CONTEST: 20 Free Domains - Win them here!

[The Group]

So, to give back to the community I have decided to hold a contest and give away 20 domains for free. They are not the world's most amazing domains - but - I'm sure you'll find yourself more than capable of flipping them. For the sake of the contest winner (decreasing value) I will not list the names here. They are all registered at GoDaddy and I will push them to you when you win.

Here are the contest rules.

Date Start: Today
Date End: Friday February 27th 2015 at 8pm HST

How to enter: I want to hear your best domain story! It has to revolve around your experience in the domain business. Whether it's a really funny experience you had, a crazy sale, a massive flip, a monster flop, a major regret... so on, the better and more detailed your story the more likely you will win!

How you win: I will personally read each post in this thread and choose a winner at the end of the contest. Keep the posts in the thread (no PM's). The better your story, the more likely it will be liked by others! The objective here is to tell a cool story, not win domains - but hey, who can deny 20 free ones

 

[JohnnyNight]

Good Luck...!!

 

[wcpthree]

I'm very new to this. If you have read some of my other posts, I have mentioned that I use domainscope. I saw xxxxxxxxx.net recently expired so I plugged it into estibot, received a profitable appraisal so I bought it. I now know that's not the best way to go about things as I'm just trying to find ways to make it in this business and earn supplemental income. Im learning. Anyways, I researched on who.is for a while to reach out to an end user. I contacted the one I thought was best via email. Well I got a very unfriendly response. A few of them actually. In fact I was called a spammer and got some kind of "spam cop" alert. Well we went back and forth with 8 emails, I kept getting battered and kept my cool. Well by the end of it the guy I was dealing with understood my intentions and said he would like to meet me and to get ahold of him if I was ever in LA. So although I have not yet made the sale, I made a friend. So that is pretty neat to me.

 

[The Group]

Wow! So many good stories Going to be tough picking only one of them!

 

[Jeeps]

Would you register the name of a champion UFC fighter who fights with toothpicks in his mouth?
​

Mine happened earlier today. I registered the domain of UFC fighter, BensonHenderson.com, last week on February 14th, as I was watching him headline in the main event that night​

My best friend's older brother was Ben Henderson's roommate & wrestling buddy in college (Dana College in Nebraska). :D

 

[Chris Hydrick]

My best friend's older brother was Ben Henderson's roommate & wrestling buddy in college (Dana College in Nebraska). :D

Nice! If you had seen that name on a drop list would you have registered it for him, or would have just let it be?

 

[Jeeps]

Would have registered it. What are your plans?

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Would have registered it. What are your plans?

As mentioned in my contest submission, I already transferred it to his team in hopes of starting a relationship with an existing developer who has a growing list of athlete clients. I'd like to learn more about representing athletes digitally, and fingers crossed, this might be that chance. I picked up two fighters from yesterdays expired domains, I want to consult with the Bensons agency on how I should approach these fighters or if they want to take lead on trying to recruit new clients. The full story from start to finish is outlined in another thread about registering celebrity names.

 

[Jeeps]

Very cool. Best of luck!

 

[Plato]

Back in 2011 I decided to start with domaining. (Again, but this is another story )


I spend many days and nights searching for the perfect .com drop and day after day I tried to handreg them at the right time, spending nearly 1 hour every day hitting the refresh button, again and again and again until my registrar showed me the domain as available But, I was somehow always to late (I wonder why ) Then I tried out some backorder services, but I had also no luck with them.

One day, I accidentally downloaded the dot info droplist (instead as usual the .com drop list) and the first I saw was the domain g o l d r e p o r t . info with crappy ems and cpm, but somehow I had a very good feeling about this domain although I was interested only in .com's.

The next day I was punctually at the .info droptime online and I startet my usually job: press the refresh button And only maybe after 5 -10 minutes top, the domain was available and I was able to handreg it (I wonder why )

Yay! This wasn't my first domain, but after all, it was my very first handreg from a droplist.

I rushed to Sedo and put the domain on the market. At this time, it was my only domain for sale and one week later I got an $100 offer. I'm not superstitious, but a name like g o l d r e p o r t .info (the only one that I had for sale) got an offer only in 1 week. This was sign. I pushed the domain on a 7 day auction and spend the next days all my free time searching for nice .info drops.

The domain sold only for $100 - $50 Sedo commission - $3 for the handreg. So my take away was $ 47.
Not much, but it was a very quick flip and didn't reach out any end users. And then this "gold name"...
Yes, it was a sign. How could it not be.

Only a few days later I, I found in the .info droplist another name that gave me the same feeling like the gold name. S a t s a n g .info and I was able to handreg the name after the drop (I wonder why )

I put it on Sedo and only 10 days later i got an 100 € offer without reaching out any end users.
I was really not superstitious but the term s a t s a n g is a spiritual term and means "highest truth".
This have to be a sign. First the sign with the gold domain name and know the sign with a spiritual term...

