Starting out in domain market

[rtnylw]

Hi,
I'm trying to get into selling/buying domains for profit. I've sold only 2 domains, and made $15 profit. I've done a decent amount of research, but I still can't seem to get, which domains are profitable, which aren't, so I got a couple of questions.

If I go to google and type in a combination of keywords and lets say I get 40,000,000 hits. And the keywords ware 'buy reptiles insects' Does that mean that the domain 'buyreptilesinsects.com' would be a good domain, even though it doesn't make much sense grammatically? Or I shouldn't make my assumptions based on search result count? Another example is workablehoursinayear.com, google returns 758,000,000 results, is that domain profitable?

I've noticed a lot of these high profit domains do not make sense. Personally, I wouldn't want to own a website with such domain, 'buyreptilesandinsects.com' would make much more sense, bet then again, it's longer. Which one would be a better domain? Yeah, I know it's a stupid question, but I just don't seem to understand which is a good domain, and which is not.

Another example, boxer-dog.org, it was sold for $449, but the domain doesn't make sence + has '-' in it and it's .org. I would think it's a bad domain, but it sold pretty good!

Only real way how I can see myself starting is to get a good starting capital ~$500, and buy good domains in auctions, that way I can be sure, it's a good domain etc..


Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[enlytend]

It's good that you're questioning the numbers. One of the best tools for domaining is common sense. Does the name sound right or wrong? Is it confusing to read or hard to spell? Who would benefit from owning the name and why? And how much would they realistically spend for it? If it sounds bad to you and you can't think of any reason anyone would want it, leave it and move on. If you can do that, you'll save yourself a lot of money.

Search results of the term IN QUOTES, tell you how many pages use the term. It's a vague indication of use, but not necessarily value. If the term brings up a lot of advertisers, it probably has some commercial value.

Use the Adwords Keyword tool. Pick "exact" match from the dropdown at the top right of the list (phrase match has value too, but use exact unless you fully understand the 3 match types). That will show you more about how many people search for (are interested in) the term, the range and depth of related, searched phrases, search trends over time, advertiser volume and average bids.

As for Boxer Dog:
It looks like that was a developed domain with existing backlinks / traffic - that has value too.

 

[Greg]

Nice answer enlytend. I agree that common sense is a trait of a successful domainer. Patience is also. rtnylw is starting out properly by doing his research and buying after he has the knowledge, something most new domainers don't do.

 

[nielsencl]

The advice given is good, but I just want to add a little more:

Many people talk about the results when you search in Google, and while this has a little meaning for me, I don't think it means as much as most people think.

When you search at most search engines, the default is a Boolean "and". What this means is that the results are going to be for pages that contain ALL of the search words, even if the words are scattered around the page and not all together as you might think. So a search for "workable hours in a year" entered without the quotes shows 213 million results. But entering WITH the quotes provides 2,530 results.

Yes, the results are very different and the only thing this tells us is that some web sites use this phrase in the exact format. It does not tell us if sites have a different version of the phrase, such as "work hours in a year" and other things that people may use for searching.

But even if there are large results numbers when you do an exact search, this does not mean anyone is using it to search with. For that, you need to use something like the Keyword Research Tool that was mentioned. One clue about the number of searches is if you also see a lot of paid ads for what you are searching for, but the ads may be targeted just one word in the phrase, so you can't count on that either.

Now, if you find a search phrase that has lots of searches, for an "exact match", that should be really good. Depending on the number of search page restults the domain with that phrase may show up in the results for that exact phrase search with only a little work to optimize the domain and this means it may do well as a parked domain.

But if you are wondering if the domain will sell well, that it harder to predict and may just take more experience to determine.

 

[rtnylw]

Thank you guys for the useful information. I'm going to do more research and then look for the right domain. Just don't want to risk and waste money on buying something stupid. Thanks!

 

[mwzd]

enlytend gives some very good advice.

I'll just add one point - when you purchase a domain think - "who would use this domain and for what".

Commercial viability is more important than pure search numbers. If you can't drive revenues from the domain its pretty pointless.

 

[garptrader]

Think why someone might go to a mall without really looking to buy _____ but a couple of hours later walks out with a new shirt, pair of shoes, cell phone, etc. Are you going to walk out of the mall spending $750 on clothes or electronics you weren't planning on buying a few hours ago? Are you going to spend even $100 on an odd-looking shirt designed for teens from the 70s?

Most businesses which would have any interest in acquiring a domain likely already have a web presence. Why would they want to spend money to acquire your domain? It has to be a perfect fit for their business, relatively short, not some obscure extension, a searched phrase, traffic domain or very brandable term and priced to sell. Seek high quality and don't go wild registering so-so domains. Yes, they only cost reg fee but you can't sell them and all those reg fee domains get VERY expensive.

 

[rtnylw]

Thank you, I took all of your suggestions and did a little domain hunt, this is what I came up with, they're really random, I didn't look for anything specific.

debatablequestions.com - a good domain for a forum
freezablefoods.com - for food company that sells stuff like hot pockets 8-X
If foods didn't had 's' at the end, I think it would be a really good domain.
drugsandcrime.com - ??

These domains seem to be somewhat decent:
findlifepartners.com (reallly good, if it didn't had 's' at the end)
findactivitypartner.com
findexercisepartner.com

These are the search term domains I found, non of them really stand out.
historychannelschedule.com
explanationsforglobalwarming.com
resumesforhighschoolstudents.com
recentlyreleasedalbums.com
bestsellingbooks2009.com
newlyreleasedsongs.com
placementtestforcollege.com
resumesforhighschoolstudents.com

recentlyreleasedalbums.com seems somewhat decent, but it doesn't have any potential, correct? It returns '56,100' results in quotes. Do any of these search phrase domains have any value to them at all?

I've read that domain age is important too. Is it because of the possible backlinks, etc..?
If I get an expired domain, the age 'resets' right?

Few more domains I found:
safetyingacar.com
trustinginthelord.com - religion related, doesn't seem that good

I found two more, that I think I could actually get decent money for. One of them has two words in it and I got '57,200,000' results in quotes. The other one is web design related.

So pretty much this is how it works. If I find a good keyword combination + it makes grammatical sense, if I check google keyword tool and see that there are for example 100,000 searches monthly for my exact keywords, does that mean It's a good domain and has some potential?

So what do you think? Am I heading the right direction? Could I make any money off some of these? Any feedback is much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[garptrader]

OK you did well trying to find .COM domains but most are too long and I just don't see anyone wanting to pay money for those. I doubt they have much search volume and even if there is some, most just don't seem to have commercial appeal. Sorry but believe me you need to learn early to focus on quality domains or you can easily blow hundreds or thousands of dollars on worthless domains noone will ever buy. Study the domains which sell at DNJournal every week and you'll get an idea (though some of those sales often don't make sense either). The competition for quality domains is intense but at least you are entering at a time when many domainers are dropping domains in mass quantities. Inevitably a few decent ones get tossed out as well.

 

[domainbartender]

I think you should stick to buying domains that are a maximum of 2 words. And not something like freezablefoods which isn't a term I would use in daily life, but frozenfoods.com.