is evolving quickly. Over the last few months I’ve focused on domains relating to cannabis, sex, blockchain, 5g, bionics, haptics, neural networks, deep learning, solar power, autonomous vehicles, AI, AR, VR, XR, telehealth etc . I feel strongly that 5g will disrupt many industries such as gaming, aviation, telehealth, robotics..... and so many more. I am well aware of the risk and the fact I make mistakes, but that just drives my ambition and confidence to improve.

The good news is I get weekly inquiries and so far mostly low ball offers, but I have loaned a few xxx adult industry names as redirects ( mainly bodyrub + geo )

Between hand regs and domains I’ve acquired through auctions and close outs I have around 1500 now. A good bit of them are on my site but you have to scroll too much and that’s one of my mistakes therefore I’m hiring a web developer to revamp my site.


Here are a few of my recent hand regs, followed by others I have acquired. I always welcome constructive criticism, but I don’t tolerate domain bullying.
Hand Reg:
Neuralpowered dot com
Microneurology dot com
EngagedBank dot com
5gaviation dot com
Genitalai dot com
BionicAsset dot com
DAppout dot com
DAppem dot com

Gd auction

Fetishclubs dot com
Gened dot com
Leafwallet dot com
Binaryeye dot com
Aiavn dot com
Digitalchain dot com
Primecbdoil dot com
PlantsX dot com

Closeout Domains between $5-11

Riverbud dot com
RebelHash dot com
Locojet dot com
Hotglide dot com
Highhousing dot com
Linkedmobility dot com
Holoheads dot com
Biotransplants dot com

Private deal

Prescribepot dot com

@Lagunaboy I think you have good names . My favorite is vibrogasm

 

[Kate]

And how does any of that make your domain name desirable or even relevant ?
This is not what we call research, there is no correlation between what you're reading in the newspapers and your domain name.

In case you did not notice - Elon buys stuff like tesla.com or X.com for millions, he doesn't buy 3-word domains.
IMO this name is too long and awkward, and not suitable for building a strong brand.

Another bit of advice: pick your industries/niches carefully. There are not many companies launching satellites or building rocket launchers. It is a tiny, specialized industry with a very small pool of end users.
Personally, I also recommend that people first stick to niches they are familiar with, and buy names for which they could be the end user.

I guarantee you that if I were an end user in that realm, I would find a better handreg easily, or if I really want a great name and I have a budget of $,$$$ to spend then I would purchase a shorter and more brandable domain at some venue. There is plenty of choice.

Everybody can handreg, but not everybody can do good reggae

 

[JB Lions]

MidasCoffeeChain In dot com

For someone who wants to ( or already has) open a chain of coffee bars.
Am I on the right lines now ?

No. Like most, when I first started it was hand regs. Life changed when I moved up and bought better domains. Then I would do a few hand regs a year, if something popped up. Cyber Money 2017, when .coms for going for $5, I dipped back in to kind of challenge myself to see I could make money with hand regs, a personal challenge. And I can. Some examples.

Examples of something popping up, Trump talking about Space Force. I hand regged TheSpaceForce.com. Can I sell it for more than $8.47, of course.

I put some hand regs in my NJ auction this month, 4 of them have bids. Now, if I had no reserve on all of them, lowest is $69 or 8x what I paid for them:

studenttraveldiscounts.com
historicalwalkingtours.com
bookinfluencer.com
hockeynewsletter.com

Now you can Google any of that and should be able to figure out why I bought them. Some are based off my own sales, or what you mentioned, checking out what else is selling via Namebio and bounce off those sales. I sold beernewsletter. com so I hand regged some other newsletter names. Influencer names are being popular, so I hand regged some of those, like the one above. I've sold some wedding .coms, so I hand regged some niche wedding names like aquarium, theater, cave etc. plus weddings.com. Why? Because they're all real businesses. Like I said earlier, it's harder with hand regs, most of mine will always be thru the aftermarket but if you put in some work, you can reg some names that have a chance.

With my hand regs, I'm in a no lose situation right now. My personal hand reg challenge.
Bought about 20 during that Cyber Monday sale, invested $100. The plan was any money over $100, force myself to buy more hand regs. Sold a few of those initial 20, made more than that $100. The money over that $100, went right back into hand regs. Sold more hand regs. So worst case scenario with my hand regs, I break even. Can't lose money.