Handreg - The happy story of few, the sad story of many

[AEProgram]

I feel I need to write about this even thou this has been discussed a long time ago. I will also offer some advice to those starting out, I know nobody listens and everyone must learn on their own, but for the sake of clearing my conscious I will post about it.

The following is my own opinion, I fully expect those still engaged in heavy pipe dreaming and get rich quick fantasies will disagree with me, its cool.

If you are starting out, do not handreg any domains, don't do it! I don't care if you have a coupon code, it is money in the garbage and a waste of time.

In this business you must learn to sell, if you cannot sell domains why buy any domains? The amount of inquires you will get from whois or parking pages is minimal and of those 99% will be a spammer. You will have to learn how to do outbound marketing, be it via auction sites, email marketing etc.

Browse this forum, look at the for sale section, find names that have at least 2000 exact match searches a month that are .com no hyphens or numbers, domains you feel you can sell. Ask the member is you can broker them absolutely free for 30 days, explain you want to learn selling domains and tell them and get permission on every method you plan on using.

If you cannot sell good names, how will you sell anything? You feel maybe luck will befall you if you handreg a few names?

Most who enter this industry like most who enter any industry will fail. The good thing is that in this industry you can test with minimal money if you can make it or not.

YES there are stories of people that sold good domains they handreg'd these are exceptions, just like there are exceptions in the casino and in the stock market.

Again, handreg nothing ever, when you learn you could sell domains continue brokering until you have a few bucks and hunt the expired / deleted list and when you find a good name ask dropcatchers to grab it not your api software, if your api software caught it you most likely caught a pile of junk. (Yes, sometimes you learn of a big trend and you can grab a great name, chances of that happening is slim to none).

A while ago a guy I know was going to start small hosting company, he claimed he can slowly build up clients. He was about to invest over 15k buying management software and some other pretty good things to get started.

I suggested he try being an affiliate first of a major hosting company and see if he can signup even one person. Months went by and he couldn't generate a single sale. He saved himself a lot of money.

If you do not follow what I suggest above you are simply a gambler, and this business has the odds stacked against you more so than the lotto, you might as well play that, I am sure you can find coupons for that too somewhere.

 

[Houssaine]

Do you consider domains hand regged using expireddomains.net worthless too? Some are aged and seem to me have some value.

I just hand regged Ababor//com today, I already found many companies using this word in their DN and I think this domain will work for them as it's short and brandable with a meaning.

 

[AEProgram]

Do you consider domains hand regged using expireddomains.net worthless too? Some are aged and seem to me have some value.

I just hand regged Ababor//com today, I already found many companies using this word in their DN and I think this domain will work for them as it's short and brandable with a meaning.

First off you are right, there are companies who use this in their name.

Login would tell you that the owners of Ababorsomething.com should jump and buy your name. Login would also tell you that if there is a company that owns something.net and you offer them something.com they should want to buy it right away.

The problem is that if you base your buys on logic alone you will lose a lot of money in this business. You must base your buys on reality and then some logic.

Look around how many dotcoms with pretty reasonable prices are for sale and the dotnet owner doesnt care. Same with offers of simpler shorter names to those with longer and something even with hyphenated names yet they don't care, even if you are asking low XXX.

I am urging everyone to pay attention to the reality on how things work and not how we expect them to work.

I do with you the best with your new name and hopefully one of the companies buy it up from you.

It is also important to note. It is almost certain that automated domain spam bots already spammed anyone that has a domain with abab... in their domain leading up to the drop, but hey you never know, thats the lotto slogan too

 

[boker]

Some of my handregged's: 70+ names accepted at BB and NR, 43 offers in the first 4 months of 2016, 7 sales and I'm selling just to end users or end users prices. My sales and offers from this year could cover all investments in domains until now. I had offers for org acronyms, com brandables, lll cctld's and lll new gtlds, or short .co, like izzi, lool or simba.... it's possible, with the right pricing, patience, right names and right marketing.

 

[Houssaine]

You're right on many things AEProgram, I don't expect from these companies to come to me inquiring about my domain, nor I'm expecting them to reply to my future outbound emails. I already experienced such outcome. But I'll keep trying!

I hand regged this domain in the first place because of its meaning (mainly in French and Spanish languages) and brandability.

But I do confess that the potential end users already using the word in their domain helped my decision.

May be I can sell it to one of them or not.

 

[lennco]

You have a lot of great advice but you can still handreg good/great domains, you just need to know how and have a lot patience.

I have handreg'd over 100 good/great domains this year but they are new tech, no more then 2 words total, great keywords and no hyphens.

Will I sell them all, of course not but I just need to sell a few of them in the next few years and I will.
Handregs need to mature, especially if its new tech.
If you don't have the know how, patience and the money to invest in handregs then I agree do not handreg domains.

 

[AEProgram]

Some of my handregged's: 70+ names accepted at BB and NR, 43 offers in the first 4 months of 2016, 7 sales and I'm selling just to end users or end users prices. My sales and offers from this year could cover all investments in domains until now. I had offers for org acronyms, com brandables, lll cctld's and lll new gtlds, or short .co, like izzi, lool or simba.... it's possible, with the right pricing, patience, right names and right marketing.

In the stock market people have great success stories too, however most lose. So you have experience selling and you learned how to pick names well, you are the exception not the rule.

Beginners should try brokering names first and learn what does and doesn't work.

 

[DomainVP]

A balanced portfolio is a healthy portfolio.

Success with handreg domains can be attributed to one of three things; luck, marketing, or sales pitch.

There are some domains that have not been registered yet, and are much better than most of the uncaught drops.

Don't put all of your hopes in hand registered domains - that would certainly be foolish; most of them will never sell.

 

[Kate]

Beginners should try brokering names first and learn what does and doesn't work.

I don't think that would work because:

• nobody is going to trust a beginner with valuable names, I wouldn't want an amateur to pitch my portfolio to end users. Somebody who is even less knowledgeable than I am is not going to be of much help.
  
• a broker needs to understand the market, what kind of names will sell, and for how much. If you are new to the game, you shouldn't be brokering other people's domains. Just like you wouldn't plead before the courts without studying law first.
  
• End result: a beginner is only going to get crap names from other beginners, that won't sell, and everybody will lose their time

I think the best a newbie can do is to read a lot, soak up all the knowledge they can. Very important: analyze reported sales. Understand what sells, and why. Which extensions are popular. What types of keywords/niches are sought after. Then look at prerelease/pending delete lists, analyze the names, do your own shortlists, then compare your findings with the actual backorders placed at the drop sites. If the two lists are overlapping, you are probably on the right track. If none of your hand-picked domains have backorders, go back to square one. Remember, not so many good names slip through the cracks nowadays - unless of course you are experienced or looking for special interests domains

But I agree that beginners should not handreg, not even buy on the aftermarket until they have a good understanding of the trade.
Also, I would like to add: if you are new, stay away from new extensions. Try selling some .com first. You need the proof of concept before you scale up. If you can't sell a .com, it's very unlikely you will be more successful with new extensions.

 

[hookbox]

I have been doing this now for a few years and I almost exclusively deal with handregs. Done pretty well. In the past 30 days alone I've handregged about 300 dotcoms. I can promise you I will make much more than my initial $2,400 investment on these names. Some are good at handregs and some are not. If you're not try a different strategy but if you are continue on.