How Do You Measure Success with Domains?

[netmeg]

Gilsan put me in mind of a topic I've been thinking about lately, and I'm getting tired of all the Bodis stuff (too much drama!) and so I will start this conversation going, and then come back a little later when I have more time to post.

There's actually two issues here. The first is - HOW do you measure whether or not your domaining is successful? And the second is - WHAT do you use to measure it?

I've been doing this since about the beginning of August. I've acquired a bunch of domains, and some of them are starting to bring in some income, some are not. Some of them require my purchasing PPC ads, and some don't. In some cases, I switched from an AdSense developed site to a parked domain, and in other cases, I went the other way. So I'm left with this huge pile of data, and I have no idea what to do with it or how to measure it. I started doing massive Excel spreadsheets, but I have so many pages looking at things different way, I'm getting lost in details.

So how do some of you do it - or DO some of you do it? Do you just total up income vs outgo at the end of every month, and decide whether or not you're winning as a whole, or do you take it to the domain level and measure every single domain's performance? Do you account for your time spent? Amortize your acquisition costs? And what do you do when you have hundreds if not thousands of domains?? (I currently have just under 600)

Discuss...

 

[geb9696]

I have a relatively small domain portfolio(less then 100) out of which some are developed. When measuring my success I look at each individual name. With each name I have a different goal. The first the I do when I purchase a name is to determine whether this is a name I want to monatize through traffic or if I plan of flipping the domain for a profit.

For the domains that I plan on flipping I want to make sure that my selling prices is atleast 2x the price that I pay for the domain. For this portion of domaining I started with a set portion of funds. I have a rule that I will not invest new capital to buy names but only reinvest the profits from domain sales. In this regard that portion of my domaining is easy to measure.

For the names that I plan to monatize through traffic it is harders to monitor the success of the names. On the most basic level the annual revenue for the names has to exceed the cost of keeping the name. Basically, the domain has to make reg fee. On names the are gotten for reg fee this is probably the most important factor. The other factor is how is the name making the revenue. On names that are bought I want the annual revenue to be = to atleast 1/4 of the total domain aquisition cost. Now the other portion of these domains is the domains that I develope and the domains that I am trying arbitrage with.

For a developed names I normally consinder the name to be a success if I am able to recieve atleast $10 per article that I write. I use this number because if I was to just write content articles I was getting paid over $10 an article. When initially developing a site traffic is often rather limited. For a developed name I also have a goal of increasing traffic each month and I track how much traffic and money is generated when content is updated on the site.

Overall, I think that how you evaluate your domaining depends on what you are giving up to presue it. If you have a steady job with the ability to work overtime with your free time I would have to factor in the lost pay in your costs for domaining. I am a college student that also does a varsity sport for my school. Therefore, I do not have time to have a job. This means that I do not have another option for making money so my opportunity cost is far less then say a lawyer who runs their own practice and could be billing out pay hours instead of domaining. Hope this helped.

 

[fatter]

I do both, on individual names unless highly brandable and memmorable and they dont make reg fee every year i usually let drop. As a whole I went from red to black several years ago thats how you know you are doing something right now the weeding process contributes to the bottom line, my growth is very slow I dont own high traffic names and have never purchased one. i just reg names, but half i let drop if they dont make income, i have only sold a few and dont put effort into that, as far as i am concerned if a name makes reg fee every year i will wait a 100 years for right enduser to come along with a good price I probably turn down 20-30 offers a year.

