How to Make a Living in the Domain Business

[danielr]

Currently, I am averaging about $70,000 per year in PPC, revenue sharing, and affiliate programs. And I would like to let some people in on a few secrets. I cannot promise you will do the same, but the following information I could easily write a book and sell (but you are gong to get the best info for FREE).

I currently own close to 1800 domains and close to 1000 of them are poker domains. Yes, I know what you are thinking (all the good poker domains are gone) and its not going to help you… well I have some very interesting news for you. I read an article last December on the internet, and purchased about 10 domains because of this article. 3 of these 10 domains I purchased make an average of $25 dollars per day in PPC. Together that is $75 per day and about 1/3 the revenue that I make on my PPC per day (from these 3 domains). But before I go into this, about getting the best name, I want to discuss how I got where I am today.

When I got into the domain business just more than 2 years ago, I fell flat on my face (just like I see many of the newbees today). But I learned from my mistakes and I learned from my profits. It’s just as important to learn from what you do right vs what you do wrong. If you do something right… can you do it better?

In the first 3 months of my venture in the Domain Business and maxing out one of my credit cards, I realized that about half the domains I purchased were going nowhere. I had them parked at Afternic and moved them to SEDO a few months later. However, there was just one domain that I picked up and it purchased it by accident. It was a typo from a non trade mark site. And I was actually getting traffic and PPC on SEDO with this domain. So I started buying more similar Typos, but I was not the only person buying typo domains and the really good typos domains for PPC were bought up quickly. So I had to came out with a method that really helped me find some great typos and I am going to share this with you…..


1) Use a spreadsheet or text document that you can SORT. I personally use excel

2) Type the name of the domain you want the typo for, over and over and hit the return key after each time you type it. This will have it appear each time on a new line.

3) After each time you type the name, you MUST pick your hands up off the keyboard because it prevents a repetitive pattern.

4) Sometimes I type it about 20 times and rest and save the document.

5) If you can, do not look at the screen when you type, or if you make a mistake do not correct it.

6) After you type the domain about 500 times, then sort out your column of text. Now you are going to be able to see the most common typos you make because the common mistakes will be grouped together.

7) Sometimes I have others (type) it out because I don’t always make the same typos. My cat makes the most typos now.

About the same time learned this method, I started getting more poker domains. And yes I was lucky to grab many nice typos of poker sites. However, I currently own over 400 poker site typos which makes up over 60 percent of my PPC.

After a while I did pick up some trade marked domain typos and even found a way to dodge them (I am not going to go into that now). But if I did pick up a very good trade mark domain typo that makes a large profit, I always do a private registration. It does not stop them from taking the domain; however it weeds out the attorneys that just send the normal certified letter to scare you.


The next bit of information is how to find and get the domains that have potential. This is how I found those 3 domains last December. And in a similar example….. a few days ago I saw this article on the GOOGLE news about how GoldenSpirit is going to get into the online poker business.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=88803

Golden Spirit is a very rich mining company in Alaska and now they want to get into the online poker business. Well they did pick up GoldenSpiritPoker.com but guess who owns GoldenSpiritPoker.Net and GoldSpiritPoker.com. Of course it is just speculation, however, I like my chances with a company who has the money to advertise. Last December I did the same with FullTiltPoker.com and it is really paying off.

The bottom line is reading as much as you can about a domain you are interested in buying can be all the inside information to score big. It does not have to be a poker domain. Big companies make mistakes by only buying the .com and not any similar domains/variations, and that is were domain buyers like us have the edge.

I have said this in other post, and maybe I am shooting myself in the foot by saying it here, but everyday… I read the news on Google about poker. I also always monitor www.PokerPulse.com because I want to know how all the top poker sites are doing. If there is a new online poker site or event, I want to know. Sometimes I wonder if I should be reading about technology more than just poker.

I am not saying everyone had to buy poker domains to be successful, however, the domain industry and technology is NOT stagnated. 2 years ago “POD” was unheard of. What is going to be the next new key words? Well it’s not going to just fall in your lap, but one of the first to know really helps. There is tons of articles just waiting to be searched and read by speculators like me and you, and it’s all FREE.

