When to "Pull the Trigger" on Political Domain Names? Opinions

[IAmAllanShore]

So, as someone who may own a number of domains that would greatly rise or fall in value based on the outcome of the primary elections in the US, as well as the result of the general election in November of 2008, what is the proper timing to sell?

I don't want to pull a KerryEdwards.com and lose a great opportunity to greed, but I have also sold a number of domains in the past year that would be doing better now that long-shots have moved into front/potential front runners.

Some domains are candidate's proper names, some mispellings of their names, and some just nonsense domains that none-the-less may have value if a particular candidate wins their primary (ie: WeAreThePresident dot com , Fro bama dot comm, etc.). Would this change your timing?

I currently am choosing the option of "wait and see", but am as of yet unsure if I might be better off selling the names now rather than risk the candidates fading into obscurity...

Opinions? Others with political names? Anyone whose bought one from me in the last year and wants to rub in the fact that McCain ended up winning New Hampshire

-Allan :gl:

 

[domainer50]

I say wait. Your either going to get lucky and hit the jackpot. Or your not going to make anything.

 

[Spade]

Allan,

I think you pointed out the obvious problems with this type of domain speculation. Its a tough bet, and the ROI needs to be maximized at the proper time. Just too bad, its so hard to know when that is! I own one single domain related to the Presidency, and it has nothing to do with the outcome of the election. Personally... I think you should sell now without regrets. Take what you can, while you can in this particular niche.

Justin

 

[Work In Progress]

Well, I have several ...all related to Obama, but none are presidential specific. The way I see it, even if he loses, that young whipper-snapper won't be going away anytime too soon. I'll play the wait and see card unless Hillary decides to cough up some green...or anyone else, for that matter :hehe:

If not, I'll hold 'em until next time...no hurry...

 

[TheBulldog]

Depends on how good they are.

Obamaforpresident.biz? Sell now.
Ovama.com? hold for now.

Really hard to say without seeing some examples. If I had Ron Paul or Fred Thompson domains(sorry supporters, they just don't seem viable right now), I would dump them, same for Rudy, and anyone in the dems that is not Obama, Hillary, or Edwards.

Now, if I had Al Gore domains, I would hold on to them. As someone who grew up with parents who were sought after for fund raising abilities, I got to know the party. I even got to meet "The Bill" before he met Flowers. I am now a complete cynic, but I have a suspicion there is a bit of back door chats going on with Al, and could spell surprise for lots of people. Just a hunch, just a hunch.

That's my 2 cents

 

[filter]

[yakov smirnoff] In Soviet Russia, political domain name pulls trigger on you! [/yakov smirnoff]

an interesting dilemma ... sorry, I really have no good advice for you!

But I've always been a fan of the "Cthulhu for President - Why settle for the lesser of two evils!" bumper sticker ... If you can find some way to translate that sort of generic cynicism into a good domain name - well ... I guess that's a different area than what you're trying to figure out right now. Seems like a long shot - but if you hold a good one for each possible outcome, then just keeping them all until the dust settles might be your best bet - hopefully a decent return on the winner would make the reg-fee investments on the others seem like chump change.

Might want to reg a few "Demand Recount 2008" names too ... that seems to be an interesting trend in the last decade.

 

[cache]

wall street has buy on the rumors and sell on the news.

however if you sell your domain at the time when you know the news, it will be too late. Domain
is not liquid, so you need to sell a lot earlier.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Might want to reg a few "Demand Recount 2008" names too ... that seems to be an interesting trend in the last decade.

Good post - and Yakov rules, btw Seen him too many times to count and I still leave with my sides hurting!

The "Demand Recount" is funny to me, because at the last election it seemed that Virginia would need to be recounted, so I registered a handful of "RecountVirginia.com" etc., style names, and then the fink didn't even contest the results! (Despite it being closer than many where recounts were "demanded".)

Let's change the scenario to make it a little more clear. I own neither of these, but close approximates.

Let's say the domains are:

Obama.us
BarackObama.us
Barack08.com

Any difference in when you would pull the trigger based on the names?

-Allan :gl:

 

[domainer50]

A while back I registered votebush08.com. But then realized he cant get elected again I always thought that was funny.

 

[Source]

A while back I registered votebush08.com. But then realized he cant get elected again I always thought that was funny.

Unless Jeb were to run or the old man were to take another crack at it. He was a one hit wonder after all.

 

[domainer50]

Unless Jeb were to run or the old man were to take another crack at it. He was a one hit wonder after all.

Ya. I wish I knew you could get a refund on domains at that point in time. I would have gotten my money back! :td:

 

[Source]

Allan - Definitely now is the time to pull the trigger. Names need time to be deved and the interest is peaked right now with Super Tuesday right around the corner.

 

[JimmyRich]

I registered agoodpresident dot com, as I love poltics. This is definitely the time to get things rolling and what your options are out there.

Jim

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Allan - Definitely now is the time to pull the trigger. Name need time to be deved and the interest is peaked right now with Super Tuesday right around the corner.

I tend to agree - it will take a somewhat "bold" end-user as there is that "pucker-factor" when it comes to buying candidate names.

No idea why

ie:
GeorgeBush.us redirects directly to democrats.com; .net straight to a "suicide" website.

And since I don't own BarackObama.us nor do I own Obama.us, what would an approximate value for either of these be at this point in the game, considering him to be a "dead heat" for the Democratic nom, and considering Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Thompson or Giuliani for the Republican nom.

-Allan :gl:

 

[domainer50]

I would think obama.us would be worth a pretty penny. But who really knows.

 

[Dufkin]

Interesting posts

 

[notlikeyou]

Take a profit while the niche is hot, especially if you have any domains with dates or with the second/third tier candidates

 

[markts]

I have a couple of new generic political domains and have had a bit of success after I added some content. I have 60k uniques and 200,000 pages viewed so far this month.
A search of ‘compare democratic candidates’, ‘compare republican candidates’ or ‘compare presidential candidates’ in Yahoo yields a result in the first ten of over 40 million other sites These results are all basically the same in AltaVista, MSN, Google, Dogpile, Live, Aol and all the others. Adding just about any issue together in the search, ex: ‘compare republican (or democratic or presidential) candidates iraq’, (or immigration, age, family, or any other issue) and we just about always come up first.
It is only information and as of yet have not received a penny but they’re getting to the point that I can start something with them. I came out of the google sandbox with a 3 and expect a 5 next time around. I will probably use them to build up a few more site ranks – unless I get an offer worth while.
Politics sucks in general but generates traffic at least until we have nominees or the start of summer. Afterwards I have a couple more to carry me through until November general election.
I generally agree with some of the above comments – get rid of dates and anyone who is not a frontrunner after super Tuesday – if you can.

 

[Mike]

I just took the more generic route and registered "GOP12.org", in the hopes that this domain will be of interest for the '12 (2012) election. 4 years to go, but worth the gamble i think... or maybe not?

M.

 

[texasgamer]

I think you may get some more milage out of any Hillary or Obama names.
Probably time to pull the trigger on anybody that drops out of the race.
I probably will say bye-bye to my JeriThompson.info and hold onto RonPaulsblimp.com.