question Why is everyone told to just create brandable .com's

[Jason Baudendistel]

This feels like trying to win the lottery? Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

 

[Zanok]

I noticed that 90% of new investors are just trying to go for the homerun instead of slowly but surely determine what THEY can sell. In other words, what works for THEM. Shortcuts are not for everyone. You still need to have the right buyer at the right time!

Personally, I would rather know why I sold a domain that actually make sense for $199, than selling a random brandable domain for $3999 on SquadHelp without having any clue why this one has sold while hundreds other domains just like this one barely get any views at all in my portfolio.

In the long run, consistent sales are what make an investor successful.

 

[narek]

This feels like trying to win the lottery? Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

I personally prefer good other extension names(.org or .net) vs nonsense brandable .com. But it's me. I am buying and selling primarily brandable .COMs, because people buy them

 

[biggie]

This feels like trying to win the lottery? Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

Hi

per the title:

Why is everyone told to just create brandable .com's?

i'd like to know who is telling you this, and why are you giving it credibility?

also, if you're talking about "brandables"
then "the number of extensions taken" is irrelevant, for the end-user.

additionally, from a branding perspective, the more extensions taken for that term, could be a potential tm liability in future or it may be difficult to stand-out from the crowd of others with the same name.

as for whether to take the money now, the $500, or wait for a potential payoff years later for 4x previous offer....is each sellers' decision to make, at the time money is on the table.

for most of the long time domainers though, they tend to wait for what they think is best offer before letting go a quality domain.
nowadays, it's harder to replace comparable names back in your list for similar pricing in reseller/aftermarket venues.

imo...

 

[bmugford]

This feels like trying to win the lottery? Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

I think there are different levels to "brandables". Some brandables are high quality and already have a pool of potential end users. Others are random stuff like Plorpee.com.

It kind of reminds me of this -

There are billions of people on Earth, there are 170M+ .COM registered. It is not like there are many great brandables sitting there to hand register in 2022.

Brad

 

[VadimK]

I wouldn't hand reg them. These names look to me quite unnatural, they are like from a free generator list that you play with for free - nothing good comes up there in reality...
Maybe a couple like Crumla, CureKick are a bit better, but the rest - bad matches and for brandables - are too long and double lettered. Only by lucky punch can you sell them...

 

[BRANDERX]

Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

Sounds like you're referring to invented/made up random names with no meaning. I would advise against building a portfolio with those unless you've figured out how it works with one of the brandable marketplaces, which is basically quantity over quality for those types of names.

As to why not find keyword domains, sure, also two word brandables that can be considered keyword names make for great brands, many can be found expired & worth investing in. In my experience, one could build a quality over quantity portfolio with those names, without dropping the majority every year.

imo

 

[AEProgram]

Any good .com keyword domain is beyond the reach of most domainers. Some go to other extensions others try their hand at brandables.

 

[biggie]

Any good .com keyword domain is beyond the reach of most domainers.

Hi
and i would say that "domainers" already own most of the good .com keywords.

but some who are coming up in the game want them too but can't afford them or aren't willing to pay asking prices.

so, yeah, other extensions or the brandable thing, are the alternatives.
and that probably would be same choices for some businesses who aren't willing to pay sellers asking price.

imo...

 

[karmaco]

This feels like trying to win the lottery? Why not go find keyword domains that are missed or undervalued in other extensions? Obviously the keyword matters and it needs to be taken in multiple extensions but a 500 dollar flip now feels more realistic than maybe someone 10 years from now will pay me 2,000 for something I made up. Thoughts?

Because not everyone wants or can afford a dictionary word domain. Some like a name with personality. Shopify for example and they aren’t hurting because they didn’t get shop dot whatever to begin with. Its what branding is all about.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I think there are different levels to "brandables". Some brandables are high quality and already have a pool of potential end users. Others are random stuff like Plorpee.com.

...and the name in the OP's signature. That video is great, I haven't seen that before

 

[jmcc]

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding of what is "brandable" when it comes to how companies and businesses view things. A "brandable" from a business point of view is something in which it is worth investing time, money and effort but can be protected with a trademark or service mark. For .COM, it benefits from being the de facto US ccTLD. That does not mean that businesses outside the US think of it as being the first choice for anything other than a global TLD. Outside the US, there is a very obvious shift to the local ccTLDs for local businesses. Sometimes people get lucky with being able to flip brandables but many drop without ever receiving an offer.

Regards...jmcc

 

[BrandingGo]

with keyword rich domain you can't get top results.
e.g. search.com impossible to find it on the Google search results by "search".

I got a brandable "seachr.com" created a page and my domain on the 3rd place in Google when you searching "seachr". so brandables works.

 

[BrandingGo]

It kind of reminds me of this -

Funny video I have sold LaLaLah.com for $888 on Afternic a few months ago.

I think Elon Mask bought it because I have advertised it on his twitter under his post about which music he loves.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Because not everyone wants or can afford a dictionary word domain. Some like a name with personality. Shopify for example and they aren’t hurting because they didn’t get shop dot whatever to begin with. Its what branding is all about.

Shopify bought shop.app for $200,000 USD

They could buy the entire company of shop.com if they wanted to ...

Why didn’t they ?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Shopify bought shop.app for $200,000 USD

They could buy the entire company of shop.com if they wanted to ...

Why didn’t they ?

Cause .com is dead now.

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

Cause .com is dead now.

It’s not dead ... it’s just the domain industry altogether is lacking demand > as powerful as domains are ^ they should be way above the NFT market - makes no sense actually

 

[biggie]

as powerful as domains are ^ they should be way above the NFT market - makes no sense actually

Hi
my logic would be that:

nft got and continue to get, the media headlines... that domains don't get, in comparison.

they are hyped more than domains, to the General Public - despite the fact that every referral link about nft goes to a domain name.

they see nft as a thing to possess, and the domain name as the place to go to acquire it, bid on it or just read about it.

and i kinda like it that way.

imo...

 

[MadAboutDomains]

It’s not dead ... it’s just the domain industry altogether is lacking demand > as powerful as domains are ^ they should be way above the NFT market - makes no sense actually

The domain industry is lacking demand?

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

The domain industry is lacking demand?

If you can’t see that, I recommend some new glasses or a monocle

The NFT “BAYC collection” alone has generated $5,000,000,000 in total sales / all from a digital picture of an ape ^ and here we are as domainers barely getting six figure sales nowadays / when we know that NFTs wouldn’t be a thing without domains in the first place,

When is the last time you saw someone here sell a multi million dollar name like bird.com / that wasn’t a hedge fund or a pro domain enthusiast ... we don’t see these stories anymore ^ SEO companies have taught Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies that domains don’t matter ^ and why do they do this ... why does a company like deserve.com or stripe.com or zebra.com spend tens of millions of dollars a month in marketing costs alone and who do you think is profiting the most ...

Meanwhile the search engines are telling these companies that keywords matter but these companies would rather spend $10M - $20M in marketing campaigns to brand their ridiculous domains as whatever their industry they represent

Some of the most valuable keywords online aren’t even be snatched up ^ doesn’t even matter the extension at this point, example - dogs.com is owned by Petsmart ... cats.com is still for sale

Smith & Wesson and Southwest Airlines passed on the chance to own SW.com and that name traded in China ...

blue.com - blue man group ? No, they didn’t understand it ...

VR.com and AI.com - still for sale