OK... Here's the question. If you were a newbie to the domaining industry and had, maybe 2k to invest, how would you do it? Would you...
A. Invest the majority of your investment capital into 1 or 2 brand able dot com premium names? Brandables are tough because they have no real value aside from the potential 1 or 2 buyers that MAY be interested in them. I'd suggest trying to pick up some short keyword domains that have been aged. Godaddy Auctions is a great place to find values. Beware of their traffic stats though. See below.
B. Invest in high traffic sites? This can be tricky. Traffic can be faked easily enough, so never rely on that. Plus, traffic can be from the site that existed on that domain name and will eventually fade away. Back links get changed too, so that source of traffic will most likely fade. Traffic is important but I've found it's best to not rely on traffic as a deciding factor if you are going to sit on the domain for a bit.
C. Purchases several premium non dot com names? Dot coms are the best extension in my opinion, but I do own several others. The majority of my portfolio is dotCOM though. To each their own though. I would say .net and .org also have their values.
D. Invest in a few LLLLdotcom names and hope one of them hits? I have some of these. The best ones are your CVCV (like dudu.com - $1MM sale). Those seem to sell the best. Again though, just my two cents. If you can get good deals on CVCV then I don't think you'd be wasting your money, just might have to sit on them for a bit.
E. None of the above - please explain
I wish I was as smart as you are and asked this question when I first started rather than flushing money down the toilet on garbage domains (.mobi killed me). Remember, just because a domain name is available does not mean it's good. It's probably available because others either realized it's crap already or, in rare cases, you got to a new trend before someone else did. In the second case it might be a good idea to drop the short money on a new reg. The most important thing to remember is to NEVER register trademarks. Squatters give the rest of the domain world a bad name. Best to steer clear of that stuff. If I was starting out now I would concentrate on a niche market that I knew something about. That way you are ahead of the game with your knowledge and will know what's important in that niche. If you try and buy too many fields at once you'll probably end up with some wasted money.
What is the market like today and where do you see it going over the next 10 to 20 years?
:kickass:
