advice Hand Registered

[EDWARD BYRNE]

Hi all - am new to the forum and enjoying the informative discussion. I have seen mostly negative stuff when it comes to hand registered domains. Is it impossible to make money on hand regs? I would really appreciate some commentary and advice on this.
My thanks in advance.

 

[Kate]

Well, the best names were registered long ago. And when you think of it, everything that is still unregistered in 2018 usually is not very desirable. So that should make you wonder, what are the odds that you will sell a handreg for a significant sum, when anybody could have picked it for $10 but didn't ?

People need a compelling reason for buying a name at a premium. If you have names that are average at best, then end users can find average names too, for regfee and 'good enough' for their purpose. If they have a budget, then they will seek good names, not mediocre ones.

 

[Ategy]

The very very rare times I hand register a domain is for future technologies or things I see on the news. Basically a name that had no reason to exist before but does now because it's something new.

A good example is when Donald Trump accidentally wrote Covfefe in one of his tweets. Some quick domainer made a gamble by buying it thinking that could become trending news.

But while covfefe.com certainly did have value far beyond the registration fee, it's important to note that these sorts of domains are a huge gamble .. for every one that trends, there are 1000 others that never pan out.

Last year I was watching the news and there were reporting on a development in the oil industry .. I jumped online and grabbed the terms very surprised they were available. It's a year later and the potential technology hasn't advanced any further and I never saw it in the news again. Admittedly more often than not the horizon for future technologies is 5-10 years .. but that's another factor as you need to factor in renewals into the equation as well.

At the end of the day, unless it's something with an EXTREMELY high possibility of trending or developing into an industry, then it's best to stay away.

With the exception of domains I had before I started "domaining", I'd say my portfolio is about 1% hand registrations .. lol.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Is it impossible to make money on hand regs?

Yes. All names were hand regged at one point. It requires forethought and luck to get a good one though. People forget their password, pass on or simply pass out/check out and the name can become available before they (their secretary, lawyer, executor, etc.) are aware it dropped.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Is it impossible to make money on hand regs?

Short version: yes! (but shhhhh... don't tell all those domains pros hanging around here!)

I would really appreciate some commentary and advice on this.

Handregistering is a lost art, it seems. And you really, really need to know what you are doing and be really, really inventive to register names that will bring you money, one way or another. More on the "another" later on...

While my answer's a resonating "yes", there are a couple caveats. For one thing, handregs usually come in tandem with outbound selling. Most old hands say that all good names (read: names of interest to someone) have been taken a long time ago. Check. And if they drop, they're scooped at expired domains auction or dropcaught by somebody, usually HugeDomains. Also true. And if not, there's a whole world of domainers combing through ExpiredDomains.net droplists to catch any leftovers. Yep, that's about the size of it. Consequently, anything you invent, originate and find free to handreg is unlikely to be in high demand (read: don't expect anybody calling and inquiring about it). So if you decide that handregging is your game, make damn sure that you're into cold calling and outbound sales as well!

And keep in mind that outbound marketing, sales, well, that's a whole other ebook with a lot of caveats of its own!

Back to "another"... most people who are aware of the term "domaining" at all, equate it with domain flipping, selling. I do not. For me, domaining is domain investing, making money on domains, one way or another. The "another" is registering domains and developing and monetizing websites. This is a whole other subject, far beyond the scope of this post, but quick and dirty:

- be realistic, make sure you are in a position to develop all the domains you handregister with this purpose in mind or be prepared to sit on them for years to come and can afford the renewal fees!

- be aware that developing domains into websites is only the very beginning of a long journey to monetizing them (read: first finding somebody to pay you for sending them your traffic and then procuring substantial traffic to your website, only a very small part of which you will be able to channel to your sponsors!).

- if you have heard of, and are thinking domain parking or Adwords: don't! Those ships have sailed! Think affiliate marketing instead... which is a separate ebook in itself, of course...

 

[Federer]

Hand-registering domains (or registering domains that previously dropped for registration cost) is a laser-focused art and is not recommended for the majority - especially knowing that you will only sell 1%-2% of these domains IF they are the types that appeal to end buyers.

There are probably less domain investors that live off this business model in the world than fingers you have on both your hands. It's profitable, but you need time/experience, and eagle eyes.

 

[bee]

Hand registering is very cheap, it has a good income, but good luck is needed, maybe need some nice online trading platform

 

[MurphCo]

Hand registering will either lose you money, or you will become a pretty good salesman, and make some money. At least that’s the feel I’ve been getting so far. Just make sure your thinking of name’s in either, developing industries or future industries.

 

[MapleDots]

The best advise I can give anyone when it comes to hand registrations is to be aware of anything trending. In most cases a handreg will bring value when it somehow relates to a product, event, or business name. You would be surprised how many companies blog about ventures and mergers and things like that before they ever buy a domain. If you have the right domain and are not infringing on a trademark you can often get quite a nice sale. Same goes for any trending subject.

