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

 

[muttus]

@Grilled Jesus That's a difficult question. Domain industry is very lucrative but unpredictable. In real Estate, one has to invest lets say $50,000 in a property and wait for years for it to become a hundred or 150Ks. but in domaining any Tom Dick and Harry with 10 bucks can buy a domain and the very next day sell it off for $2000 or even more.
.Party was released to market a couple of days back. I have Planners.Party, and already and offer of $3000 on it.
With this kind of odds I feel realization will only happen by luck or by experience. Either an incident(like it happened with me) will happen or one will hold the domains for years without any movement. Or possibly if someone reads my story or any other such story may learn from it.

Congrats, this is amazing success for new TLD. And for you of course

 

[muttus]

my story,

i was 19yrs old, when i stumble on domain investment (octobar 2013), i love realestate investment but dnt have any capital to invest,(i cant even feed my self talk more of investing in real estate, am still living wit my parents), i was searching the web when i came across a domain post after reading/ following i discover i have found an alternative to my passion (real estate investment), knowing i can purchase a land/house (domain) for less that $10 and flip to make profit, that was how i begin,

after some research filled with enthusiasm, i reg abt 12 domains including forexTradeManagers dot com, with my newbie mentality i thought selling domain is like selling water or burger, i thought once i reg a domain i will sell immediately for a lot of dollars, but i was dissappointed and all my eagerness die off, i started listing my domains on namepros but no one was interested to buy i even listed forextrademanagers for $10 which i think was the best domain i had still no interest (dam i feel so bad) and lost much interest in domain (though still following), after 3 month i just open my mail as usual only to see the best moment of my life,


Guess what?


one of my domain i listed on godaddy premuim listing just sold for $100 which was ForexTradeManagers dot com, i was so happy, i think that was my best sale that year. (though i was selling my domains a namepros auction $2- $20...)



Late 2014 (novermber last year) i got another mail from sedo that one of my domain i reg for $2.17 just sold for $1500 which was acforex dot com,


mate!!! I think at that moment i was ontop of the world, i dont even know how to celebrate, but i was dam happy,

i was able to buy a laptop for myself (my dream since 2011 came to past), am so happy i am a domainer, it brought me a fortune i never dreamth,

Early dis year 2015 january i sold another domain via contacting an endusher for €500 24hbets dot com.

I begin the year with a sale, am so happy for the success so far and i thank God for the success.




I wish everyone great sales this year. Goodluck

 

[muttus]

Super cool man. keep it going

 

[jamesosix]

My story is not cool in any way, but it may give people a laugh and they may learn a valuable lesson.

I have not sold one domain yet for more than a few dollars and recently listed a domain on Flippa. I was not getting any good offers. On the final day of the auction, I was at work and did not have access to my emails.

I came home, checked my emails and found I had a bidder who offered low X,XXX! This was the single best offer I have ever received and was literally shaking with excitement...until I checked the auction out and realised I never accepted the bidder before the auction ended, because I was at work.

Needless to say I was gutted haha.

 

[The Group]

Alright, the how you win rule is changing. I will personally be reading the stories and deciding the best one at the end of the contest! Keeps things a bit more fair as suggested by other members!

 

[baseballworld]

Alright, the how you win rule is changing. I will personally be reading the stories and deciding the best one at the end of the contest! Keeps things a bit more fair as suggested by other members!

Is changing rules of a contest allowed after it has already begun?

The STS thread is the best thread out there. What better way to stimulate ideas in the heads of people while at the same time relaxing and having some fun. I mean who wants t stare at a screen for countless hours with just reading no interaction. Worst then taking the god darn SAT tests in school again.

I got a shorty story guy registers hundred plus domains after reading for months on end about parking. Then turns around his first year for a 4 grand parking profit without any sales counted in. Just went up and up in domain portfolio size and profits from there. Key to this story was the research included was MONTHS. not a frigin week here.

 

[The Group]

Is changing rules of a contest allowed after it has already begun?.