Until then, I didn't liked the .info extension at all. But after this clear signs, I loved it!

So what I did the next months was spending every free minute searching the droplist and handreg .info drops. Countless of them. Nearly every day.

What do you think happened?

Well, my highest .info sale was 100 EUR.
I sold only about 20% (maybe 30% top) of my dropped .info handregs.
I didn't make any profit (at least not a descent one) but I also didn't lost money.
What I lost was precious time. I spend hundreds of hours scooping the info drop lists (maybe even several hundreds hours withing one year, I really don't know exactly)

After I sold the domain g h o s t w r i t e r s .info for $60 and I became only few weeks later a few (!) descent offers from different end users for a domain that I don't owned anymore, I decided to spend my time, energy and money only/mainly on .coms and the aftermarket.

And since then, domaining is the best thing ever happened to me

 

[onebrand.co]

Wow! So many good stories Going to be tough picking only one of them!

Why not spread out the 20 domains to a few different stories? Just a thought

 

[The Group]

Why not spread out the 20 domains to a few different stories? Just a thought

Great idea but the prize has already been set in stone! Don't worry - i'm going to be hosting a lot of contests with many more prizes to come

 

[frostify]

Can u pm and give Me some tips.Thanks.

PM'd
Hope some of my tips help you out!

 

[frostify]

Good to be here domainers in the house.
FRESH NEWBIE HERE.
I wonder why every new Domainer makes this mistake of rushing into hand reg names. Maybe because of our eagerness to make the bugs:D. Over the few days my brain has turned up down thinking of name to hand reg. Well now I have begin to understand better, thanks to people like 'ALI'
I have a future in these?
This is my story so far.
Thanks.

Try using estibot.com (or valuate.com which runs on estibot) to get a very rough estimation of price but don't take this price to heart as it can really be inaccurate at times, another tip for hand regs is to check waybackmachine.org to see if a name has ever been registered before and if so, for how long. Typically if a name has never been registered EVER then that's probably for a reason. Experimentation will teach you what works and what doesn't

 

[ivansy86]

Hi ali,

I followed you on flippa and here also. ALSO to mention, i've read some of your post at DNF. its feels amazing to followed a successful domainer. I don't have any best domain story. I started buying and selling domain name since last year. I sold 2 at $x,xx price.. I start digging more at flippa to see the recent sale, history, etc. and thats how i founded you. :D.

From what i saw at your recent domain sold on flippa, they are all aged domain. Do aged domain ONLY has that kind of high value? Wish that i could own that aged domain.

Nevertheless, i will always follow you on flippa and here.

 

[donname]

My start in buying domains not as domainer It was June 2013, I like most of us seeking alternative investment or to make money on the internet, to have alternative income and venture in any type of business. So it was that I found an article which indicated the success stories, and big sales o the markets. That was when I headed to Sedo and saw that he had sold domains 2k 5k 20k and more! My mind said WOW this is good! I go to do it, I have to purchase domains and sell at those prices! Sounds familiar?
I started with searching and Sedo while thinking thought possible alternative sites for coupons, then register some domains in my native language (Spanish), I'm from Argentina, has certainly forget introduce in the forum, ops! Hi Namepros, Im Ivan greetings from the South.
Some of my records cupontour.com, couponspedia, forexprofit.co, filesrama.com, vinosysabores.es, always with website on my mind to develop, such as forums did not know the field, but one in spanish language that has not a large market, so I started to post some domains on Sedo, yes, showcase where logically, not sold it all! But stubborn register domains in Donweb an Argentine register, and then record more crap on godaddy, here is where I make a parenthesis, One night had been working late into the night and it occurs to me to start researching domains to register (hand regs), sought and poured in estibot (I'm smiling right now =), in one of those processes I think in the word ¨right¨ but without warning (I was half asleep, little optimal conditions) typed out ¨rigth¨, Godaddy search says congratulations rigth.org is available! My eyes widened and sparkled , and thought is as possible that they have not registered? How lucky I have! (I just looked the term ¨right¨¨ convinced it was), I go to estibot and this appraise is 20K!:D I quickly register no by one, for two years! Add to this the log rigths.org and rigths.com (Yer, i know), I'll sedo what parked and want to put the price for 20k, for which the system message say me I should be certified or ask a professional appreciation, the which payment and do the same on Afternic, where the quote of Afternic gave me $ 20, for me that was a big mistake...of Afternic! Then I send an email to Afternic, they answer your domain is rigth.org not right.org¨ After that the wall of my room left with a big hole (joke), from there onwards October / November 2013 after several attempts to sell some domains and after the loss of badly invested money, I forgot about this for about six months.
My back was when I read about the rise of .io domains and decided to record two domains and did some hand regs (not com), buy some llll.com on bido.
I find Dynadot met that existed there, where I discovered the expired domains and started to investigate on backorder , I sold my first one an LLLL.org domain, for $ 150 what a beautiful feeling! in the same period of time I registered here in Namepros a source of inexhaustible resources and a great community with quality people! and I could make some sales in others sites. But elsewhere, as you can see I am not an expert I have seven months of activity alone, but I have my experiences, I still not had significant sales, so I can say the following to those just beginning.

