advice Registering domains for future trends

[A. Person]

Hi everyone, I'm pretty good with spotting technology trends early. I spend a lot of time researching them and a little while back I started registering domain names based on that research which I would like to sell once the trends go mainstream.

I have about 250 domains now and I'm wondering if I should be doing something with them besides GoDaddy CashParking which has not yielded a single penny. I'm toying with the idea of setting up a blog on my best domains and posting relevant info there as I find it during my research. Would that increase the resale value of the domains even if they don't attract visitors?

If I do that, should I forward each related domain to each blog?

I've been running an online store for many years so I'm no stranger to website development but I need this project to take up as little time as possible.

 

[A. Person]

Any help here guys? I don't plan to develop my domains long-term so I wonder if I'm hurting my chances at a sale by putting a minimal blog up on my best ones and forwarding my other domains to those. I wonder if that could dissuade a sale.

 

[Kate]

250 is a lot of domains, you can't seriously develop so many domains at a time.
Parking will yield nothing, because you don't have traffic (other than the bots). Pretty normal, no contents, no visits from real people. Try to find out which are your best domains (those that you want to keep) and which ones get a bit of traffic if any. Pruning your portfolio is the way to go unless you want to sustain a big renewal bill every year. Just don't expect to earn a lot from blogging/adsense either. Good luck.

 

[Brands.International]

250 domains means approx. 2500/year renewal fee if they are .com, or 5000 - 7500 if you are lucky to register new gTLDs with standard fees Or even more.

So I understood you are waiting for trends to happen, which is fine. But until those trends are here, it would be good if you can sell 2-3 domains/year for low XXXX to support your porfolio.

To do so, you can create selling page, and of course, redirect all your domains to that selling page. No harm to put your domains also to Sedo and Flippa, you can put them to Afernic or Uniregistry marketplaces too. And that is it, this all should not require more then few hours of initial setup.

 

[168]

"I would like to sell once the trends go mainstream"

3-9 year hold. 7-25k + fees. Do you have one that could sell for 25k+ ? just one ?
If so, contact a broker.
Check out Efty.com for landing pages while you wait.
List at major auction sites. Buy Now.
Price them now at "mainstream" value. You can always negotiate or say No.

Re-think the ones you don't get queries on before the next renewal.
Review comp sales.
Try to sell them here before they expire to at least get your money back.
Drop 25-50%
Follow, study the Domain industry. It is very different than selling products.
This is not a passive endeavor.
Yr 2 remaining domains,
Send a general interest email to companies that could benefit.
Be Prepared to wait 2+ more years if you think they are worth it.
Don't buy more till you have studied the domain markets.
Happy Hunting

 

[Cdomains]

New trends are always long holds and don't always pan out in the end unless you get in early with names that are really spot on.

Just because something is a trend doesn't automatically mean domains, especially keyword domains, will have a lot of value in the future.

 

[A. Person]

Thank you everyone. It sounds like putting up a basic blog on my best domains will not increase their value over time compared to just putting up a for sale sign. I thought that letting them age with a small amount of relevant content would be good for SEO later on but I guess not.

Domains are awesome and if I had free time I would dive in and get to know the industry inside and out, but I've already neglected too many business and personal responsibilities to get this far. I have to prioritize the things in my life and I can only dedicate a bare minimum of time to this endeavor. I need to go after the low-hanging fruit as far as buying domains, keeping domains (or not), increasing the value of domains (or not), and selling domains.

It sounds like buying domains based specifically on search keywords is dicey and maybe I should steer clear of that entirely. Keeping domains or not could be based on the number of inquiries and the amount of traffic they receive. If increasing a domain's value at all means rolling up my sleeves then that has to be out. Efty.com sounds like the best way to sell with minimum effort so that's what I'll do there.

 

[A. Person]

Maybe I should list them on a domain marketplace site along with putting up the Efty landing pages. Is there a best marketplace for this?

 

[Kuffy]

I've been experimenting with this for a few months now. I've got a core of about 200 names that I've been using. The first thing you need to do is to find a decent hosting company that will allow you to add a couple of hundred domains to your basic account. You also need to have a recent version of cpanel, and a free copy of softaculous. You can create a basic holding site like this in about 30 seconds, and that includes Google analytics - add 30 seconds if you want to create a new UI for the site.
http://bigends.com/

There are a lot of CMS software installers in Softaculous, and a photo gallery like this takes about 5 minutes to set up and customise.
http://jazzpics.com/
Of course it takes a lot longer to take the pictures and add them to the site.

I've tried blogs, forums, ecommerce sites, url forwarders and link lists, but the big problem with those is the spammers, and multiple membership applications. Often 100 from the same IP. It can take a lot to keep the sites updated. I closed the membership list for net barons, and I just use it for personal posts.

I've also tried to find some decent advertising revenue, and I'm finding that although script will support adsense, you can't use the free versions, but have to pay for upgrades. I applied to adsense for an account about two months ago, but I have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply from them.

 

[A. Person]

I'm not sure what you mean actually. I'm wondering which to choose between companies like Sedo, Afternic, etc. I'm steering this thread off course so I'll post a new thread.

 

[Abdillahi Abdillahi]

I'm not sure what you mean actually. I'm wondering which to choose between companies like Sedo, Afternic, etc. I'm steering this thread off course so I'll post a new thread.

I read many good.reviews and sales about Afternic these days but you can try both.

 

[168]

Maybe I should list them on a domain marketplace site along with putting up the Efty landing pages. Is there a best marketplace for this?

GoDaddy, Sedo, Uniregistry
The first two, your domains will show up at partner sites globally,
@ Uni - because they are good at what they do, if you get a query
at any of them you can negotiate yourself or hand it off to a broker
Also, add to the Who is for your domains " this site is for sale".
All of this shouldn't take more than a day total for a beginner,
Then your set till 90 days before renewal when you have to re-evaluate.
Don't wait till less than 30 days.
Cheers