Generally it is not allowed, however, in this case, it would be more fair if I decided instead of Likes. One issue with Likes is the stories in the beginning will receive more of them simply because they'll be read more (some people will burn out or only read the first few, then write their own). Another issue is the shorter stories, which aren't necessarily better, will receive more reads because people may not want (or have the time) to read the longer ones.

So in this case, it makes sense and has been approved.

 

[Maxwell]

In my first 6 months of domaining I was lucky enough to sell a 99c hand reg for over $2,000 - and it was my first end user domain sale ever. This sale really showed me the power of selling to an end user.

After this, I immediately went to invest in the aftermarket and had made some offers on some premium names - and quickly someone accepted my $1,000 offer for an NNNN.com! This was in January 2014 when NNNN's were selling for $2.5-$3k so it was a SOLID buy. As soon as had the name in my possession I put it to auction at Godaddy and it ended at $2,402. Decided to accept for quick flips sake and profited about $1,260 after commission (though I do wish I had held onto now since the NNNN.com market has been booming even more since then.).

This domain I can share - it was 4962.com and both the investment sale and the main sale can be found at namebio.com.

In that two week period I turned my $0.99 investment into $3,500+. This series of events is really what ignited my domain career.

 

[JudgeMind]

Probably my most unique sale(s).

I had a domain which i forgot to renew. I had completely forgotten about the domain and one day received an email "i am interested in your domain, i can offer you $500 and we can start escrow today". Immediately i went to godaddy to confirm it was a domain i owned. I had completely forgotten about this name and had also forgotten about the renewal notices i received for it.
The domain was expired but "available for renewal" in redemption period. For the record this has happened twice to me now. I immediately checked godaddy expiring auction to see if my name was there, sure enough it was and the auction had gotten into the $1,xxx range with 11 bidders and a couple days to go. I knew then that this was likely a buyer who may be bidding on the expiring auction.
I replied to the buyer saying i was only willing to sell in the $x,xxx range (of course by this time i had paid redemption fee and re-secured the domain) the buyer replied with a $1,000 offer, i called the buyer at their supplied telephone number, i informed them of the value of this domain and of similar sales for similar domain names. I also gave them a list of similar domain names which were developed and quoted some estimated values of those websites from a free website value tool. The buyer began to feel more comfortable about coming up in price, i dropped a $4,000 buy it now price and they countered at $3,200, i accepted on the condition they would cover escrow fees, they agreed and sale completed .

A potential loss of thousands of dollars for forgetting to renew my domain, since this i have used "auto renew" feature for most of my names. Though sometimes i will allow a nice name to show up on expiring auction once in a while to get some attention.

Other time this happened to me offer came in by email for a domain for $200, closed a sale within 24 hours for $1100.

 

[baseballworld]

In my first 6 months of domaining I was lucky enough to sell a 99c hand reg for over $2,000 - and it was my first end user domain sale ever. This sale really showed me the power of selling to an end user.

After this, I immediately went to invest in the aftermarket and had made some offers on some premium names - and quickly someone accepted my $1,000 offer for an NNNN.com! This was in January 2014 when NNNN's were selling for $2.5-$3k so it was a SOLID buy. As soon as had the name in my possession I put it to auction at Godaddy and it ended at $2,402. Decided to accept for quick flips sake and profited about $1,260 after commission (though I do wish I had held onto now since the NNNN.com market has been booming even more since then.).

This domain I can share - it was 4962.com and both the investment sale and the main sale can be found at namebio.com.

In that two week period I turned my $0.99 investment into $3,500+. This series of events is really what ignited my domain career.

99% of the domains that I park and make all my income off are purchased with godaddy codes off of drop lists. You have some nice flips there.

