Year 2 in Domaining — From Excitement to Strategy

[MrBahCa]

Two years ago I jumped into domain investing.
Today, I’m at 535 domains.
This year wasn’t about hype.
It was about structure, data, and long-term scaling.

Portfolio Snapshot:

• Portfolio size: 535 domains (was 300 last year)
• Total investment to date: $21,000
• Avg acquisition cost: ~$36/domain
• Domains sold (2 years): 8
• Annual STR: ~1%
• Avg gross sale price: ~$2,127
• Avg net sale price: ~$1,701
• Total gross revenue: ~$17,015
• Total net received: $13,612
Almost all sales came from @Afternic
One sale from @Sedo
One sale from Dan
@Afternic clearly wins for exposure and conversion in my case.

A Surprise Platform This Year:

One of my best surprises of 2025 was @unstoppableweb .
Because of their promotional offers and Domain Member Club model, I progressively moved a large portion of my portfolio there.
Today, ~65% of my domains are held in my Unstoppable account.
What I appreciate:
• Competitive pricing
• Domainer-friendly initiatives
• Constant platform improvements
• Responsive support (special thanks to @ntropiq )
They’re clearly building long term — and I like aligning with platforms that think long term.

What Changed This Year:

Year 1 was emotional.
Year 2 became mathematical.
I now look at domaining like this:
• If AVG sale price moves to $2,500–$3,000
• If STR increases to 1.3–1.5%
• Even with acquisition cost rising to $60–$70
The model becomes exponentially stronger.

At 535 names:
1.5% STR = ~8 sales/year
At $3,000 avg = $24,000 gross/year.
That alone makes the portfolio self-sustaining.
This is where compounding starts.

Key Realizations:

• Name selection is everything. The money is made in the buy.
• Scaling requires stomach. There are >60 day dry spells.
• Average acquisition cost will rise over time.
Cheap inventory builds cash flow. Better inventory builds future upside.
• .COM is still king but I’m slowly studying selective alternative extensions.

Marketplace Insight:

I tested different landers.
For my portfolio:
@Afternic = highest sell-through
@Spaceship = I haven’t moved all my domains there yet, but I’ve already received two four figure offers. It looks promising and I really like the self-brokering option and lower commission fees.
@Sedo = occasional sell
@atomHQ = Beautiful UX and features, but the exposure has been less consistent for me. I haven’t moved many of my domains to Premium or used their nameservers for most of my standard listings but I’ll definitely be using them more and more.

Data > opinion.

Personal Note:

Balancing domaining with family life and a full-time job isn’t easy.
But building digital assets that scale over years (not weeks) changes your perspective.
This is not a get rich quick game.
This is asset accumulation.

2026 Vision:

• Raise AVG sale price
• Improve quality
• Be more selective
• Increase STR
• Let reinvestment compound
By 2027/2028, this portfolio should look very different.
Domaining is volatile.
But calculated risk + reinvestment + patience = leverage.

Wishing you all strong closes and smart buys this year.
What would you improve if this was your portfolio?

 

[MrBahCa]

The key is whether these alt extensions are owned by end users or domainers.

In most cases, the extensions are held by end users although I’m not sure whether it’s the same end user or different ones as I haven’t checked in detail. Most of these extensions are not developed but usually only one to three at most.
I also hold several trend domains, especially keyword + AI names in .com and keyword .ai, which I believe have strong potential in the near future, such as Quantexai•com, neurotradeai•com, meyai•com, quotexai•com, Qpa•ai, learnifyai•com, ai-infra•com (with a dash but it’s a large market) ...

 

[fka1080405]

Domain name investing is a zero sum game and I do not want to give away my strategy so this'll be a little obtuse. My profit over my first 12 months was around $100k on a few thousand dollars of initial investment. I have owned domains for 20 years as an internet person but I only started buying and selling at the end of 2024. Every domain I have sold is a domain I acquired since starting. And with that background in mind, I'll disagree a little with @bmugford.

If you are starting off with very little capital, I do not think you need to buy more expensive domains, in fact, I think expensive domains are a trap. As an investor, the price you pay for a domain name is dictated by other investors. And other investors have priced their perception of the value in. If every investor believes that a domain can be sold for at least $5k then the price of that domain is going to be thousands of dollars. And as sell through rates are very low, how many multiples of thousands of dollars do you need before you can get a sale?

