Hi everyone, I'm new here and just wanted to introduce myself. I'm new to domaining (in that I own 20-30 domains but haven't sold any yet). Question for everyone is: If you could give a newbie one bit of advice, what would it be? Where is the best place to sell domains? What criteria to buy? To disregard godaddy/estibot valuations completely (or may they have some sustinence to them if considered with logic)? Thank you everyone!
Hi Matthew and welcome to nps! The best advice is to go slowly when buying. Tons of aftermarket names and hand regs available...the first thing to do is define your end buyer and how deep their pockets may be before buying any more names. The search function in the upper right corner is your best friend!
Hello! My best advice for newbie - get serious knowledge before start of spending money. Don't take valuations serious. There is many marketplaces like Dan, Afternic, Sedo and others.
Welcome. 1) Don't buy cheap domains. Your not going to make money flipping hand regs in todays market unless your exceptionally skilled. Enthusiasm isn't a plan. Classic newbie mistake is to spend $500 on 40 crappy domains and possibly selling a few domains for $40 or $50. 2) Read and ask a lot of questions. There are a few good domain courses online that are worth the fee. Dnacedemy is worth a look. 3) Market places have consolidated. Godaddy, Namejet, Afternic, SEDO, DAN, Squad Help, etc. Some require exclusive listings, other have something similar to a MLS. Good luck. P.S. avoid 99% of new gtld's like .work, .top, etc. P.P.S. Domain renewals are liabilities. 50 domains is $500 / year. 500 domains..
Thank you. My plan is to do mostly .com but open to some other TLDs. I will definitely check out DNAcademy.
Hi, welcome here Without knowing your current registrar, I'd say... (also) focus on low registration and renewal cost from the very beginning.
I brought some through Godaddy, but now most of my domains are at NameCheap. Godaddy just seemed overpriced and crafty in their fees (I wouldn't call them hidden fees, but I wouldn't say they are completely upfront either).
Hi **. learn to use the search function ** . do not pay, do not pay, do not pay a dime, for any domain course that has a fee. imo... .
Welcome to NP DO NOT use automated appraisal tools (Estibot, GD etc) Focus on .COM names until you have a few sales under your belt Do not hand-register available names, they are unregistered for a reason - Email exisitng owners of decent names and try and find bargains Dont just park your names waiting for a sale, do outbound to potential buyers Quality over Quantity is the key, buy 1 decent name for $250,rather than 25 crap names that will end up expiring. Stay away from hyphens Shorter is better in domains, most of the time anyway Dont mix numbers and letters Stay away from trademarked names (FordCars.com, iPhoneCases.com, GoogleKeywords.com etc) Good luck
hello，welcome to Np Start with smaller domains and gradually increase your investment You can also try selling the domain name you own first
There are many hand reg domains worth buying. Just a creative thinking and small budget. I think newbie should start from hand reg.
Thats the biggest mistake new domainers make. The problem is new domainers dont understand domain value yet so cant pick a good hand-reg yet, that comes with experience. Scroll through this forum for a few weeks and see the hand-reggged names. Even better, have a look at hand-regged names from 2, 4 or 6 years ago and see where they are now? Expired and available again. The issue is new domaienrs dont often buy 1 or 2 names and try sell them, they fall into the common reg frenzy and end up with 50, 100, 500 or even 2000 names and then they sell 1 name and think theyve made a profit, add up the renewal costs of all the names and you are way behing in $$$ Its a much better tactic to spend the say $500 you start with on 2 or 3 decent names that will at least have a chance of selling, rather than 20 hand-regged names that will expire in a year or 2. Much better profit margain, which means more money to reinvest. If you hand-reg a name for $10, then sell it for $35, the profit is $25, thats provided you can sell it in the first year before the renewal comes along, which most of the time doesnt happenm because most new domainers doing usually do outbound, they hand-reg a name and put a "For Sale" on it and think it will sell for x,xxx?? Domaining doesnt work like that. Try hand-regging a name and selling it for a decent amount in the first year. Its not that easy. Just advice after seeing it happen over and over again on Namepros.
I agree with all that's been said by @gilescoley but also think you can learn a lot from making your own mistakes in the beginning, even if you're losing some money. But you have to make progress fast, otherwise you will never make any profit at all. Quote by Thomas John Watson Sr., IBM: “Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. “No”, I replied. “I just spent $600,000 training him – why would I want somebody to hire his experience?”
Totally agree, we all lost money at the start and we all learn from that. I guess I am trying to help limit those losses while learning. Don't go out and buy 100 or 200 names thinking you will sell them all or even half of them, you wont. Thats why you play a low risk game by starting off by buying 5 or fewer names, and try and sell them before reinvesting. If you cant sell them, work out what you are doing wrong before buying more names.
Indeed To all new domainers: The Bank Always Wins. (you may replace 'Bank' with 'Registrars', 'Registries', and 'Marketplaces' here, since they are the ones making the most profit in this industry)
Better to spend first 2-3 weeks just read and track on this platform before taking any serious actions. As a newbie i have regret to not do that Good luck with you ! Olcayto
