.mobi Newbie Here - Can someone help, please?

[malwj4atm]

I am a newbie at this so all advice is appreciated! I found 5 mobi names that aren't owned by anyone and I would really like to try my hand at making some money with them. I've read lots of great information on this website and I THINK I have an idea about what to do, but I'd still love to know what you think about my plan.

I plan to purchase all 5 mobi names on sedo (or godaddy, or name.com?.... which site do you recommend?) and then I'd like to try selling 4 of them after a month or two. I'd like to keep one out of the 5 and build a site on it after I learn how to build a mobi site. When I get ready to sell them, I can sell them on a different site than I bought them on, correct? (It seems like Sedo is the best place to sell?)

My questions are: Are there specific websites that you would recommend for buying? How about selling? Does my plan sound sensible? (It seems so easy, I feel like I MUST be missing something!??)

One more question.... when I look at the mobi names that have been sold on soldnames, I don't see any listed for 2008 (only 2006 and 2007).... why is that?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer!!

 

[-NC-]

1) sedo is an auction house, and godaddy/name.com are registrars. i would advise you to learn the difference before spending any money.

2) yes you can list your domains for sale at places other than the registrar.

3) NamePros itself can be excellent for picking up deals, but i suspect you are talking about registering domains. godaddy is a perfectly fine place to start out registering names - they have quite good support ( don't forget to search for coupons to get the best price though )

4) Your plan sounds okay to me, 5 domains is a good number to start off with. Try not to get carried away registering/buying tons of names at first.

 

[nrmillions]

What makes you think you would be able to hand reg 5 mobi names today and be able to sell 4 of them in a month from now for a profit? My advice would be to not reg anything and only buy mobi names on the aftermarket from places like the forums, sedo and afternic.

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

What makes you think you would be able to hand reg 5 mobi names today and be able to sell 4 of them in a month from now for a profit? My advice would be to not reg anything and only buy mobi names on the aftermarket from places like the forums, sedo and afternic.

Why would you not hand reg anything?

If you're literate (in whatever language it is that you want your domains) with good language skills; writing skills etc it is very easy to find good names especially in .mobi that are currently inregistered.

Why pay $30 or $100 + buying names on the aftermarket when you can get new regs for $10 or less (there's no guarentee that aftermarket names are any good.. I've seen 1,ooo's that simply suck! - names being sold now are often the discarded holdings of domainers cleaning out their portfolio's or paying their bills).

If you do not have good language skills then it may be harder to reg good names but I'm still finding loads of good names.

Good luck & don't get carried away until you're confident that you 'know' good names when you see them.

Gary

 

[pchip]

Most of the good names are already taken. I don't think there are ton of aftermarket sales for the names that you'll likely find unregistered. So, the prospect of finding a name unregistered and selling it after 1-2 months is very unlikely.

My advice would be to choose the names very carefully and plan on re-registering them for atleast a few years. But don't be afraid to dump a few domains here and there if you need too. I'm faced with getting rid of a few here in the next month or so that I've changed my mind on. Obviously, you'll be better in the long run to develp your sites. Most of the names that I register I have plans to develp, even though I haven't develped anything yet.

Welcome to the board!

pc

 

[duceman]

The best way to make money on .mobi names is to develop a small site to start generating traffic.

 

[malwj4atm]

I think I'm catching on! But what about this.....

This is all helpful information. I'm learning as fast as I can and this is a great site. You all are very patient. =)

So, I'm trying to develop a skill for identifying a good name and I can't figure this one out...... One of the many places that I've glanced at regularly is the "Most Active" tab in the sitesforsale section on the godaddy website. If you look at it, you'll see a site called "sanitywow.com" with an asking price of 5K and it has 18 bids!! So, I'm thinking it must be a pretty cool site with so many bids, right? (I guess it's an interesting name, but I don't know if it's ALL that!?)

So, I go to the .com site.... and it's just a plain parked page. So, I figure someone must know something about the word "sanitywow" that I just don't know because I'm not really thinking it's worth $5K (but what do I know!).

So, I check its availability with mobi, and there it is! Totally available and unregistered!! Sooooo, if it's such a great name (worth a whopping 5k to at least a few people), then why wouldn't at LEAST one of those bidders grab sanitywow mobi while they can, while they are waiting to see if they can win the .com version???