The edge you have, and where you will make your money, is in strategies that are yours. In a zero sum game, you want to be competing with less people, not more. People like @bmugford are the perfect example of this: they invested in excellent domain names decades ago when they were ahead of the curve, they were competing with very few people. People like @bmugford did not start by spending thousands of dollars on each domain, they spent a few dollars on registering the domain and then a few dollars each year on renewal.

I've experimented with expensive domains (by reinvesting profits) and cheap domains. I have found no correlation between acquisition cost and the profitability or sell through rate. I have a number of very nice domains that I spent thousands of dollars on, that I know are nice because people try to buy them, but the offers are barely 1x what I paid. If you pay $2,500 for a domain and sell it 6 months later for $5,000... you've done very bad. The opportunity cost of that is huge.

The questions to think about are...

How many end users are able and willing to spend $1,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $10,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $100,000 on a domain?

How much do you need to sell a $10 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $100 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $1,000 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?

I think there are lots of end users willing to spend $1,000 on a domain. Even investors are willing to pay that. If all of your domains cost $10 then you can easily remain profitable with a 1% sell through rate. If all your domains cost $1,000 then you're going to be struggling.

My belief is that price is a very bad signal for an investor. You should never evaluate a domain name based on acquisition price. You should evaluate a domain name independent of price and then you make a y/n decision based on the acquisition cost.

For example, if your sell through rate is 1% and you think you can sell a domain name for $5,000, that means your acquisition cost needs to be below $50 to have a break even portfolio. Even if you think the domain is wonderful, if it is more than $50, you must pass on it. Even if an investor is liquidating their portfolio and you think the domain name is amazing, you must pass.

Regardless of price, if you want to succeed, you need to buy good domains. You need to develop a sense for whether someone is going to want to buy a domain name. If you look at price, all you're looking at is what other investors think. And, if you want to make money, you need other investors to be idiots. You need other investors to be a bunch of fools making terrible decisions.

Oh, and for people who are starting out, I think one of the biggest risks is the sunk cost fallacy. You acquire a domain name and it becomes an albatross around your neck. Every year it is renewed because it was renewed the year before. Every time a domain is due for renewal, you have 12 months more information than you had the last time you paid for the domain. How likely is it that you still think that unsold domain name is worth the renewal cost?

I'm currently going through this renewal review process with my earliest domains, and less than half are being renewed, in fact, probably less than 25% of my domains will be renewed based on what I've learned in the first year of that domain's ownership. And some of these domains that I am dropping are domains I spent hundreds of dollars on!

So in conclusion: you can absolutely be profitable in your first year. Personally, I'd be seriously reconsidering things if I was losing money. Selling 8 domains in 2 years on a portfolio of 500 is not good. An average sale price of ~$2k is an okay starting point, though, if those domains were acquired for $40 each, not great but okay, something you can work with.

Until you're profitable, forget spending more on individual domains, you need to focus on improving your volume. You need to be moving a lot more domains. The hardest part of domain name investing is finding domains that someone will want. Negotiating from $2k to $5k is easy compared to finding a domain name that someone is willing to pay even just $100 for. If you can build a portfolio of domains that people want, everything else is easy.

The strategy of buy-and-hold-for-a-decade used by people like @bmugford is a fantastic strategy, the best, unfortunately, you can't engage in that strategy because it is 2026. Registering 500 domains and losing money year over year expecting that in 10 years you'll become profitable is all but guaranteeing a big loss.

Most of my domains have strong wholesale or auction potential. Many are carefully selected, for example: several are registered in 5+ extensions.
Recently, while analyzing auction markets i realized that if I listed some of these names i could likely sell them for at least 4× my acquisition cost. I also own around 40 .com domains that have been registered in more than 10 extensions for over a year.

You are almost certainly wrong. Investor auction and wholesale volume is extremely low. There are basically no buyers. If you are able to sell any of your domains to an investor, you're doing better than most. I highly recommend running some experiments, auction off some domains, list some for wholesale. You might find that actually, you have a really good sense for where auction and wholesale values lie, that might be your unique advantage, but more likely than not, you're just wrong. I learned some very expensive lessons during my own experiments with auctions.

