Looking to get into the game - Where is the opportunity?

[dsiomtw]

I'm looking to get into the domain game, and have been doing a lot of reading and research lately on this and other great sites.

Obviously I'm pretty late to the game and for the most part the "low hanging fruit" has already been picked ...

But that's not going to stop me. I'm looking for a new challange, I've been doing Internet "stuff" for almost 10 years, and I feel that I have the knowledge and resources to make a real go at it.

So my question to you is, where do YOU see the most opportunity?

I assume that 1000s of people have already written scripts that have tried to register every possible word and phrase in the English language, so new registration of generic traffic domains is out.

I'm thinking people have also done the same with typos, so while I'm sure there are still some left, new registration of good typos is probably out too.

Catching dropped domains seems like a lot of work and a big mess. I'm no stranger to hard work, but it just seems extremely competitive with no real way to gain a competitive advantage. Unless you are buddy buddy with someone at a registrar etc. it seems this whole game is mostly just luck? Stuff that goes to auction just gets bidded up to the point where you are no better off than just buying good domains directly from sellers.

Local search is coming on strong, so maybe there is some opportunity here for new registrations. Marchex recently registered tons of zip code domains which I thought was interesting. Of course, I'm guessing that most of the good domains that include city/state names etc. are already registered. But overall I would guess that in terms of new registrations this is where the most opportunity lies.

Due to some past success I have resources to work with. Knowledge of Internet marketing and website monetization, industry contacts, and cash. I'm thinking my best bet is to try to make good use of these strengths...

From an investment standpoint, generic traffic domains obviously have long-term value. It seems that most will continue to appreciate for the foreseeable future. Should I focus on just buying good domains for revenue, appreciation, and future sale?

Or perhaps it's a matter of doing everything and anything possible, including everything mentioned above, just picking up what you can however you can? I hope not, because that doesn't fit my personality. I'd much rather specialize.

Another idea I had was to somehow get my foot in the door by partnering up with one or more people that are experienced domainers. Perhaps there are people out there that find more good domains than they have the ability to purchase, and I could form some type of partnership where I put cash, etc. Anyone out there doing this, or interested in something like that?

Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, feedback, skeptisms, etc. about anything I've posted. Thanks!

 

[spy69]

By reading your post it seems you already know more than me. :lol:

Wish you luck.



Spy

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Speculate to accumulate.

You must have the money to hit big in this game... unless you just hit lucky, or are willing to wait for domain names to catch on like .com .net and .org have

 

[DOMiNIC]

I think you made a good point on local domains. I was a latecomer too but picked up lots of stuff like ItalianRestaurantDetroit.com and although they are long they are descriptive.

Happy Domaining

Be Lucky

 

[nRnF]

You must have the money to hit big in this game... unless you just hit lucky, or are willing to wait for domain names to catch on like .com .net and .org have

Correct
Especially the very strechable "big"

I am thinking in fact also since stime about the local search aspect, and might get really interesting in future when PPC will pay more and more for quality traffic.
But only the domain isn't enough, as you must deliver content.

 

[gazzip]

You could try and catch some nice .eu coming up soon - I rekon they're going to be pretty big. or hang with the^sharks at snapnames and hope you get lucky :hehe:

 

[downloadfreak]

dsiomtw, getting deleting domains is not too much of a problem. There are many back-order sites which can acquire the domain name for a small fee.

http://www.snapnames.com | http://www.pool.com

Those are the main backorder sites, snap names is by far the best. They simply grab the domain name the moment it drops (to the very second) as they have contacts with registrars etc.

There is however a catch, if another person has tried to backorder the domain, you will be put into a private auction, and of course this always happens on decent domains, but not just with one other person, it can be hundreds of people bidding to win the domain name.

On another note, if your looking for a market to buy into, I would suggest the short domain names, things like 3 letter .coms, 3 letter .nets and premium 3 letter .us's are continually going up in price, it's an easy market to invest into if you have the cash.

http://www.3character.com/priceguide.html may also help.

 

[dsiomtw]

Thanks for all the replies...

One thing I don't understand about expiring domains is this. When I go to snapnames for example and download their "priority partner" and "pending delete" lists, combined there are about 175k names over the next 5 days. So say an average of 35k names a day.

