poll How did you build your current domain portfolio?

[Edward]

From novices to veterans, we all have preferences on building out our domain portfolios.

How did you acquire the bulk of your current portfolio?

Do you recommend that others go about constructing their portfolio in the same manner or do they come with a caveat?

 

[SpareDomains]

Drop-catching (Majority)
Private acquisition (Good Quantity)
Hand-register (Good Quantity)
Auction (Just A Few)

 

[DomainVP]

Drop-catching (Majority)
Private acquisition (Good Quantity)
Hand-register (Good Quantity)
Auction (Just A Few)

This mirrors my spread as well.

 

[Ali Abbas]

1- How did you acquire the bulk of your current portfolio?
Hand-register.

2- Do you recommend that others go about constructing their portfolio in the same manner or do they come with a caveat?
No, I recommend them to use all methods If their budget allow this, The multiplicity of sources are needed to increase opportunities and provide better quality names, But as I said it depends on the seller's budget.

 

[biggie]

built and restructured portfolio, over time.

though you have to consider the names one could hand-register 12 years ago, compared to today.... is much different.


the lesson from that for new investors, is to understand how "time", affects value.

imo....

 

[DomainComplex]

Drop-catching (Majority)
Private acquisition (Good Quantity)
Hand-register (Good Quantity)
Auction (Just A Few)

That sounds about right.

 

[N-A]

All of the above isn't an option.

Though, as @biggie stated, there were many times that I had to weed out the bad. Some "bad" I still have, but, I'm attached to them for some reason.

Renewing at $9 with high hopes doesn't hurt much, but may get old at some point. Usually the bad domains that I do have and are hand-regs and I do get low $$$ offers. I should take @iowadawg 's advice to take the money and run, cause those offers never seem to get higher, or come back for that matter.

 

[garptrader]

Hand registering domains has its place but one has to be careful to make sure you aren't throwing away $8 each for hundreds of crap domains no one is ever going to buy and which you keep renewing for several years before you finally realize you have wasted thousands of dollars on worthless digital #$%^@!. If that domain is still available for reg fee in 2015, why do you think that is?

Auctions can be a source of quality names but the problem here is that the competition to win those prized domains can be intense and you may end up paying an end user price without an end user in the near future. Years later you are still sitting on that domain you invested good money in. Where's the ROI if you pay an end user price?

Forums are probably a decent source of names if you state in the domains wanted section what you are looking for and have a reasonable budget (one that will attract sellers but still allow decent upside upon sale to an end user). Scouring the thousands of threads of newbie hand reg domains is going to waste a lot of time. Your time has a value.

Backorders IMO are a good source of decent quality domains at a reasonable price. However, I would not advocate spending the entire day manually going through the tens of thousands of daily drops. Filter by certain criteria - character length, certain commerce-related keywords which would be a trigger of value, or perhaps domain age. That will reduce your review time considerably.

But I believe this has to be stated - domaining is a much more difficult business to make money in than the weekly sales reports would lead one to believe. People go into engineering, nursing, computer science, etc. because graduates in those fields will quite frequently earn compensation which allows a certain standard of living that someone with only a high school degree may find more difficult to achieve. What percentage of people who buy domains for resale actually make a consistent living doing so? The answer might just send you looking for better opportunities outside this industry.

 

[N-A]

All-in-all, good advice.

If that domain is still available for reg fee in 2015, why do you think that is?

Just feel as if I should add to this...

Over the years, I've hand registered many brandable domains (generally color+noun) that have sold for a minimum of $495.

Granted, they are hit and miss. I don't think anyone should go out and register this format as it may be miss, which could make someone without a budget miss a sale; I've just been lucky. The ~$1000 that I put into these many names has paid off, thus my renewal of them. I just know that they do receive views, and I'm fine with them selling at a BIN of $495 as overtime, I've calculated costs and profits, to go even further, and project sales.

 

[garptrader]

Actually I forgot to mention probably one area that is often overlooked - undervalued aftermarket domains. Those new to the industry tend to focus on hand regs and then look to expiring domains but rarely consider aftermarket domains. I am not saying spam Michael Berkens with $50 offers for domains he has a minimum $10k offer price on. What I am saying is amongst the millions of aftermarket domains there are some nice domains priced below end user value and aftermarkets such as Godaddy, SEDO and Afternic do offer search features which allow one to filter by budget, keyword, TLD, etc so that you can find them....

 

[N-A]

Actually I forgot to mention probably one area that is often overlooked - undervalued aftermarket domains. Those new to the industry tend to focus on hand regs and then look to expiring domains but rarely consider aftermarket domains. I am not saying spam Michael Berkens with $50 offers for domains he has a minimum $10k offer price on. What I am saying is amongst the millions of aftermarket domains there are some nice domains priced below end user value and aftermarkets such as Godaddy, SEDO and Afternic do offer search features which allow one to filter by budget, keyword, TLD, etc so that you can find them....

I did run a test a while back on selling through public auctions vs. expiring (seen here, acknowledged by GoDaddy). Since then, I've been buying as many as I can--that I like--there. You can find many valuable domains on the aftermarket for cheap, if you know what you're looking for (including NamePros, of course).

I've found that there's much more competition on expiring domains, which sometimes has good reasoning, but you'll most likely overpay. (Overpay being an overstatement as any domain you buy should sell for profit)

 

[Willox Perez]

At first definitely did some hand regs but quickly learned not really the best way to go and got into drop catching which makes up for 90 percent of my portfolio right now the other percent is some hang regs I kept from when I started. I suggest for anyone starting out to save up and focus on drop catching as you are able to get some nice quality names you can flip for profits.