I believe that….. To be successful in the domain business you have to learn from your mistakes, your profits, and with the information I have just provided you it only takes the initiative. I can just see it, I made everyone on NamePros a millionaire.

 

[barefoottech]

I fully agree ,It is Part of the whole technology boom
There is all ways something new,or different to be promoted and exploited

 

[StudioWorks]

A very interesting read... thanks

 

[jamieneil]

thanks have taken that into notice and will remember and it will all be down to you..

 

[Midano]

Soooo... No development, eh? Just parked typos?

 

[alex_d]

Excellent article - thanks for sharing.

Can I ask a small questions about the domains you register ?

Do you reg only .com, or it is worth regging any others such as .net, .info, etc ??

Thanks

Alex

 

[ApeXX]

Very nice article danielr, will have to go reg some typos myself.

 

[Gene]

Dan, brilliant as usual. Thanks for taking the time to share this valuable information!

 

[Jim_Westergren]

I actually don't like this article. Not because it was not an interesting read but because I don't agree with it.

In my philosophy you have to give in order to get. Getting without giving is not good.

Now if you park 1 000 typo domains on SEDO and earn a lot of money with PPC, what are you giving?

I think this is one factor (unbalanced exchange) why the internet is a bit of a mess. The time it took to research the correct 1 000 typo domains you could probably spend on making a web site on a specific topic with maybe 100 pages of useful information that you would give to the visitors. If you made that right you could help a lot of people and perhaps get a lot of friends.

But what is wrong is that probably you earn less on that (adsense or whatever) than on the PPC of the typo domains - "I made everyone on NamePros a millionaire".

So what do you choose to do? And that, is a personal question.

(I am aware that my input could result in lowered reputation on NP but would be happy if there was 1 person here agreeing with me.)

 

[Gene]

Jim, getting without giving is never good in the long run. But that is not what is happening here. Every one of Daniel's domains contain sponsored links of companies EAGER to get someone's business. That's why they PAY to be there on his pages. Because of Dan's many domains, advertisers have the exposure they're after. And, it connects the client with the appropriate business (as they choose where they want to do business). That, to me is Giving AND receiving.

When a billboard company puts up a new billboard, is that "getting without giving"? No. The consumer only sees the advertising, and nothing else, but the advertiser is benefiting as much as the billboard company. What about the Yellow Pages? What about any other advertising-only medium?

I actually don't like this article. Not because it was not an interesting read but because I don't agree with it.

In my philosophy you have to give in order to get. Getting without giving is not good.

Now if you park 1 000 typo domains on SEDO and earn a lot of money with PPC, what are you giving?

I think this is one factor (unbalanced exchange) why the internet is a bit of a mess. The time it took to research the correct 1 000 typo domains you could probably spend on making a web site on a specific topic with maybe 100 pages of useful information that you would give to the visitors. If you made that right you could help a lot of people and perhaps get a lot of friends.

But what is wrong is that probably you earn less on that (adsense or whatever) than on the PPC of the typo domains - "I made everyone on NamePros a millionaire".

So what do you choose to do? And that, is a personal question.

(I am aware that my input could result in lowered reputation on NP but would be happy if there was 1 person here agreeing with me.)

 

[Jim_Westergren]

Jim, getting without giving is never good in the long run. But that is not what is happening here. Every one of Daniel's domains contain sponsored links of companies EAGER to get someone's business. That's why they PAY to be there on his pages. Because of Dan's many domains, advertisers have the exposure they're after. And, it connects the client with the appropriate business (as they choose where they want to do business). That, to me is Giving AND receiving.

Ok I see what you mean. It makes more sense. I am not so much into that business and so I don't know the details, I thought first it was something like the visitor did a typo and landed on a total different site.

But I still consider it not fully right. If the visitor does a typ-in typo, he intends to get to a certain site but doesn't and somebody makes a profit of it.

What about any other advertising-only medium?

You give to the advertiser and get money from the advertiser but you don't misuse the mistakes of consumers trying to get to a certain place.