 

[briguy]

my domain story..one time at band camp

 

[frostify]

I've never really "revealed" this but when I was new to domaining I must have lost hundreds on names I thought were amazing but really weren't worth reg price even. I made the same mistakes all domainers seem to make at first "oh this is the best domain ever" and then you find out it's worth about $5. I even reg'd a few names with trademarked company names (microsoft, amazon, ebay, ect.) that I quickly learned you can't register without getting scary emails and even letters to your house if you register. I was brand new to domaining at the time and didn't even know you couldn't register a trademarked name within a domain. I was about to give up on domaining after months of no sales and loosing $xxx.xx on useless names. One night I was up til 3 a.m. (I never stay up that late). I was searching all over on different domain auction sites and I noticed a name that had recently expired that was listed for a mere $250.00 BIN. That name was a 3 letter pronounceable .COM domain and now NUP.com is my most valuable domain, had I given up on domaining about a day or two earlier I would have never gotten it

Since then I've gotten better just by trial and error and sold a few names for $xx.xx at first and then with a bit of luck I was able to make $xxx.xx profits by learning where to look and how to really use filters on auctions and expired domain lists. After a few years I've made a tiny bit of income on the side in addition to my real job, I still consider domaining more of a hobby for myself but in good time, who knows? Maybe one day I can spend more time doing this and less time at my real job.

Moral of the story, you never know how close you are to succeeding. Right when you give up is when you were closest to succeeding, if any of you reading this are new to domaining and find yourself struggling, just know that yes, you will make mistakes at first and that's totally okay because everyone does. With time and patience you will learn what succeeds and what doesn't. That feeling you get when you flip your very first domain is just amazing, even if you only make a few bucks at first it's a great feeling knowing that you've succeeded. Don't give up and just try your best ^.^

If you are new & looking for a few tips feel free to PM me!
I can direct you to some sites I check on frequently and tell you a few filters you can use to specify domains in searches on auctions and dropped lists.

 

[Billy Wagner]

A few months ago, I was looking on ExpiredDomains.net and ran across a .net domain that had high CPC, and decent search volume. I also noticed that all of the other extensions were taken, so I started going to the other extensions to see if there were sites on them. To my benefit, all of the other reg'd extensions all pointed back to one site, so I knew the same person owned all of them (used WhoIs to verify). So I bought the .net for $10, emailed the potential end user, and within an hour after my original purchase, I had $250 in PayPal from the guy. I'm sure I could have made more, and it wasn't a "huge" deal, but to make $240 in one hour wasn't bad in my opinion.

 

[wisecraft]

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.

 

[Skyvisum]

I've never really "revealed" this but when I was new to domaining I must have lost hundreds on names I thought were amazing but really weren't worth reg price even. I made the same mistakes all domainers seem to make at first "oh this is the best domain ever" and then you find out it's worth about $5. I even reg'd a few names with trademarked company names (microsoft, amazon, ebay, ect.) that I quickly learned you can't register without getting scary emails and even letters to your house if you register. I was brand new to domaining at the time and didn't even know you couldn't register a trademarked name within a domain. I was about to give up on domaining after months of no sales and loosing $xxx.xx on useless names. One night I was up til 3 a.m. (I never stay up that late). I was searching all over on different domain auction sites and I noticed a name that had recently expired that was listed for a mere $250.00 BIN. That name was a 3 letter pronounceable .COM domain and now NUP.com is my most valuable domain, had I given up on domaining about a day or two earlier I would have never gotten it

Since then I've gotten better just by trial and error and sold a few names for $xx.xx at first and then with a bit of luck I was able to make $xxx.xx profits by learning where to look and how to really use filters on auctions and expired domain lists. After a few years I've made a tiny bit of income on the side in addition to my real job, I still consider domaining more of a hobby for myself but in good time, who knows? Maybe one day I can spend more time doing this and less time at my real job.

Moral of the story, you never know how close you are to succeeding. Right when you give up is when you were closest to succeeding, if any of you reading this are new to domaining and find yourself struggling, just know that yes, you will make mistakes at first and that's totally okay because everyone does. With time and patience you will learn what succeeds and what doesn't. That feeling you get when you flip your very first domain is just amazing, even if you only make a few bucks at first it's a great feeling knowing that you've succeeded. Don't give up and just try your best ^.^

If you are new & looking for a few tips feel free to PM me!
I can direct you to some sites I check on frequently and tell you a few filters you can use to specify domains in searches on auctions and dropped lists.

 

[Skyvisum]

Can u pm and give Me some tips.Thanks.