If you do find that your assumptions are correct, that you do have a nose for auctionable domains, and can sell domains for 4x your acquisition cost to other investors, do it. Forget everything else, do that. 4x guaranteed returns is great.

 

[MrBahCa]

Domain name investing is a zero sum game and I do not want to give away my strategy so this'll be a little obtuse. My profit over my first 12 months was around $100k on a few thousand dollars of initial investment. I have owned domains for 20 years as an internet person but I only started buying and selling at the end of 2024. Every domain I have sold is a domain I acquired since starting. And with that background in mind, I'll disagree a little with @bmugford.

If you are starting off with very little capital, I do not think you need to buy more expensive domains, in fact, I think expensive domains are a trap. As an investor, the price you pay for a domain name is dictated by other investors. And other investors have priced their perception of the value in. If every investor believes that a domain can be sold for at least $5k then the price of that domain is going to be thousands of dollars. And as sell through rates are very low, how many multiples of thousands of dollars do you need before you can get a sale?

The edge you have, and where you will make your money, is in strategies that are yours. In a zero sum game, you want to be competing with less people, not more. People like @bmugford are the perfect example of this: they invested in excellent domain names decades ago when they were ahead of the curve, they were competing with very few people. People like @bmugford did not start by spending thousands of dollars on each domain, they spent a few dollars on registering the domain and then a few dollars each year on renewal.

I've experimented with expensive domains (by reinvesting profits) and cheap domains. I have found no correlation between acquisition cost and the profitability or sell through rate. I have a number of very nice domains that I spent thousands of dollars on, that I know are nice because people try to buy them, but the offers are barely 1x what I paid. If you pay $2,500 for a domain and sell it 6 months later for $5,000... you've done very bad. The opportunity cost of that is huge.

The questions to think about are...

How many end users are able and willing to spend $1,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $10,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $100,000 on a domain?

How much do you need to sell a $10 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $100 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $1,000 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?

I think there are lots of end users willing to spend $1,000 on a domain. Even investors are willing to pay that. If all of your domains cost $10 then you can easily remain profitable with a 1% sell through rate. If all your domains cost $1,000 then you're going to be struggling.

My belief is that price is a very bad signal for an investor. You should never evaluate a domain name based on acquisition price. You should evaluate a domain name independent of price and then you make a y/n decision based on the acquisition cost.

For example, if your sell through rate is 1% and you think you can sell a domain name for $5,000, that means your acquisition cost needs to be below $50 to have a break even portfolio. Even if you think the domain is wonderful, if it is more than $50, you must pass on it. Even if an investor is liquidating their portfolio and you think the domain name is amazing, you must pass.

Regardless of price, if you want to succeed, you need to buy good domains. You need to develop a sense for whether someone is going to want to buy a domain name. If you look at price, all you're looking at is what other investors think. And, if you want to make money, you need other investors to be idiots. You need other investors to be a bunch of fools making terrible decisions.

Oh, and for people who are starting out, I think one of the biggest risks is the sunk cost fallacy. You acquire a domain name and it becomes an albatross around your neck. Every year it is renewed because it was renewed the year before. Every time a domain is due for renewal, you have 12 months more information than you had the last time you paid for the domain. How likely is it that you still think that unsold domain name is worth the renewal cost?

I'm currently going through this renewal review process with my earliest domains, and less than half are being renewed, in fact, probably less than 25% of my domains will be renewed based on what I've learned in the first year of that domain's ownership. And some of these domains that I am dropping are domains I spent hundreds of dollars on!

So in conclusion: you can absolutely be profitable in your first year. Personally, I'd be seriously reconsidering things if I was losing money. Selling 8 domains in 2 years on a portfolio of 500 is not good. An average sale price of ~$2k is an okay starting point, though, if those domains were acquired for $40 each, not great but okay, something you can work with.

Until you're profitable, forget spending more on individual domains, you need to focus on improving your volume. You need to be moving a lot more domains. The hardest part of domain name investing is finding domains that someone will want. Negotiating from $2k to $5k is easy compared to finding a domain name that someone is willing to pay even just $100 for. If you can build a portfolio of domains that people want, everything else is easy.

