discuss It has come to my attention

[Want2learn]

The consensus is stop hand registering names! I just read 99% of hand regs are worthless. Even if that is hyperbole, the broader point is most are not valuable. I have no issues with that sentiment or opinion. I probably would agree that hand regs from recent times are not all that valuable!

I wanted to start a discussion though about the topic. I am about 7g in. Not all hand regs!! That is a lot of money. If I could go back to 12/04/16 I would have bought 10 names or so from aftermarket! Fortunately I am an educator so my livelihood does not depend on this. From my perspective, I made several critical mistakes early on. I will say I registered for 2 years almost 100 domains. I probably added privacy to about 50-75 of them. That alone is probably close to an additional 1100ish dollars. Complete waste. As a newbie then and now, it does irk me that GoDaddy would allow me to register names that are clearly trademark concerns, though I had no idea that was an issue with domains . . . And then when I go to list them for sale they reject them bc of trademark concerns. GoDaddy is wrong for that.

If I posted my domains today, regardless of what you think . . .they would be 100x worse without you all here at NamePros, and that is a fact! I can't go back I can only go forward. I can learn from my mistakes. I will say this, and I mean no disrespect to the Pros that do this well and make money. No disrespect to anyone, but especially those Pros. I think that some times there is a lack of imagination and creativity here. And by here, I mean with domainers broadly. I have some terrible names. Where I probably differ with most here, is I see a lot of improvement in my names. If I mess up and hand reg 100 names and they all suck, like really suck, that is a loss of $599 with eWallhost. That isn't nothing! If I take that same $599, I can buy 1-2 nice 4L. And they are liquid, so lets say I purchased 2 4Ls for 599, I think chances are a year from then I am safely in the 500-600 range minimum. So it is either no loss or -100 . . . and in year 2 it is $12 to renew! With those hand regs worse case scenario that is realistic is they all drop and I'm out 599. That is a big hit. And if say 20 are decent now, 80 drop and renew 20 at 120, so I'm 719 in. Since Im completely speculating here I won't say 20 sold for 100 and I live happily ever after. Lets say 5 sell for 100 a piece. That almost recoups first year.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that at the least that has been my thought process. So like last night I was excited as hell to reg BikeCosts.com. I could not believe it was available. I picked up a few other bike related domains. Shocked. Today I picked up cash4smartphones.com. Im not saying I am selling all of these for XXXX or even high XXX. And maybe for you all, it isn't worth your time if you can't make XXXX or XXXXX on a domain. For me I would be disappointed for 1XX for the domains I mentioned above. I think 4-5XX is where I feel like a success on those specific names. 3xx eh. less than 3xx, still a profit, but disappointed!

Have I made sense, even if you think Im nuts?

 

[Marc Riccio]

My thinking is a little different from the senior people here. There is no such thing as a bad name. Just as there is a car for every taste, a dish for every palate, there is someone who is looking for your name. Go on Pinterest and see the names bloggers use.... iloveparsley.com, eatmorebeets.com. .... who in his right mind wants to spend thousands for gwtr.com instead of $100 for mybigfatcarrot.com

The trick is to look around your town, talk to people, talk to your librarian.

Look with new eyes.

All names have value. Maybe not to a grizzled domainer with 20 years in, but someone out there likes kumquatsarecool.com and will pay you $$$ for. Sell a couple every week and you can go to a nice place on your next vacation instead of your back yard.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust

 

[AndyM]

I've just skimmed over this thread so I'm sorry if I'm repeating anyone else's comments. Namesilo are normally $8.99 for .com but are $5.99 at the moment (don't know how long for) and they offer free privacy.

Do you think we'll ever see godaddy do this? I don't think so!

 

[bobbarato]

Handreg can still make sense if you're going to develop or if it's in an emerging area or if you're really really good. Like me and my SexyKumquatVrArOctoDrone69G_AI-nanobot.com $$$ baby!

 

[baseballworld]

Hand registered domains are pretty much all I buy. Every domain starts there and people let domains drop all the time. Expired lists do have good keyword phrases in them and do get type ins. It all depends on if you know how to utilize the domain name to make the most out of it. Not every domain fits a sale. That's why learning multiple aspects to domaining is very important when coming to making the most overall profit with your investments.

 

[Asfas1000]

You overpaid for those handregs. Some top domainers here hand-regged thousands of domains with coupons at $1 a pop. Most importantly, they knew what to reg.