 

[Soofi]

Disclosure: This sale was reported in DnJournal.com by Ron!

So I did my daily research of dropping names and backordered about few dozen of them at Pheenix as usual and by the time I was about to get in bed on Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 1:33 AM IST, I get this email from them that I have won the auction BO auction of Las/Vegas/Arena/com for $18.95. Note that there were only 2 bidders (only 2 of us saw the potential in this name and BO'd) in the auction.

Within few hours (time stamp: Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 6:49 AM IST) of acquiring this one through Pheenix, I get an email from a domain investor based out of Las Vegas saying/asking:
"Hello I missed the auction. How much will you sell name for?" (I guess the other person in the auction was this guy only who may have missed out on the ending time).

And guess what, I knew him from our earlier conversations in 2014 when I was busy organizing India' first ever International Domain Name Conference: DomainX. So, I politely asked him to:
"make a considerable offer".

He got back within 10 minutes of my email with the response:
"I would pay 500.00 for the name. I really do not want to pay 1000.00 for the name but I want to do business with you."

Similarly, I responded with "I already have a broker working on this domain name with few LasVegas companies and are expecting something in the 5 figures range. Can we discuss a better offer?"

His response came in 3 minutes: "what do you want to close deal? You know me not wasting your time, if we make deal I pay. Let me know."

There are ways, at times, during a deal negotiation where you can tell how badly offering party wants your name. Thus, giving you an edge on how to score more and not cave into low balls. I was in driving seat from start and was hopeful of low five figure on this one and with his pockets was sure to hit the bulls eye, but him being a pawn shop(s) owner knew how to play that negotiation ball game.

So to his email, I responded in some 10 minutes after mulling over what will be a satisfying figure for me:
"As I suggested, we are expecting something in the five figures. Please feel free to make your the best better offer, yes/no right away!"

This is when he went silent for whole one day. Since I knew him already, I sent my second email next day on Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 5:19 AM IST saying:
"You werent serious about this one?"

To which he responded in about 4 hours that: "yes I am name is not worth 10,000 to me"

This response gave me a fair idea that no matter what I would do here, he isnt going to give me my asking price. he was probably looking for lower figure coming out of me, but I didnt cave in and sent this email:
"Thats why I said, make your last best offer and I will let you know if that breaks the ice. Lets do some business, I am motivated seller!"

He went quiet again for 3 days and I also didnt push him for a reply because I didnt want to sound desperate, and his mail came on Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 9:32 AM IST offering:
"I want to pay 1000.00 for the name but I want to do business with you. Let me know"

This is when I also made him wait for the whole year ending day, plus wanted to walk out of the negotiations, so played my card on Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 4:38 AM IST with;
"Sorry, have a better offer and negotiating a possible deal with another party."

His reply came within few hour on the same day asking:
"what is the best offer you can maybe I beat it?" and a second email after an hour of sending earlier mail: "I really do want it"

Now this conversation tells you that he is interested and keen on buying your name, you just have give him a reasonable figure depending on various factors. I weighed in on all the factors and decided to throw numbers at him with this email:
"Buy now price $10,000. Use escrow.com to start transaction right away!"

I think he let it slide for a day after reading that figure because he wasnt really interested to give me those 5 figures, so his reply came in on Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 8:56 AM with:
"I want to buy but not for that price. I have an idea can I call you?"

Rather than waiting for him to call, I decided to give him a call and discuss this out. He stated with the same thing on the phone how that name isnt worth $10k and I had only spent about $20 on it while he missed the auction. He also stated that he is willing to go a bit higher on his earlier counter offer of $1000. We had some chat and I mentioned about discussing this out with other party to weigh their offer and hungup.

And my mail goes:
"Other party has offered 6000, so I am afraid, I will discuss a potential deal there."

He responded within minutes with:
"would you trade me for names I have or do you want cash only. I have not said no yet please let me know. Can I call you to discuss this?" I guess I was sleeping when he mailed and called, and sent second mail offering: "I tried to call you. Can we do 6100 and I will do payment to you?"