The strategy of buy-and-hold-for-a-decade used by people like @bmugford is a fantastic strategy, the best, unfortunately, you can't engage in that strategy because it is 2026. Registering 500 domains and losing money year over year expecting that in 10 years you'll become profitable is all but guaranteeing a big loss.



You are almost certainly wrong. Investor auction and wholesale volume is extremely low. There are basically no buyers. If you are able to sell any of your domains to an investor, you're doing better than most. I highly recommend running some experiments, auction off some domains, list some for wholesale. You might find that actually, you have a really good sense for where auction and wholesale values lie, that might be your unique advantage, but more likely than not, you're just wrong. I learned some very expensive lessons during my own experiments with auctions.

If you do find that your assumptions are correct, that you do have a nose for auctionable domains, and can sell domains for 4x your acquisition cost to other investors, do it. Forget everything else, do that. 4x guaranteed returns is great.

You’re right on most of your points. That said, I’m still only in my second year of investing. I spent at least the first six months buying low-quality domains while learning, followed by about five months without investing at all, so it’s still difficult to draw clear conclusions at this stage. I believe the next year or two will provide more data and better insights for decision-making.

I’ve also noticed strong interest in my domains, especially after activating Request Price landers on Afternic. I received some serious offers for 7800 $ gross, along with several smaller offers that I don’t really consider. I also had a mid 5-figure LTO sale canceled, another LTO that didn’t complete and an ongoing LTO with mid 3-figure monthly payments that I haven’t included in my results. If all these deals had closed successfully, the overall picture and performance data would look very different.
I know I hold some quality domains with real end-user demand but pricing remains the most challenging aspect. Recently, I’ve been averaging about one sale every 40 days and I currently have two offers under negotiation. While my average acquisition cost has increased because I often pay more to secure names that meet my criteria, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable domains for $50 or less.

 

[boker]

Domain name investing is a zero sum game and I do not want to give away my strategy so this'll be a little obtuse. My profit over my first 12 months was around $100k on a few thousand dollars of initial investment. I have owned domains for 20 years as an internet person but I only started buying and selling at the end of 2024. Every domain I have sold is a domain I acquired since starting. And with that background in mind, I'll disagree a little with @bmugford.

If you are starting off with very little capital, I do not think you need to buy more expensive domains, in fact, I think expensive domains are a trap. As an investor, the price you pay for a domain name is dictated by other investors. And other investors have priced their perception of the value in. If every investor believes that a domain can be sold for at least $5k then the price of that domain is going to be thousands of dollars. And as sell through rates are very low, how many multiples of thousands of dollars do you need before you can get a sale?

The edge you have, and where you will make your money, is in strategies that are yours. In a zero sum game, you want to be competing with less people, not more. People like @bmugford are the perfect example of this: they invested in excellent domain names decades ago when they were ahead of the curve, they were competing with very few people. People like @bmugford did not start by spending thousands of dollars on each domain, they spent a few dollars on registering the domain and then a few dollars each year on renewal.

I've experimented with expensive domains (by reinvesting profits) and cheap domains. I have found no correlation between acquisition cost and the profitability or sell through rate. I have a number of very nice domains that I spent thousands of dollars on, that I know are nice because people try to buy them, but the offers are barely 1x what I paid. If you pay $2,500 for a domain and sell it 6 months later for $5,000... you've done very bad. The opportunity cost of that is huge.

The questions to think about are...

How many end users are able and willing to spend $1,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $10,000 on a domain?
How many end users are able and willing to spend $100,000 on a domain?

How much do you need to sell a $10 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $100 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?
How much do you need to sell a $1,000 domain for to be profitable with a 1% sell through rate?

I think there are lots of end users willing to spend $1,000 on a domain. Even investors are willing to pay that. If all of your domains cost $10 then you can easily remain profitable with a 1% sell through rate. If all your domains cost $1,000 then you're going to be struggling.

My belief is that price is a very bad signal for an investor. You should never evaluate a domain name based on acquisition price. You should evaluate a domain name independent of price and then you make a y/n decision based on the acquisition cost.

