Domains stuff

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halfpc

I love shapely Keyboards
Jan 4, 2007
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www.rotten.com
How do you know if a domain is worth any money?

I see stupid stuff with no type in value going for silly money, so is this just a matter of buying what seems to be good then sticking a silly price to it and waiting till someone buys one?
Like, getting $5k for a domain means I can then buy a truckload more and then sitting on all of them hoping something else fetches another $5k to keep going?
Is this what people do?

A couple of days ago I saw that YOURCARDCREDIT.COM was available, today it got snapped up!
Was that a good find? I have tons in mind, just got mastercardguide.com
just in case it goes too! Will it be worth something and if so then why did the mastercard people not get it since they have a guide out??

how's seychelles-cruise.com for a find? good? have it! lol.

How does this domain thing work? Any help on this? I am totally green on the whole thing and have more imagination than sense..
 


Read the basics on some other web forums... you're either gonna get ignored or ripped apart asking dumb questions like this on WF.

Anyhow, I'm ftping a crapload so I'll answer while I wait.

hahahahahahaha, Rick looks like a creepy used car salesman!

Domains are worth whatever someone is willing to pay. A crappy name is worth $5k, $50k or $500k only if someone wants it, needs it or has more money than brains.

You can buy an appraisal or look up comps at the domain seller marketplaces but there is no guarantee that your domains will go for that.

YourCardCredit.com sucks, good thing you didn't buy it

MastercardGuide.com is decent... but spending any real money on it as a buyer is dangerous due to TM infringement.

The names you are talking about are in a field with established players who have names that are a hell of a lot better than those so they aren't gonna drop any cash on whatever is left over. You might get some newbie jackass who thinks he can make a killing on credit cards who'll give you a few hundred bucks, but I couldn't see anyone (even a lobotomy patient) giving you 5k for it!

The rough guide that I use to figure out a domain's value is:

-does it have any type in value
-is it able to be pronounced over the phone without needing to be spelled
-is the extension a .com
-is it one word
-is it brandable
-is it in an expanding market
-is it a business and not some short-term cashflow project

If the answer is yes then I build it into a site since I'll get more for that then just the domain name.

If you want to buy domains to flip you are going to have to think in terms of sub niches or buy from sellers since 99.9999999999999% of all decent generic .coms are gone. You can always get lucky buying something from a clueless owner or buying one that doesn't get snagged after it drops but your chances are low that you going to get a .com for registrar prices to flip.
 
I've spent a couple days collecting some decent LLLL.coms before they run out...there's 26k available (was 28k two days ago). I'm going to hold on to them, because I can see their value rising in the future. :)
 
Honestly it is a hard thing to estimate, there are two ways domains go:

Sell to Resellers/Domainers : Someone doing the same thing you are, selling and buying domains

Sell to End-Users : This is where the real cash is, I have made the most profitable sales this way. For example, do some niche research like you do with any other type of thing.
lets say you find out widgets are in high demand so you scoop up widgets.com ( not likely but whatever ) well you then research the big name players in that niche and pitch them the domain, ask high ( and depending on the niche this could be anywhere from a few 100 dollars to 10s of thousands or more), and sell it to them like it's the next best thing to sliced bread.
It's not rocket science but most starting domainers are pussies and would rather spend 5-10 minutes selling and buying domains on the domainer boards than attempting to do the footwork it takes to find end-users.

Trust me when your looking around the possibilities are there. And people will buy if you know how to sell something. Make it look like they need it, like it is the difference between where they are in terms of making money now and where they could be, compare it to real estate, like the difference between being on 5th ave. in NY or having a little shop in the Projects...

Now first thing to do is not waste money on domains. Look around the main domain boards : DnForum.com and Namepros.com, there are a few more but those 2 are the best IMO. Research what seems to be selling and what people are buying. Don't buy things because you think they might be worth something until you have a better grab on the reality of domaining.

I spent a lot on domains that are worthless and that I wil let expire. Don't make that mistake.

Read the major domain sites too, DNJournal.com is the main one to read if you don't read anything else.

Keep your domains somewhere trustworthy, remember that if it's going to sell for something good your better off using a registrar that won't fuck you over. Moniker.com is my recommendation there.

