discuss Is it harder to make a case for domain names today?

[HotKey]

Is it? Tougher sell on domain names nowadays than yesterday?

For me personally, it's been rough. Lately feel like I couldn't sell waterhose.extension to burninghouse.buyer

People have gravitated towards making a name for themselves on social platforms where attention and acknowledgement is practically instantaneous, rather than putting in efforts to buying and developing a domain name that they can call their own.

I mean yes DN sales are still nuts for many, but beyond the banked dollar for the seller and acquisition excitement for the buyer, in terms of new domains being actually used for the betterment of an entity sometimes takes a backseat to managing social accounts.

The gratification of social media seems to have surpassed the pride of ownership of your very own site/domain. Often I see a link to a domain, but remains largely neglected.

So many sales right now are based on what? What is the endgame? Trade, trade trade.. and then what?

Maybe we're too busy. But I still believe, and always will, that owning your content on a terrific domain name is the safest bet against any sort of intrusion and changes out of one's control. It's in your hands!

Thoughts.

Hots.

 

[Jannes]

Many people like (or kinda like) the idea of owning their content and not being under the whims of social media giants, but they aren’t willing to do the extra work to build up a website and then maintain it, especially when they know in advance that so few people are going to visit the site compared to their social media ”audience”.

So let’s just forget the ”develop your own place” angle when trying to sell domain names to individuals (as opposed to real businesses). What we should emphasize to potential buyers is that thename.extension is their permanent address or a hub to all their not-so-permanent online endeavours. Their domain can simply redirect to one social media account or to many accounts/platforms via a landing page e.g. made with Linktree (which can always be changed to another one if necessary). As a bonus, they get a cool email address of their choice if they want.

Then there are those who have already developed their sites. Some of them think that if they acquire a better domain name than what they currently use, this means that they have to migrate their content to the new domain. ’Oh what a hassle, I need to hire a professional to do that, and what will it do to my Google rankings’, they complain. No, a simple redirection would do from the new name to the old place (btw, Google is killing organic traffic anyway with their ad spam so the ranking aspect is moot). Migration can of course be done at a later stage when the old name starts to sound, well, old.

Ordinary people (and many companies!) don’t think or know about all the domain name forwarding possibilities. It’s our job to teach this stuff when we are offering our domains to them. This is something we can write as descriptions on our sales landers (where possible, like at Dan), instead of stupid AI generated sales pitches.

 

[phaethon]

Is it? Tougher sell on domain names nowadays than yesterday?

Well, there are no excuses for not selling names. The problem is always your names.
I'm a new investor doing relatively well lately- 6K over the last three months for a 400 name folio. I think my huge experience in Market Research helped me a lot to be profitable from my second year in domain investing.
Domaining is my second job at the moment btw.

 

[HotKey]

Well, there are no excuses for not selling names. The problem is always your names.

Do agree with that- it's a hard truth many overlook or choose to ignore.

Well done on doing well as of late.

 

[HotKey]

Many people like (or kinda like) the idea of owning their content and not being under the whims of social media giants, but they aren’t willing to do the extra work to build up a website and then maintain it, especially when they know in advance that so few people are going to visit the site compared to their social media ”audience”.

So let’s just forget the ”develop your own place” angle when trying to sell domain names to individuals (as opposed to real businesses). What we should emphasize to potential buyers is that thename.extension is their permanent address or a hub to all their not-so-permanent online endeavours. Their domain can simply redirect to one social media account or to many accounts/platforms via a landing page e.g. made with Linktree (which can always be changed to another one if necessary). As a bonus, they get a cool email address of their choice if they want.

Then there are those who have already developed their sites. Some of them think that if they acquire a better domain name than what they currently use, this means that they have to migrate their content to the new domain. ’Oh what a hassle, I need to hire a professional to do that, and what will it do to my Google rankings’, they complain. No, a simple redirection would do from the new name to the old place (btw, Google is killing organic traffic anyway with their ad spam so the ranking aspect is moot). Migration can of course be done at a later stage when the old name starts to sound, well, old.

Ordinary people (and many companies!) don’t think or know about all the domain name forwarding possibilities. It’s our job to teach this stuff when we are offering our domains to them. This is something we can write as descriptions on our sales landers (where possible, like at Dan), instead of stupid AI generated sales pitches.

Great points and insight, thanks! Forwarding is definitely underutilized while being an amazing subtle form of brand ownership.