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discuss My hand reg experience

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As I mentioned in another thread, I started domaining in July August last year. My first post on this forum is in July despite my join date lol

And as every n00b domainer I overbid in a few Auctions, spent about 5 K in stupid Liquid name auctions (short names), and had no clue why some two word domain names without any backlinks would sell for thousands of dollars since EMD stopped working 10 years ago.. Earlier, I only bought expired domain names if they have clean history and good back links.

Bought several names on Namepros as well, but luckily only short names (LLLL.com etc).

I read a bit and started hand regging names, like a n00b fresh off the boat. Still had no clue about the two word names, and I thought some deleted names were better than some that were in Auction.. Silly me.

Sometime in late August September, I discovered Squadhelp and started hand regging names.

I might have registered about 60-70 made up names and got 25 approved from that spree.
Many names were deleted during grace on Dynadot. Out of those I have sold one for 1399

I am yet to figure out how many names I hand registered, because, I also registered hundreds of .co and .realty during the promo.

I am right now talking about normal reg fee hand reg.

I am sharing this because a lot of people are addicted to hand reg and some people think hand reg is the way to build a portfolio and work up. Nothing is further from the truth.

I have a feeling I hand regged around 400 names on the higher end. At least 300, based on what I can roughly check. I need to sort them on an excel.

These are not the Promo names.

So total cost will be around 4000 usd.

From that I sold two names for 4 figures for a total of $2500
I sold two other names for a total of about 500.

SO on my Hand reg I am still at a loss of $1000 and renewal will come up in 6-7 months

Maybe I wil sell one of the SH names for another 2000 but I am not sure.

I am just jotting down my thought as an exercise to organize what worked for me as well.

Only my Auction domains, I have about 200 names for anywhere from 15 to 600-700 (This includes few Liquid names like LLLL, LLL etc), but on end user brandable names, I spent around 5 K... ( I will need to have a detailed information soon on where I spent, but that's not the point)
From the about 5 K with of brandable mid level auction names, I sold around $15K worth.

Now after I sold around 15K worth in November and December, I got too excited and I think I might have overpaid for a few names in the some recent Auctions, but I took it as a learning, and as a penance, I have not bought a single name in the last 5 days. Oh wait.. Except 1 name today :)

I know auction names are overpriced, but that is only because of demand.
I am not saying there is no money to be made in Hand reg.
I mean I knew nothing and I managed to sell 2 names for 4 figure and I still have a few very good hand reg.

This is simply sharing my short experience but it is a no brainer that in order to make more money (%percent as well as absolute profit) one must continue to improve their portfolio quality.

One thing is certain, you do need some money to start with as this is a volume game at every level

Even if you have very high quality names you need a good number.

Sell through rate is something that the industry has come up with after millions of accumulated sales.

A Newbie portfolio will sell at less than 1% sell through unless you are super gifted which you are NOT even if you think you are. Dunning Kruger effect.

Very high quality portfolio can sell at 5%

So to sell 1 mediocre names in a year for end user price, you need 100 names at 1%. To sell a name every month, you need 1200 names.

At 2% you need 50 names to sell a name per YEAR and 600 names to sell a name every month.

Hundred hand reg name will cost 1000 usd. And all names will be Shitty.
Again there is a time and place for hand reg name. But that is a different discussion.

50 2% STR names will cost 3-5k

So for a newbie without investment, only way is to flip names to other resellers or hustle to outbound GEO names to build a portfolio.

90% of the successful domainers started by doing the above. You need to pay your dues.

Flipping domains to resellers is the hardest. I had money and I am fast learner so I skipped that and I read instead. But if you can buy domain names for 20-30 usd on closeouts and sell for 50-100 to other domainers, it is highly scalable and you will also fast track your learning.. Because you will know what domains are in demand..

But once you have built up a decent portfolio that pays 5 figures a month in profit after paying for new acquisitions and renewals, it is only uphill as long as you put in the work..

But the initial day are hard and I think this is when many people drop off.

Sorry if this don't make sense..
I am just writing down my notes publicly.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Yeah, but if you have 100 bad names your sell-through rate to end users will be 0%, not 1%. Most domainers have gone through something similar ... this is how we learn.
 
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As I mentioned in another thread, I started domaining in July August last year. My first post on this forum is in July despite my join date lol

And as every n00b domainer I overbid in a few Auctions, spent about 5 K in stupid Liquid name auctions (short names), and had no clue why some two word domain names without any backlinks would sell for thousands of dollars since EMD stopped working 10 years ago.. Earlier, I only bought expired domain names if they have clean history and good back links.