Keep your domains you collect parked if they don't get much traffic. If they are getting traffic then monetize it and don't sell it ( why sell somehting if it can make you cash for the next few years? and then you can always sell if for a good amount because you can prove revenue if you really need the cash.)

Check out the auction results from major auctions like T.R.A.F.F.I.C. etc get an idea for what is selling well at auctions.

Monitor sites that show what domains are dropping back as available after expiring, I have found some gems there and you can too.
Premiumdrops.com is free and the best tool out there for this, the only thing out there that is better is D.R.T. (domain research tool) but it aint cheap and you need a good set of proxies available for the tool to get info from overture etc to give out it's results.


I will stop rambling. #1 RULE OF DOMAINING: DON'T BUY DOMAINS UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT IS A GOOD DOMAIN!

And don't waste money on crap, just look at the appraisal sections at DNforum and Namepros to see how many newbs buy crap and how many answers saying their domains are worthless are given every day.

Good luck.
 
hey thanks for links and list of things to consider.

Any more links would be appreciated as I am taking the whole sites down with me to the seaside...

appraisals, are they worth it??
just had a look at ebay and.. MOCQ.com appraisal at 10k and not a dog offering $50 for it :)

subdomains yep I know a few domains with good subdomain potential, I just won't buy them till I know a bit more..

here's a few samples, any good?

goldsource.biz
storeplanet.biz
inquantity.info
inquantity.net
inquantity.org

all available now. would they have been any good in .com? I have tons of similar stuff in .com

So yeah, I can start buying but I want to pick up any knowledge at all, as you say making stupid questions but anything helps even with any ripping in between , it's give and take, all in good fun and anyway it's the only forum I read.

Chatmasta, 4 letter coms.. I got a good list of those myself but I did do some research and many quite good sounding ones won't even fetch $1 on ebay so I am slightly confused what's going on.

I would imagine at one point ANYTHING 4 letters will be good but who knows, right now they can be had for $99 "second hand"
how much does the transfer cost anyway??

I am ranting, off to bed..
 
I will stop rambling. #1 RULE OF DOMAINING: DON'T BUY DOMAINS UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT IS A GOOD DOMAIN!

Good luck.

I enjoyed that read, definitely not a ramble (feel free to follow up, that's great, easy to read content) and as you said I am trying to find out exactly what a good domain is, before I go too wild with buying.
So long as I get a bit of a logic down and I can buy with the money I make off them then that's my start. I am already making abut $500 per year for any domain I build a site for, so I would already have some money to invest.

I did sell tangible items for years professionally so I am not new to the whole idea, just VERY burned out with it but for $10.000 at a go I could do it again.
I am now ripping that dnjournal site, for later offline reading. Thanx also for the heads up on the software, saves me tons of time.
 
halfpc,
I agree with the advice given here already, but would like to add that it's sometimes a good idea to consider foreign country-level TLDs too. Again - be sure you know what you're buying, but there are still lots of good domains out there to be snapped up - simply because domaining in other countries (especially the non-english speaking ones) hasn't really taken off yet. But at some point it will. ;)

Here's my tip: Use Babelfish or a similar quick translation service that will translate simple words into the foreign language of choice. Then test to see if the word is available as a domain using EuroDNS or AsiaDNS[dot]com. Just avoid the countries that require owner residency and such.
I have snapped up a couple of very good (words that were registered as .coms like 10 years ago) type-in TLD domains for a few european countries this way and have received offers from german and dutch buyers. :)
 
halfpc,
I agree with the advice given here already, but would like to add that it's sometimes a good idea to consider foreign country-level TLDs too. Again - be sure you know what you're buying, but there are still lots of good domains out there to be snapped up - simply because domaining in other countries (especially the non-english speaking ones) hasn't really taken off yet. But at some point it will. ;)

Here's my tip: Use Babelfish or a similar quick translation service that will translate simple words into the foreign language of choice. Then test to see if the word is available as a domain using EuroDNS or AsiaDNS[dot]com. Just avoid the countries that require owner residency and such.
I have snapped up a couple of very good (words that were registered as .coms like 10 years ago) type-in TLD domains for a few european countries this way and have received offers from german and dutch buyers. :)

thanks, this is why I am trying to find out what is good and what is not.

I speak a few languages in various degrees and I have tons of names in mind but I don't have a clue what's good and why.

I am a logical person but most people are far from logic so I can't trust my own judgement as to what's better.

