opinion Open Letter To Pro Domainers on NamePros

[oskaaay]

Hi NPers,

In my few time here on Namepros have observed somethings which made me create this open letter. I may be wrong to some or right to others. Whichever side, have just made my view and opinion known.


To Pro Domainers Responding To Threads :

First, you deserve accolades and appreciation for doing your best to help starter domainers. You deserve nothing than a heart of gratitude and big THANK YOU!

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ ON: The term Pro does not target any specific namepros badge like "Pro" "VIP" or others.

I am of a belief, no matter how well experienced you are or claim to be in the domain business. Each name is unique and you can not always 100% invalidate a domainers portfolio because they seem not to go inline with what you think works.

Considering my experience in SEO, there are authority tools that tell you a keyword is 0 search volume and waste of time writing on it. Then, you follow your instinct or just simply ready to explore new grounds and break the limits not minding the risks - Only for that same keyword article to explode later bringing you an organic traffic fortune.

In the domain world, one man's food is another man's poison and so another man's poison fit well as a favourite for another. For example, I can't imagine myself eating animals like a Lizard or Scorpion due to my Nigeria background which made them plenty and playing around us daily because we don't see them as edible but I think that is opposite for a Chinese man.

So, will encourage pro domainers - Please, don't always throw a blanket ban on other domainers portfolio especially starters.

It's good you let them know that some of their choices may not be right but at the same time let them realize if they do their homework well and discover something not known by most including yourself worthy enough for them to take the risk, then they should do in as much as they are ready to bear the consequences.

Mind you, just like @Bob Hawkes stated in this thread https://www.namepros.com/threads/an-inquiry-come-a-day-after-handreg-a-name.1166010/page-2 , a domain is just a year experiment.

If you see that it does not worth it, you have a whole 12months to test the market and easily drop it just by simply avoiding renewal.

You have not trapped except if you go overboard with reg for 5 to 10years at a go which a smart domainer will not do for uncertain domain names.


To me, Domain is like exploration, don't cage anyone's mind....... let's all explore and diversify....it makes our domaining world more exciting and goes round.

Love you all

 

[oskaaay]

Edit addition: Its been brought to my attention, years ago, that the reason for the "pros" giving disrespectful responses to new comers is to discourage growing the number of domainers. This is due to many feeling new comers bring competition and higher auction prices.

hmmmm...this is a take-home, may be reason behind some of those attitudes.

You bring a name, and they bluntly write it off instead of comment like this name may not sell or sell for less due to so and so reason but if you have done your homework well and sure how to get a good buyer for it then it could be a sort-after by someone out there.

After all, we see names selling daily at prices that beat domain appraisal tools (either in the form of human or tools) forecast

 

[MapleDots]

I could give my two cents about this but those lyrics have already been written...

Now look at them yo-yo's, that's the way you do it
You tap the keyboard on the namepros site
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya, them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
See the domainer, typing in his PJ's
That little bugger he's a millionaire
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
We got to…

PROBLEM IS MOST EVERYONE CAN SING THE WORDS BUT ONLY A FEW WILL LIVE IT !!!

 

[oskaaay]

It works both ways. I try to provide helpful information and advice but frequently run into new investors with obvious attitude problems who seem to think they know it all. Many people only seem to want feeback that agrees with their view. It happens all the time in appraisal threads.

Sure some starters don't know and don't want to learn. Maybe there own thread is coming up too someday.

 

[JB Lions]

Hi NPers,

In my few time here on Namepros have observed somethings which made me create this open letter. I may be wrong to some or right to others. Whichever side, have just made my view and opinion known.


To Pro Domainers Responding To Threads :

First, you deserve accolades and appreciation for doing your best to help starter domainers. You deserve nothing than a heart of gratitude and big THANK YOU!

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ ON: The term Pro does not target any specific namepros badge like "Pro" "VIP" or others.

I am of a belief, no matter how well experienced you are or claim to be in the domain business. Each name is unique and you can not always 100% invalidate a domainers portfolio because they seem not to go inline with what you think works.

Considering my experience in SEO, there are authority tools that tell you a keyword is 0 search volume and waste of time writing on it. Then, you follow your instinct or just simply ready to explore new grounds and break the limits not minding the risks - Only for that same keyword article to explode later bringing you an organic traffic fortune.