Wouldn't that make sense to grab the mobi? Even if it's worth one TENTH of the $5K that the .com version will probably go for, that's still a sweet little profit, right??? Sooo, what am I missing? (I feel like the dumb blond in the room.)

I apologize for the long question, but I would love to know your thoughts on this?

PS - If you read this and then run over to godaddy and buy the mobi version of "sanitywow", at least come back and let me know that you did so I will know that I'm getting better at finding the deals!

 

[ajkula]

So, I'm trying to develop a skill for identifying a good name and I can't figure this one out...... One of the many places that I've glanced at regularly is the "Most Active" tab in the sitesforsale section on the godaddy website. If you look at it, you'll see a site called "sanitywow.com" with an asking price of 5K and it has 18 bids!! So, I'm thinking it must be a pretty cool site with so many bids, right? (I guess it's an interesting name, but I don't know if it's ALL that!?)

So, I go to the .com site.... and it's just a plain parked page. So, I figure someone must know something about the word "sanitywow" that I just don't know because I'm not really thinking it's worth $5K (but what do I know!).

So, I check its availability with mobi, and there it is! Totally available and unregistered!! Sooooo, if it's such a great name (worth a whopping 5k to at least a few people), then why wouldn't at LEAST one of those bidders grab sanitywow mobi while they can, while they are waiting to see if they can win the .com version???

Wouldn't that make sense to grab the mobi?

In short, the answer is no. I even don`t think that sanitywow.com is worth $5k, but who knows these crazy gamers today link

I agree that it is very hard to find a good dotMobi domain for hand-reg now, but if you want to develop wapsites then you can find some domain which will suit well with your development idea. If you want to find some .mobis for reselling then be aware, because some keywords are not suitable for mobile web...but maybe I`m wrong. Good luck

 

[qO_Op]

Info PM'd

 

[thebiffenator]

I am a newbie at this so all advice is appreciated! I found 5 mobi names that aren't owned by anyone and I would really like to try my hand at making some money with them. I've read lots of great information on this website and I THINK I have an idea about what to do, but I'd still love to know what you think about my plan.

I plan to purchase all 5 mobi names on sedo (or godaddy, or name.com?.... which site do you recommend?) and then I'd like to try selling 4 of them after a month or two. I'd like to keep one out of the 5 and build a site on it after I learn how to build a mobi site. When I get ready to sell them, I can sell them on a different site than I bought them on, correct? (It seems like Sedo is the best place to sell?)

My questions are: Are there specific websites that you would recommend for buying? How about selling? Does my plan sound sensible? (It seems so easy, I feel like I MUST be missing something!??)

One more question.... when I look at the mobi names that have been sold on soldnames, I don't see any listed for 2008 (only 2006 and 2007).... why is that?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer!!

Hi malwj4atm

I say take your time and decide what is best for you and your development, If you have development ideas then you can hand reg a decent name (alot are avaiable, just pretty much no more generics, but it wont matter if its developed and gets traffic. If you go this route then keep the name kind of short and easy to remember.

The other option is buying an aftermarket name (which I suggest also, look on Sedo) for example Argue.mobi is at $160 right now, thats a great bargain, but it could go up alot, also set your development ideas around the name that you want. "for example I have iwantinfo.mobi, and the site does what the says" the name was not the best, but it associates with the mobile web and its devellopment function and its branded and a PR 3 now.

My point is, try to find a name that you want to develope and to profit off of, and if you hand reg it, make sure it associates with the extention and is kind of short and brandable. If you go the aftermarket route, make sure the name is suitable for .mobi if developed. ( I highly recomend picking up a nice LLL, or a nice keyword off of "Sedo" rather then regging blind,)

PM me if you have any questions.

Biff

 

[accent]

Finally there are people posting against the "send the newcomers to the aftermarket" advice that is so commonly given. I almost never see anything on the after-market that I would pay to renew. Now, understand that I am surely passing by some unrecognized gems, but they are just that - I don't recognize them. Nearly everything for sale is someone else's junk. People make a lot of money with good domains and are not interested in selling them unless they get a very favorable price. Much more than you or I should pay.

Developing is good. There is the opportuntity to get in early in a new media - the mobile internet. As for flipping .mobis, it may not work very well. The mobi market is pretty static now, Most agree that there will soon be a huge mobile web, but that is not now, and people are not buying very much now. Mobi is a long term investment - 3-5 years as a guess.