All names that I can think of in french,spanish, italian, and german are for words in those languages that if translated in english those domains have gone already long time ago.

stuff like ilivehere ilovebeer ineedawife howsitgoing youareok iloveyou ihateyou comebackhome itscool whynot ihatework
etc etc etc have all gone in english but they are mostly available in many other languages and that's in .com version.
I have many ideas as above, all easy to remember stuff but possibly worthless??

That's another thing, would the .com be better or should they be in the tld of the country in question? .it domains cost way more than .com
 
lol! - widgets.com is *owned* by Rick Schwartz. Automated appraisal services are worthless -- used by eBay sellers with crappy names to lure noob domainers. You gotta do legwork marketing domains, otherwise you won't get peanuts.

That's another thing, would the .com be better or should they be in the tld of the country in question? .it domains cost way more than .com

If it's a good domain, get both! Good ccTLDs and .com TLDs are the most valued, followed by .NET and .ORG. Don't bother with anything else, unless it's a throwaway domain.

You can usually sell a LLLL.com on ebay for $7-10. Better to just hang on to them, esp. if it's vaguely pronounceable.
 
If it's a good domain, get both! Good ccTLDs and .com TLDs are the most valued,

yeah, I know. I't like saying if the horse is a good runner then bid on him!

ebuffel.com means ebuffalo.com in about 6 different languages. ebuffalo is gone of course but you can still get ebuffel.com then check it out on ebuffel.de and ebuffel.nl chances are it's still available.

Then imagine having EBuffel.com as the BIGGEST website in northern Europe, serving 200 million people daily and selling all sort of stuff.

"I bought my Wii from EBuffel.com I opted for the Bill Me Later Option and I won't have to pay for 90 days. Best Option in my book."

and guess what: ebuffel.com is today available for a mere $8.95
 
Study new business, trends etc. Be the first to see a trend and gamble by registering domains in this new trend. Yes, most all good domains are gone but trends and niches will always emerge that you can capitalize on. I just wouldn't waste my time thinking on making money on domains but more on the niches. Childs toys and products are something that is constantly changing and new shit coming out. It's not uncommon to see absolutely no search history for a product and then once it becomes popular, 1 million plus.
 
Hey HalfPC,

I could write a lot about domains, but I would appreciate it if you tried to itemize your questions a little bit better. I'm not much of what you're asking, but I hope this post will help get the ball rolling and I'll check back to answer more.

Your main question seems to be about appraisals. To understand a market, you need to understand the value derived from the commodity. So, if domains had no value to end users, then resellers wouldn't keep paying high prices for them. This is a common misconception about domaining--that domainers are just reselling the same domains back and forth to each other. Some people think similarly about the stock market too--that traders only buy stocks hoping for the price to go up to sell the stock to other traders. That doesn't make sense. There has to be some value to ownership, otherwise the price increases never would've started. So, I'll try to outline some value in domains.


1. Type-in traffic. Sounds like you know what this is, but try to think of it as more than PPC on parked pages. Domain traffic converts 2x-5x better than anything out there, especially from generic domain names. If you were going to start a big website, with a million dollar marketing budget, and you could get 500 free potential customers per day, an expensive domain name is worth the savings on your AdSense tab.

2. Search Engine Optimization. Keyword domain names are a big big boost when trying to rank for tough keywords in an competitive niche. For the money some people drop on SEO, the traffic derived from their keyword domain is chump change.

3. Easy to type. American Airlines advertises with AA.com because they know they will get fewer typos of people trying to buy airplane tickets from AmericanAirlines.com. This results in more happy customers, more sales, and more revenue.

4. Easy to brand. Try to look at the domain names you hear advertised in non-internet media. First one that comes to mind for me is FreeCreditReport.com. Long, but really easy to remember. Do you think anyone who saw that commercial, went to their computer, and opened up Firefox would remember Free-CreditReports-4u.info?