In the domain world, one man's food is another man's poison and so another man's poison fit well as a favourite for another. For example, I can't imagine myself eating animals like a Lizard or Scorpion due to my Nigeria background which made them plenty and playing around us daily because we don't see them as edible but I think that is opposite for a Chinese man.

So, will encourage pro domainers - Please, don't always throw a blanket ban on other domainers portfolio especially starters.

It's good you let them know that some of their choices may not be right but at the same time let them realize if they do their homework well and discover something not known by most including yourself worthy enough for them to take the risk, then they should do in as much as they are ready to bear the consequences.

Mind you, just like @Bob Hawkes stated in this thread https://www.namepros.com/threads/an-inquiry-come-a-day-after-handreg-a-name.1166010/page-2 , a domain is just a year experiment.

If you see that it does not worth it, you have a whole 12months to test the market and easily drop it just by simply avoiding renewal.

You have not trapped except if you go overboard with reg for 5 to 10years at a go which a smart domainer will not do for uncertain domain names.


To me, Domain is like exploration, don't cage anyone's mind....... let's all explore and diversify....it makes our domaining world more exciting and goes round.

Love you all

I'm not sure what exactly the complaint is. Looking at some of the domains you're selling on your site:

New-Balance574.com

Soccer--Shoes.com

QuickDir.info

Lasix-Online-Furosemide.info

etc.

First, if you ask for opinions on a forum, you might actually get some. But then you can't complain about them, because it'll run the range. Some may like your names, some may not. Some might be short, get to the point, not go into it very much. Some may respond with book length type responses. That's the way it goes.

As far as domains like the ones above, most are going to say they're not good. Trademark issues, double dashes, names that don't make sense etc. These are not names I would touch.

The thing is, you're going at it from a different angle and it make work for YOU. I have no idea the market for those type of names, you may. So if that's the case, I'm not sure why you would even ask for opinions or care.

Again, at the end of the day, you're either making money/profit or not. It's a very simple business to measure.

 

[Brands.International]

There is also another way to look at the criticism - maybe not so traditional and for sensitive people, but - some people even welcome criticism, and if it is not somehow coming, they are faciliating it.

For example, less then year ago I opened a thread here, and even paid $50 to people so THEY COULD CRITICISE my portfolio names. Needless to say, I got lot of heat coming from that, and it was not always pleasant. But I personally think it is very useful exercise - and if I do not have good arguments, I should really listen to critics .. it will save MY money at the end

PS: if you do it that way, be ready for some really hard comments and some heat - it is a part of the debate process, though and can be useful at the end.

 

[Ayodeji]

I don't know if there is more explanation to "taking domaining as a year experiment" idea. But I Personally believe that is a wrong way to look at this.

Domaining is a decade to lifetime decisions. It is better to get it right before you commit a lot to it, else you will live regretting it.

Never take domaining as a year investment or experiment. Else you will be desperate and make a lot of wrong decisions every year. Get names that will be valuable and can be kept for children and children's children.

That is the angle to look at domaining from.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I don't know if there is more explanation to "taking domaining as a year experiment" idea.

I think it came from the following that I said in another thread. It was not a statement about an entire portfolio, but rather to urge those who try a speculative niche as a part of that portfolio, to not automatically renew them without looking at evidence a year in. Here is my complete post, except the part making reference to a particular case. Hope that clarifies.
Bob

just wanted to stress when people do take a chance on speculative names it is important to not automatically renew. If no offers, no one else selling similar, often the right choice is not to renew. I think, possibly, there is too much of a mindset to automatically renew in our industry, whereas a periodic critical evaluation might lead to different response.

 

[Laguna]

I think the only criticism professionals should give is constructive criticism. To tell someone on an open platform that all their domains are rubbish is so damaging. Yes we need to know where we are going wrong, I get that. I myself have been told I have nothing worth anything other than reg fee. However, I know I will make sales. It's just a case of when. I just wish people would research something before they say it's rubbish. Maybe thinking outside the box is a good thing now and then. Just my own opinion of course.

Peace

 

[Blitzpotz]

I did not read such a thought- and respectful thread opening for a long time @oskaaay

This spirit brings value to the forum. Your domains may be not best on the market but who cares. You are convinced of your abilities, your passion and your tools, so just continue.

99.9 % of Namepros members (estimation) are only trying to sell their inventory. They never take part in discussions like this one. This must be 99.8 % of all domainers because we have learned in this thread that the most important ones do not even have a Namepros account.