As your budget grows you can start diving into private purchases, auctions and any other methods. Another interesting method is checking Godaddy Closeouts from time to time you will be surprise how many nice gems are there and pretty cheap to get as well.

- Will

 

[domainerfella]

At first definitely did some hand regs but quickly learned not really the best way to go and got into drop catching which makes up for 90 percent of my portfolio right now the other percent is some hang regs I kept from when I started. I suggest for anyone starting out to save up and focus on drop catching as you are able to get some nice quality names you can flip for profits.

As your budget grows you can start diving into private purchases, auctions and any other methods. Another interesting method is checking Godaddy Closeouts from time to time you will be surprise how many nice gems are there and pretty cheap to get as well.

- Will

Which DC you mainly use? Thanks.

 

[Willox Perez]

Which DC you mainly use? Thanks.

I usually mix it up depending on how much I like and think of the value of the name. So far have been using NameJet.com, SnapNames.com, Pheenix.com and sometimes Godaddy.com. I have been able to get some nice names with Pheenix and it is a great price at $18 if the drop is successful.

The way I use Pheenix though I only put a backorder if I see the name has 0 bids on NameJet or SnapNames from the ones dropping either in pending delete or pre release. This way you have a higher chance of catching it. Once there is a bid you will prob have to go through NameJet or SnapNames and battle it out to win it.

- Will

 

[Doron Vermaat]

My first year I was mainly buying on NameJet. I added drop catchers in my second year and lately I have been more active buying from GoDaddy auctions and DropCatch.

 

[DANEYAL]

Mostly Hand Regs, of them some of the good domains were earlier deleted.

 

[Edward]

I'm surprised by the ratio of hand-registered domains to drop-catched ones. Some people believe that drop-catching with custom software and hand-registering are technically the same as they're still both new registrations. Of course there's some competition between people using competing BO services, but it's become commonplace to place multiple BO at different websites to avoid the loss. Practically speaking, most successfully drop-catched domains could be hand-registered later in the day vs. the remaining ones that went to auction.

Ultimately there seems to be an overlap in all the options with the exception of private acquisitions. This makes it easier to confuse all of them in the long-term as people might remember spending hours in an auction, but not recalling it was originally back ordered at a drop-catching site.

Memory and perception might be different from reality and intention in this circumstance.

 

[SpareDomains]

I'm surprised by the ratio of hand-registered domains to drop-catched ones. Some people believe that drop-catching with custom software and hand-registering are technically the same as they're still both new registrations. Of course there's some competition between people using competing BO services, but it's become commonplace to place multiple BO at different websites to avoid the loss. Practically speaking, most successfully drop-catched domains could be hand-registered later in the day vs. the remaining ones that went to auction.

Ultimately there seems to be an overlap in all the options with the exception of private acquisitions. This makes it easier to confuse all of them in the long-term as people might remember spending hours in an auction, but not recalling it was originally back ordered at a drop-catching site.

Memory and perception might be different from reality and intention in this circumstance.

I voted for drop-catching as that's where the majority of mine came from. Do have a decent supply of hand registered domains but most are aged where I can afford to wait years for 4-5 figure sales since the initial acquisition cost was only reg fee. Hand registered domains aren't as common for me today as when I started as based on the quality of them would almost be impossible to hand register them today as they would all end up at auction houses due to increased competition from the good old days. This is why Domainers need to capitalize on their gems as quality can't be replaced as cheap these days.

 

[garptrader]

I would agree with Sparedomains comment about replacing quality domains being more difficult. While one should always balance acquisition cost with a realistic potential resale value, limiting acquisitions to domains available for reg fee or backorder with no competition will limit one's portfolio.

 

[spikedo]

I obtained the majority of my domains via auction and drop-catching. A fair number have been hand registered but only a few via private deals.

 

[Nattydomain]

right now for the last few years it has been 95% aftermarket (which is auctions and drops) and the other 5% is hand reg. Seems to do me well for my mix of things.

 

[domainer111]

Mostly drops. I did buy a few. Some work out better than others - u live & learn! Don't forget the smaller drop catchers on the massive names such as name.com and even godaddy. Esp name.com as there is no auction. I remember Godaddy caught GadgetCenter.com a good while back...not for me, but nice for the owner!

 

[Domainace]

This is why Domainers need to capitalize on their gems as quality can't be replaced as cheap these days.

That has been factoring more into my thinking on my better names these days.

It makes perfect sense to say "take the money and use it to invest in better names." But the availability and prices of those better names make them difficult to find these days. That makes it easier for me to refuse offers on my best names, as I just see prices increasing.

However, for my middling names (most of my portfolio), I'm happy to see them sold off.

I still hand register, but only if I expect to hold them a good while. While a few hand regs do get flipped, it's not something I expect to happen.

I also agree that GD closeouts can hold some attractive names. I don't know how they slip through, but they do. And the best part about closeouts is they are instantly available to buy, so you don't waste time losing auctions.

 

[kemjika11]

Am a bit alarmed how many people "hand regged" .coms to build their portfolio. maybe this explains why so many bad .com names are offered for sale here? lol. pls dont take it personal, just saying that .com is spent so hand regging in this day and age is MOST LIKELY a waste.

I built up my portfolio by hand regging(probably 30%) and buying from other domainers on forums(private acquisitions).

 

[briguy]

How did you acquire the bulk of your current portfolio?

My method..go to Godaddy...put mouse into search...blindfold yourself..move fingers either one letter to the left or night...type in a word that is 8 to 20 letters long.. click on search...buy first available name.

Would I recommend it...well guaranteed 100% failure rate!

Seriously..vast majority are from bidding within my budget on auctions