Bought several names on Namepros as well, but luckily only short names (LLLL.com etc).

I read a bit and started hand regging names, like a n00b fresh off the boat. Still had no clue about the two word names, and I thought some deleted names were better than some that were in Auction.. Silly me.

Sometime in late August September, I discovered Squadhelp and started hand regging names.

I might have registered about 60-70 made up names and got 25 approved from that spree.
Many names were deleted during grace on Dynadot. Out of those I have sold one for 1399

I am yet to figure out how many names I hand registered, because, I also registered hundreds of .co and .realty during the promo.

I am right now talking about normal reg fee hand reg.

I am sharing this because a lot of people are addicted to hand reg and some people think hand reg is the way to build a portfolio and work up. Nothing is further from the truth.

I have a feeling I hand regged around 400 names on the higher end. At least 300, based on what I can roughly check. I need to sort them on an excel.

These are not the Promo names.

So total cost will be around 4000 usd.

From that I sold two names for 4 figures for a total of $2500
I sold two other names for a total of about 500.

SO on my Hand reg I am still at a loss of $1000 and renewal will come up in 6-7 months

Maybe I wil sell one of the SH names for another 2000 but I am not sure.

I am just jotting down my thought as an exercise to organize what worked for me as well.

Only my Auction domains, I have about 200 names for anywhere from 15 to 600-700 (This includes few Liquid names like LLLL, LLL etc), but on end user brandable names, I spent around 5 K... ( I will need to have a detailed information soon on where I spent, but that's not the point)
From the about 5 K with of brandable mid level auction names, I sold around $15K worth.

Now after I sold around 15K worth in November and December, I got too excited and I think I might have overpaid for a few names in the some recent Auctions, but I took it as a learning, and as a penance, I have not bought a single name in the last 5 days. Oh wait.. Except 1 name today :)

I know auction names are overpriced, but that is only because of demand.
I am not saying there is no money to be made in Hand reg.
I mean I knew nothing and I managed to sell 2 names for 4 figure and I still have a few very good hand reg.

This is simply sharing my short experience but it is a no brainer that in order to make more money (%percent as well as absolute profit) one must continue to improve their portfolio quality.

One thing is certain, you do need some money to start with as this is a volume game at every level

Even if you have very high quality names you need a good number.

Sell through rate is something that the industry has come up with after millions of accumulated sales.

A Newbie portfolio will sell at less than 1% sell through unless you are super gifted which you are NOT even if you think you are. Dunning Kruger effect.

Very high quality portfolio can sell at 5%

So to sell 1 mediocre names in a year for end user price, you need 100 names at 1%. To sell a name every month, you need 1200 names.

At 2% you need 50 names to sell a name per YEAR and 600 names to sell a name every month.

Hundred hand reg name will cost 1000 usd. And all names will be Shitty.
Again there is a time and place for hand reg name. But that is a different discussion.

50 2% STR names will cost 3-5k

So for a newbie without investment, only way is to flip names to other resellers or hustle to outbound GEO names to build a portfolio.

90% of the successful domainers started by doing the above. You need to pay your dues.

Flipping domains to resellers is the hardest. I had money and I am fast learner so I skipped that and I read instead. But if you can buy domain names for 20-30 usd on closeouts and sell for 50-100 to other domainers, it is highly scalable and you will also fast track your learning.. Because you will know what domains are in demand..

But once you have built up a decent portfolio that pays 5 figures a month in profit after paying for new acquisitions and renewals, it is only uphill as long as you put in the work..

But the initial day are hard and I think this is when many people drop off.

Sorry if this don't make sense..
I am just writing down my notes publicly.
Thank you for sharing your experience!

I am going through a similar process so far.

First 90 names mostly hand regged, closeouts, 1 low priced auction names.

Now up to 100 domains (no sales yet) but realize it's a volume game...

Can you share a few names you bought from auction that sold?

What were your two hand regs that sold for four figures?

Thank you 😁
 
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As I mentioned in another thread, I started domaining in July August last year. My first post on this forum is in July despite my join date lol

And as every n00b domainer I overbid in a few Auctions, spent about 5 K in stupid Liquid name auctions (short names), and had no clue why some two word domain names without any backlinks would sell for thousands of dollars since EMD stopped working 10 years ago.. Earlier, I only bought expired domain names if they have clean history and good back links.

Bought several names on Namepros as well, but luckily only short names (LLLL.com etc).

