advice New to Domains and just looking for advice

[NameVerve]

Hi Guys,

As stated I'm relatively new to domains having registered one a few years ago but never proceeded with the project and am really interested in domain trading/speculating as a hobby and possibly developing some interesting ones at a later date.

So I've been reading through this forum (religiously the past week!) and there is so much advice that I really don't know where to begin. So far some of the general rules I've gathered are:

• (dot) COM is king
• short is good
• if a non dictionary word then must be pronounceable and pass radio test
• be careful of trademark/copyright laws
• keywords with potential for potential business to profit from
• no hyphens and numbers (in general) is best
• DO NOT rely on free estimates from sites like estibot et al. As they can't possibly have algorithms to appraise generic non-dictionary words

Obviously learnt a bit more but that's the basics off the top of my head! However after reading through the forum for many hours and realising that some of the posts are from nearly 10 years ago I'm not sure apart from the above what is still relevant as over time short "brandable" words may have become more valuable as these are what I tend to be more interested in, so a few questions :

1. I've registered a number of 5/6 letter domains mostly in line with the above rules what would be my next best course of action to sell/appraise? I'm figuring contacting BrandBucket or Namerific etc and see what they come back with?
2. Two of the 20 or so I have are the names of multiple companies who I've found after googling should i approach them or maybe setup auction and advise all potential suitors through email that there is a domain that they may be interested in etc (worried about infringing on TM/Copyright by just owning their name as a (dot) com)
3. How do most domainers make money? May sound like a stupid question but apart from hand registering and selling at profit (flipping?) do you guys develop sites then rely on advertising? I'm very new to this but am slowly picking up wordpress would this along with some SEO be enough for a small margin? Or is the real money in buying low and selling high quickly as opposed to long term passive income which I would be more interested in?
4. With respect to generic "brandable" domains they seem to be very hard to target a potential end user by their very nature would it be worth me setting up a dedicated site to list them all and possible brand/design/logo them as to possibly cut out the middlemen above?

Just out of interest some of my domains I've registered are below, any feedback on quality or lack of would really be appreciated as well as price!

• Geraft.com
• Craviz.com
• Shalua.com
• Zyrious.com
• Hazano.com
• Rupsu.com
• Odeox.com
• Scrobo.com

It's very early days for me so genuinely wish to learn as much as possible and have probably made some mistakes already! Any answers, advice or direction would be gratefully appreciated (really sorry for the huge post for those of you to have got this far )

mjamescork

 

[Col South]

I'm new to this too so I can't offer you too much value but what I am learning more and more is that it is about getting domains that other people will be willing to pay for. That seems obvious but the fact that it is real people is the key thing to remember. When considering a domain put yourself in the shoes of someone who might want this domain and think critically, would I really pay for this domain? The amount that you would be willing to sell it for? If the answer is yes and you think you may be able to find that person / that it is likely they will come along, then go for it. And if it is a domain that you think you can pass on to another domainer if you're unable to find a good buyer for, then that makes it a relatively safe investment.

Like I say I am new to this too so this is based just on my impression of the game so far.

1. Can't advise
2. Perhaps contact the businesses privately in an attempt to open negotiations. Take the domain to auction if you feel it's the right thing to do at the time. You don't know that yet, but leave the option open.
3. Can't advise
4. Yeah that might work. Maybe you could sell them as ready use brands complete with domain name, logo, etc?

Hope I helped

 

[NameVerve]

Yes you did help, any advise is always welcome no matter how much experience

I guess I understand about trying to put myself into a prospective buyers shoes with regards to valuing specific market oriented domains e.g. japanesecars(dot)com could be targeted to an import business, salesroom, exporter etc so it would be relatively easy to come up with a list of such businesses to approach and sell the concept to.

The above way (not sure if it has a specific term?) seems to be the traditional approach with respect to using keywords searches but there seems to be another market for short, catchy, brandable generic names which i guess could help a business keep their options open for the future e.g. if a company wanted to start selling cars from China and Korea and not just Japan; it just seems a lot harder to get my head around how one would go about reaching these potential businesses and selling them on the idea whilst also being able to pitch at a realistic price without leaving any money on the table as it were?

With regards to point 2, my idea would be to contact all businesses with the same company name to which I own the domain but was worried about possible legal implications even though it was never my intention...for example if 7 different companies called Hazano Ltd or Hazano Enterprises etc were to exist and I owned Hazano.com I just wondered if any could legally take my domain as the name may be trademarked? would hate to get into s**t over a £6 reg fee

 

[LoneDeranger]

Hi

1. Numeric domains can be very tricky. It's not only about how much numbers there are it's about which numbers the domain contains. As I am not familiar with these my only advice is to read alot on them numeric domains. I've seen many great threads about it, so just search for it.