Now obviously if you were just looking for 3 letter domains, or 4 letter domains, or some other type of domain that can be programmatically defined, it would be easy enough to write a script that would download these files every day and parse them.

Aside from that though, how do people play with these huge lists? I can't imagine anyone actually looks through 35k names a day to find the gems? Obviously some people are only looking for names with certain keywords in them, etc. but clearly there have to be at least a few gems in the 35k every single day. But how do you find them without knowing what you are searching for in advance??

Oh, and I have another question regarding 3 or 4 letter acronym type names. Obviously many companies are known by an acronym and I'm sure many/most that are have attempted to trademark the acronym. Say ibm for example. When registering 3 or 4 letter acronym type names do you have to worry about some company claiming the rights to it later, meaning you really have to do a trademark search etc before you buy it? And if so, what are the rules here. If there is no existing trademark when you buy it, then you are safe even if some company trademarks the acronym later? Or ??

 

[sjaguar13]

For the big lists, most people who care about dropping domains have some type of program/script that will go through and check things like PR, OVT, link popularity, indexed pages, and so on and rank the domains in order based on their results. Then they bid on the high ranking domains with most of their money going to the domain that scored the best.

For most 3 letters, I don't think trademarks come into play that often, like BCA.net. He had a problem with the British Cheerleading Association, but plenty of trademarks could have the initials of BCA. You just can't use it for a cheerleading association. IBM might be trademarked, but things that popular probably won't be dropping. I say if a 3 letter dot com dropped and you can afford it, bid on it.

 

[dsiomtw]

To do all of that for 35k names a day is quite a bit of resources. Is there some type of service, etc. that people subscribe to for this, or is everyone using custom scripts?

As far as trademarks, I was referring to a trademark on the 3 letter acronym itself. For example, I don't know much about trademarks and I need to learn, but I'm sure IBM has the acronym I-B-M trademarked. Just because RTO.com or some other 3 letter name drops, I'm not so sure you can assume that it's not also trademarked. Some tiny little company brick n mortar company somewhere could have RTO trademarked and not pay any attention to dropping domains. You buy it for 5k or 10k or whatever and then 6 months later they decide to look into it and then come after you ...

 

[sjaguar13]

I use a custom script, but I am my site is almost done where I would be publishing the lists in categories like domains with OVT, PR, ect.

 

[dsiomtw]

So you are going to offer it as a paid service? PM me if you need beta testers or whatever. I would love to see what you have before I start developing my own. No point in duplicating your efforts if you have something cool already...

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Snapnames dont catch them to the second at all, they get them passed to them by the major registrars as with many other major "Backorder" scam companies.

Backorder a name from a different registrar, and it's another story. Snapnames isnt very good at getting names that are actually going to drop and are available for anyone to register!

.EU domain names arent being passed on by any registrars like the names that are listed on snapnames.com. .EU names are "dropping" or more specifically, "Becoming available"... which is where snapnames lacks.

 

[dsiomtw]

As far as names that become available to anyone, it doesn't seem like any service is going to be better than any other. If a decent name suddenly becomes available to the entire world, the system is going to receive dozens or even 100s of registration requests simultaneously. I don't know how their systems handle it, but basically whichever request they deem to be "first" in line will get the name. Right? So I don't see how snapnames or anyone else is going to give you an advantage if more than 1 or 2 people want the same name. Sure, if it's likely that you are the only one or maybe there is 1 other guy who wants the name, snapnames can save you the hassle of being at the computer and doing it yourself. But other than that ...

 

[downloadfreak]

dsiomtw, pool.com send daily emails with the top expiring domains for the current day. Also you can use the advanced search on snapnames or pool to find 3 letter domains for example. Simply limit the length to 3 and exclude "-s" and numbers.

 

[xtremest]

For "huge" list checking you can use also snapcheck.com - you choose criterias - website gives you info.

 

[dsiomtw]

Does anyone really snag good domains from lists that other people complile though? Surely anyone who compiles any type of "good" name list registers anything half decent before giving out the list.

 

[deet]

Surely anyone who compiles any type of "good" name list registers anything half decent before giving out the list.

Not true at all!
There have been many. I say Many good names that were registered because
someone on NP's listed the name FREE in a list!