I read a bit and started hand regging names, like a n00b fresh off the boat. Still had no clue about the two word names, and I thought some deleted names were better than some that were in Auction.. Silly me.

Sometime in late August September, I discovered Squadhelp and started hand regging names.

I might have registered about 60-70 made up names and got 25 approved from that spree.
Many names were deleted during grace on Dynadot. Out of those I have sold one for 1399

I am yet to figure out how many names I hand registered, because, I also registered hundreds of .co and .realty during the promo.

I am right now talking about normal reg fee hand reg.

I am sharing this because a lot of people are addicted to hand reg and some people think hand reg is the way to build a portfolio and work up. Nothing is further from the truth.

I have a feeling I hand regged around 400 names on the higher end. At least 300, based on what I can roughly check. I need to sort them on an excel.

These are not the Promo names.

So total cost will be around 4000 usd.

From that I sold two names for 4 figures for a total of $2500
I sold two other names for a total of about 500.

SO on my Hand reg I am still at a loss of $1000 and renewal will come up in 6-7 months

Maybe I wil sell one of the SH names for another 2000 but I am not sure.

I am just jotting down my thought as an exercise to organize what worked for me as well.

Only my Auction domains, I have about 200 names for anywhere from 15 to 600-700 (This includes few Liquid names like LLLL, LLL etc), but on end user brandable names, I spent around 5 K... ( I will need to have a detailed information soon on where I spent, but that's not the point)
From the about 5 K with of brandable mid level auction names, I sold around $15K worth.

Now after I sold around 15K worth in November and December, I got too excited and I think I might have overpaid for a few names in the some recent Auctions, but I took it as a learning, and as a penance, I have not bought a single name in the last 5 days. Oh wait.. Except 1 name today :)

I know auction names are overpriced, but that is only because of demand.
I am not saying there is no money to be made in Hand reg.
I mean I knew nothing and I managed to sell 2 names for 4 figure and I still have a few very good hand reg.

This is simply sharing my short experience but it is a no brainer that in order to make more money (%percent as well as absolute profit) one must continue to improve their portfolio quality.

One thing is certain, you do need some money to start with as this is a volume game at every level

Even if you have very high quality names you need a good number.

Sell through rate is something that the industry has come up with after millions of accumulated sales.

A Newbie portfolio will sell at less than 1% sell through unless you are super gifted which you are NOT even if you think you are. Dunning Kruger effect.

Very high quality portfolio can sell at 5%

So to sell 1 mediocre names in a year for end user price, you need 100 names at 1%. To sell a name every month, you need 1200 names.

At 2% you need 50 names to sell a name per YEAR and 600 names to sell a name every month.

Hundred hand reg name will cost 1000 usd. And all names will be Shitty.
Again there is a time and place for hand reg name. But that is a different discussion.

50 2% STR names will cost 3-5k

So for a newbie without investment, only way is to flip names to other resellers or hustle to outbound GEO names to build a portfolio.

90% of the successful domainers started by doing the above. You need to pay your dues.

Flipping domains to resellers is the hardest. I had money and I am fast learner so I skipped that and I read instead. But if you can buy domain names for 20-30 usd on closeouts and sell for 50-100 to other domainers, it is highly scalable and you will also fast track your learning.. Because you will know what domains are in demand..

But once you have built up a decent portfolio that pays 5 figures a month in profit after paying for new acquisitions and renewals, it is only uphill as long as you put in the work..

But the initial day are hard and I think this is when many people drop off.

Sorry if this don't make sense..
I am just writing down my notes publicly.
Thanks for sharing your experience. A few notes...your 1% or 2% STR was calculated for what average amounts? 2-5K? If you play a little bit with the amounts, you will have a much better STR, but more work on your part. The part with auctions worth a few hundreds each it's a risky game, so you need to play it only if you are good at it. There are tons of domainers here who invest only in auctions, but loose money and there are specifically a few that have lost money investing only in LLLL.com's On the other hand, if you play your cards well and you are lucky as well, you could hit the jackpot with only one name bought at xxx, much faster than to hit the jackpot with a hand reg.
 
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Yeah, but if you have 100 bad names your sell-through rate to end users will be 0%, not 1%. Most domainers have gone through something similar ... this is how we learn.
Totally... This is what most people learn

Thank you for sharing your experience!

I am going through a similar process so far.

First 90 names mostly hand regged, closeouts, 1 low priced auction names.

Now up to 100 domains (no sales yet) but realize it's a volume game...