1. Learn and not stop learning, this process takes time, some more another peoples a less but remember that knowledge does not occupy space. If you take the time to consider the advice of those experienced you can cut your learning curve.

2. Research, domains have many factors to assess depends on what you're focusing, traffic, branding, revenue domains, develop.

3. Plan your actions. What you want to do ?, you should always adjust your budget according to your means, follow your plan and correct what you have to correct. Logically if you have a large pocket can buy better domains and the beginning is much simpler.

4. Be patient, be honest, be smart, be generous that way you will be a great Domainer. Enjoy!

That's my short story, although I have far to go, develop skills, knowledge, learn and apply knowledge and achieve my goals, for me and my family and also for the community.

I wish you much success and also good luck, both go hand in hand and we all need!

PD: Excuse for my english!

Regards!

 

[AndyM]

I've unfortunately had no sales since I started domaining 6 months ago, but I thought I was on to mega winner when I registered flycomapre.com and .co.uk . Once I bought and parked the domain it was not long before I realised that I registered flycomapre.com. I only realised this when I noticed the parked site was with a different registrar. Even once I noticed the parked site was different and with the wrong registrar that I'm with it still took me a good few days till I actually realised the errors of my way.

One thing is for sure I will always check and double check my spelling in the future.

 

[DU]

Great idea but the prize has already been set in stone! Don't worry - i'm going to be hosting a lot of contests with many more prizes to come

So somewhere there are rules on changing rules? It appears you changed rules and the changing rules rule dictated that rules can't change again.
Or is this all arbitrary and there are no rules, no rules on changing rules, no changing of rules on change rules and talk of rules changes, changes to rules and rules changing to change rules are all not based on rules at all?

 

[Soofi]

lol give it a rest DU, its all in a good spirit bro! :P

 

[Joseph Green]

@defaultuser That read like a tetchy tongue twister (appreciate my alliteration!). Here's another for you: How much change could a changer change if changing change was good? Might be a riddle too...

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I'm pretty sure @defaultuser just wanted to chime in about the rule changing rules that change the changing of the rules! But, unless a movement is made for democracy, and we see a poll open about the rule changes, we should all assume that [B][U]@Ali Zandi[/U][/B] is King of this Thread. So....

 

[randomo]

This happened between five and ten years ago.

One day, I read that the lead singer of a famous old rock band I liked was quite ill. I searched and discovered that his fan club's webpage was at OfficialFirstnameLastname.com [something like OfficialJoeSmith.com, but that's not his name]. I figured they'd been unable to acquire the .com domain of his name [the one like JoeSmith.com].

I found out that that domain was parked. On a whim, I emailed the registrant (through the whois address), offering $50 for the domain. A reply came back: "Bonjour: the price for domain is 4700 euros. au revoir"

Needless to say, I didn't respond. But I did start monitoring the domain ... and sure enough, at the end of its registration year, it wasn't renewed. I reg'd it the moment it was available.

I then wrote to the fan club president through the website, offering her the domain for free. She was skeptical at first, but when it became clear that my offer was legitimate, she wrote "It has always bothered [the singer] that his name was out there in the cyber world and he wasn't able to use it. I'd try to get it every time it would come up, but as you said, someone was always just a little quicker. As soon as I tell him of your extreme generosity, I know it will make him smile. ...and these days, there is no better healing medicine than another human's kindness."

When the transfer was under way, she said "I talked with [the singer] and he's thrilled. We both can't thank you enough!"

The transfer went through, and she has been using that domain for the website ever since. Sadly, though, his condition never got any better, and he died two years later. But I'm glad I was able to do this little thing for him.

I've sold more than 5,000 domains (really!), but few of those sales were as rewarding as the time I was able to give that sick musician a unique gift. That made me feel very good about being a domainer, and I've given some other domains to deserving organizations or people since then.

 

[kawalsukhi]

This happened between five and ten years ago.

One day, I read that the lead singer of a famous old rock band I liked was quite ill. I searched and discovered that his fan club's webpage was at OfficialFirstnameLastname.com [something like OfficialJoeSmith.com, but that's not his name]. I figured they'd been unable to acquire the .com domain of his name [the one like JoeSmith.com].