2. Putting a domain to auction and then contacting end-users is a great technique because it presses the potential customer to give his thoughts about the domain, since auction is time-limited. Moreover, multiple interested end-users can help boosting the price of the domain as they are, ideally, "fight for your domain". Keep in mind that it is not an easy to find a single end user, so you should be really certain about the domain.

3. Well it depends on you. Are you tight on the money? Do you the patience required for waiting a year? 2? 5? You should observe and learn, and then ask yourself which strategy you'll be happy with.

About your domains, I liked Zyrious and Odeox..

Good luck!

 

[NameVerve]

Hi LoneDeranger and thanks for your reply!

With regards to the first question when i said:

I've registered a number of 5/6 letter domains

....what i meant was I have registered several LLLLL.com and LLLLLL.com's ...sorry my wording may not have been clear! ...all are of the same type as the examples I gave above , about 30 in total now though!

I'm in no rush with respect to money and I can allocate a decent amount of time to learning new skills so I think my plan is to either go through the list (or possibly post it in a new thread to get the opinion of other members) and come up with suggestions or ideas on how to develop one or two to get a feel for what I need to learn and try to develop them slowly over time, making plenty of mistakes along the way!

I feel WordPress is probably my best bet, not sure what your thoughts on that would be?

Also I would have to agree, they're two of my favorites as well

 

[LoneDeranger]

Hi LoneDeranger and thanks for your reply!

With regards to the first question when i said:



....what i meant was I have registered several LLLLL.com and LLLLLL.com's ...sorry my wording may not have been clear! ...all are of the same type as the examples I gave above , about 30 in total now though!

I'm in no rush with respect to money and I can allocate a decent amount of time to learning new skills so I think my plan is to either go through the list (or possibly post it in a new thread to get the opinion of other members) and come up with suggestions or ideas on how to develop one or two to get a feel for what I need to learn and try to develop them slowly over time, making plenty of mistakes along the way!

I feel WordPress is probably my best bet, not sure what your thoughts on that would be?

Also I would have to agree, they're two of my favorites as well

Sorry about the mistake, perhaps I haven't read it thoroughly enough. About Wordpress- I cannot really advise you about it since i've never put my mind into it. All I did until now is to quick-flip domains, without developing them. At the moment i'm learning HTML and CSS in order to build a website on selected domains. My goal is to learn these languages beyond the average knowledge!
Anyhow wordpress seem to work fine too, but I want to be independent and not being stricted by templates.. Plus I have the time needed to study so.. Why not?

 

[NameVerve]

Hi thanks for the reply!

I agree, to be honest I've worked with and been around computers all my life, very confident but no formal training so unsure about the easiest/safest/best route to go (any advice or help from other members would be appreciated!). Kind of see WordPress as an easy option ...than learning programming straight off the bat but that may come back and haunt me in the future if i wish to develop the site further?

It's just difficult with the limited knowledge that i do have to understand how much a site has to be developed in order for it to make the reg fees let alone a profit; subject matter, traffic, PPC, AdSense ...its all new to me so a long road ahead but finally after 15 years in the wrong industry I've found something i enjoy...both business acumen needed + a little creativity/out of the box thinking with regard to picking a domain...and a little luck as well i guess

 

[AFernald]

Me personally, I don't go for brandable domains because the end user has to have the same vision as you. Therefore, they are much harder to sell than generic ones.

 

[NameVerve]

Hi AFernald (sorry, haven't figured out how to copy & paste name into post!)

I've known from the start they would be harder to sell as inferred in my previous posts however I think it may be the case of:

1) Generic: Keyword rich, development potential, high liquidity; however the initial cost can be higher.

vs.

2) "Brandable": Lower initial cost (reg fee), selling to client with vision, more possible end users/bigger potential market.

Very basic I know but in general I feel that;

• Generic = Higher initial cost vs more specific markets to target
• "Brandable" = Much lower initial cost vs more potential gains when dealing with end-user

As said previously these are generalisations which I hate but feel that just like picking up a LLL.com that means nothing; it's value is in the end user which in that case would happen to be a much larger population especially due to acronyms but the principal is the same, no?

Thanks for the reply and if I've misjudged or over looked something then PLEASE correct me or give your opinion, that goes for any member...I'm new and here to learn.