Domain Names

Archive for January, 2011

Buying domain names and holding onto them has made a small fortune for a good number of people. Many domain name squatters pay less than $10 a year to hold names and some of these folks have a 1000 to 10,000 of them. Each time they sell a domain name they make money and a huge profit.

The other day someone wanted to get me involved in their business venture of buying domains, because they have not been able to sell very many recently due to the recession and they don’t have enough money to hold onto all these names.

In this case, would be a good investment to help them retain the domains and then take a percentage of the profit when they are sold? It might be a better investment to wait for other high quality names that people are dropping due to the recession. A good many very excellent domains are now available, and you can get some really good solid names. During the height of the economic boom, it was nearly impossible to get a good deal on a name.

It was as if everyone was holding them for ransom, as if they were gold or something. So you ask are domains still a good investment? Actually, the answer is they are probably a better investment now considering that we should have an economic recovery in 2010, meaning you’d only have to hold domains for one or two years and you’d be able to sell them at a substantial profit. Perhaps this is something you’d like to look into, so I thought I’d throw out the information to you. Please consider all this.

When you have some money to invest, the most obvious profitable investment is in real estate. You know with real estate that prices will inevitably go up at some point, and if you sell at the right time, could make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is possible that domain names could be a better investment than real estate. Just like homes are different, domains are different as well. Homes are becoming less and less unique and are even often referred to as “cookie cutter homes” because they are built on model tracks. Every domain name is unique. While there are many that have variations in spelling or have the same subject, they are all different. With homes, there can be one home similar to another which give the buyer more room to negotiate, while there is only one domain name and you could, therefore, hold a monopoly on owning that name which gives YOU the negotiating power.

Domain names cost less than a house does and you could sell it for a huge profit. Just like buying a house, you need to be smart about which one you buy, but if chosen wisely, you could make top dollar. What you may spend as a down payment on a house, you could spend on buying a domain name instead and turn just as much of a profit as you can on a house.

There are no brokers involved when buying a domain name, therefore no commission and more money in your pocket. Also, the sale on a house could be a lengthy process, whereas the sale on a domain name could be completed in less than twenty-four hours. Additionally, you usually have to prep a house to make it look more desirable to the buyer, with a domain name, the name sells itself and you don’t have to do anything to “pretty it up”.

Paying taxes on a house could cost you a pretty penny. A domain name costs you about $10 annually to keep.

Finally, there is no upkeep on a domain name. When you purchase a house you have to mow the lawn, fix the plumbing, change the air filters, and the list goes on and on. You have to worry about paying the mortgage and please your tenants. With a domain name, there is no upkeep. You can purchase it and take a vacation. You don’t have to worry about it at all.

Just like real estate, however, there are no easy investments. It is possible to buy a home that will drain your bank account if problems are found such as mold, rotten wood, or faulty structures. If a home is not chosen wisely, you could end up losing money in repairs and market slumps. The key with owning a domain name is that you choose one wisely and have the patience to let it sit and wait for the right time to sell. If you sell at the right time to the right person, the opportunity to make money is there. The best part is that you can’t lose money on a domain name, if you don’t sell; you only use what you spent on purchasing the name in the first place.

For most of us it is well known that property investment is a great way to make money. But property investment takes a large amount of money and a considerable amount of paper work and time. As the world moves more and more into the digital era online business is fast becoming a powerful force in the global market.

Investing in domain names is an alternative kind of real estate investment. Virtual real estate. For example pcservice dot com recently sold for US$20000, that is for the name only, no website!

To make money from domains you need to know two important factors. What sort of names to buy and where, and how to sell the domains.

Some recent domain name sale prices:

wwi.com US$22,500

heist.net US$5,850

karaokeparty.com US$5,800

shortfilm.org US$1,688

It is worth studying the above list carefully, although it is not comprehensive it does give a snapshot of what to expect at auction. Several important things can be learnt from the above list. Firstly, dot com (.com) names are by far the most valuable for any given word / phrase. Dot coms are followed in value terms by dot net (.net) and closely behind by dot org (.org). Dot com names are relatively hard to find these days, but there are some great new alternatives to invest in. With the emergence of internet on phone handsets a new top level domain (TLD) name extension was created, that is dot mobi (.mobi). As this is a relatively new extension there are still some great names available. Another slightly more expensive but worthy new top level extension is dot tv (.tv). Lastly but not least is the new and much talked about dot asia (.asia) top level extension.

Look around spend some time on a registration site to see what is available. Check common top level domains and international domain name extensions for the names you are searching.

In some cases people have been known to buy a dnames and resell them relatively quickly at a small profit. However it seems the best money to be made from domain name investment is, as with property, long term investment. If you are prepared to invest some money into domain names and hold them for several years then you may well find they have become very valuable. Domain names are selling faster today than they ever have in the past and a boom in domain name value is expected within the next few years. After all if you had the foresight several years ago to purchase the domain name blackjack dot com or newzealand dot com, you would be half a million or one and a half million dollars richer today.

With all the headlines, and news coverage, about the record sales prices being paid, for generic domain names. One might think, these traffic favorites are the most valuable of all, the classes of domain names. In actuality though, the sales prices of the most valuable top domain names ever sold have been secretly withheld from the public. The fact is, many of the most valuable domain names never reach public auctions.

So why are we, the public, not privy to the highest prices being paid for these premium domain names? Actually it is because of a little known fact, that many of the largest corporate investors, prefer to make their purchases, of premium domain names, in strictly private transactions. These private transactions are used, to deliberately hide prices being paid for domain names. For this reason, many of the largest dollar values being paid for premium domain names, never hit the headlines, and are never reported!

Why is this so? Why do these corporate buyers and speculators not want it publicized, how truly valuable, some top domain names are? In a nutshell, they know increased competition, will inflate the market prices they pay for the names they covet. They do not want to draw any more attention to domain names, and their values, than necessary.

The last thing they want to do is compete for names they truly want and then possibly lose them to higher bidders. To avoid this they choose to operate in closed non public transactions, that are far removed from the public eye. In this cloak of secrecy, these corporate buyers, do not have to competitively bid for a rapidly disappearing pool of top domain names. This explains why they are clearly absent from most public auctions where sales prices are competitively bid and disclosed to the press and public.

In this controlled market place these professional buyers look for unique names that stand out in the crowd and signify an image that differentiates their company from the rest of the pack. They also search for names that are short, that are easy to spell and remember and at the same time describe their particular market niche with Clarity and professionalism. In short, they look for a name that makes a statement about them and their company.

Most of the qualities these professional buyers look for in a top name can be clarified by understanding, what a premium domain name is. So lets take a look at, the actual definition, of a premium domain name. “Premium domain names are often valuable and have particular characterizations: The names are short and memorable, may contain words that are regularly searched on search engines or keywords that help the name gain a higher ranking on search engines. They may contain generic words, so the word has more than one meaning, and they may contain typos”. An excellent example of a Top premium domain name, I own, is USeBiz.com. It fits the definition of a premium domain name perfectly, makes a statement, and in many experts opinion is truly a most unique and valuable six letter domain name.

Another good example of a previously undiscovered and unknown gem is Android.com. Google bought this name in the secondary market, from a previous owner. This name is now being developed as their flagship address, for an open source software Alliance, for the wireless industry. Now that this name, is under Google’s development, we would really have a tough time valuing it as its sales price was not revealed to the public. But we are sure its market value would be in the millions of dollars. The competition for good quality names, such as these, are increasing at a frenetic pace.

Due to this growing competition, there is an ever increasing demand for premium domain names. The catalyst, that is driving this demand, is the explosive growth of new business start ups, on the internet. This growth has been breath taking, to say the least. So much so, that the worlds one billionth website, is already in place. It took 36 years to reach this water mark ! Amazingly enough , the number of web sites are expected to double, again in the next 8 years!, to 2 billion!