If you had bought from the aftermarket, it is likely you would have bought 10 equally worthless, but more expensive, domains. No offense intended.

So I think you did well to start with hand regs, but overpaid.

 

[1Darko]

You would feel alot better if you focused primarily on the selling part. Buying is easy. If you have the money and want a name, you can buy it with a few clicks. It's the selling part that people think is easy, but it is not.

I know people that are just addicted to registering "gems", and "since it's the last one, I'll start selling..", but the selling part never comes. The drops come sooner.

If you are not just as excited about parking, advertising, emailing, making outbound calls and selling domains for profit as you are about regging stuff, you should stop adding new names.

A long time ago I stopped using new money to buy domains. If there isn't money in my business account (paypal) that is sufficient to pay for renewals and new domains, I just don't buy. If I see those funds getting low, I put more focus on selling.

It's not easy being a business of 1 person in domaining. It's a tremendous amount of work. Keeping the spreadsheets updated, adding and removing domains from marketplaces, keeping whois info updated, adjusting prices based on market changes and changing all the prices at the various marketplaces, phone calls, emails....even managing all the spam. It's serious business.

It's a great business and lots of money can be made, but make no mistake, you have to run it like a business, otherwise you're better off investing in something more passive.

Even with you being an educator with another income, I don't think anyone wants to waste thousands year after year.

Just my opinion.

All true and great advice!

 

[Want2learn]

Simply put, it is very hard to sell handregs for meaningful amounts of money. There are exceptions but the names that command big prices usually were registered long ago.
The problem is that you can't tell newcomers to buy names on the aftermarket right away. If they don't know what to buy, they will end up wasting more money on bad names. But if they focus on handregs they are most likely chasing a dream that won't come. The key is education.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel really. Analyze reported sales, look at what kinds of domains are in demand. Then figure out how to get those names. If you're buying domains without studying the market, it's not going to pan out well. It's just blind speculation.

I agree with you here. I do think that what is meaningful to someone and someone else may differ. Obviously! But I think you may mean something like this . . . It is difficult to hand reg a domain today that will sell for mid XXX and up. However, buying an aged domain for $400 may produce XXXX type results!

I think @Kuffy said no two domainers have the same perspective. I think that is a fair point. I think our personality, IQ, life experiences, and expertise make the domaining experience different for people.

 

[Hemanttilotia]

I regged FlexiBudget.com yesterday. I don't know what it's worth but still regging domains once in a while.
Else I am damn active on Godaddy auctions and NameJet.

 

[maksimfa]

... and the effort we discussed about the MainStreetGuns, that is what you have to think about for EVERY name.

1. Do I know the potential end users?
2. Can I reach them efficiently to offer the domain?
3. Would they buy it?
4. If they don't buy it, can I afford to keep it for a while?
5. Worst case, can I develop it?
6. If I can't, would someone else be stupid enough to buy it from me?

If the answer to all of those questions is yes.... register it.

 

[Kuffy]

Lets start to call them "mind regs" instead of "hand regs", Mind regs are a great way for new domainers to test the water without spending too much money. Lets face it, if you can't make money with mind regs, you won't make money buying registered names.

 

[frank-germany]

But I do think BikeCosts regardless of the past is valuable.

at least my bike doesn't cost anything ....

 

[frank-germany]

@iwanttolearn, Let me help you save some money with your handregging. I'll set you up at dotWhateverDomains.com with $9 registrations. That will help cut down on some regging expenses. LMK if you'd like to do so.

epik $8.49 usd

 

[Want2learn]

at least my bike doesn't cost anything ....

Wait till you need a new tire or chain! I will say I laughed when I read your post here! It was refreshing to see a sense of humor around here

 

[frank-germany]

Lets start to call them "mind regs" instead of "hand regs", Mind regs are a great way for new domainers to test the water without spending too much money. Lets face it, if you can't make money with mind regs, you won't make money buying registered names.

thats like papertrading

stocks

that won't help you

 

[Recons.Com]

Thank you for your feedback! I don't expect to register abc.com. I don't expect to register iwtay dot com and boom it's valuable just bc I regd it. Btw I just randomly typed letters so no idea if iwtay means anything. But I do think BikeCosts regardless of the past is valuable. And I'll admit that is probably one of the better ones! Which is nice since it is recent! I expect fTow dot com an after market purchase to be super solid. Come on Frank or Fred the towing company! I expect ReR8.com to do something. I think eeToe.com is quite clever for a wide foot niche. My guess is you will say hand reg, 300 tops, hand reg, and hand reg.

