advice Some things new domainers should consider

[JudgeMind]

Before hand registering any domain names you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Would I name my business or product this

2. Am I confident enough in the quality of this name to pay the renewal fee or to purchase a transfer to another registrar

3. Are there similar domains that have sold

4. If I spend an extra $10-$20 could I get a better name than this one

5. Are there any registered trademarks that registering this domain name would infringe upon.

follow this model when starting out and you will be ahead of the game.

cheers

JM

p.s - feel free to add to this list. Make your own list and follow it strictly. Once you discover the strategy that works best for you fine tune it and you will be successful

 

[Josytal]

7.) Buying and Selling goes hand-in-hand. Easy to buy, hard to sell. Do I have necessary knowledge and patience to sell profitably?

 

[darb]

Kind of ties in with #1, but:

6.) Ensure that you are 100% sure that you understand what you are registering.

Things get lost in translation, cultural differences, esoteric acronyms or letter/number combinations, etc.

 

[OhYeah]

I do not agree with 1'st & 3'rd.

As for 1'st: I've taken some names that I wouldn't use for my own business, but different clients have different tastes & many of them got sold. As for example I've sold a handful of "playful" style names that personally I don't like. However, there are many clients who love that.

As for the 3'rd: I've sold a lot of makeup related domain names couple years ago, but now I'm struggling to sell anything makeup related. These things changes. One day crypto is nothing for example, next day it's TOP1 thing in the news, everything has trends, tipping points & so on.

 

[xynames]

Too many domainers cringe at the prospect of paying say $200 for one quality domain but throw eagerly 1 - 9 dollars per handreg times 100 crappy domains.

Another phenomenon is a domainer’s willingness to pay .99 cents for a handreg but not $9. Why? Is the domain so crappy it’s not even worth spending the extra eight bucks? If so, why even pick it up.

 

[JudgeMind]

I do not agree with 1'st & 3'rd.

As for 1'st: I've taken some names that I wouldn't use for my own business, but different clients have different tastes & many of them got sold. As for example I've sold a handful of "playful" style names that personally I don't like. However, there are many clients who love that.

As for the 3'rd: I've sold a lot of makeup related domain names couple years ago, but now I'm struggling to sell anything makeup related. These things changes. One day crypto is nothing for example, next day it's TOP1 thing in the news, everything has trends, tipping points & so on.

you have been active since at least 2011, so you have had the opportunity to fine tune this and eye proper quality. This is directed towards new domainers, a baseline for them to start from. Thank you for your input.

 

[twiki]

As for the 3'rd: I've sold a lot of makeup related domain names couple years ago, but now I'm struggling to sell anything makeup related.

I have a similar issue, and I believe I figured out why. Generational change.

Millenials invest far less in anything appearance-related, far less than previous generations. They really don't spend too much on clothing, makeup and the sorts. Today a pair of trousers and sneakers are the norm. Furthermore, there is a ton of such products that you can order from Amazon and other places for cheap. Even directly from China (Aliexpress), if you're really cheap and agree to wait.

Therefore many of these vendors have far less cash to invest. Not worth it.

However, travels, adventure, outdoor are going pretty well and that's what I am moving to lately. Again, millennials focus on experience, so it makes sense. Older generations have kids, mortgages, paying for tuition etc = their money is used somewhere else. I wonder if the steep decline of US malls that I've read of (I'm in EU) isn't related to the same thing, it could be.

Edit: My jewelry-related domains are equally suffering. They won't sell, unless I price them dirt cheap. Think I might liquidate the stock and move on.

 

[TheFifty9Sound]

So, are you saying that I am making mistakes, or do you have any opinion at all regarding the domain names mentioned above. They say you should know your end user when you register a domain name, so the above example should be obvious to everyone...even those with 'badges'.

See. I did listen to some advice.

Keep-on-keeping-on.basketball

I was just making a general statement. Every newbie thinks their names are the bees knees until they've gone a year with no sales and are faced with a load of renewals.

But if you want my opinion on the above names:

I don't think tvstud.io is good. Two word hacks are hard to sell, and the general public doesn't "get it." If I was actually a TV studio, I'd want a domain that matched my studio name, or I'd maybe throw in a geo locator if we rent out etc - not a generic hack. It also doesn't pass the radio test and I doubt TV studio is a huge keyword.

VodkaCoffee.com or vodka.coffee is slightly better, but still has teeny-tiny target market imo. I imagine the only way this is going to sell to a Smirnoff or any other alcohol company is if they run a short term advertising campaign around a specific product. Even if that's the case, they're likely to include their own branding in the domain somehow, and because these things have a short shelf life, they often won't shell out loads for the domain (source: worked on many digital campaigns with many advertising agencies - including alcohol brands) and will drop it in a year or two.

If I was a new brand starting out making Vodka Coffee, I wouldn't put my business on that domain, because then I haven't given myself any room to grow. What if I want to start making Cinnamon Bourbon? It would no longer make sense. Instead I would go after something that matches my brand name, rather than a generic match to one particular product, or be more general about vodka if that's my niche.

The mostly likely use case in my opinion is a recipe / review site with some affiliate links. But I also don't see a lot of $$ in that. You need liquor licences etc to sell alcohol direct, and if I was going to go to that trouble I wouldn't pigeon hole myself into one flavour of one type of alcohol.

This is just me thinking aloud. If you have other ideas and you can find an end user all power to you. But they both fail point one in OP's post in my opinion, because I can't really think of a really solid case to put a business on either of them. And that's the most important point of the lot, again, in my opinion.