Next day on Sat, Jan 3, 2015 after I woke up, I decided to call him to get it over and done with. After a bit of negotiations and haggling, we closed it at $7000 + $140 (escrow fee) all taken care of by the buyer.

We wrapped up the deal through EscrowHill.com where Andee Hill made sure of completing the transaction in record 24 hours.

Point to note here in the sale is of receiving an offer within 5 hours of acquiring a domain name and closing the sale after week long negotiation is a record for me and I couldnt have started year 2015 on a better note.

I dont like writing much, but I wanted to post this sale to highlight that some of us Domain Investors will also spend good money to buy quality names and the ones which we think have potential otherwise. Similarly, I recently acquired PunjabiSuits.com for my wife's clothing business from Sedo aftermarket by paying mid $xxxx amount. Other case, where I and another user I know through here purchased Drones*******.com for $xxxx amount and he is already rejecting low $xx,xxx offers on that one.

Wish you the best of domaining everyone and great initiative Ali. Best would be to auction out these 20 free domain names and support a charity cause!

 

[drissesco]

My story begins in 1999, I had a few domains that I had developed and were profitable... I was working in tech support for a telecommunications company and really going no where fast. Although I enjoyed the work, I'm more of a salesman and get off on that rush whenever I make a sale... I'm someone who can literally say that he has sold "ice to Eskimos", one of my first jobs was working for the Hudson Bay Company in the Arctic as a Grocery Manager... And yup we sold ice... Unbelievable.

Getting back on track... In 1999, a buddy of mine who knew a little bit more than I did about the whole internet domain name game suggested that I buy expired domain names to drive traffic to the sites I had developed... I honesty can't remember the process back then, but I can tell you it was a heck of a lot harder than today....

The site I was looking to drive traffic to was a portal page to webcam and other porn sites... and one of the expired domains I bought happened to be that of a self appointed Internet Branding Expert.... The domain was "(common English last name)consulting.com"... I picked up the name because if I remember correctly it had about 600 back links and it got traffic... so it was pointed to my porn portal the day I bought it and I then went out for lunch...

I had just sat down to eat when my cell phone rang... It was Mr. Internet Branding Expert and he was hopping mad that I had somehow hacked his website and pointed it to porn... I tried to explain to him that I had registered the name from an expired domain list.... but he was having none of that, so I hung up on him and ate my lunch.

When I got back home there was a C&D letter in my email inbox... I responded to his email, telling him what happened and advised him as a goodwill gesture I would be willing to discuss a resolution that would be mutually beneficial... Mr. Internet Branding Expert decided to play hardball and threatened legal action... NICE

The next bit was dumb luck more than anything else... I did a bit of research, found out about the UDRP process, called his bluff and send him info on how to start an action against me if he was so inclined.... But also offered him the domain for $900 to resolve the issue immediately... Two days later I had a sale.

I've had numerous domain sales since then... but I do not consider myself a domainer, I'm a salesman and an entrepreneur...

 

[DU]

That's a great story. Take a name with traffic and links obviously associated with a specific person and direct it at porn. Then you call not linking his name to porn for a price a goodwill gesture... and you got $900 out of him.

... that's a good story... I sure hope you win.

[Edited per follow up]
I don't consider this method of business as domaining. Holding someone's character / business hostage with the association to porn? Blackmailer is the closest I can come up with.

I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone and hopefully it's not a business model you advocate.

 

[DU]

Generally it is not allowed, however, in this case, it would be more fair if I decided instead of Likes. One issue with Likes is the stories in the beginning will receive more of them simply because they'll be read more (some people will burn out or only read the first few, then write their own). Another issue is the shorter stories, which aren't necessarily better, will receive more reads because people may not want (or have the time) to read the longer ones.

So in this case, it makes sense and has been approved.

Some Points:

• My experience says that most people don't read the threads top to bottom so that argument is specious at best. Also, I have evidence for this in the STS thread because I'm pretty sure that most people don't read it all.

• I'm not sure what length has to do with anything... and each post on a standard page has the same girth. The rules were clearly outlined and the criteria stated - then each of the posters would account for those rules and adjust their post accordingly. It would be up to the individual posters to consider the length of their post, style of their post, as well as the content.
  