I've given you four, but try to use what you know about internet marketing to come up with some other values to quality domain names. Then, try to figure out how much money a company would save by solving these aforementioned problems with their domain name. Bingo, you've arrived at the value of the domain. I hope that helps you understand appraisals, and I'll check back for more specific questions.
 
thanks for the help. I can't be clearer because I am fighting a nicotine addiction and I am all over the place, in the evenings I am having 2 or 3 beers and am just waiting for thursday to leave for the seaside so I am just ranting and doing lots of non smoking

ok,
The Seo bit is a mistery to me.
I often see available domains that should help Seoing a site but are left untouched.
These often comprise the main 2 words people are bidding on, like YourCardCredit.com.
People are actually looking for "Card Credit" not "Credit Cards" yet the latter fetches millions, the former fetches $0.
Why? I understand that CreditCards.com is the bollox etc but is YourCardCredit.com not worth $50 to someone? It got registered only the other day! Why?


the MastercardGuide.com I just bought is a good example of what baffles me about the branding: again, why was it not worth $8.95 to some?
They have Mastercard and they have a Guide for it.
What do they buy? They buy "www.which-prepaid-card.co.uk"
I think even YourCardCredit.com would have blown that away. "Which" is nothing, the hyphens are atrocious and "prepaid"... "mastercard" it aint.

Where's the logic? But I will write it all up properly and contact them in the future, lol.

Type ins. Yeah I get that, but there is no way of telling type ins value till you test it.
Some domain registrars offer a testing service but I think it costs $10 ??
Then I'll keep it! Could be wrong there. Still, it can't be easily tested, although I am brainstorming a bit on it since when using IE it defaults into a search by MSN and so we should be able to see a bit of the data via what MSN chooses to tell us. Better than nothing.

But then I am baffled by Google, they are pushing Firefox and yet if you type in some rubbish into the addy bar it won't default to a google search, so they are apparently missing out on a lot of searches and good data that could deliver to them plenty of good type in domain data.
Why are they not capitalizing on this? Surely it is missing them millions if type in data is so scarce.



Hey HalfPC,

I could write a lot about domains, but I would appreciate it if you tried to itemize your questions a little bit better. I'm not much of what you're asking, but I hope this post will help get the ball rolling and I'll check back to answer more.

Your main question seems to be about appraisals. To understand a market, you need to understand the value derived from the commodity. So, if domains had no value to end users, then resellers wouldn't keep paying high prices for them. This is a common misconception about domaining--that domainers are just reselling the same domains back and forth to each other. Some people think similarly about the stock market too--that traders only buy stocks hoping for the price to go up to sell the stock to other traders. That doesn't make sense. There has to be some value to ownership, otherwise the price increases never would've started. So, I'll try to outline some value in domains.


1. Type-in traffic. Sounds like you know what this is, but try to think of it as more than PPC on parked pages. Domain traffic converts 2x-5x better than anything out there, especially from generic domain names. If you were going to start a big website, with a million dollar marketing budget, and you could get 500 free potential customers per day, an expensive domain name is worth the savings on your AdSense tab.

2. Search Engine Optimization. Keyword domain names are a big big boost when trying to rank for tough keywords in an competitive niche. For the money some people drop on SEO, the traffic derived from their keyword domain is chump change.

3. Easy to type. American Airlines advertises with AA.com because they know they will get fewer typos of people trying to buy airplane tickets from AmericanAirlines.com. This results in more happy customers, more sales, and more revenue.

4. Easy to brand. Try to look at the domain names you hear advertised in non-internet media. First one that comes to mind for me is FreeCreditReport.com. Long, but really easy to remember. Do you think anyone who saw that commercial, went to their computer, and opened up Firefox would remember Free-CreditReports-4u.info?

I've given you four, but try to use what you know about internet marketing to come up with some other values to quality domain names. Then, try to figure out how much money a company would save by solving these aforementioned problems with their domain name. Bingo, you've arrived at the value of the domain. I hope that helps you understand appraisals, and I'll check back for more specific questions.
 
People are actually looking for "Card Credit" not "Credit Cards"
Why is YourCardCredit.com not worth $50 to someone?

No they aren't. Do a quick look at pages indexed in Google.

176 million returns for "Credit Card"
"credit card" - Google Search

2 million returns for "Card Credit"
"card credit" - Google Search

If you use keyword tools to compare searches you'll find an even smaller ratio than 1% "Card Credit" to "Credit Card." Moreover, why is "your" there? If you want this to be a keyword domain, keywords people are looking for, will anyone be searching for "your card credit" or "my card credit"?


MastercardGuide.com I just bought is a good example of what baffles me about the branding: again, why was it not worth $8.95 to some?

