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Hi, I'm Twiki answering your questions today here on NP. AMA

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twiki

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I've just received a bunch of questions from another NP member via DM.

I thought it's more appropriate to reply to them in an AMA post as others NP members might have other questions. Never did an AMA before, here or anywhere else. Anyway, ask me anything below.

Before anything else, please note: I am really not a fan of the spotlight. So please don't put me on a pedestal - like a few folks wanted before. I really don't like / want / need all that. Just got a bit of more performance lately but it's nothing that uncommon I'd say. I'm just yet another domainer here on NP where I have learned a lot. There are many others here much better than me.

OK so here are the questions I've received, and the answers:

- Q: How long have you been in the industry?
- A: This is rather difficult to answer. I'd prefer to say 3 years, because these are the years during which I finally got performance. Which has been visible just as it went here on NP in the sales thread.

But I've been buying and selling domains on a constant basis since 2018. And I also had a few tens of short domains like 15 years ago or so. Unfortunately I let them expire an got out of domaining for a decade, would have been worth some decent money today. But I think it's never too late if you're willing to do the work.

- Q: What is portfolio right now?
- A: I guess you're asking about the size. I have 7400 domains right now, down from 25.000 historical max. I'm reducing the portfolio however and hope to go beyond 4000 so it becomes much more manageable.

- Q: How much would you say you have acquired in drop registered or closeout vs auction at GoDaddy/Dynadot etc?
- A: Again if you're asking about counts: I don't have a statistic, but probably 75% of my domains are drop regs, 15% are hand regs, and most of the remaining are closeouts. Auction buys, less than 1%. However I intend to develop that next but it is more time consuming for me to watch the auctions.

- Q: How much do you spend on average acquiring domains?
- A: If you ask about time, it varies. Sometimes a full day, other times I don't even work on domains. On average at least 2 hours per day. If you're asking about $, most domains are at reg cost OR closeouts which range between 5 and 50$ + reg fee. Auctions I only have bought domains worth $300 or less.

- Q: Looks like you are mostly focused on the dot com? Is that correct?
- A: Yes. I have a much better hand at .COMs. Like 99% of my domains are .COM.

- Q: Do you hand register domains also?
- A: Sure, but not every day. Sometimes I get an idea and will register some based on it. I've sold for example quite a few meta domains which are all handregs. I haven't sold any NFT domain so far. It depends. I tend to not go too deep in hand regs.

Please note that drops are also a form of handregs. Well drops I do daily, and sometimes several depending on the quality available that day.
------

I'm going to add a bit of more insight here as to how I get results:

What I do is simple, I'm working hard each day (really) and got a bit of luck as well. That's all, nothing out of the ordinary. I also try to help others when I can, here on NP and elsewhere (with some limits, of course). I am also a full stack developer and I build my own tools for domaining, that helps as well.

If anyone here on NP has another question to ask, please ask below. If there are none more, that's also cool with me.

Thanks!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I've just received a bunch of questions from another NP member via DM.

I thought it's more appropriate to reply to them in an AMA post as others NP members might have other questions. Never did an AMA before, here or anywhere else. Anyway, ask me anything below.

Before anything else, please note: I am really not a fan of the spotlight. So please don't put me on a pedestal - like a few folks wanted before. I really don't like / want / need all that. Just got a bit of more performance lately but it's nothing that uncommon I'd say. I'm just yet another domainer here on NP where I have learned a lot. There are many others here much better than me.

OK so here are the questions I've received, and the answers:

- Q: How long have you been in the industry?
- A: This is rather difficult to answer. I'd prefer to say 3 years, because these are the years during which I finally got performance. Which has been visible just as it went here on NP in the sales thread.

But I've been buying and selling domains on a constant basis since 2018. And I also had a few tens of short domains like 15 years ago or so. Unfortunately I let them expire an got out of domaining for a decade, would have been worth some decent money today. But I think it's never too late if you're willing to do the work.

- Q: What is portfolio right now?
- A: I guess you're asking about the size. I have 7400 domains right now, down from 25.000 historical max. I'm reducing the portfolio however and hope to go beyond 4000 so it becomes much more manageable.

- Q: How much would you say you have acquired in drop registered or closeout vs auction at GoDaddy/Dynadot etc?
- A: Again if you're asking about counts: I don't have a statistic, but probably 75% of my domains are drop regs, 15% are hand regs, and most of the remaining are closeouts. Auction buys, less than 1%. However I intend to develop that next but it is more time consuming for me to watch the auctions.