  
• Who approved this change - I see a moderator updated the original post? Now, of course, I would presume that anyone who posted up to the point where you changed the rules would be afforded the same opportunity later on should they change their mind... otherwise it would seem that you get preferential treatment here and at flippa
  
  
• I don't see how you picking the winner versus a consensus picking by the community is more FAIR to the community.
  
  
• The chances are that you, yourself, would have won as I think it's clear the first post would get the most likes.

Actually, being serious, I'm not sure I've ever read a rule about contests so I don't even think changing rules is even against any rules. There should be rules in place about the rules and changing of the rules. Now, if we're going to allow you to change the rules then I think we should change the rules on changing rules to allow for changing rules and address the types of rule changes that can be made. That way you changing rules would be covered under the new rules changing rules that have been changed on the rules that don't have rule changing rules in place now. Some may say only changes made to rules after the rules change to the change in rules should be allowed so the change in rules should include a change that states how the new changing rules rules should apply to the changing of rules of contests already underway that want to change rules.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Whoa, impressive argument! While some can argue that the rule changing rules need more rules I would argue against the rules ruling in the first place. In a democracy the voting system is rule and rule changes have to go through a vote to decide to which rule will rule. Thefore, I hereby make a motion that we put the rule change to a vote. Then the president (OP in this scenario) will either decide to veto the vote or approve it as the new contest rules. If OP decides to veto the vote, then this measure is put before the first 9 members with (X number of likes, messages, or a premium member of DN?) will collectively vote for the rules with a single vote per supreme domain justice. Shall we open the polls?

 

[kawalsukhi]

I started domaining in mid 2014 around June-July.....I left my day job and start doing freelancing along with domaining and my goals are very very clear from day 01.

I hand reg some domains that I think will worth and I am sure that among these 4-5 domains one will sold to my best price so that I got motivated for more domains to buy.

One of my domain (Weaffiliate.com) that is self-created not dropped will sold for $300 on flippa and I feel very happy that I have done it.

This flip is means a lot to me as I am jobless at that time and $300 is equal to 18000 INR (My currency) for me so its a great motivation for me.

Next point that comes to me is not hurrying up new domains but my thought process become more targeted oriented and I spend even less than that.

Then on 19 Aug 2014 I checked out a super seller just throwing away 52 LLL.co expiring names (Going to expire in next 2 months) at $1 no reserve, I got all 52 LLL.co in $6

Now the point is that super seller thinking is that these are just expiring domains in next 2 months will not goes well in selling but when I saw I though I will put these domains on ebay for 3-7 day auction.

I list only 10 LLL.co names first at 0.99 no reserve it gots ended with $52 then the very next day the buyer send me the message that "Do you have more LLL.co". At that point also I know the value of LLL.co but I dont have that much budget to renew them.

Unfortunately my ebay limit is also 20 items/$500 only, so I cant sell more than that as buyer says I need it through paypal and ebay only. No other mode. I sold all for $500 and that was the awesome FLIP for me again.

Along with it my freelancing work will goes up day by day. I developed a website on wordpress with minimal cost ($20) and take projects from clients worldwide basis.

I sold the website last month ($700) as all my clients are on skype. My website gives me approx $700 in 3 months and I sold that on @Flippa for $700 that means I earned 3 months from it made clients and sell it off. For me $20 turns to be $1400 in 3 months.

So in my case I invest very low and with all research done and got around $4000 profits since just 7 months which is a great amount in my currency (around 2,40,000 INR).

So do research, think not twice but thrice four times or ten times before investing and get the best return ever!!

Happy domaining to all of you!

 

[drissesco]

Based on this story I do not consider you a domainer either. Nor do I think of you as salesman or entrepreneur.
Maybe someone who held someone's character / business hostage with the association to porn......what's that? Blackmailer is the closest I can come up with.

Nice I've made peace with any ethical misdemeanors I've committed in the past.... And frankly do not care one way or the other what label you place on me... I've never purported to be an Internet Branding Expert, nor the Patron Saint of Domainers for that matter.... However I've never let a domain name that I cared about expire... One would assume that a Internet Branding Expert would have or should have known what happens when a domain name expires.