 

[Don]

Awesome article Dan! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

[Gene]

But I still consider it not fully right. If the visitor does a typ-in typo, he intends to get to a certain site but doesn't and somebody makes a profit of it.
You give to the advertiser and get money from the advertiser but you don't misuse the mistakes of consumers trying to get to a certain place.

You don't have the full picture yet. If a person mistypes a domain and lands on one of Dan's sites, they immediately know they made a mistake. They have the choice of just going to the site they intended to go to, OR... they see something that interests them more and click on it! Control is completely in their hands. The consumer decides where they want to go. This system BENEFITS the consumer, because it gives them new options they didn't know about. If there was NOT a PPC landing page like Dan's, the consumer would only get a "Page Not Found" error page. Is that better than being presented with many new choices?

 

[netPH]

Problem here is some people post/s comments who know's nothing about the business IMO :notme:

 

[Jim_Westergren]

You don't have the full picture yet. If a person mistypes a domain and lands on one of Dan's sites, they immediately know they made a mistake. They have the choice of just going to the site they intended to go to, OR... they see something that interests them more and click on it! Control is completely in their hands. The consumer decides where they want to go. This system BENEFITS the consumer, because it gives them new options they didn't know about. If there was NOT a PPC landing page like Dan's, the consumer would only get a "Page Not Found" error page. Is that better than being presented with many new choices?

Hmm, you gave me a better picture. I can now see how it does contribute to the consumer but I would then like that the non-typo link in that case would be on the PPC landing page.

When I now think more on it I guess you are right. It would be lost visitor traffic (404) that is now not anymore lost.

 

[Gene]

Problem here is some people post/s comments who know's nothing about the business IMO :notme:

That's okay, we're all here to learn.

 

[netPH]

That's okay, we're all here to learn.

Yes, yes... and most specially to thoes who are pretending that they've already learned :notme:

 

[Vonna.com]

Typo Domains Log

Nice thread!

This is what i did, i got a search engine Vonna.com and made this toolbar:

http://www.vonna.com/web-install/toolbar.html

What is does it LOG all domains typed in that do not resolve , so now i got this list of all the MOST typed in "Typo Domains".

But i dropped it again, there are to many trademark issues, and i have no time for the heat, but perhaps someone else would do the same

 

[Gene]

Another thing to keep in mind is that MOST domains that are set up as PPC's aren't 'typo' domains. They are just ordinary domain names that people type into their browser in hopes of finding something there on the subject they're looking for. For example, someone looking for the best place to get a credit report might type in "BestCreditReports(dot)net". There, they would see a PPC page with many options to choose from.

 

[netPH]

Another thing to keep in mind is that MOST domains that are set up as PPC's aren't 'typo' domains. They are just ordinary domain names that people type into their browser in hopes of finding something there on the subject they're looking for. For example, someone looking for the best place to get a credit report might type in "BestCreditReport(dot)net". There, they would see a PPC page with many options to choose from.

:bingo: Yes, correct.. and thoes types of domains are called 'type-in' or 'typin/s' whichever. i.e. most ppl type directly into their browser are thoes popular 'keywords' like the one Gene sited as example.

 

[-JDT-]

Great article

 

[RogueWriter]

Great article. Hmmm. I wonder if nameprso.com is taken.... ( RW slaps own hand. Bad Rogue! Bad Rogue! )

 

[FusunMedia]

Great Article. I appreciate the insight and information, i'll start looking into picking up a few typos to test out what you've said.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Great Post Daniel, as usual

Do you ever worry that the current HUGE upswing in poker domains and traffic is a bubble? A huge upswing in popularity because of the emergence of hundreds of poker tv shows on channels from Bravo to ESPN...

Any plans in case the bubble does not continue to expand?

-Allan :gl:

 

[capiche]

The bottom line is reading as much as you can about a domain you are interested in buying can be all the inside information to score big. It does not have to be a poker domain. Big companies make mistakes by only buying the .com and not any similar domains/variations, and that is were domain buyers like us have the edge.

I think this is his plan. Doing the same thing in other areas.
Sounds good to me. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.