- Q: How much do you spend on average acquiring domains?
- A: If you ask about time, it varies. Sometimes a full day, other times I don't even work on domains. On average at least 2 hours per day. If you're asking about $, most domains are at reg cost OR closeouts which range between 5 and 50$ + reg fee. Auctions I only have bought domains worth $300 or less.

- Q: Looks like you are mostly focused on the dot com? Is that correct?
- A: Yes. I have a much better hand at .COMs. Like 99% of my domains are .COM.

- Q: Do you hand register domains also?
- A: Sure, but not every day. Sometimes I get an idea and will register some based on it. I've sold for example quite a few meta domains which are all handregs. I haven't sold any NFT domain so far. It depends. I tend to not go too deep in hand regs.

Please note that drops are also a form of handregs. Well drops I do daily, and sometimes several depending on the quality available that day.
------

I'm going to add a bit of more insight here as to how I get results:

What I do is simple, I'm working hard each day (really) and got a bit of luck as well. That's all, nothing out of the ordinary. I also try to help others when I can, here on NP and elsewhere (with some limits, of course). I am also a full stack developer and I build my own tools for domaining, that helps as well.

If anyone here on NP has another question to ask, please ask below. If there are none more, that's also cool with me.

Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your journey !! I feel more optimistic !!!
 
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Interesting thread. Could you get into detail about that big change, 25000 to 7400 and even less domains soon? Did you believe that domaininig is mostly a numbers game? What was your mindset to have such a big portfolio especially today that quality domains are so hard to find? Could you also share some weird sales if any? The sales you are sharing here are decent domains.
 
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Thanks @twiki for sharing your inputs and the sales reports.


1. Do you park your domains? If so which platform?
2. Do you use your own landing pages?
3. Do you invest in hyphenated domains?
 
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@twiki do you set filters to select names from the droplist? If yes, how?
do you pick names manually or use an ai/bot ?

If this feels like you're revealing alot, that's okay.
 
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Interesting thread. Could you get into detail about that big change, 25000 to 7400 and even less domains soon? Did you believe that domaininig is mostly a numbers game? What was your mindset to have such a big portfolio especially today that quality domains are so hard to find? Could you also share some weird sales if any? The sales you are sharing here are decent domains.
Wow, lots of questions! Didn't know if anyone else will wanna ask something. Anyway, answers:

- Could you get into detail about that big change, 25000 to 7400 and even less domains soon? > Nothing unusual. It is common for domainers to trim their portfolios from time to time and keep as small as possible. This helps with management and also to increase overall ROI. You just get more time to focus on the better ones.

I recall even Mike Mann (if I'm not mistaken) dropped like 100k names about a couple years ago.

I had a lot of co, net, org, and especially xyz. These didn't perform well so I decided to let them go and focus on .COM from now on.

- What was your mindset to have such a big portfolio especially today that quality domains are so hard to find? > I have more volume than many others here on NP. I can find lots of names in the middle market (4-fig low to mid range). Was doing a volume based domaining mostly.

Now I'm focusing on less volume, more quality. I'm even passing on perfectly valid $2k+ retail value domains daily, for the sole reason I focus on certain niches and don't want to grow my portfolio too much.

Will spend more on buys in the future, auctions but also hopefully some targeted private buys.

- Could you also share some weird sales if any? The sales you are sharing here are decent domains. > I don't have weird sales... I think. Probably the weirdest name ever was backoffbuddy (dot com) which I sold for $100, part of a test tier, years ago . Later I got out of 3-words completely.
 
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Thanks @twiki for sharing your inputs and the sales reports.


1. Do you park your domains? If so which platform?
2. Do you use your own landing pages?
3. Do you invest in hyphenated domains?
1. I point everything at Afternic (NS5/NS6, the GoDaddy sales lander). I'm not interested in parking revenue and don't have any. I focus on sales.

2. Yes, I do have my own landers but after extensive testing I've decided to use Afternic only (brings me best results). For some unknown reason, Dan and others never truly worked for me. So I dont' use my own landers anymore. Afternic is simple to use.

3. No I don't buy hyphenated or numeric domains. These are lower $, lower sales ratio so it's not worth it. Occasional high sales occur out there, but I don't see these as a great investment line.
 
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@twiki do you set filters to select names from the droplist? If yes, how?
do you pick names manually or use an ai/bot ?

If this feels like you're revealing alot, that's okay.
I have my own custom filters that I made, for every list out there be it from drops, auctions etc. They behave differently depending on source and intent / type of domains.

Nobody can truly go manually through say 50k names in a day without a filter. After say 4-5k names you'll be dead tired.

I pick most names the old fashion, manually (90%). I do have an automated registration tool but I only use it if I'm too busy to do the hand reg, like gone out for the evening.