With all this expansion, the worlds major corporations, are in competition with thousands of new start up companies, who are feverishly positioning themselves to master, this thing they call e-Biz!.It’s no wonder that as a result of all this expansion. There is a huge pent up demand, being created for well branded, easy to spell, and remember domain names. This highly competitive market place has created an exponential increase in the values of good domain names. In fact, some premium domain names are commanding six and seven figure price tags!

The most encouraging aspect of this business, is that there are many undiscovered names that are destined to become internet powerhouses, that are still available in the secondary market! This is what makes investing in the domain name business, so exciting! There quite simply is no glass ceiling here, and the sky truly is the limit. Now more than ever, the visionary leaders who keep their focus on investing in premium domain names, will be a part of the futures most successful investors!

For all these reasons and more the secondary market place for domain names is the fastest growing investors asset class on the planet! My advice for any interested investors, is to start collecting and controlling the letters of the alphabet today!One word of advice though. Look for hidden values within the secondary market and do not bother with any other extension other than the .com extension, it’s the Predominant choice for most of the worlds top corporations. That is where the real money is!

Blogging is continuing to gain popularity and support as it can be used for many things. You can blog for personal expression; you can blog to promote a website; you can blog to promote products and services; you can blog to simply publish practically anything on the Web. If you are interested in blogging and you want to blog then one choice is to get web hosting domain name packages.

A blogger needs to have his own domain and his own space on the Web. While there are free resources out there, paying for both the name and host services can prove to be better. For one thing, free blog hosting and domains mean that you are sharing with other bloggers on the Web. This can limit you in some ways and can be an impediment if you have plans to monetize your blog. The solution is to get your hosting and domain.

If you have your own host and url, you would have your own online address. You would not have to share with other bloggers so it is easier to create your own name and reputation online. You would also have your own space so it would be easier for readers and users to gain access to your blog. For most people, this is a big thing as reading a blog that takes a long time to load is very unattractive. With your own web hosting and url, you get to have these advantages and much more.

Now, let us look into the issue of practicality. Of course, getting your own web hosting would mean money. You would have to pay both for the registration and the web hosting services. Now, if you think that you need to spend a big amount of money for web hosting packages, then you are mistaken. You can easily find a package for your blog that is within budget. The key is to look around and to find such a package that is suitable for your needs and available budget.

Also, it would be important to note that there are several ways by which you can get affordable packages. First, you can choose to register a more than one name upon registration. With multiple or bulk registrations, domain registration providers usually give a discount. Aside from bulk registration, you can also consider registering the domain name for longer periods. Instead of getting the one year package, you can register the domain for two or more years and get significant discounts in the process.

Another way to get savings for hosting domain name is to choose a single provider. True enough, there are providers which only register domains or those which only provide hosting. Now, you can get an all-in-one package as it is usually priced less. With an all-in-one package, you get to save more money and hit two birds with one stone – you get all that you need to set up your blog in a single process.

Internet advertising’s sixty four million dollar question is, are keyword stand alone traffic domain names becoming somewhat irrelevant? This could be due to the rapid changes with Yahoo and Google, that are causing declining pay per click revenues to domain name holders?

Throughout the history of marketing and commerce, which has proven to be cyclical and forever morphing, there have been many different marketing concepts that have been adopted. In fact the very early phases of marketing involved quite literally generic barrels of goods and services.

During this generic labeling of goods and services there appeared on the scene a new concept that changed marketing forever. This phase was called Product Differentiation, or branding, which created a natural need for competitors to differentiate their products from other competitors. This allowed these competitors to separate themselves from the pack by building their own unique brand. This was the birth of branding as we know it today.

It is a natural progression that we are now beginning to experience in online advertising. This natural next step is logical in the rollout phase of modern day marketing that involves online branding of domain names.

