poll How many domainers in the world?

[redemo]

A domainer is a person who registers domain names as an investment. How many domainers do you think there are on our lonely planet? What data backs up your estimate? I think the number is up to one million because most domainers are probably Namepros members and there are over one million members but not all members are active. So up to one million domainers seems like a good estimate. Then again, not all domainers speak English so maybe it's more like two million?

 

[namerav]

My estimate around 1 million.

 

[Armageddon]

1 to 10 millions
But most of them have 10+ domains
If you have 1000+ domains you are in top 100k from 8 billions people ..so i am in top 100k
Its a graph that show this & article ( dont remember where i found him )

 

[0frills]

I wonder if I.C.AN.N., as the regulatory body, has a definition of domainer?

Doubtful, unless they conduct random yearly surveys and maybe plot a mathematical model out of the metrics of the survey

 

[redemo]

Doubtful, unless they conduct random yearly surveys and maybe plot a mathematical model out of the metrics of the survey

So what is a domainer then? Somebody who works fulltime monetising domain names to fund all their living costs?

 

[Clover]

I just went in public with a big sign that says "are you a domainer?".

I found nobody.

 

[ForexTopNews]

Too many.

 

[DomainConcepts]

So what is a domainer then? Somebody who works fulltime monetising domain names to fund all their living costs?

I don't think there's a clear consensus on a definition of "domainer".

Personally, I wouldn't call buying or registering a domain with a view to doing nothing with it and selling it at some point for a profit "investing". I'd call it speculating. For what it's worth, Wikipedia's "Domainer" page redirects "Domain name speculation". Not your question though, I know.

 

[ForexTopNews]

So what is a domainer then? Somebody who works fulltime monetising domain names to fund all their living costs?

It's someone who generates revenue for the hosting companies, by paying exorbitant renewal fees & holding onto domains for naught.

 

[0frills]

So what is a domainer then? Somebody who works fulltime monetising domain names to fund all their living costs?

I'd say, he may or may not work fulltime monetising domain names to fund their living costs, rather someone who buys domains, to simply sell them for profit sometime in the future, without really adding any value to the domain, like creating a website or a product around it.

 

[Sam1234]

I think there are probably around 1000 professional domainers at any time, most of whom can be found on Namepros (possibly not counting people with established businesses like HD) at various times. And maybe 100,000 investors who are just holding one or more names they picked up in the past, though I consider these people to be investors and not domainers.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

You think lol
Just a guess?

 

[Sam1234]

You think lol
Just a guess?

Based on the amount of traffic in the "Buy" sections of the forum, that I have seen. Certainly many have come and gone, but I think there are probably less than 1000 people who are active enough to really be called domainers. It's hard to imagine a lot of people doing any serious domaining without them doing some business on NP periodically. There are only a handful of "domain selling websites" out there that anyone can name. To speculate a much larger number of domainers you would have to assume that most domainers are silently making money on GD auctions and Flippa and mostly not using Namepros at all. I find it hard to believe people just snipe good auctions on GD or whatever and then resell them on GD or whatever, and that this is a viable business model for tens of thousands of people. The secondary domain market just doesn't seem large enough to support numbers like "a million" domainers.

I've never met another domainer irl, nor heard of anyone knowing a domainer personally.

 

[Recons.Com]

Let's assume absolute majority of domain investors would list their names on Afternic.

There are 22MM names listed there. Let's further assume around 60% of those names are in the hands of 100 largest investors, including HD, BD, GD, DM etc. That leaves only around 9MM names left for small and medium investors.

Now, if we assume the average holding is 100 to 1000 (excluding those 100 top guys), then the range of the domain investor number would be 9000 to 90000.

 

[Sam1234]

Let's assume absolute majority of domain investors would list their names on Afternic.

There are 22MM names listed there. Let's further assume around 60% of those names are in the hands of 100 largest investors, including HD, BD, GD, DM etc. That leaves only around 9MM names left for small and medium investors.

Now, if we assume the average holding is 100 to 1000 (excluding those 100 top guys), then the range of the domain investor number would be 9000 to 90000.

Is a domainer the same as an investor though? In my view an investor already has a separate career or is otherwise independently wealthy, and is buying to hold (as an investment), while a domainer is someone who buys and sells domains as a business.

Also, a quick Google search tells me that (true at least up to 2020) Afternic never drops names unless the user manually drops them (or a new owner goes through some process to have them delisted). So it's probably most correct to say that "22M+ names have been listed on Afternic in the past." And I don't know that most domainers use Afternic anymore (not sure), but most domain sales that are reported these days are definitely not from Afternic, from what I can tell. For example:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/someone-keeps-listing-my-domains-on-afternic.1213508/

 

[Recons.Com]

Is a domainer the same as an investor though? In my view an investor already has a separate career or is otherwise independently wealthy, and is buying to hold (as an investment), while a domainer is someone who buys and sells domains as a business.

Also, a quick Google search tells me that (true at least up to 2020) Afternic never drops expired names unless the user manually drops them. So it's probably most correct to say that "22M+ names have been listed on Afternic in the past." And I don't know that most domainers use Afternic anymore (not sure), but most domain sales that are reported these days are definitely not from Afternic, from what I can tell.

I have used a wider definition here. Anyone buying names and caring enough about sales to do basic easy listing on Afternic that could increase your sales by 50% to 200%.

So total investors in a wide sense: 10k to 100k (rounded)
Total investors that consistently make profits beyond what they make flipping burgers for full time: about 20% of that range.