If I were to start again, I would not hand reg any names. I would stop at 100.
It took me while to stop as it was addicting.
Spend the time on closeouts and see what names you can flip to wholesellers for $50 bucks. If there are no takers, study more names that are getting sold relatively consistently

I know a lot of people who are right now making 10K in sales a month and yet never been on profit because of renewals and the whole volume. SO be careful there until you develop your own strategy.

Can you share a few names you bought from auction that sold?

What were your two hand regs that sold for four figures?

Thank you 😁

Shangrila dot io bought for 330-sold 6000
Soluciones dot co bought for 30- sold 4000
Lassie dot co bought for about 30 bucks from reseller sold for 3888

Hand reg:
Gobelo as a pattern name that is easy to pronounce and easy on the ear (radio test)- sold 1399
CryptoJob in de hand reg from drop- sold 1000 Euros


Thanks for sharing your experience. A few notes...your 1% or 2% STR was calculated for what average amounts? 2-5K? If you play a little bit with the amounts, you will have a much better STR, but more work on your part. The part with auctions worth a few hundreds each it's a risky game, so you need to play it only if you are good at it. There are tons of domainers here who invest only in auctions, but loose money and there are specifically a few that have lost money investing only in LLLL.com's On the other hand, if you play your cards well and you are lucky as well, you could hit the jackpot with only one name bought at xxx, much faster than to hit the jackpot with a hand reg.

Agree. My STR was just demonstrative.. to explain how many quality names are needed to make a sale regularly based on STR
 
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Domaining Rule #1: Dont use autiomated domain appraisal tools

Domaining Rule #2: Dont hand-register names, they are available for a reason (this can change later when you are experienced and have a lot of sales under your belt)
 
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Domaining Rule #1: Dont use autiomated domain appraisal tools

Domaining Rule #2: Dont hand-register names, they are available for a reason (this can change later when you are experienced and have a lot of sales under your belt)
I’m only adding onto your no.1 of the experience I got so far...Just because a domain is accepted into a “brandable” marketplace it doesn’t mean the domain is good
 
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I was lucky my domains are mostly sold. Even I sold worse names in 10 usd so got to reinvest & continue for 1 & half year
 
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Totally... This is what most people learn



If I were to start again, I would not hand reg any names. I would stop at 100.
It took me while to stop as it was addicting.
Spend the time on closeouts and see what names you can flip to wholesellers for $50 bucks. If there are no takers, study more names that are getting sold relatively consistently

I know a lot of people who are right now making 10K in sales a month and yet never been on profit because of renewals and the whole volume. SO be careful there until you develop your own strategy.



Shangrila dot io bought for 330-sold 6000
Soluciones dot co bought for 30- sold 4000
Lassie dot co bought for about 30 bucks from reseller sold for 3888

Hand reg:
Gobelo as a pattern name that is easy to pronounce and easy on the ear (radio test)- sold 1399
CryptoJob in de hand reg from drop- sold 1000 Euros




Agree. My STR was just demonstrative.. to explain how many quality names are needed to make a sale regularly based on STR
Thanks for this!

I appreciate you sharing your sold names and for the suggestion on closeouts for beginners to concentrate on.
 
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Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I am currently in the hand registering phase though I focus more on geo domains and outbound which has been profitable.
The auctions and closeouts has not paid me yet despite having few names I won in the auction and closeouts.
Hoping to try again this year to see how it goes. Hopefully I could tell my experience at the end of the year.
 
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Thank you sharing your journey and experiences.

I just hand registered 120 .com names 1-3 weeks ago, all dealing with "++++++" and have $1000 invested. I believe it is a 5-10-20 year gamble/maturation and am prepared for that.

The 120 names are spread out over many verticals....not just one niche per se. So the chance for buyers are unlimited. They almost all get traffic, believe it or not. And that is a great way to judge domains, the traffic they receive from type-ins.

Over 10 years, it will become an approx. $10-$15K gamble.

I have had 2 offers so far, one for $500 and one for $1000. No sales. Way too early to sell. I am keeping until they mature. One offer was from fellow investor the other was from large auditing company.

So, hand reg all the names you want..have a plan and follow thru.

Remember, I am doing this after 10 plus years of experience.

Good luck.
 
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Thank you blogspotter for sharing your experience, I think many of us can relate - I sure can.

Would you mind sharing some of the two-word .coms you hand-regged that you now find to be of low quality after all you've learned?

Might be interesting for us to learn from your journey, thank you again.
 
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I love hand registering domains, because it feels nice (I'm in a flow when searching for new brandable domains), and the ROI is great. Okay, my trick is that I mostly register recently dropped names and I backorder maybe one or two domains per day. I don't even buy Godaddy closeout names.