I also doubt there is a domainer out there that would have jumped through hoops to return a domain like "pinkconsulting.com" or "greenconsulting.com" to a dude that allegedly is a Internet Branding Expert if they were making money off parking it or forwarding that traffic to their own domain branding site... To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

 

[DU]

I also doubt there is a domainer out there that would have jumped through hoops to return a domain like "pinkconsulting.com" or "greenconsulting.com" to a dude that allegedly is a Internet Branding Expert if they were making money off parking it or forwarding that traffic to their own domain branding site... To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

The majority of domainers wouldn't, you're right. Some may - you'd be surprised.
Pointing it at porn - there lies the difference and people might not see it.

There was no indication that you found it an "ethical misdemeanor" in your original post which made it seems like you would continue to advocate that method of trading. I don't want encourage other domainers to follow the same path. I don't have an issue with profiteering in general.

The fact that you seem to have changed for the better is a positive and I apologize if I thus came off as being overly harsh. I edited the original post to be more moderate.

As for Patron Saint of Domainers? That's a joke.

 

[ahmedalimody]

Let me share my story
When I was young I always liked to create websites and I was creating free forums and doing a great job to make it look amazing and tried my best to make members and so on, but at that time I didn't understand that it was sub-domain and it not likely to work perfectly as I expected .
But between last quarter of 2012 and first half of 2013, at that time I was 15 years old, I just returned from my vacation in Egypt to KSA where i actually live in ! I have seen in Egypt some young people (7-10) years they know a lot in the Computers and used to fix it, while I was a blank page But when I went to my school I used to know an amazing person who knows a lot in the computer so my goal was to let him teach me and he did.

Then I started to think about my old goals in creating a website, but this time I have learnt html and Knew how to use hosting and got to know how to install PHP scripts and make a website work.

I have got my 2 friends we are sharing the same interest, but there was a main problem that we don't have a Credit card to use it to buy the domain and hosting, so we looked to an alternative and we found CashU it is prepared card for internet purchases, hardly we found 1 company that have reasonable prices and accept cashu, but as known most of arab hosting is expensive and they are just re-sellers. So we liked to just buy the domain from them and try making our own home server or try free hosting. we hardly managed to get $10 for our first domain

We have got an old PC with 256 mb DDR1 ram and 50 GB hard disk and a weak processor, we tried our best to upgrade the RAM but it wasn't available in the market because it pretty old. but luckly I have found a ram of 512 mb on one of other old PC we used to install the both and at that time I was learning about ports and WAMP because linux was complex to me at that time.

More than 10 times re-installing windows XP to get it work perfectly. I have created a lot of websites with the main domain (the idea was a group owning a lot of websites) after 1 month we was looking for 4L domain for creating a games website and we found Ppdf.net (it has not any relation to games) but we got another amazing idea, Document Hosting website (Ppdf.net was sold last week for just $50, it was hard to me to sell it but we have no use to it at the current time)

with 6 mb/s upload speed and dynamic IP address it was hard to maintain that but the websites worked for almost 8 months then I got that US visitors is facing a very slow website.
then, we have changed to a free hosting :D

But I started learning PHP programming and was creating a small scripts, Until I made Ppdf - document hosting script (it is available now at CC)

it was amazing that our balance reached $77 and we got premium hosting for a year for $71 .
from edits on the script we got some extra money and started our PHP Programming business and made amazing sales and money from it.

Until I knew NamePros :D
My first steps in Domaining, I have purchased amazing domains and sold some and started to understand what are the most valuable domains
and it was a fast business with low effort and much profitable than PHP programming (that's doesn't mean I left PHP programming)

One of success and funny situation that happens to me the money I spent on domains it getting back to me (no $$ profits) just some domains is left in my accounts waiting to get sold or assigned to website then sold or will be for our Group.

Sorry for that much writing, but this is my amazing start that it was hard but amazing for 17 years old students
My live over past 2 years is Website Manager --> PHP developer --> Domain / website Trading