While doing the handreg I often decide to ditch some names in the last minute if I spot anything I missed, so I prefer to do it manually. Sometimes I lose a few names as others are faster but I don't see that as a major issue. It's fishing, sometimes a fish escapes.

These are all questions I can answer, no worries.
 
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May I also add:

While these things (my methods and names etc) might be inspiration for other domainers here, the truth is that each domainer's method(s) might be different and other people's methods might work or not for you. Each of us is quite different around here in style, methods, skills.

Just be sure to pick what fits you.

And always test, measure, adjust things.
 
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- Do you have a wife
- Does she know what you are doing
- When was the last time you two had an argument about domain name
 
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thank you very much @twiki for making the questions public, that helps us a lot to us newbies (y)
 
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Thanks, Twiki! Gave you +10 likes
Dont have question yet; tho but appreciate!
Thanks; you share data lot times, when can.
(Not just limited to AMAs)

Good luck i wish you success all endeavors!
Samer
 
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u on pedestal lol

what kind of dumbass newbie was that
You always leave me wondering. What's the point of your comments/interventions? Sorry but you never contribute anything useful to any thread :sleep:
 
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- Do you have a wife
- Does she know what you are doing
- When was the last time you two had an argument about domain name
You struck a different chord here.

I am alone. My daughter also lives in a different country. You are lucky.

Her mother passed away suddenly due to Covid. There isn't a single day without our family feeling the loss. Especially our daughter. Wish I could share in this joke, but I can't.

I hope she still knows what we two are doing, wherever she might be right now.

I do however have argument with my daughter from time to time remotely about certain names. It's annoying but I also cherish having her... to at least be able to have an argument with someone that close.
 
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Thanks, Twiki! Gave you +10 likes
Dont have question yet; tho but appreciate!
Thanks; you share data lot times, when can.
(Not just limited to AMAs)

Good luck i wish you success all endeavors!
Samer
Well there are no AMAs since this is my first and only one... so it's at singular. I do however have posts here on NP.

Thanks a lot, Samer. I also like your balanced comments to various things.

I share what I can whenever possible as this helps the community that helped me. I know it might fuel competition (from my experience in other fields) but I don't fear competition. At best, you gave back. At worst, more competition makes the market more mature, and will challenge you to become even better. It's up to us to accept the challenge and rise up to it - if we can and if we're willing to put the effort in.

Edit: This is an ongoing process and I've learned over the years that it's a must to evolve to stay in your field and thrive. Whoever stays disconnected and hidden in a shell will not survive too long.

Domaining isn't a minimal effort business, or passive how they say. Not in most cases at least. It's hard work, risk, but also reward.

And you know what, the more you share, the more knowledge finds its way to trickle back to you somehow. Even if you risk copycats and more competition at times (debatable). Edit: I also sometimes can pinpoint at other folk's methods but I do my best not to strike in the exact same place, time and way so I don't disturb them - it's entirely possible, just be yourself and you'll be different and earn your own, particular place in this segment. Just like our all reported names are so different from one domainer to another.

Also I don't expect a reward, and definitely not a praise (don't like that) but I'll take a thanks any day and that's about it. But I do also get this feeling that there is knowledge returning back to us due to our sharing, though hard to grasp I'd say. Guess we are all connected in ways sometimes difficult to measure or detect.
 
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Hello,
One more important question, please shed some light:
What is average number of domain names do you SELL per month? And what is their total value per month?
Thank you.
 
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Great, thanks, Twiki. As you mentioned it, could you also write a few things about xyz domains? Any predictions?
 
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Hello,
One more important question, please shed some light:
What is average number of domain names do you SELL per month? And what is their total value per month?
Thank you.
It fluctuates a lot, but on average around 12 names at least, sometimes more, sometimes a bit less so it's like one domain each 2...3 days.

Value also fluctuates a lot but if you'd use an average $2000 value it's somewhere in the $20K - $30 k range.

A safe number is 20K in total sales, I always sell at least that. But fortunately some months are better.
 
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Great, thanks, Twiki. As you mentioned it, could you also write a few things about xyz domains? Any predictions?

I'm not an expert in xyz. If someone could make a good prediction, that'd be DNGear here on NP (Swetha).

However what I can stay is that while .co now appears to have been a fluke mostly, xyz is here to stay.
 
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I'm not an expert in xyz. If someone could make a good prediction, that'd be DNGear here on NP (Swetha).