All marketing agencies need to brand so as to differentiate their clients products from their competitors. We back in the mid nineties, placed an educated bet that there would evolve and be finally accepted another marketing doctrine called Target Market Branding.

Target Market Branding, such as eBay, take advantage of targeting certain market segments. More importantly Target Market Branding, supplies the branding qualities that advertising firms make their living on.

Today’s article is about buying and reselling domain names for profit. Buying a domain and reselling it can put lots of profit in your pocket if you do things right.

First you need to know what domain names sell the best. Then you have to know that a small domain name is worth a lot more than a long domain name. For example; burn.com would be worth more than weburncdromsformoney.com. For the simple reason of, a small domain name is easier to type in to an address bar. Yes, having a small domain means a lot to a person interested in buying the domain from you.

Then you have to learn about page rank and SEO. Page rank is an important factor when buying or selling a domain name. If the website already has lots of visitors, it will have a higher page rank, thus making it worth more money.

SEO is important; if the domain name can already be found on search engines, it will tend to be worth more money. Some people will buy a good domain name for a cheap price because it has low page rank or low SEO. Then they will advertise the crap out of the domain to make the page rank higher. Then they can sell the domain for a lot more money, making more profit in the long run.

Selling domain names can be very profitable. In fact, some people making a living from buying and reselling domain names. Here is what an average domain seller would do to make money. There are two ways to make money from selling domain names.

The first way is from buying a good domain name and reselling it quick for immediate profit. Let’s say, you buy burn.com for $100.00. That’s only 4 letters long and right off the bat would be worth money to someone for being a short domain name. This domain name is probably already receiving traffic, so it has very good money making potential to an owner of the domain.

The seller could potentially sell this domain for $500.00 or more for a fast sale and $400.00 profit. There are domain cost estimators you could use to find what you should sell the domain for.

I use a website called dnScoop.com to find out what a domain is worth. On dnScoop they say burn.com is worth $471.00 if you were to resell it. So buying it for $100.00 would be a good profit if you wanted to buy then resell it quickly.

The second way a person would make money from buying then reselling a domain name is; to hold on to it for a while before they sell it. They would advertise and market the website domain in the time they own it. Then after advertising and marketing the website for a while (a period of 3 months to a year), they will drive page rank, SEO, and more visitors.

Driving page rank and SEO will make the domain worth more money than at the time they bought the domain. It will be worth more money because the website will have a steady flow of traffic going to it. Then the domain owner could resell it for a substantial amount of money compared to if they sold it right away.

There are two places I would recommend buying domains for profit. GoDaddy.com and Sedo.com are the best places you can buy available domain names for a good price. You could try and resell them on the same websites you bought them from also.

Or you could resell them in related forums or social marketplace groups. Lots of people will sell, say, a business domain and then sell it in a business related forum. Or they would resell it in a social marketplace group related to business.

You have to be smart if you are going to try buying and reselling domain names. Don’t just buy a bunch a domain names because they sound good. Do some research to find out if they are worth money or could be worth money.

You could also buy what we call potential domain names. For example, the person that bought the domain; Barackobama.com or presidentbarackobama.com probably made a good profit for themselves. They bought the domain long before the president got elected. Then they held on to it and waited for the results. After Mr. Obama got elected as president they probably got offers from all over to sell the domain. Now the $100.00 domain turned in to thousands of dollars profit.

So the answer is YES! You can make really good money if you want to buy and resell domain names. There are lots of strategies out there. It takes a little research, a little experience, and a little bit of a gamble. But in the long run, buying and reselling domain names can be a very profitable business.

The following points should be considered before deciding on to select good domain names for your websites.

Website Name

It’s obvious that your website should be named after your domain name, but it’s not the case many times. Some webmasters don’t name their website this way even if they own the domain name. It is however, important to name your site after the domain so that people think about your website by its name and not just any DOT com abstract. In case your name is the URL, your visitors will know what to type.

