I am finally turning a profit -- after more than 2years

[Fleege]

Just wanted to give an update on my domain business.

I just turned a corner where I am making a profit without counting domain sales. My goal always was to make my portfolio pay for itself so I didn't have to make any cheap sales. Now I am there. I took domain parking seriously from get go but i was never impressed with the income...and the people that I referred never made any more money either.

Then along came Name Drive. I jumped in with a few names and after seeing good results I moved most of my portfolio. Since then many people who I have referred have been making good money which have made my referral commission jumped to over $5/day.

That simply means my 240 name portfolio pays for itself which was a goal of mine when I got started. I wanted my portfolio to pay for the upkeep so I didnt lose money on holding onto names. I get my names from GoDaddy for $6.95/yr. I have 240 so my annual upkeep cost is $1,668. By now making $5/day just in referral commission $5 x 365 = $1,825 puts me nicely in domain upkeep profit.

My next strategy will be to "clean up" the portfolio by letting bad stuff expire and acquire more good names. So I will be shopping here more now.

Just wanted to share this to inspire other people to get to profitable level. That should be every domainers first goal. I am happily there now.

If you want to see some domain parking strategies go to: ND Parking Success

 

[omnia]

Congrats, way to go

 

[gamehouse]

Congratulations on your success. Do you mean to say you hand registered all 240 domains for intial price of just reg fee?

Thanks and namedrive rocks.

 

[Kate]

Congrats :tu: That's the way it should be

 

[capiche]

Good to hear Fleege. It's nice not to have to worry about renewals.

I'm also in that "cleaning up" phase myself.

 

[Morgan]

Yep congrats im cleaning up my portfolio now and moving most of my money into getting 3 letter domains. And now onto the .mobi market.

Goodluck in the future!

 

[SpareDomains]

good deal, 99.9% of my domains are hand registered for 6.95, a domain only needs to make .58 cents a month to pay for itself, I have some that struggle to make that but others that do well over that amount to cover the slackers, I don't think all of mine are covering 100% of the renewals just yet but pretty close and some early sales here and there have put me into the positive side within a few months of starting, I reinvest any profits from a sale into buying more domains so basically a slower process in buying them but I'm always ahead as the profits have funded what I own and parking income is free and clear and maintains renewals, personally I have seen more revenue with parked than at sedo or namedrive as I believe they are using yahoo feeds instead of google and their optimization is better, I may have to try sedo and namedrive again as I haven't used sedo since they made upgrades and haven't used namedrive since the newer templates came out which look pretty good, definitely domains out there for registration fee that can pay their way with parking and most of my sales that have fallen into the $100-$1,500 range were all hand registered for $6.95 which leaves you with a nice profit margin, nothing like having your domains pay for themselves and not be rushed to accept lower offers on them, congrats :kickass:

 

[Fleege]

Congratulations on your success. Do you mean to say you hand registered all 240 domains for intial price of just reg fee?

Thanks and namedrive rocks.

Yeah mostly hand regs. When I mention profit I am only referring to the cost of ownership. In sales and purchases I am quite even. Have started to sell names now in the last 6 months or so. Before that I was only buying. But now I at least dont have to feel guilty about owning ANY of my names since they collectively pay for themselves (and then Some) just with the parking referral income. The own parking income and the sales is all gravy.

I realize I am just getting to step one in the domain biz but that was an important step for me. (to stop the bleeding).

nothing like having your domains pay for themselves and not be rushed to accept lower offers on them, congrats :kickass:

Thats exactly my point. Any real estate investor who can their properties to pay forthemselves at todays prices is way ahead of the game. + I hated doing any small deals anyway. Now I will for sure just let the bad names expire without a hint of remorse or sadness.

 

[Michelle]

Always a pleasure to read fellow np members make a sucess of their biz

 

[HcDomains]

Congras~~~~~~~

I got only around $10/ Month by Sedo Parking (With my 300+ names which have average 500 Uniques daily)

 

[Fleege]

Congras~~~~~~~

I got only around $10/ Month by Sedo Parking (With my 300+ names which have average 500 Uniques daily)

Thats Sick. You're not alone. Before switching to ND I was with a few other companies and nver made my minimum payout. Never missed even one with ND but like I said - the proof is in the referral earnings. People referred are also making money - I think I got to $5 collectively in referrals with others - No not per day - all time.

 

[tipsfromthetop]

A happy story this is what i like to hear.. Congrats

 

[cdboard]

Fleege, how would you be doing without the referral commissions (click revenue only)?

 

[faisj]

Great news, tho, this is the first month I am not making any profits at all...
(mostly due to the gambling law and my gambling domain names)

 

[netzilla]

Wow thaks for sharing.

 

[cache]

good to hear that. My names at parking is not fetching that much.

 

[ablaye]

COngrats. 2 Years is a long time to turn a profit. Most people would have given up.

 

[versu23]

It is a nice thing to make some profit but it is also important how you invest it.You can look for bargains if you have time to spent and look all over the forum. I bought some LLL.us with 50$. :kickass:

 

[Fleege]

Fleege, how would you be doing without the referral commissions (click revenue only)?

Making the minimum payout every month $25 - $65 ish. Not great I know but I dont have traffic domains. Just hand regged (mostly) and low traffic - so for that it is awesome. Before like I said - I never made one minimum payment any any other place.

COngrats. 2 Years is a long time to turn a profit. Most people would have given up.

Yeah I know - Thanks. well actually it is almost 3 years. The first year was without parking at all. (really stupid. Then Without NameDrive the next year Then this past year or about 10 months with NameDrive it has been growing up to now about $180/mo. (referral commish + own parking) from $20 my very first month. December 2005.