 

[dedekind]

I have registered my first domain in summer 1999, and by now have a portfolio of about 1100 domains, two thirds of them dot-com, mostly generic. I never pay more than registration fee, and register them in view of their potential value to the future end user. Only about 8% of my domains earn their renewal fee through parking. My total cost by now is about $45000, and through parking and sales I cashed in about $55000. So far I have sold 14 domains for the total of $34500.(Their total parking income was under $50 per year!) I have dropped so far 150 domains, and for some of them I was very sorry later on.
Although majority of my domains make next to nothing from parking, a few of them compesate very well. My best domain (erotic) has a steady traffic of about 350 visitors per day, with the parking income moving from $4/day in 2003 to $16/day today. My second high-traffic domain woke up a year ago (somebody developed a successful site on its dot-net sister) and makes also about $16/day. Third one had similar resurection a few months later, making about $8/day. I expect one more of my domains to wake up soon thanks to its dot-co.uk sister! One would never guess that these waking-up domains would ever earn just their annual reneval fee!
My present parking income is about $18000/year and sales make about $7000/year, while the annual cost is about $8000/year. To make $17000/year I would need to have about $380000 in a bank at 4,5% rate. Actually, I think that my portfolio is worth at least three times as much. I may never see that money, at the age of 67, but my daugther is learning the ropes already!
What about work? As a retired man I am lucky to have such an excellent hobby. The best alternative would be to play bridge, at a fee of about $7 per playing day in a bridge club.
In summary: I am picking up and dropping domains on the basis of the (changing) assessment of their potential value to some end user. The overall quality and size of my portfolio help some sporadic bursts of parking income since these are valuable names even in lesser extensions than dot-com. At the end of the day, the overal performance counts.

 

[dedekind]

So I'm left with this huge pile of data, and I have no idea what to do with it or how to measure it. I started doing massive Excel spreadsheets, but I have so many pages looking at things different way, I'm getting lost in details.

So how do some of you do it - or DO some of you do it?

It is much more efficient to use ACCESS or another database software to compare data, select it by some criteria, etc. I use EXCEL to pick up data, and then export it to ACCESS for analysis. One EXCEL sheet becomes a Table in ACCESS. Multi-table Queries are very powerful in comparing data. Results from Queries can be taken back to EXCEL by copy and paste, to look at details, annotate, mark, etc.

 

[rexvnus]

I have registered my first domain in summer 1999, and by now have a portfolio of about 1100 domains, two thirds of them dot-com, mostly generic. I never pay more than registration fee, and register them in view of their potential value to the future end user. Only about 8% of my domains earn their renewal fee through parking. My total cost by now is about $45000, and through parking and sales I cashed in about $55000. So far I have sold 14 domains for the total of $34500.(Their total parking income was under $50 per year!) I have dropped so far 150 domains, and for some of them I was very sorry later on.
Although majority of my domains make next to nothing from parking, a few of them compesate very well. My best domain (erotic) has a steady traffic of about 350 visitors per day, with the parking income moving from $4/day in 2003 to $16/day today. My second high-traffic domain woke up a year ago (somebody developed a successful site on its dot-net sister) and makes also about $16/day. Third one had similar resurection a few months later, making about $8/day. I expect one more of my domains to wake up soon thanks to its dot-co.uk sister! One would never guess that these waking-up domains would ever earn just their annual reneval fee!
My present parking income is about $18000/year and sales make about $7000/year, while the annual cost is about $8000/year. To make $17000/year I would need to have about $380000 in a bank at 4,5% rate. Actually, I think that my portfolio is worth at least three times as much. I may never see that money, at the age of 67, but my daugther is learning the ropes already!
What about work? As a retired man I am lucky to have such an excellent hobby. The best alternative would be to play bridge, at a fee of about $7 per playing day in a bridge club.
In summary: I am picking up and dropping domains on the basis of the (changing) assessment of their potential value to some end user. The overall quality and size of my portfolio help some sporadic bursts of parking income since these are valuable names even in lesser extensions than dot-com. At the end of the day, the overal performance counts.

This is just perfect stats.
I believe in your numbers because I have some same figures.

 

[exponent]

I have a 3 / 3 / 3 rule.

-Take no more than 3 years to flip a domain.
-Flip for no less than 3 times my expenses (acquisition and reg).
-Find at least 3 qualified parties that might be interested.