For example, if your sell through rate is 1% and you think you can sell a domain name for $5,000, that means your acquisition cost needs to be below $50 to have a break even portfolio. Even if you think the domain is wonderful, if it is more than $50, you must pass on it. Even if an investor is liquidating their portfolio and you think the domain name is amazing, you must pass.

Regardless of price, if you want to succeed, you need to buy good domains. You need to develop a sense for whether someone is going to want to buy a domain name. If you look at price, all you're looking at is what other investors think. And, if you want to make money, you need other investors to be idiots. You need other investors to be a bunch of fools making terrible decisions.

Oh, and for people who are starting out, I think one of the biggest risks is the sunk cost fallacy. You acquire a domain name and it becomes an albatross around your neck. Every year it is renewed because it was renewed the year before. Every time a domain is due for renewal, you have 12 months more information than you had the last time you paid for the domain. How likely is it that you still think that unsold domain name is worth the renewal cost?

I'm currently going through this renewal review process with my earliest domains, and less than half are being renewed, in fact, probably less than 25% of my domains will be renewed based on what I've learned in the first year of that domain's ownership. And some of these domains that I am dropping are domains I spent hundreds of dollars on!

So in conclusion: you can absolutely be profitable in your first year. Personally, I'd be seriously reconsidering things if I was losing money. Selling 8 domains in 2 years on a portfolio of 500 is not good. An average sale price of ~$2k is an okay starting point, though, if those domains were acquired for $40 each, not great but okay, something you can work with.

Until you're profitable, forget spending more on individual domains, you need to focus on improving your volume. You need to be moving a lot more domains. The hardest part of domain name investing is finding domains that someone will want. Negotiating from $2k to $5k is easy compared to finding a domain name that someone is willing to pay even just $100 for. If you can build a portfolio of domains that people want, everything else is easy.

The strategy of buy-and-hold-for-a-decade used by people like @bmugford is a fantastic strategy, the best, unfortunately, you can't engage in that strategy because it is 2026. Registering 500 domains and losing money year over year expecting that in 10 years you'll become profitable is all but guaranteeing a big loss.



You are almost certainly wrong. Investor auction and wholesale volume is extremely low. There are basically no buyers. If you are able to sell any of your domains to an investor, you're doing better than most. I highly recommend running some experiments, auction off some domains, list some for wholesale. You might find that actually, you have a really good sense for where auction and wholesale values lie, that might be your unique advantage, but more likely than not, you're just wrong. I learned some very expensive lessons during my own experiments with auctions.

If you do find that your assumptions are correct, that you do have a nose for auctionable domains, and can sell domains for 4x your acquisition cost to other investors, do it. Forget everything else, do that. 4x guaranteed returns is great.

Regarding most of your points you are right. Regarding the fact that you don't need to pay more than $50 for a domain, I think it's wrong. I mostly hand reg, but if I would find a great domain, undervalued that I think I will sell for more than the sweet spot for hand regs (1k-4k) , I will pay. For example, a domain that was habd regged 2-3 years ago and the niche wasn"t trending and knowit"s hot or a domain owned 10-15 years by a small company that goes bankrupt and now it's dropped and on auction at $100, but you could find an end user at 7-10k, than it"s worth it. The main think is your capacity to recognize a good domain and to value it at a correct end user price. Also, you can use the interest of other domainers in what you are buying/selling as a judgement, to verify if what you value as an domain investor it's valid. If you buy 50 domains and put them for auction and you can't sell them to other investors for at least twice you paid for then, that could mean that you are doing a bad job evaluating domains. There are also exceptions, but 90% this is true. The main thing it's that is very hard these day to buy something dropped, undervalued, because there are thousands others checking the same drops, so the price is always higher than it should worth. There are some niche domains going under the radar, but that very rare.

 

[bmugford]

Domain name investing is a zero sum game and I do not want to give away my strategy so this'll be a little obtuse. My profit over my first 12 months was around $100k on a few thousand dollars of initial investment.

That's an extreme outlier example.

It's rare someone would start out, spend a few thousand on domains, and make six figures in sales.