In the online world, people consult World Wide Web often to make purchases and good domain names are reflective of good businesses (products). You will then have fewer things to let your customers remember and more to offer once they have reached your exact address on their own. To check if your desired address is available in the first instance, you can consult domain (Owning) information on the internet. In case it has already been claimed, you can contact the owner to know if he’s ready to sell. Of course, you will have to pay a higher price to get that ‘perfectly designed attire’, but it will serve you for a life time. If you are new to this business, you can resort to the over-used idea of getting any domain name first and then baptizing your website (or even your business) after this name.

Type of Names

If you are selling cars, it’s better if you have cars.com in your domain name as people are expected to search with this address for any information on cars. However, it is most likely that serious car buyers already have set a model in mind and go straight to Toyota.com or general motors.com for their search. For this reason, good domain names must have a link to your product or brand name.

Length of name

Any name, more or less 67 characters, is allowed. However, good domain names are never too short because then they reveal no connection to products. For example abp.com is a pretty obscure name considering you mean is AcmeBeautyProducts.com. Short names are also less vulnerable to typing errors. But in cases like that of Acme Beauty Products Company when abp.com has no relation to the company’s products (lipstick and eye shades), it is better to keep the name longer and self-explanatory

COM, ORG, NET

Websites that sell products at local level, like pizza delivery franchises, can opt for something other than.com like (.net, nu,.sg, etc.). If you own a bigger business that has the power to cater to international audience then.net and.org are good domain names.

Helpful hints on how to buy and sell domain names.

Anyone who has started an online business or done research to start one, has had to ask themselves this question, “Where have all the good domain names gone?” And its a very important question. After all, you do not want to have to settle for “MyWidgetsarebetterthananyoneselses dot com” just because everything shorter has already been registered.

Unfortunately, all the very good domain names have been taken for a long time. The short and memorable ones became very valuable right away. Names like Loans.com and Business.com sold for around a Million dollars back in 1999. Now those names are worth much much more than that. The dotcom bust brought domain name values down for a short period, but they begin rising again around 2003 and are now high above the Dotcom bubble levels.

It was not long after that, that all of the single word dictionary words had been registered. At first it was mainly the dot com extension that was being bought up. Dot com is still King and considered the most valuable, but other extensions are gaining ground. Of course now, all the good domain names are registered in ALL extensions.

So how are these names being used? Are they all pointing to a website business? Why would someone register a name and not use it?

Most very good domain names are being used for Online business models. Domain names can be used to attract traffic on a parked site like DomainSpa.com DomainSpa lets advertisers put ads, relevant to the domain name, on the pages they build for the name. When someone goes to your parked page and clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays DomainSpa for that lead and then DomainSpa splits that money with the domain owner. Many good domains are being used to monetize direct navigation traffic from parked pages.

The best of these are the kind that you would naturally type into your browser navigation bar, rather than do a search for. If you were interested in finding information on “Widgets” would you just type that into your browser, or would you do a search? What makes domain names really valuable are the ones that are so easy to remember that you would use the direct navigation method rather than a search.

The main reason for the direct method is that you are pretty sure if you type in “Widgets.com” that you will end up on a site that has good information on widgets. If you do a search, who knows what you might find. We have all been there, you get to a list of sites on Google or Yahoo and say to yourself, what is all this crap? Did you notice that I typed in the dot com for widgets? Why not dot net or something else? That is why the dot com is still considered more valuable, its what you think of automatically. Dot com was the first extension widely used and originally was intended for “Commercial”use. The dot net was for Internet type services, if I remember right, and the dot org was to be used for “Organizations” mainly charities. Since then ICANN, the organization that oversees the domain name process, has added dozens of extensions. To name just a few, .info, .biz, .name, .us and so on. The .us is considered a cctld “country code top level domain” like .de for Germany .fr for France.