My portfolio is interesting. 2007 sales totals were north of $13,000. Parking rarely pays for reg fees, so I've gone from trying to make a living off parking, to using my generics for development instead. Its payed huge dividends.

In 2008, I'm hoping for the following:
-solid $100 per month by September
-10,000 US uniques per month
-fully developing a few of my "properties"

 

[ulasbbtr]

Thanks dedekind, I really learn a lot from your posts here in this section.
My business strategy is I use an Excel sheet for storing information about my domains, registrars expiry total renewal cost or purchase cost that I made.
There are three important criterias:
- Parking or adsense revenue
- Renewal cost to date (beginning purchase cost)
- Sale potential

So I put a column in my Excel sheet for its 2008 Estibot appraisal. One year later, if the domain at least earns half of its renewal fee it deserves to stay without a question. But If it is not, I will check the appraisal (hope that service will continue) and if it increases its value, it may stay. If no appraisals, (no Estibot service, or a changed service) I will evaluate the name myself whether it is worth keeping or not. Will do this by investigating how OVT scores changed in time?

 

[Seabass]

Most folks here are explaining how they measure success domaining by flipping domains and how they organize all this.

I don't sell any domains. But, I still need the organization to gauge my success.

Yes, Excel works, but there is a faster hands-on approach I developed by simply creating "Monthly" categories in your parking company you use.

I used this organization for 2007 for example:

Jan. 2007
Feb. 2007
March 2007
Etc......................

By separating domains into monthly categories you can see trends of success and failure.

If you "scatter shot" your domains around tons of parking companies or can't stand to leave them in one parking company, then the value of this organization begins to diminish, b/c it is harder to put a "picture" together of what you are doing. You then have a lot of work to do to to bring all the stats together to construct that "picture".

It's funny, I've been doing this for many years, but I can actually see myself getting better month by month at domaining, just in 2007.

If I go look back at Jan/Feb. 2007 for example, I can see some mistakes I made that I would not make today. The old adage, "You never stop learning" is so true.

This system really works for me.

 

[Jasdon]

There's actually two issues here. The first is - HOW do you measure whether or not your domaining is successful? And the second is - WHAT do you use to measure it?

Discuss...

I go off width
:hehe:




(Joke curtousy of Steve Wright)

 

[domainsusi]

So I'm left with this huge pile of data, and I have no idea what to do with it or how to measure it. I started doing massive Excel spreadsheets, but I have so many pages looking at things different way, I'm getting lost in details.

So how do some of you do it - or DO some of you do it? Do you just total up income vs outgo at the end of every month, and decide whether or not you're winning as a whole, or do you take it to the domain level and measure every single domain's performance? Do you account for your time spent? Amortize your acquisition costs? And what do you do when you have hundreds if not thousands of domains?? (I currently have just under 600)

Discuss...

Take a look at this program:

Complete recordkeeping of income and expenses including periodic and end of year reports for the tax man.

 

[yes]

My best domain (erotic) has a steady traffic of about 350 visitors per day, with the parking income moving from $4/day in 2003 to $16/day today.

$16 divided by 350 = $.045 per type in. I know that a financial term is worth more than a humor term, but if you have hundreds or thousands of type ins per day ... does anyone have an average earned per click on huge volume? Is $.045 typical (high or low)?

Thanks for the info
Yes

 

[dedekind]

$16 divided by 350 = $.045 per type in. I know that a financial term is worth more than a humor term, but if you have hundreds or thousands of type ins per day ... does anyone have an average earned per click on huge volume? Is $.045 typical (high or low)?

Thanks for the info
Yes

Effectively you are asking which kind of domains receive high traffic! If you get hold of a high-traffic financial domain, you will get rich soon.

My two high-traffic dot-com domains receive spill-over traffic from related dot-net sites developped in the meantime. One profits from YouTube related video download software site, another from the music portal in Peru! This kind of traffic can hardly benefit from higher RPC than $0.02 -$0.05.

I don't think there is a general answer to your question.