The remaining members/domainers are those engaging in threads like this. Let me call them the dirty dozen, though they seem to be two or three dozens big. It doesn´t matter if you feel supported or criticized by their posts, they just donate their opinion and experience and do not try to sell to you.

Stay as you are: extraordinary and intelligent. And improve your name choice skills (by continuing to ask, promote and doubt). I can tell you this is life-long learning.

 

[Lox]

So who is behind that username or avatar?

One of the difficult things about domaining compared to most industries is that for the most part you don’t know much if anything about the person you are conversing with, getting advice from. There are exceptions of course, people get to meet people at domain conferences, (though no one has on their badge, I am broke or I am a scammer). There are also high profile domainers who share a lot and use their real name.

Opinions or advice without knowing anything behind the person giving them are pretty empty imo.

You get people who give opinions on names in appraisal sections and you have no idea if they know anything about the industry said name belongs to. Do they know anything about linguistics, branding? No?

The value of that opinion is reg fee, like so many domains are appraised at reg fee. The theory for some goes if someone paid $9 for it then it can’t be worthless, others would differ in their opinion. So the same goes for people, you have the right to speak and to give an opinion, but it equates to reg fee.

Same goes with negotiation advice, some people give very bad advice in forums and blog comments. For the person seeking negotiation advice, all they know is MetallicaFan has a sweet avatar but might not even know how to negotiate for an extra .50 an hour at their job.

The worst advice in my opinion, comes from those anonymous sources who are giving legal advice. “You tell that company to go f themselves!” “I would ignore it, you have every right to own a name with Instagram it.” Yeah might be better to contact Berryhill or Lieberman. The truth is most domainers who participate on forums and blogs know very little to nothing about TM law and intellectual property.

Another thing that happens with not knowing the people you interact with is there are many false narratives that get built up.

This is Domaining When The Legend Becomes Fact Print The Legend

One tidbit that surprised a lot of people came up in the CQD.com case on Namepros. James Booth had unknowingly bought a stolen domain, that belonged to a lady in Florida.

One of the hot takes of that thread was some people who never met or knew anything about Mr.Booth, declaring he was a millionaire and that he should just eat the loss, he can afford it.

To which Mr. Booth posted:



I had a couple people say to me they were flabbergasted that Booth was not a millionaire. I asked the one person if they ever met James or knew anything about him? They just figured that they saw him mentioned on Namepros and DNJournal so he was rich.

You have to do your homework in the business and verify from more than one source if you are going to spend money, or make a deal.

There was a recent thread on Namepros where someone was going to make a large purchase for a domain name because of a previous sale that they saw mentioned. The sale was not a sale but just an auction close that never got paid. You can read it here, it’s long and sometimes confusing.

The takeaway is not confusing though, you need to do your homework thoroughly, you need to be meticulous before making a decision that affects your domain business.

In this business no one really knows a lot about anyone. Hopefully you know yourself and go from there. Best of luck.

Always! Take your time to learn the whole truth about ... ! There are many different pieces / trails that make up the whole picture.

 

[elevator]

This is nothing more than creating awareness.IMO Period

 

[Samer]

Time will tell. Stay true to you, no excuses.

Samer

 

[donnied79]

I strongly disagree with the main point of your post.
I mean, we all must be polite with each other, this is the foundation of being a decent human being, not a domainer.
But apart from that domain regs are not experiments, but investments. And I wish I would have had someone to be even harder on me when more than 10 years ago I was regging .asia or .im domains.
It would have saved me a lot of money.
At that time you could buy a random LLL.com for mid X.XXX and I could have bought a couple of them instead of regging crap.
Add to this that most of the time when a new domainer ask for an advice on his new .crap domains and someone politely reply "they are worth zero" the new domainer doesn't accept the advice because it's attached to the investment he just made (doesn't happen all the time obviously).
So I think we must be even more direct giving advices.

 

[oskaaay]

I did not read such a thought- and respectful thread opening for a long time @oskaaay

This spirit brings value to the forum. Your domains may be not best on the market but who cares. You are convinced of your abilities, your passion and your tools, so just continue.

99.9 % of Namepros members (estimation) are only trying to sell their inventory. They never take part in discussions like this one. This must be 99.8 % of all domainers because we have learned in this thread that the most important ones do not even have a Namepros account.

The remaining members/domainers are those engaging in threads like this. Let me call them the dirty dozen, though they seem to be two or three dozens big. It doesn´t matter if you feel supported or criticized by their posts, they just donate their opinion and experience and do not try to sell to you.