 

[Sam1234]

If you count every person who holds even one domain for possible resale some day a domainer, then the number is obviously very large. But if a domainer is someone who is routinely active in the domain market, then I say no way to the 10k to 100k number. I could be wrong though. Also note my comments about Afternic above.

 

[redemo]

If somebody asks what do you do for a living? and the response is I'm a domainer then the consensus would be that person earns a living through monetising domain names in some way. Simply saying I'm a domainer, is like saying I'm a gamer (which is also a full-time professional as well as a hobby) and the meaning would therefore require some context. The next part is more complicated. What connection to domain names makes the primary business a domain-related business? I'm sure of selling domains, leasing domains and parking domains because they require a direct daily connection with the domain name industry, whereas developing domain names and monetising them can be achieved with almost no direct contact with the domain name industry. I think we are getting closer to the definition of what being a domainer is, and if this is agreed upon then we can begin to form calculations as to how many (pro) domainers exist.

 

[MediaCode]

So what is a domainer then? Somebody who works fulltime monetising domain names to fund all their living costs?

Above, I differentiated between a domainer and a domain investor with:

"A "domainer" is a casual hobbyist, part-timer who attempts to earn a profit running an informal, loosely-organized portfolio of domain names but, in more years than not, fails to turn a profit on the portfolio.

A "domain investor" is a professional investor, full-timer/part-timer who attempts to earn a profit running a well-organized portfolio operation and, in more years than not, successfully turns a profit on the portfolio."

 

[MediaCode]

Above, I differentiated between a domainer and a domain investor with:

"A "domainer" is a casual hobbyist, part-timer who attempts to earn a profit running an informal, loosely-organized portfolio of domain names but, in more years than not, fails to turn a profit on the portfolio.

A "domain investor" is a professional investor, full-timer/part-timer who attempts to earn a profit running a well-organized portfolio operation and, in more years than not, successfully turns a profit on the portfolio."

I would add that real estate investors are called real estate investors, not "real estaters". If we as investors in domain names wish to be taken seriously, we should insist on being called – and should refer to ourselves and each other as – domain investors, not "domainers".

 

[Sam1234]

I would add that real estate investors are called real estate investors, not "real estaters". If we as investors in domain names wish to be taken seriously, we should insist on being called – and should refer to ourselves and each other as – domain investors, not "domainers".

The IRS defines an investor as (something like) a person who is not engaged in business/commerce, but buys an item to hold with the idea that it will go up. When an investor makes money that money is recorded as capital gains rather than business income, and is exempt from Self-Employment Tax. Domainers in general are classified in this way because domains are viewed by the IRS as intellectual property, not "inventory". So I view an investor as "anyone holding a domain as an investment", while I view a domainer as someone who is actively engaged in the business of domain buying and selling, as a business (though in either case the classification is the same to the IRS). This is just how I view things but may not be in line with how the terms are typically used by domain peeps.

Really it should be up to the person asking the question, "how many domainers are there" to define what they mean by the term. If they are asking the question while at the same time asking, "what is a domainer", that might be the kind of thing that would expose them to a lot of anonymous downvotes.

None of the above is tax advice, nor should it be viewed as such. Neither am I qualified to give tax advice. I am just stating my own understanding of the matter.

 

[Sam1234]

Regarding my comments above, about the IRS handling of domains, I traced the source of my information and it was rather dated. I think the IRS has issued clarifications of the matter since then, so my understanding is probably not accurate. Sorry for that, don't mean to mislead there.

 

[ivey]

I think about 8 domainers in the world

 

[Constantin S]

There are like 360M domains registered, while there are 333M registered businesses globally.

• Did a bit of research and I think it's fair to say 50% of businesses have a website (166M)
• Let's say 1% of those companies are medium-sized, that would mean 1.1M, if each of these companies owns 50 domains then another 55M domains are gone to them.
• There are also 41000 listed companies, Google for example owns 15k+ domains, but not all companies are in 'tech', so let's average it down to 1000 domains for each, that would result in another 41M gone.

All that's left now is 98M domains, so we obviously gotta split 50-50 between us(team domainers, yay) with those darn bloggers+influencers, so we only get 49M domains, sorry. If the average domainer owns 100 domains then it means there are 490k of us out there. Crap, I voted up to 100k.

Well, this took like an hour to write, it's now 4:30 AM here...don't drink coke at night kids. Good night I guess, take care

 

[Sam1234]

There are like 360M domains registered, while there are 333M registered businesses globally.

• Did a bit of research and I think it's fair to say 50% of businesses have a website (166M)
• Let's say 1% of those companies are medium-sized, that would mean 1.1M, if each of these companies owns 50 domains then another 55M domains are gone to them.
• There are also 41000 listed companies, Google for example owns 15k+ domains, but not all companies are in 'tech', so let's average it down to 1000 domains for each, that would result in another 41M gone.

All that's left now is 98M domains, so we obviously gotta split 50-50 between us(team domainers, yay) with those darn bloggers+influencers, so we only get 49M domains, sorry. If the average domainer owns 100 domains then it means there are 490k of us out there. Crap, I voted up to 100k.

Well, this took like an hour to write, it's now 4:30 AM here...don't drink coke at night kids. Good night I guess, take care

There's also the roughly 25% of the people I know (non-domainers) who all own at least one domain they registered a long time ago and are holding either for value, or thinking they will some day develop it.

 

[redemo]

I think about 8 domainers in the world

Who are they?