We will see!

You are confusing BikeCosts with BikePrices.

While, I was sure the latter is taken, I still whoised it and yes, it is regged since 2003.

Because, you can make a website on the latter that compares prices on different/same bikes and gets some affiliate earnings, while not many people are really interested how much their bike COSTS TO MAKE.

iPhone cost is under $50, iPhone price is $700+. I hope you see the difference.

 

[dordomai]

The consensus is stop hand registering names! I just read 99% of hand regs are worthless. Even if that is hyperbole, the broader point is most are not valuable. I have no issues with that sentiment or opinion. I probably would agree that hand regs from recent times are not all that valuable!

I wanted to start a discussion though about the topic. I am about 7g in. Not all hand regs!! That is a lot of money. If I could go back to 12/04/16 I would have bought 10 names or so from aftermarket! Fortunately I am an educator so my livelihood does not depend on this.

that is what usually happens and it is predictable and members do usually warn newcomers. the problem is that when you are telling them they should try to stay away from handregs and their names are junk they often take it personally and then you are labeled as a hater.

yes you can make a profit handregging names and yes you can make money trading forex but in 90% of cases people will lose money.

95+% of handregs are junk, probably 99% of handregs of newcomers.

 

[Justin Matmor]

For every poor quality hand reg I can show an equivalent poor quality aged domain. It is all about the quality of the domain - not about the age of the domain. I have recently sold 3 hand regs for x,xxx each at BrandBucket. So anyone that thinks hand regs are a waste of money needs to research more. There are still many gems out there.

 

[hawkeye]

@iwanttolearn, Let me help you save some money with your handregging. I'll set you up at dotWhateverDomains.com with $9 registrations. That will help cut down on some regging expenses. LMK if you'd like to do so.

 

[Want2learn]

$9 regs! Would have been nice in December! Not today. eWallhost only $5.99.

 

[mr-x]

The consensus is stop hand registering names! I just read 99% of hand regs are worthless. Even if that is hyperbole, the broader point is most are not valuable. I have no issues with that sentiment or opinion. I probably would agree that hand regs from recent times are not all that valuable!

Open an account at uniregistry.com for less than $10, all the other services including privacy are free. I've done something similar but learned a little quicker and concentrated on domains with traffic. That's a little harder now then 2003.

1) Stop buying domains. Fire sale what you have to recoup what you can.

2) Study successful people like Elliot Silver, http://www.domaininvesting.com/

3) You've learned the most valuable lesson, 400 cheap domains are not cheap! Buy quality. Don't make up words or use strange spellings.

 

[Ayodeji]

make me an offer I cannot resist for bike rider. Com

 

[larryscott2559]

The consensus is stop hand registering names! I just read 99% of hand regs are worthless. Even if that is hyperbole, the broader point is most are not valuable. I have no issues with that sentiment or opinion. I probably would agree that hand regs from recent times are not all that valuable!

I wanted to start a discussion though about the topic. I am about 7g in. Not all hand regs!! That is a lot of money. If I could go back to 12/04/16 I would have bought 10 names or so from aftermarket! Fortunately I am an educator so my livelihood does not depend on this. From my perspective, I made several critical mistakes early on. I will say I registered for 2 years almost 100 domains. I probably added privacy to about 50-75 of them. That alone is probably close to an additional 1100ish dollars. Complete waste. As a newbie then and now, it does irk me that GoDaddy would allow me to register names that are clearly trademark concerns, though I had no idea that was an issue with domains . . . And then when I go to list them for sale they reject them bc of trademark concerns. GoDaddy is wrong for that.