I found out that that domain was parked. On a whim, I emailed the registrant (through the whois address), offering $50 for the domain. A reply came back: "Bonjour: the price for domain is 4700 euros. au revoir"

Needless to say, I didn't respond. But I did start monitoring the domain ... and sure enough, at the end of its registration year, it wasn't renewed. I reg'd it the moment it was available.

I then wrote to the fan club president through the website, offering her the domain for free. She was skeptical at first, but when it became clear that my offer was legitimate, she wrote "It has always bothered [the singer] that his name was out there in the cyber world and he wasn't able to use it. I'd try to get it every time it would come up, but as you said, someone was always just a little quicker. As soon as I tell him of your extreme generosity, I know it will make him smile. ...and these days, there is no better healing medicine than another human's kindness."

When the transfer was under way, she said "I talked with [the singer] and he's thrilled. We both can't thank you enough!"

The transfer went through, and she has been using that domain for the website ever since. Sadly, though, his condition never got any better, and he died two years later. But I'm glad I was able to do this little thing for him.

I've sold more than 5,000 domains (really!), but few of those sales were as rewarding as the time I was able to give that sick musician a unique gift. That made me feel very good about being a domainer, and I've given some other domains to deserving organizations or people since then.

Great story!! Great helping hand!!

 

[frostify]

I've responded to all the PM's I got so far, glad I could help some of you out

 

[ivansy86]

This happened between five and ten years ago.

One day, I read that the lead singer of a famous old rock band I liked was quite ill. I searched and discovered that his fan club's webpage was at OfficialFirstnameLastname.com [something like OfficialJoeSmith.com, but that's not his name]. I figured they'd been unable to acquire the .com domain of his name [the one like JoeSmith.com].

I found out that that domain was parked. On a whim, I emailed the registrant (through the whois address), offering $50 for the domain. A reply came back: "Bonjour: the price for domain is 4700 euros. au revoir"

Needless to say, I didn't respond. But I did start monitoring the domain ... and sure enough, at the end of its registration year, it wasn't renewed. I reg'd it the moment it was available.

I then wrote to the fan club president through the website, offering her the domain for free. She was skeptical at first, but when it became clear that my offer was legitimate, she wrote "It has always bothered [the singer] that his name was out there in the cyber world and he wasn't able to use it. I'd try to get it every time it would come up, but as you said, someone was always just a little quicker. As soon as I tell him of your extreme generosity, I know it will make him smile. ...and these days, there is no better healing medicine than another human's kindness."

When the transfer was under way, she said "I talked with [the singer] and he's thrilled. We both can't thank you enough!"

The transfer went through, and she has been using that domain for the website ever since. Sadly, though, his condition never got any better, and he died two years later. But I'm glad I was able to do this little thing for him.

I've sold more than 5,000 domains (really!), but few of those sales were as rewarding as the time I was able to give that sick musician a unique gift. That made me feel very good about being a domainer, and I've given some other domains to deserving organizations or people since then.

Inspiring story.

 

[Mr.Natwarlal]

never accepted the bidder before the auction ended,

You can negotiate even after auction ended.. also with watchers and not only bidders..

I was really not superstitious but the term s a t s a n g is a spiritual term and means "highest truth".

Santsang means living with the good (eg - people).

This happened between five and ten years ago.

One day, I read that the lead singer of a famous old rock band I liked was quite ill. I searched and discovered that his fan club's webpage was at OfficialFirstnameLastname.com [something like OfficialJoeSmith.com, but that's not his name]. I figured they'd been unable to acquire the .com domain of his name [the one like JoeSmith.com].

I found out that that domain was parked. On a whim, I emailed the registrant (through the whois address), offering $50 for the domain. A reply came back: "Bonjour: the price for domain is 4700 euros. au revoir"

Needless to say, I didn't respond. But I did start monitoring the domain ... and sure enough, at the end of its registration year, it wasn't renewed. I reg'd it the moment it was available.

I then wrote to the fan club president through the website, offering her the domain for free. She was skeptical at first, but when it became clear that my offer was legitimate, she wrote "It has always bothered [the singer] that his name was out there in the cyber world and he wasn't able to use it. I'd try to get it every time it would come up, but as you said, someone was always just a little quicker. As soon as I tell him of your extreme generosity, I know it will make him smile. ...and these days, there is no better healing medicine than another human's kindness."

When the transfer was under way, she said "I talked with [the singer] and he's thrilled. We both can't thank you enough!"

The transfer went through, and she has been using that domain for the website ever since. Sadly, though, his condition never got any better, and he died two years later. But I'm glad I was able to do this little thing for him.

I've sold more than 5,000 domains (really!), but few of those sales were as rewarding as the time I was able to give that sick musician a unique gift. That made me feel very good about being a domainer, and I've given some other domains to deserving organizations or people since then.

We got winner imo..!! Anyway very good gesture and that's the secret of your 5K domain sales