I'm also nobody, so no-one has to listen to me.

 

[gtldomainer]

Too many domainers cringe at the prospect of paying say $200 for one quality domain but throw eagerly 1 - 10 dollars per handreg times 100 crappy domains.

Agree somewhat but I think, its more about egg and chicken issue here. As a new domainer, I wanted to register a good domain but I didn't know what a good domain is, in the first place. The ones I could bet were priced at thousands (straight one worders or generic two worders), if not millions. So, I had to gain experience for which I tested my knowledge with hand regs as well as buying cheaper expired/auction names. It got better over time and now I believe, I can bet at least a few grands on a name, without too much risk.

HTH,

 

[Reddstagg]

biggest mistake new domainers make is called "handreg" lol

As a relative newbie myself, I find your comment to be as useful as a chocolate teapot.

This is just a generalised statement that helps no one. Maybe, sometimes it is better to say nothing at all.

I have had relative success with hand registering domain names, which fits in with my life, my financial situation and my limited knowledge of this industry.

Hand registering a couple of domain names for twenty bucks can be a big deal for some people and this should be taken into account when offering opinion.

Please tell us newbies how some of the names being offered for sale on NP by 'badged' domain investors are better than a hand reg for ten bucks.

We look forward to hearing from you.

 

[YairDD]

Don't register impulsively

 

[gtldomainer]

Before hand registering any domain names you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Would I name my business or product this

2. Am I confident enough in the quality of this name to pay the renewal fee or to purchase a transfer to another registrar

3. Are there similar domains that have sold

4. If I spend an extra $10-$20 could I get a better name than this one

5. Are there any registered trademarks that registering this domain name would infringe upon.

follow this model when starting out and you will be ahead of the game.

cheers

JM

p.s - feel free to add to this list. Make your own list and follow it strictly. Once you discover the strategy that works best for you fine tune it and you will be successful

Very useful indeed. thanks for sharing. Just want to add, ponder at least 5 minutes on why this name hasn't been taken already by all veteran domain investors before you and it will make more sense.

 

[JudgeMind]

Is this automated appraisal correct?

Just because an automated valuation tool spits out a value doesn't mean your hand reg is worth that number.

It may be above or below. Much more research is to be done by you

I would never follow an automated valuation tool. Godaddy appraised a name this year for $3800 and it was sold for $27,500. It’s best to compare to other sales and then set a price you feel is fair but market value or just above.

 

[awwalmb]

Thanks for the awesome tips.

 

[Sinbad]

8) Will I renew this domain if I couldn't sell in a year.?

 

[PeakDots]

Is this automated appraisal correct?

Just because an automated valuation tool spits out a value doesn't mean your hand reg is worth that number.

It may be above or below. Much more research is to be done by you

 

[lock]

1) Can I think of a buyer.

 

[dAvo]

Wow.

This has been painful to read.

I’m extremely guilty for hand regs.

I have sold a couple - but it got way out of hand.

I’m now at a point where i have no idea if I should renew or not.

Too many to decide. Too many to not want to drop. Irresponsible - yes!

So I’m throwing out a lifeline here.

Who’s willing to take a look at 1k domains, and give me some honest (painful) feedback??

So i can get on the right track.

(Even as a millennial)

Im ready to take a beating.
Seriously...

Who knows....

You could be making my family’s Xmas next year a decent one.

Peace out

 

[Reddstagg]

Too many domainers cringe at the prospect of paying say $200 for one quality domain but throw eagerly 1 - 9 dollars per handreg times 100 crappy domains.

Another phenomenon is a domainer’s willingness to pay .99 cents for a handreg but not $9. Why? Is the domain so crappy it’s not even worth spending the extra eight bucks? If so, why even pick it up.

Don't take this personally, but sometimes I have to laugh out loud at the advice that is being given to me and fellow newbies, although it is given with good intention.

Honestly, go take a look at some of the sh1t that is being sold for $200 on the NP selling pages by so called experienced or 'badged' domain investors.

Some of it is just sh1t, whilst others make no logical sense, for example: buybikinis.org or sh1tcrypto.com or ai-sh1t.io.

The one piece of good advice that I did take on board was to hand reg .coms, but sometimes the science outweighs the wisdom.

7 out of my top 10 (in terms of guesstimated appraised values) are everything else but .com and yet none of the so called experts can explain why.

The tools used for valuations purposes don't matter nor indeed the actual values when the same tool has been used for thousands of appraisals.

Maybe, you will enlighten us newbies and explain it to us using small words and few syllables 'cos obviously we're all a bit stupid.

HoHoHo.dentist

 

[TheFifty9Sound]

The reality is, it doesn’t matter how many times you tell newbies this stuff, they rarely learn until they go and make these mistakes on their own. Trying to offload a bunch of low quality names or face a mountain of renewals you can no longer afford is the best teacher.

Speaking from experience.

 

[The Durfer]

Is it a 4L.com, if not then why isn't it?

 

[JudgeMind]

biggest mistake new domainers make is called "handreg" lol

 

[OhYeah]

True that too. Sorry, didn't notice first that this was posted in beginners section.

And yes, I've been into domaining since ~2007 I believe. My first tries were back then, when I was 17 yo.

 

[Prince. JOSEPH OWOR]

A very important must see Post for we beginners. If rightly followed newbies like myself wouldn't miss out on this sector. Thanks

 

[frank-germany]

....Maybe, sometimes it is better to say nothing at all.....

yes