However what I can stay is that while .co now appears to have been a fluke mostly, xyz is here to stay.

bahaha co a fluke and xyz to stay... I cant believe u have nerve to claim u kown something about domains.. parhetic
 
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bahaha co a fluke and xyz to stay... I cant believe u have nerve to claim u kown something about domains.. parhetic
I wish you were better lol
 
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Wow, lots of questions! Didn't know if anyone else will wanna ask something. Anyway, answers:

- Could you get into detail about that big change, 25000 to 7400 and even less domains soon? > Nothing unusual. It is common for domainers to trim their portfolios from time to time and keep as small as possible. This helps with management and also to increase overall ROI. You just get more time to focus on the better ones.

I recall even Mike Mann (if I'm not mistaken) dropped like 100k names about a couple years ago.

I had a lot of co, net, org, and especially xyz. These didn't perform well so I decided to let them go and focus on .COM from now on.

- What was your mindset to have such a big portfolio especially today that quality domains are so hard to find? > I have more volume than many others here on NP. I can find lots of names in the middle market (4-fig low to mid range). Was doing a volume based domaining mostly.

Now I'm focusing on less volume, more quality. I'm even passing on perfectly valid $2k+ retail value domains daily, for the sole reason I focus on certain niches and don't want to grow my portfolio too much.

Will spend more on buys in the future, auctions but also hopefully some targeted private buys.

- Could you also share some weird sales if any? The sales you are sharing here are decent domains. > I don't have weird sales... I think. Probably the weirdest name ever was backoffbuddy (dot com) which I sold for $100, part of a test tier, years ago . Later I got out of 3-words completely.
I've just received a bunch of questions from another NP member via DM.

I thought it's more appropriate to reply to them in an AMA post as others NP members might have other questions. Never did an AMA before, here or anywhere else. Anyway, ask me anything below.

Before anything else, please note: I am really not a fan of the spotlight. So please don't put me on a pedestal - like a few folks wanted before. I really don't like / want / need all that. Just got a bit of more performance lately but it's nothing that uncommon I'd say. I'm just yet another domainer here on NP where I have learned a lot. There are many others here much better than me.

OK so here are the questions I've received, and the answers:

- Q: How long have you been in the industry?
- A: This is rather difficult to answer. I'd prefer to say 3 years, because these are the years during which I finally got performance. Which has been visible just as it went here on NP in the sales thread.

But I've been buying and selling domains on a constant basis since 2018. And I also had a few tens of short domains like 15 years ago or so. Unfortunately I let them expire an got out of domaining for a decade, would have been worth some decent money today. But I think it's never too late if you're willing to do the work.

- Q: What is portfolio right now?
- A: I guess you're asking about the size. I have 7400 domains right now, down from 25.000 historical max. I'm reducing the portfolio however and hope to go beyond 4000 so it becomes much more manageable.

- Q: How much would you say you have acquired in drop registered or closeout vs auction at GoDaddy/Dynadot etc?
- A: Again if you're asking about counts: I don't have a statistic, but probably 75% of my domains are drop regs, 15% are hand regs, and most of the remaining are closeouts. Auction buys, less than 1%. However I intend to develop that next but it is more time consuming for me to watch the auctions.

- Q: How much do you spend on average acquiring domains?
- A: If you ask about time, it varies. Sometimes a full day, other times I don't even work on domains. On average at least 2 hours per day. If you're asking about $, most domains are at reg cost OR closeouts which range between 5 and 50$ + reg fee. Auctions I only have bought domains worth $300 or less.

- Q: Looks like you are mostly focused on the dot com? Is that correct?
- A: Yes. I have a much better hand at .COMs. Like 99% of my domains are .COM.

- Q: Do you hand register domains also?
- A: Sure, but not every day. Sometimes I get an idea and will register some based on it. I've sold for example quite a few meta domains which are all handregs. I haven't sold any NFT domain so far. It depends. I tend to not go too deep in hand regs.

Please note that drops are also a form of handregs. Well drops I do daily, and sometimes several depending on the quality available that day.
------

I'm going to add a bit of more insight here as to how I get results:

What I do is simple, I'm working hard each day (really) and got a bit of luck as well. That's all, nothing out of the ordinary. I also try to help others when I can, here on NP and elsewhere (with some limits, of course). I am also a full stack developer and I build my own tools for domaining, that helps as well.

If anyone here on NP has another question to ask, please ask below. If there are none more, that's also cool with me.

Thanks!
What's the thought process in pricing your handreg or drop reg domains?
 
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Can you buy my domains?
No.

But if you stick around here and learn, one day you might be able to sell your own domains properly.

Edit: If you have something to sell, there is a sales section on NP, see the links at the top.
 
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Do you still buy domains which are $50 or less and able to sell them for above $500?
 
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