So, as you can see, even with all those extra extensions, good domain names are hard to find. Unless you know where to look. You should realise by now that a good domain name is a very valuable asset to your business. In some cases it can make or break a business. If you have a difficult to spell or hard to remember domain name, a lot of your customers will end up at a competitors website when trying to get to yours. You could also end up spending a lot of money on Google AdWords or Yahoo search ads to get people to your website. It is a Great benefit to have a easy to remember and RELEVANT domain name.

How do I get a good domain name? Now that you have a good idea what makes a good domain name, lets try to find you one. Keep in mind that the cost of your domain names is probably going to be much higher than you originally thought. You can still find reasonably good after market names (Ones that some already owns, but is willing to sell) for as little as $500, on average good domain names fall in the $1000 to $10,000 range.

The very best names are going for tens to hundreds of thousands or even Millions of dollars. Vodka.com recently sold for $5,000,00.00 I believe. Also keep in mind that whatever you pay for a name it is likely to become one of your most valuable assets. The more you pay, the better the name (usually) and the more natural traffic you might get for free. Some very good names might not have much natural type in traffic but still be the perfect fit for your business. If your selling mainly Mystery books then GoodMysteryBooks.com would be a perfect name. This name might not get much type in traffic, but it is so easy to remember that it could be promoted easily.

Now, pick a name that most relates to your business. If it is a short one word name it is surly already taken. Try adding My,i,e,go, or any short phrase that would make sense, to the front of the name. When you have a selection of possible names, go to a Registrar like GoDaddy.com, there are hundreds of these, where you can register names for as little as $8.99 Try the ones you have selected. If none are available keep working on other combinations.

Remember, you want one that is easy to spell and remember. Once you have gotten to the point that you realize your not going to find an acceptable one to register, then you are faced with the reality that yow will be paying more for a after market domain name(One that is already registered but the owner is willing to sell). While your still at the registrar you might check the “WhoIs” information on the names you wanted the most.

All registrars have a Whois link or you can go to Whois.net. Once you find the current registrants info, there should be an email link. Drop them an email and ask if the name is for sale. If the registrant info is not available in Whois then that name is probably not for sale. Once you have gone through this process and still have not found a good name try the Auction sites. Afternic.com has a huge inventory of high quality after market domain names. Most auction sites have any easy to use interface with escrow services that protect the buyer and seller throughout the buying process. Usually you can make a low offer on any name and start a negotiation process, or just pay the sellers asking price (if you think its reasonable) and be done. There are also drop catcher sites like SnapNames.com that grab expiring domains and auction them off to the highest bidder. Even eBay has gotten into the domain auction business, although I do not see many quality names there.

Most of the very good domain names are still available for purchase. You just have to contact the current owner. It may take a little time and some negotiating, but acquiring the perfect name for your business can be invaluable. Usually it will pay for itself many times over.

Some good resources for information on the value of domain names can be found at DNJournal.com This is the best NewsZine on the domain name industry and keeps up with all domains sold week to week. You can get a good idea of the value of different names and extensions from this site.

I would like to explain the purpose of the domain name and how it’s related to the website hosting.

Let start by saying the domain name is like your mailing address. Domains are purchased by the year or more years if you want. They range from low cost to high dollar. The features are what counts. An example would be the type I sell will be low cost and come with many Free features. You get the option of purchasing from 1 year to 10 years for starters. I talked about free features and here is one I like. Along with each Domain name purchase you get a free website hosted for Free.

Now let’s talk about what you need hosting for. As I told you the name is like your mailing address, so the hosting is like the mail box. Once the domain name is typed into the internet browser it takes you to the spot where you’re web pages are or you’re website is located.

If your not to sure about this here is how they connect. Domain Name & Hosting equals an online website. Now you can get all this for just the price of the domain but you will have a bar at the top of you website that has advertising on it. In order to remove this you must select a web hosting plan and they have all kinds of plans, I am talking low cost and you may select these right in your control panel.

Once you have you have this done you will get a login and ID to control it all.

After you have your web address and Website hosting and understand how this part works you can move on to a web hosting plan, website optimization and improving your Search Engine Visibility.