The edge you have, and where you will make your money, is in strategies that are yours. In a zero sum game, you want to be competing with less people, not more. People like @bmugford are the perfect example of this: they invested in excellent domain names decades ago when they were ahead of the curve, they were competing with very few people. People like @bmugford did not start by spending thousands of dollars on each domain, they spent a few dollars on registering the domain and then a few dollars each year on renewal.

Not really.

I didn't even start properly investing in domains until after the Great Recession. I was not someone who had a portfolio of incredible generics that I registered in the 1990's.

I built my portfolio from almost nothing, with steady sales and reinvestment.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable domains for $50 or less.

Yeah, and that is exactly why I suggested looking at higher ranges also.

You will still be selective.

The vast majority of domains will not be worth investing in, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Every now and then you might find a gem.

Also, just looking at and analyzing more domains will only help your overall skills.

Brad

 

[boker]

That's an extreme outlier example.

It's rare someone would start out, spend a few thousand on domains, and make six figures in sales.


Not really.

I didn't even start properly investing in domains until after the Great Recession. I was not someone who had a portfolio of incredible generics that I registered in the 1990's.

I built my portfolio from almost nothing, with steady sales and reinvestment.

Brad

You are right, 2009 it"s not 1993, but it"s neither2025. Even when I"ve started in 2015, was easier than today. In 2009 it was cheaper to build a portfolio from auctions, even closeouts were $5 or so. And it was not the competition from today. Paying $200 for a domain at auction in 2009, would get you a valuable domain, paying $200 today, you would have big chances to overpay and to get a domain that you would have payed $0.99 at godaddy to hand reg in 2009.

 

[boker]

Yeah, and that is exactly why I suggested looking at higher ranges also.

You will still be selective.

The vast majority of domains will not be worth investing in, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Every now and then you might find a gem.

Also, just looking at and analyzing more domains will only help your overall skills.

Brad

Agree, you will get better, but it's very time consuming. You could bid at 100 auctions and not win 1 of them, because it isn't worth the final price. Every time when I decide to check tge auctions, the prices always seem inflated, rarely you can find a auction ended at a decent price, usually either very valuable, an lll or something with over xxxxx prices, to be prohibited for most users or a lower value, a com regged in under 10 other tlds, because most domainers are looking for a minimum of tlds taken or I notice most of them use a goddady appraisal over 3k to consider it valuable.

 

[Impactful.id]

Two years ago I jumped into domain investing.
Today, I’m at 535 domains.
This year wasn’t about hype.
It was about structure, data, and long-term scaling.

Thank you for your sharing

 

[URL Stream]

I notice most of them use a goddady appraisal over 3k to consider it valuable.

Interesting observation, because GD Closeouts appraisals are basically capped around $3K.

 

[URL Stream]

I only started buying and selling at the end of 2024. Every domain I have sold is a domain I acquired since starting.

I'm currently going through this renewal review process with my earliest domains, and less than half are being renewed, in fact, probably less than 25% of my domains will be renewed based on what I've learned in the first year of that domain's ownership.

I’m confused.

You claim you struck on a winning strategy from day one, and now you’re dropping it?

 

[URL Stream]

If you pay $2,500 for a domain and sell it 6 months later for $5,000... you've done very bad.

What other investment in the world can match that kind of ROI in six months?

 

[Impactful.id]

Agree, you will get better, but it's very time consuming. You could bid at 100 auctions and not win 1 of them, because it isn't worth the final price. Every time when I decide to check tge auctions, the prices always seem inflated, rarely you can find a auction ended at a decent price, usually either very valuable, an lll or something with over xxxxx prices, to be prohibited for most users or a lower value, a com regged in under 10 other tlds, because most domainers are looking for a minimum of tlds taken or I notice most of them use a goddady appraisal over 3k to consider it valuable.

I don't fully understand how GD valuations work. I previously owned two domains valued around $2k according to GD valuation tool. Currently, one domain is in HD and its valuation hasn't changed, while the other domain, currently used by a US-based digital marketing agency, has seen its valuation jump to around $3k. While the number of registered TLDs for both domains has not changed much.

 

[ontiscal]

I don't fully understand how GD valuations work. I previously owned two domains valued around $2k according to GD valuation tool. Currently, one domain is in HD and its valuation hasn't changed, while the other domain, currently used by a US-based digital marketing agency, has seen its valuation jump to around $3k. While the number of registered TLDs for both domains has not changed much.