The most successful hand registrations are the ones that are on cue with what is currently happening in the industry. Be aware of political events, news, blunders, mergers, trends and apply these to your new registrations. It's only a matter of time until you hit a sale.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I might add that the situation is somewhat different for new extensions than for legacy with respect to hand registration for a number of reasons.

1. Since some new extensions are new (while some have been around a few years) you can in the early days of .app or .page or .icu find names not yet noticed. Many many people have searched the combinations of .com. So new trends are your main opportunity, as several have noted.
2. Since the majority of domain investors invest only in .com or only in .com plus other legacy or country codes, and just because of the complex universe of extensions is so broad, there is increased chance of a good name not having yet been noticed and registered in the ngTLD space.
3. Most, not all, new extensions have a highly variable promotional pricing structure with many selling for a dollar or a few dollars in first year and $20 in later years, or sometimes even more. Whereas legacy have fixed or near fixed rates. As a result it makes more economic sense to hold a legacy while dropping and either picking up again or picking up something else is encouraged by pricing of new extensions. Many of the ngTLD I hold were held and dropped for just a few days before I picked them up again. They are counted as hand reg but in some senses are not.

Bob

PS By the way I would agree with conventional reasoning that the most probable way to make money is to sell legacy (or country code) domains acquired through wholesale auctions or drops. I don't mainly do that, but don't dispute that right now the numbers support that.

 

[d-e-x]

Hi all - am new to the forum and enjoying the informative discussion. I have seen mostly negative stuff when it comes to hand registered domains. Is it impossible to make money on hand regs? I would really appreciate some commentary and advice on this.
My thanks in advance.

Yes it is

 

[larryscott2559]

I just hand registered Mesotheliomas.org which just dropped today

Funny thing was, I typed this name before and it was one of the domains I wanted to purchase in the future from the domainer that owned it just because of the high cpc ($30 -$161 average). I just wish I would had bid on this domain during the auction phase before it was deleted because now that 13years old registration record means nothing. Never the less I feel lucky.

 

[ecomslice]

My Hand reg sales hardly show just a break even, this is with only 4 months of data as im new. I think there is abbreviation, brandable , and future tech possibilities in hand reg. well jeeze I sure hope so, I have hundreds of recent hand regs. . few minutes ago Sensory/Optics in King. only time will tell. o and dont forget sub city geo emd's , few guys on here doing 6 fig annual on them. outbound"" hint hint.

basically there is endless strategies, find what works for you by taking a little piece off others who sell. study the sales.

 

[.X.]

Hand-registering domains (or registering domains that previously dropped for registration cost) is a laser-focused art and is not recommended for the majority - especially knowing that you will only sell 1%-2% of these domains IF they are the types that appeal to end buyers.

There are probably less domain investors that live off this business model in the world than fingers you have on both your hands. It's profitable, but you need time/experience, and eagle eyes.

Very well said and presented.

Hand registering is still very well alive, but, it takes A LOT of patience and strategic methods, as well as most usually 2 to 3 years hold time, moving a hand reg in one year or less is pretty few and far between,

It isn’t rocket science, but it does take much trial and error to gain the knowledge to be able to hand reg names that will make a decent profit,

It is not a numbers game at all, so no need to hand reg 100 names with the hope of one big sale. 99.8% of the time won’t happen.

It is a very crafty trade to take on, simple name spinning won’t get you very far, you will need more than someone else’s name spinner to reel in some winners.

It is also VERY time consuming, and expect spend 4 to 8 hours only to come up completely empty.

Time is money of course, so account for your time spent.

Despite all the above, I came into the industry with the thrill of the catch and have held onto that passion for 18 years now. But, The ROI is no where near what you can make from purchasing established names, not after everything is all said and done, not even close. So be very flexible and keep a deversified portfolio.

I went the 3rd party name spinners route for a couple of years, then I had a script written for me to spin names for me, the script cost me over 1k to have built, I have also paid a server fee for 16 years now, to be able to keep spinning keywords and hand reg domain names, the script has had to be updated 4 times through the years at a cost of around $500 per update, so I have few thousand dollars into the whole gig.

Best of luck to you

 

[infosec3]

Of course it’s possible to make money with hand-registrations. Many of us do it consistently.

The bulk of my business is hand-registered names.

Here are two examples of names I registered and and sold only a few days after registration.

SecureFaxing.com - $950
AthleteRecruitingService.com - $680

The key is to know what’s valuable and how to promote it.

Knowing what’s valuable and what’s garbage is the essential and most important skill you can acquire as a domain investor. Without this skill, you will just be wasting time and money.

 

[DN Playbook]

Hand registering without knowing what you are doing is the quickest way to blow through a lot of money these days. But it can be profitable if you do it right as seen from some of the posts here. At the same time, it has been a learning experience for most domainers, myself included.

Here are some tips on how to hand-reg domains without breaking the bank.