Stay as you are: extraordinary and intelligent. And improve your name choice skills (by continuing to ask, promote and doubt). I can tell you this is life-long learning.

You are much appreciated too. I will continue to try my best to remain myself, real and authentic. thanks for the feedback

 

[oskaaay]

I'm not sure what exactly the complaint is. Looking at some of the domains you're selling on your site:

New-Balance574.com

Soccer--Shoes.com

QuickDir.info

Lasix-Online-Furosemide.info

etc.

First, if you ask for opinions on a forum, you might actually get some. But then you can't complain about them, because it'll run the range. Some may like your names, some may not. Some might be short, get to the point, not go into it very much. Some may respond with book length type responses. That's the way it goes.

As far as domains like the ones above, most are going to say they're not good. Trademark issues, double dashes, names that don't make sense etc. These are not names I would touch.

The thing is, you're going at it from a different angle and it make work for YOU. I have no idea the market for those type of names, you may. So if that's the case, I'm not sure why you would even ask for opinions or care.

Again, at the end of the day, you're either making money/profit or not. It's a very simple business to measure.

If you check domains like that on my website they have an annotation in the front under the domain list table which clearly advises potential buyers that domains like this are best to be used to boost your dofollow backlink profile as 301 redirections not to be used as the main domain on the frontend. With that, you enjoy their SEO features without issues with a trademark or irritating your website users

 

[oskaaay]

Just like in Brandables, most short names are scares and when found are costly. So is SEO featured domains, most times the domains with the best SEO features are not the sweet names.

So, one does have to then choose which is your priority over another. Sweet brandable with no or less SEO value or less or no brandable with full SEO value that can make a website of 1-month delivery the kind of organic traffic for your quality content that new domain can only dream of at 2years+ of running the site.

Everything boils down to end-users preferences and needs or just wants.

 

[lock]

Can you see the difference between speculation vs fact vs spamming.

If I am to speculate on a keyword I will buy every single word I want to go with it before I open my mouth.
This is true *speculation* even if previous sales history is low I am putting own balls on line.

Then there is *fact* I buy keywords to go along with my niche that have some proven sales history with similar niches with sales some are just easy to spot sales bread and butter lines.

If user is only *spammer" and registered a few domains but tells everyone about the niche being so valuable but has nothing to back it up. Idea is to inflate a price that doesn't exist.

If truly a *speculation" they would have cleaned it out keywords and first made sales. Now seems to be a bit of confusion whether or not you agree with the first some feel they can speculate and spam without proof and others should just follow.

 

[oskaaay]

Can you see the difference between speculation vs fact vs spamming.

If I am to speculate on a keyword I will buy every single word I want to go with it before I open my mouth.
This is true *speculation* even if previous sales history is low I am putting own balls on line.

Then there is *fact* I buy keywords to go along with my niche that have some proven sales history with similar niches with sales some are just easy to spot sales bread and butter lines.

If user is only *spammer" and registered a few domains but tells everyone about the niche being so valuable but has nothing to back it up. Idea is to inflate a price that doesn't exist.

If truly a *speculation" they would have cleaned it out keywords and first made sales. Now seems to be a bit of confusion whether or not you agree with the first some feel they can speculate and spam without proof and others should just follow.

True there are those that don't even have a focus in domaining....they just believe they can gamble here and there and win the lottery

 

[Bernard Wright]

I think the truth hurts sometimes, but we should be pursuing truth in our communications on this forum. I'm grateful for the pro opinions shared by NP veterans and I respect them for their contributions which have made NP the place for sharing and learning about domain investing. I've been a member for nearly a year and I'm outspoken about certain topics, but one thing remains consistent; I approach these boards with humility and awareness that I am a novice with a lot to learn.

MrAcidic mentioned "entitlement" a while back. I think that's a relevant word. I think this topic reeks of entitlement and a lack of respect for the veterans who contribute their thoughts and opinions ...and experience, to noobs with very little to offer in return, voluntarily.

I don't like it.

 

[Tunababa8v]

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
– Neil Gaiman

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.
So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

Personally I appreciate all kinds of criticism and learn from them. And every day I visit namepros to read all kinds of posts just to know the mindset of people who had been in domaining before me, I read where they appraise, where they criticize( either constructively or otherwise) other members and I have seen results.