If I posted my domains today, regardless of what you think . . .they would be 100x worse without you all here at NamePros, and that is a fact! I can't go back I can only go forward. I can learn from my mistakes. I will say this, and I mean no disrespect to the Pros that do this well and make money. No disrespect to anyone, but especially those Pros. I think that some times there is a lack of imagination and creativity here. And by here, I mean with domainers broadly. I have some terrible names. Where I probably differ with most here, is I see a lot of improvement in my names. If I mess up and hand reg 100 names and they all suck, like really suck, that is a loss of $599 with eWallhost. That isn't nothing! If I take that same $599, I can buy 1-2 nice 4L. And they are liquid, so lets say I purchased 2 4Ls for 599, I think chances are a year from then I am safely in the 500-600 range minimum. So it is either no loss or -100 . . . and in year 2 it is $12 to renew! With those hand regs worse case scenario that is realistic is they all drop and I'm out 599. That is a big hit. And if say 20 are decent now, 80 drop and renew 20 at 120, so I'm 719 in. Since Im completely speculating here I won't say 20 sold for 100 and I live happily ever after. Lets say 5 sell for 100 a piece. That almost recoups first year.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that at the least that has been my thought process. So like last night I was excited as hell to reg BikeCosts.com. I could not believe it was available. I picked up a few other bike related domains. Shocked. Today I picked up cash4smartphones.com. Im not saying I am selling all of these for XXXX or even high XXX. And maybe for you all, it isn't worth your time if you can't make XXXX or XXXXX on a domain. For me I would be disappointed for 1XX for the domains I mentioned above. I think 4-5XX is where I feel like a success on those specific names. 3xx eh. less than 3xx, still a profit, but disappointed!

Have I made sense, even if you think Im nuts?

I don't know 6 domain names I dropped that were hand regs were picked up by HugeDomains 4 other were also snapped up. 1 redirected to a business, 1 a domain investor used to display his domain portfolio, 1 a domain company were selling as a brand and the other i forget. Many more domains I had are being redirected to Uniregistry. All of these were hand regs.

 

[maksimfa]

Thanks for your post and I do appreciate you sharing your experience.

I too have wasted money, but it was primarily my fault. I did pick GOOD names, I just did not sell them to the end users and some just let lapse. Part of it was buying into the new tld BS... fortunately, it was not more than $2k overall.

I think the biggest mistake "domainers" have is that they have no freaking clue about what the eventual end user will do with it. Half of the domains, okay, more than half of the domains here on auction or fixed price are not worth more than $5.... yet folks bid them up.

... yet, I picked up a gem here for less than $5.

The most important part with buying a domain, is selling the domain.

If you buy right, you don't need to wish for a lottery ticket to bail out all of your old bad decisions.

Buy a hand reg for $10.... send out an email blast to potential user base, sell it for $50. I promise you, most of the people who would spam your email.... would think twice and wold likely buy it.

Same name you ask $500? No way, unless end user is desperate.

If you register it right, and have a plan for BEFORE you register it... you will do well.

And have a plan....

I always think to myself from the perspective of... "What can I develop this name into?"

If you have to think more than 10 seconds... it is likely a garbage name.

 

[maksimfa]

I appreciate your feedback in general, and past few posts! I can promise you I am not sitting around waiting for calls or emails! You sent me the list, and I tried to go through it. I then went to google and hacked away at the main street gun owners on main street. I emailed a bunch of them. Then you separated the 18 names for me! Well it looks like I am going to call all of them except the two that said no thanks. I had to change my cell number bc freaking India kept calling because of WHOIS. I have since put a Google number there, and if legit calls come in I will listen to their messages. But I inverted numbers, for example instead of 577 I put 755. I caught my error 25 emails in. Sheesh. Honestly Im like crap. Im not going to re email them. So calls it will be!

Maybe Ill have better luck!

Awesome, congrats.

Again, I am not a domainer per say, only sold a few domains that I owned, but I do look at it from the business owner perspective.

Am currently going through a few domains and same as you, sent out the email lists and next up is the phone calls.

For some industries, guns in particular, it is all about the phone call, and folks will be happy to talk to you, just an easy convo.

This way you know if no one wants it... you at least got answers.

Worst case, you can go through the list I sent you, find the stores on main street.

or really, just go back through and offer it for $75.... still more than 7x return on your investment.... and it will easily sell.

 

[maksimfa]

7x return on investment is money in the bank in any industry! But does it make sense to you that for me, on a heart level, it would hurt to sell it for $75? I don't mean I won't sell it. I don't mean I am attached to it. I will say that I have an infatuation with it, and think it is one of my better names. I mean I sold lovesmiled.com and I freaking kick myself for letting it go for 100. If you are primarily analytical, I just did some crazy talk! Eh . . .

A bird in the hand is better than two in a bush.

You can be either looking for continual profits, or.... invest A LOT more money trying to find someone who is willing to spend more.

I would rather take some money and profits and move on to more names.
Rinse... Repeat.