I think the secret key to success is to find the niche that's working for you (for me it's brandable domains, .co-s and recently .eu-s), learn as much as you can about this niche, work hard and don't skip even a day, buy or handreg names like there's no tomorrow, always track everything, always improve and automate your process. I have a tracking file that contains all my daily to-do-s and it even has some KPIs that shows my daily performance.

If you have success in your favorite niche, check if you can scale your business up. If your niche is too small and you reach the limit, study the domain sales and try to find new niches. (That's why I moved from a 80% .co portfolio to a more balanced one containing now 17% brandable .coms and 20% .eu-s. The reason: .Co became very popular and I cannot find a sufficient number of decent .co domains. There's no way I can scale it up significantly. On the other side, the brandable .com market seems to be infinite and handregging these names is a very creative and fun activity. .Eu is restricted, so the competition is low, moreover, reg and renewal are both cheap, so I can freely choose between the register-then-drop and keep-it-for-years strategies.)

If you can scale up, then do scale your business up using all your resources, effort and creativity. That's not a problem if you fail sometimes. Love your mistakes and learn from them. Your mistakes that you can catch early can save you a fortune. (e.g. I stopped buying geo domains, new tlds like .xyz, and stopped participating in Godaddy auctions.)
 
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I love hand registering domains, because it feels nice (I'm in a flow when searching for new brandable domains), and the ROI is great. Okay, my trick is that I mostly register recently dropped names and I backorder maybe one or two domains per day. I don't even buy Godaddy closeout names.

I think the secret key to success is to find the niche that's working for you (for me it's brandable domains, .co-s and recently .eu-s), learn as much as you can about this niche, work hard and don't skip even a day, buy or handreg names like there's no tomorrow, always track everything, always improve and automate your process. I have a tracking file that contains all my daily to-do-s and it even has some KPIs that shows my daily performance.

If you have success in your favorite niche, check if you can scale your business up. If your niche is too small and you reach the limit, study the domain sales and try to find new niches. (That's why I moved from a 80% .co portfolio to a more balanced one containing now 17% brandable .coms and 20% .eu-s. The reason: .Co became very popular and I cannot find a sufficient number of decent .co domains. There's no way I can scale it up significantly. On the other side, the brandable .com market seems to be infinite and handregging these names is a very creative and fun activity. .Eu is restricted, so the competition is low, moreover, reg and renewal are both cheap, so I can freely choose between the register-then-drop and keep-it-for-years strategies.)

If you can scale up, then do scale your business up using all your resources, effort and creativity. That's not a problem if you fail sometimes. Love your mistakes and learn from them. Your mistakes that you can catch early can save you a fortune. (e.g. I stopped buying geo domains, new tlds like .xyz, and stopped participating in Godaddy auctions.)
Excellent post!!

Thank you😁
 
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I love hand registering domains, because it feels nice (I'm in a flow when searching for new brandable domains), and the ROI is great. Okay, my trick is that I mostly register recently dropped names and I backorder maybe one or two domains per day. I don't even buy Godaddy closeout names.

I think the secret key to success is to find the niche that's working for you (for me it's brandable domains, .co-s and recently .eu-s), learn as much as you can about this niche, work hard and don't skip even a day, buy or handreg names like there's no tomorrow, always track everything, always improve and automate your process. I have a tracking file that contains all my daily to-do-s and it even has some KPIs that shows my daily performance.

If you have success in your favorite niche, check if you can scale your business up. If your niche is too small and you reach the limit, study the domain sales and try to find new niches. (That's why I moved from a 80% .co portfolio to a more balanced one containing now 17% brandable .coms and 20% .eu-s. The reason: .Co became very popular and I cannot find a sufficient number of decent .co domains. There's no way I can scale it up significantly. On the other side, the brandable .com market seems to be infinite and handregging these names is a very creative and fun activity. .Eu is restricted, so the competition is low, moreover, reg and renewal are both cheap, so I can freely choose between the register-then-drop and keep-it-for-years strategies.)

If you can scale up, then do scale your business up using all your resources, effort and creativity. That's not a problem if you fail sometimes. Love your mistakes and learn from them. Your mistakes that you can catch early can save you a fortune. (e.g. I stopped buying geo domains, new tlds like .xyz, and stopped participating in Godaddy auctions.)
.co renewal fee is high!!!
 
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.co renewal fee is high!!!
That is why I almost never renew them :) The only exception is if a .co domain is on a brandable marketplace.
 
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