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.

 

[Laguna]

Early days of what? The internet is well established and there are 130M+ .COM regs.
It is slim pickings on what is available.

Most hand regs are available for a reason, because no one else wanted it. It is unlikely that something would be available then all of sudden another party is willing to pay a premium for it.

Brad

We will see. I'm no domain expert but I have common sense and intelligence. Yes I definitely made a bad start but thought has gone into my recent hand reg domains and I'd be gobsmacked if any of you would put your money on the line and say I won't show a profit within a year

 

[bmugford]

We will see. I'm no domain expert but I have common sense and intelligence. Yes I definitely made a bad start but thought has gone into my recent hand reg domains and I'd be gobsmacked if any of you would put your money on the line and say I won't show a profit within a year

Lots of new investors come into this field thinking they can re-invent the wheel.
It normally doesn't turn out that well.

Best of luck.

Brad

 

[Laguna]

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.

They are not random.

 

[mr-x]

I guess you have been through my portfolio to come to that conclusion, right ?

Experienced people in this threat are trying to help you. You should reevaluate your strategy. Maybe spend your next 2 hundred $$ at DNAcademy.

 

[Fancy.domains]

They are not random.

Good for you! As long as you are able to make a profit from your names, you’re on the right track.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Bob starts a thread wanting people to explain to him why he should wear a helmet when riding his motorcycle but don't mention anything personal.

I'm confused who is Bob? Or is the name in the profile of the person who started this thread not accurate?

 

[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.

 

[Laguna]

Experienced people in this threat are trying to help you. You should reevaluate your strategy. Maybe spend your next 2 hundred $$ at DNAcademy.

That is why I started this discussion. There will never be a debate where everyone has the same opinion. If we all take a little piece of information from different views , then everyone learns a little. Even experienced people never stop learning

 

[Laguna]

Good for you! As long as you are able to make a profit from your names, you’re on the right track.

Exactly. The first year is a learning process

 

[mr-x]

That is why I started this discussion. There will never be a debate where everyone has the same opinion. If we all take a little piece of information from different views , then everyone learns a little. Even experienced people never stop learning

Best of luck.

 

[Internet.Domains]

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.

I don't discount all the points you have made.

In this thread, the OP clearly did not want the thread to be about him. This thread has turned from being educational to critiscizing his portfolio. I feel more can be gained by keeping the conversation directed at hand regs verses the OP's portfolio, as the OP kindly asked. Clearly others feel different.

 

[Fancy.domains]

Exactly. The first year is a learning process

I can agree on that. If you lose some money the first year it’s not the end of the world. To become a profitable domainer will take a lot of effort. I’ve regged a lot of “crazy names” over the years.

 

[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.

 

[Brands.International]

I have actually checked the portfolio and I think there are 5 or 6 nice .com names which I think are pretty good, and I would renew them if they would be mine (and if I would invest in .com, which I do not).

Those new gTLDs there, I would not renew any of them, I think probabilities are very very low for any resale for those names.

If you keep the good core of your portfolio, those seevral good names, that would be imo great start.

In the first year of domaining every one looses money. So it is important to drop bad names, not to send good money after bad money, so to speak.

 

[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.

 

[infosec3]

I think hand-registrations should be left to experienced domainers, unless you are some sort of prodigy. Why? Well, give it a year and see how keen you are to renew those domains.

Panning for gold, drilling for oil, buying stock, bitcoin and tons more had their infancy as well, but good luck gong back to basics on those. I think this is the message people are trying to relay..

Well said, sir...

 

[maksimfa]

Just to add...

With handregs in particular... you better be sure you already have either a customer identified.. OR a customer profile in your mind for whom would buy that domain, why they would buy it and how much they would pay.

Just because you could, does not mean you should.

There a few domainers here in particular that I respect... but for instance they buy domains that sound good, but to anyone in that actual field... make ZERO sense to own. One example is gun domains. As part of my profession I am work with gun stores and gun manufacturers... people hand reg gun related domains that mean ZERO difference for an existing company.

So instead of just regging what you think is "cool", focus on an industry you know with actual people who would be interested in those domains.

Then, when you do outbound for those domains... people will take you seriously when you know WTF you are talking about.

 

[maya-zir]

Handreg also bring ROI, you just must to have a tactics.
I dont have money for buy domains, I handreg and sell for mid xx, low or mid xxx.
Just need to mark all domains (yes for renewal - no for renewal) and try to sell all domains before renewal, keeping just good ones...

 

[Laguna]

Thanks to all that contributed to this debate. Was very informative as usual.

 

[Ostrados]

Doing hand reg properly is extremely difficult not like popular belief that it is easy!

You have to research not new trends (99% of related domains are taken), but what will become a trend in the future! Tell me that this is an easy task to do.

It is almost impossible to predict new trends for most topics, Technology might be the easiest topic to predict because we already know the technologies that will dominate in the future, however the question is not what but when?! Can you tell me when your super cool QM or AI domains will get high demand? 2 years 5 years or 10 years?

Back to the Future II movie (1989) predicts that hoverboards will be available in 2015, we are now in 2019 and there are no hoverboards around yet and I don't think there will be any very soon.

I think you got my point,

 

[maksimfa]

Doing hand reg properly is extremely difficult not like popular belief that it is easy!

You have to research not new trends (99% of related domains are taken), but what will become a trend in the future! Tell me that this is an easy task to do.

It is almost impossible to predict new trends for most topics, Technology might be the easiest topic to predict because we already know the technologies that will dominate in the future, however the question is not what but when?! Can you tell me when your cool QM or AI domains will get high demand? 2 years 5 years or 10 years?

Back to the Future II movie (1989) predicts that hoverboards will be available in 2015, we are now in 2019 and there are no hoverboards around yet and I don't think there will be any very soon.

I think you got my point,

Or if and when that topic becomes hot... then it flops...

AKA... 3d printing, fitbits, etc. 4k, and to a greater extent vr.

 

[The Durfer]

if you spend more than $250 on hand regs you should've bought a LLLL.com.

 

[equity78]

I read it, but it's relevant obviously.

Of course it's relevant because all domaining is personal. I was glad to see Rick call it an individual sport which is what I wrote several years ago in the first post on tldinvestors.

It's not if it can be done, it's if I can do it. Poker same 52 cards for everyone at every table, can someone win a lot of money playing poker? Sure, can you?

Everything is personal in this business, there are men and women who don't have the bankroll or the stones to pull the trigger on a 3L.com at $25,000 in auction, others do it every day and flip or sell for big money down the road.

Rick was not the only person who knew about domains 24 years ago, how many had the stones to pay $42,000 for Porno.com in 1997? Not many.

https://www.thedomains.com/2015/02/...4th-highest-reported-domain-sale-of-all-time/

 

[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.

 

[vravis9]

One thing I can say is @Lagunaboy you have to trust on your own work...

And you should already known that here they won't stop commenting on person and his belief...rather than providing their views in a professional way to support their theory...

See you already got so many replies...and it goes on..

Coming to main topic...

All good names are registered long ago... partially true..."partially" because all the names registered long ago are related to generic and main trending fields of those times...

So you will see a lot of names registered and sold for recent trending topics like VR/crypto/weed/and many more...

Of course some names are registered long ago in these fields also...by visionaries

So now if you are hand registering some names they should reflect the present trends and upcoming possibilities...do lot of research and proceed.

And one thing is sure if a buyer wants buy your name...it doesn't matter what a famous broker/some domainers/ I / you think.

End user is the only you have to keep in mind.