$2k/$3K are in the same price range -> it's is a comparable estimate.
All appraisals give an indication.
Anyway I also suggest not to buy a domain in that price range, it's too low.

 

[fka1080405]

I’m confused.

You claim you struck on a winning strategy from day one, and now you’re dropping it?

The strategy involves being decisive. I have a theory about a name when I acquire it and if that theory isn't borne out then I will drop the domain. I could spend $10 per year renewing a name indefinitely... but if I have 12 months of data about the domain since I last paid for it, and that data provides no evidence that the domain is wanted by anyone, is that really the best use of that $10?

If I acquire "example.com" today because I think that "example" is a popular keyword with good promise and then over the next 12 months I receive no interest in the domain, I would probably drop it. And that is, in part, why the strategy works: each domain renewal is a 12 month opportunity to find a buyer. I am not buying domains to hold for 20 years, I am not burdening myself with renewals. I only renew if I would buy the domain again today.

Spaceship, for example, provides information about the popularity of keywords through their domain registration path. I know that "prompt" is a keyword searched 10x as often as "checkout" and 1000x as often as "ripes". I can use that information to determine that "prompt" is a much better keyword to spend money on than "checkout" and that spending any more money on "ripes" is a mistake.

What other investment in the world can match that kind of ROI in six months?

You cannot look at a sale in isolation, you have to look at sales in the context of a portfolio. If you have a 1% sell through rate and spend $2,500 on each domain only to sell each domain for $5,000 then you are deeply unprofitable. Yes, if you can buy a single domain today for $2,500 and sell it 6 months later for $5,000 then that is a fine investment... but that doesn't happen, most domains will never sell.

If we look at the way that domain names are bought, the acquisition price has no bearing on the sale price. So, comparing a 1 x $2,500 domain to 250 x $10 domains, that's 1 chance vs. 250 chances. An acquisition price of $2,500 only means that other domain name investors think that the domain has a chance of selling... but domain name investors are wrong on almost every domain. We make our money on the tiny fraction that we are right about.

 

[ontiscal]

I could spend $10 per year renewing a name indefinitely... but if I have 12 months of data about the domain since I last paid for it, and that data provides no evidence that the domain is wanted by anyone, is that really the best use of that $10?

Do you have a method for correlating your domain statistics with the sales rate?
Well then, you're a wizard as well as a rich man.

You cannot drop a domain just because you didn't receive an offer in 12 months ....

For sure you must consider acquisition price & selling price & sell rate & renewal fee to build a sustainable business.

 

[fka1080405]

You cannot drop a domain just because you didn't receive an offer in 12 months ....

There is a fear of missing out on a sale that informs your line of thinking. I am sure that some of the domains I drop will be picked up by someone else and sold. That's fine, I don't mind, I am not aiming to never miss a sale, I am aiming to make the most money overall. Regardless of my strategy, regardless of any strategy, we will always leave money on the table, whether that is with pricing or acquisition choices or by dropping a domain. I don't fear leaving money on the table.

Do you have a method for correlating your domain statistics with the sales rate?

Well then, you're a wizard as well as a rich man.

No, domain name statistics do not correlate with sales rate but they are one tool of many that can help inform. My highest traffic domains are no more likely to sell than my low traffic domains, but the traffic to the domains is very valuable information. I aim to be able to explain the who and the why of every potential domain sale, before I acquire. Every time I make a sale, it is another data point that I can use to inform my future decisions.

A fundamental truth of domain name investing is that most domain names are sold to end users through the registration path, e.g: a user searches for "example" at GoDaddy and finds "example.com" is available for sale. Knowing how many people are searching "example" is very useful information.

 

[BritFlippa]

Every time I make a sale, it is another data point that I can use to inform my future decisions.

Do you also track your dropped Names to see whether you were right when you bought them

or right when you dropped them?

 

[URL Stream]

My profit over my first 12 months was around $100k on a few thousand dollars of initial investment.

That's an extreme outlier example.

Can you share what percentage of the $100K came from your top-performing sales?

For example, the top three sales accounted for roughly 75% of the total revenue.

 

[muyama]

Very helpful especially me who just acquired first domain