In a couple months there will start to be .mobi drops - names that were bought a year ago that someone decided not to renew. If you have patience you may find something there, but understand that for the first 4 months of .Mobi registrations the requirement was for a 2 year reg, so those (better) domains will start dropping in November.

It is not readily apparent but this domaining thing is extremely addictive, and many many newcomers will pile up hundreds of worthless domains before they have any idea what they are doing. There is a lot of money to be made in domaining, but only if you spend your time learning before you spend your money.

As for sanitywow.com - at first look I would not give a dollar for it, no meaning that I can see. It may have been a nice website before and still has traffic - or someone could be playing tricks. There are scammers and crooks around here just like anywhere else.

By the way, a .Mobi is usually valued at 1% - 3% of the .com as a very rough rule (the higher percent is mostly three letter mobis). Most of us here on this .Mobi forum expect that gap to close greatly in a few years, but there are others who passionately hate .mobi and will tell you at any chance they get what a stupid investment it is.

And do consider .coms, along with .mobi. That is the mainstream, no need to buck it.

 

[nrmillions]

Finally there are people posting against the "send the newcomers to the aftermarket" advice that is so commonly given. I almost never see anything on the after-market that I would pay to renew. Now, understand that I am surely passing by some unrecognized gems, but they are just that - I don't recognize them. Nearly everything for sale is someone else's junk. People make a lot of money with good domains and are not interested in selling them unless they get a very favorable price. Much more than you or I should pay.

So you dont think names on the aftermarket such as LLL.mobi, NNN.mobi, names from landrush, or the names being auctioned off by mTLD are even worth renewing or buying? I have bought many excellent names from the aftermarket in the last couple months and all for reasonable prices. Its true that not every mobi name that has already been registered is going to be good if you dont know what to look for but for someone completely new to domaining they would have a much better chance at a solid name from buying on the aftermarket right now than hand regging some mobi names. I would rather buy just one LLL.mobi name for $250 right now than to hand reg 30 useless names. Not everything for sale is someone elses junk. Sometimes people are in need of rent money or something and will sell of a LLL or NNN or something else decent when they really dont want to. A lot of times the names wont even be "for sale" but if you email them to make an offer you would be surprised at what you can get.

 

[chupacabra]

This is all helpful information. I'm learning as fast as I can and this is a great site. You all are very patient. =)

So, I'm trying to develop a skill for identifying a good name and I can't figure this one out...... One of the many places that I've glanced at regularly is the "Most Active" tab in the sitesforsale section on the godaddy website. If you look at it, you'll see a site called "sanitywow.com" with an asking price of 5K and it has 18 bids!! So, I'm thinking it must be a pretty cool site with so many bids, right? (I guess it's an interesting name, but I don't know if it's ALL that!?)

So, I go to the .com site.... and it's just a plain parked page. So, I figure someone must know something about the word "sanitywow" that I just don't know because I'm not really thinking it's worth $5K (but what do I know!).

sanitywow.com was once a developed site, and the name has since expired. It was not bid up that high because of the name itself. The name by itself is worthless. The backlinks and traffic are what makes that name valuable. Notice the field: Estimated monthly visitors to this domain: 23922. Therefor the value of the .mobi would be equivalent to the traffic the .mobi would get, which is a big fat 0.

 

[accent]

So you dont think names on the aftermarket such as LLL.mobi, NNN.mobi, names from landrush, or the names being auctioned off by mTLD are even worth renewing or buying?

Usually the advice is just for buying "aftermarket" domains. Certainly LLL.mobi and NNN.mobi, bought at the right prices, would be good long-term plays on the success of .mobi. There is learning needed in those fields, but a lot less than in the wide world of mobi domains.

I have seen a lot of landrush names that were not very good IMHO - granted that I miss some gems. But there and in the mTLD auctions a newbie would have precious little to base price/value decisions on.

Better IMHO to buy one $8 "best available" reg and develop it, while learning the market.

 

[Debt.tv]

I just wanted to clear something up with tdnam. The 5K you see next to the name is the "asking price" not the high bid. You will never know the bid amounts, it could be $1 thru $18 for all you know, and the seller just hasn't excepted the fact that his or her domain isn't worth 5k. TDNAM resellers seem to have one thing in common, that is their domains are worth 50k when they are really worth less than reg fee.