Even a blind chicken can find a great domain!

[MapleDots]

On namePros most of us are familiar with a famous domainer that spent an entire night hand registering domains only to see them sell for millions of dollars. The domainer continues his streak and today is one of the most successful domainers on the planet.

Seems to me some businesses like Huge Domains are very much copying this process by registering millions of domains and hoping a percentage of them will resell at a profit. The difference here being that Huge Domains mostly registered dropped domains figuring eventually someone else will want them.

In German there is an expression.....

"Auch ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn."

Loosely translated to english it means....

"Even a blind chicken sometimes finds a piece of corn"

The question here is can this be repeated in 2019?

So if someone decided to randomly sit 10 people down and hand register any combination of two word .com's could one conceivably have a successful business?

My opinion on this is that one probably could as long as the selling price of the domains stayed in the 2-4k range. Two word .com's are still very much in demand and chances of success are probably pretty good.

So what do my fellow domainers think?

Any successful blind chickens out there?

 

[HotKey]

Nope, wrong guy.

I see I'm not getting anywhere ..

https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-the-mann-who-registered-14962-domains-in-24-hours/

I don't know how that can have been so hard.

I think everyone knew, Maple...

but what were we talking about again?? I thought this was about chicken domains..

 

[Recons.Com]

So are chicken domains better than pigeon domains? ) Or the same class? )

 

[Ostrados]

Nope, wrong guy.

I see I'm not getting anywhere ..

https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-the-mann-who-registered-14962-domains-in-24-hours/

I don't know how that can have been so hard.

I went to his website mentioned in the article, actually he owns ChickenCoop.com
https://www.domainmarket.com/cart/chickencoop.com

Asking price is $194,888

 

[MapleDots]

I think everyone knew, Maple...

but what were we talking about again?? I thought this was about chicken domains..

Yes but I mentioned Mann in a round about way in the first post.

He has one of the best record with hand registrations.

 

[MapleDots]

So are chicken domains better than pigeon domains? ) Or the same class? )

Pigeons.. he he, that would be the king.

 

[HotKey]

So are chicken domains better than pigeon domains? ) Or the same class? )

Well, at least chickens can't fly, and the only $hit I get on my windshield is from pigeons. Tough call..

 

[Recons.Com]

Yes but I mentioned Mann in a round about way in the first post.

He has one of the best record with hand registrations.

No one truly knows his record. He chooses to disclose only large sales and the reported ones add up to a fraction of the renewal costs for his portfolio.

He already has 320 000+ names, adding up to renewals around $2.5MM and he needs to sell 1000 names at $2.5K each just to breakeven, which would be about 0.3% sell through. Anything above that is profit. And I assume he does sell 0.6%-1% annually.

 

[zeev yagorov]

i also think that Zandi something fishy about him

 

[Recons.Com]

Well, at least chickens can't fly, and the only $hit I get on my windshield is from pigeons. Tough call..

I'd say pigeon domains can work great for mail services, so that is an edge...

 

[HotKey]

I think having name like the "Mann" can't hurt in driving sales, as well..

We can say a quality name sells itself. But the brand behind the name, plays a large part in many instances.

 

[JayT]

I have pigeonpoacher.com
The cheapest renewal cost is $8.03 at cloudflare.

 

[xynames]

I have a group of domains not listed on my site, they were purchased a long long time ago. They were bought back in the day when my registrar was called DomainDirect, that will probably give away the age. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This would tend to mean that anything you've bought in recent years, has not yet sold. Your only sales are from domains bought very long ago.

Which is my situation as well, more or less, in that most of my sales are from domains bought long ago.

BUT the key difference for me...is that I am not buying much if any domains in the past year or two.

 

[Jv1999]

Whatever I have seems to sell, and haven't sold anything much under a $ thousand, maybe...ever.

The few I've dropped over the past couple years have always been snapped up.

There's talk (<<but also many of those you can re-stock at $8-20 range from the closeouts or even drops>>), and then there's reality (my nearly daily offers and my nearly weekly sales).

I don't try to second guess. I just field the inquiries and book the sales.

I'll think about dropping names if gross sales ever drop below monthly registration fees. I'm open to suggestions though I'd be curious about your messaging me the list of domains that you suggest that I drop.

I'm curious about your sale rate for $8 domains bought years ago! Every1 on this thread keeps saying the sail rate for $8 domains is 0.2% yearly :D :D :D :D.

It's more like 1 - 2%? That was my experience with 200ish domains for 2 years. And that's including the fact that i was completely noob and reggae'd things like metaldoorknob//com and noodless//com

I had a theory that the yearly sail rate for hand reggae is 1% (mabye 2 if you're good ) but, that over 5+ years, the overall rate is close to 50%? Is that how it is with your $8 domains bought years ago?

 

[bmugford]

I had a theory that the yearly sail rate for hand reggae is 1% (mabye 2 if you're good ) but, that over 5+ years, the overall rate is close to 50%? Is that how it is with your $8 domains bought years ago?

I don't understand how a 1% yearly turnover rate would all of a sudden ramp up to 50% over 5 years.

Unless you have an amazing domain that is grossly underpriced, or are very proactive, hardly any domain has a 50% chance to sell over 5 years.

Brad

 

[Jv1999]

I don't understand how a 1% yearly turnover rate would all of a sudden ramp up to 50% over 5 years.

Unless you have an amazing domain that is grossly underpriced, or are very proactive, hardly any domain has a 50% chance to sell over 5 years.

Brad

Well, my theory hinges on buying $8 that you know for sure will sail SOMETIME. Doesn't have to be this year.

So like, if GreyFox//com was available and you got it for $8, you're not sure if it will sail this year or next... But it's a great brandable, so you're sure it will sail SOMEDAY.

So imagine if you had 100 GreyFoxes... then overall, your % won't be 1 or 2%, but 50 - 100%...

But I guess most people are buying $8: TimeUpCube or something like that, which they're not sure will sail or not.

But i figure xynames had bought $8 names like GreyFox, that he was sure would find a buyer sometime in the future.

 

[bmugford]

Well, my theory hinges on buying $8 that you know for sure will sail SOMETIME. Doesn't have to be this year.

So like, if GreyFox//com was available and you got it for $8, you're not sure if it will sail this year or next... But it's a great brandable, so you're sure it will sail SOMEDAY.

So imagine if you had 100 GreyFoxes... then overall, your % won't be 1 or 2%, but 50 - 100%...

But I guess most people are buying $8: TimeUpCube or something like that, which they're not sure will sail or not.

But i figure xynames had bought $8 names like GreyFox, that he was sure would find a buyer sometime in the future.

Right, but domains like GreyFox.com are not available to hand register and really haven't been for 15-20+ years now. So that is not really a good comparison in my view.

Obviously brands like that have value. That is the reason at auction it would go for thousands reseller.

The average hand reg quality though is much, much, much lower quality that that example domain.

The only way you can get a 50% passive sell through rate is having an amazing domain that is underpriced.

You could also argue many domains hand regged today are less likely to sell over time, not more likely.
They certainly are not going to scale from 1% to 50% over 5 years.

Brad

 

[Jv1999]

Right, but domains like GreyFox.com are not available to hand register and really haven't been for 15-20+ years now. So that is not really a good comparison in my view.

Obviously brands like that have value.

The average hand reg quality though is much, much, much lower quality that that example domain.

The only way you can get a 50% passive sell through rate is having an amazing domain that is underpriced.

You could also argue many domains hand regged today are less likely to sell over time, not more likely.
They certainly are not going to scale from 1% to 50% over 5 years.

Brad

I disagree .

So i'm looking through list right now. GreyFox is like SadBirds... and sadbirds is available!

SadBirds might sound bad, but AngryBirds became a popular videogame, so maybe SadBirds too?

I also got GreenActiv for $1!

So I believe GreyFoxes are still tehre... LOL unless you think that these two examples don't look like GreyFox, then I'm dead ~_~

 

[xynames]

I'm curious about your sale rate for $8 domains bought years ago! Every1 on this thread keeps saying the sail rate for $8 domains is 0.2% yearly :D :D :D :D.

It's more like 1 - 2%? That was my experience with 200ish domains for 2 years. And that's including the fact that i was completely noob and reggae'd things like metaldoorknob//com and noodless//com

I had a theory that the yearly sail rate for hand reggae is 1% (mabye 2 if you're good ) but, that over 5+ years, the overall rate is close to 50%? Is that how it is with your $8 domains bought years ago?

A hand reg, dropped domain, or domain acquired for $100. or so from 2002 is not the same as a hand reg, dropped domain, or domain acquired for $100. or so from today.

Nothing I do may be duplicated, besides my winning good looks, you'd also need a time machine to go back to when XYNames acquired most of its domains.

All I have to add to this thread is that: I don't acquire many domains any longer. Beyond that, nothing much to add to suggestions for the process.

 

[bmugford]

I disagree .

So i'm looking through list right now. GreyFox is like SadBirds... and sadbirds is available!

SadBirds might sound bad, but AngryBirds became a popular videogame, so maybe SadBirds too?

I also got GreenActiv for $1!

So I believe GreyFoxes are still tehre... LOL unless you think that these two examples don't look like GreyFox, then I'm dead ~_~

Lol. There is absolutely no comparison between an amazing brand like Grey Fox and Sad Birds.
The pool of potential buyers for a domain like Grey Fox is very deep.

Brad

 

[Jv1999]

Lol. There is absolutely no comparison between an amazing brand like Grey Fox and Sad Birds.
The pool of potential buyers for a domain like Grey Fox is very deep.

Brad

Well, it's true, if you look at end users. But I meant like, in theory, for the long run--sadbirds sounds like someone somewhere would want it for over 1k. I mean, I can't honestly see it being available in the next 10 years. <-- and that was the point :D.

But yes, if you look at it technical-wise, then GreyFox has more end users than sadbirds.

And xynames said his 2002 hand reggae is no match for 2019... so that probably means he has dictionaries and two-words like BigBox :/

I guess I'll never know if my theory makes sense~~