Mastercard is an international trademark. Profiting from their mark = hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. There is a big difference between generic keywords and trademark infringement. Learn it.

They buy "www.which-prepaid-card.co.uk" Where's the logic?

Hyphens are bad for branding, type-ins, length, and more, but they have some advantages. They rank well in the search engines, and provide good quality scores for buying PPC. If which-prepaid-card.co.uk is buying AdWords traffic for keywords like "prepaid card" they will get lower bid prices with the domain than without the domain. This is now our 5th reason premium domains are worth the price.

Type ins. Yeah I get that, but there is no way of telling type ins value till you test it.

There are some ways to get an idea using keyword tools. Try reading on DNForum and studying search volume to see what people are typing into the address bar.


Some domain registrars offer a testing service but I think it costs $10 ??

There are registrars where every Joe Schmoe can taste a domain for 4 or 5 days and return it if they don't want it. The refund is full price minus 25 cents.
 
No they aren't. Do a quick look at pages indexed in Google.

well, In the UK it is
Results 1 - 10 of about 261,000,000 for card credit. (0.09 seconds)

versus
Results 1 - 10 of about 185,000,000 for credit card [definition]. (0.11 seconds)


>If you use keyword tools to compare searches you'll find an even smaller >ratio than 1% "Card Credit" to "Credit Card."

for "card credit" I get 2273565 off overture UK

for "credit card" I get 2342219 off overture UK basically yep mas o menos the same thing.



>Moreover, why is "your" there?

because I am saving about 7 million dollars?

And those 2273565 montly people looking for "card credit" will still get results like this:

yourcardcredit basically the "your" shouldn't affect it one bit.


>If you want this to be a keyword domain, keywords people are looking for, >will anyone be searching for "your card credit" or "my card credit"?

when they look for bla bla card credit
then
your cardcredit will have a chance, right?

but this is beyond my initial point, my point is that there is an abysmal difference in price between the two.
If one was 7 million and the other was 4 then I'd understand more readily but when one is worth nothing, after the data seen above, then I don't understand, but... hey I am trying and thank you for helping :)


>Mastercard is an international trademark. Profiting from their mark = >hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. There is a big difference >between generic keywords and trademark infringement. Learn it.

ok I didn't buy "mastercard". I bought "mastercardguide" which is not the same word and it is not copyrighted :)
here's the list of what they own U.S. Trademarks | MasterCard®
btw, according to Copyright | MasterCard® I can even copy their website so I wonder if I should use that for mastercardguide.com

lol I am only half jocking here but I have been known to do very well in court due to technicalities.


>Hyphens are bad for branding, type-ins, length, and more, but they have >some advantages. They rank well in the search engines, and provide good >quality scores for buying PPC. If which-prepaid-card.co.uk is buying >AdWords traffic for keywords like "prepaid card" they will get lower bid >prices with the domain than without the domain. This is now our 5th reason >premium domains are worth the price.

yes, but since I am on about my mastercard guide if I was to have my 3 page site ONLY about a mastercard guide, I'd have a better chance than them at coming up top, organically and PPC.
Chances are then their ad might appear on my page, so every day they'd pay me money just because of my domain name which they could have had but didn't.
or have i eaten too much nicotine for the day?


>There are some ways to get an idea using keyword tools. Try reading on >DNForum and studying search volume to see what people are typing into >the address bar.

this, I plan to do on many fairly boringly quiet evenings while at the seaside
so far, I just analyze the keyword ".com" and see what else people like to attach to it when they search.
There's a chance their type-ins won't be much far off.
Which kills me as there's a ton of unregistered stuff out there especially in foreign languages, and since I don't think I have found the eldorado here, know I must be missing something, but because the above tip...


>There are registrars where every Joe Schmoe can taste a domain for 4 or 5 >days and return it if they don't want it. The refund is full price minus 25 >cents.

that is one good news that will tell me exactly what the domains are going to do. I did read a bit on the practice but didn't realize it could be done for only 25 cents!

So basically that makes the testing VERY viable. Perhaps there might be some hidden fees to do with the CC payment, but still very good to know.

Not sure if I can squeeze you for more gratuitus info but
does it cost much when trasferring a domain? Say I am selling my 4UM8.com to someone,
what are the fees involved, if any?
 
at least i tried

yourcardcredit basically the "your" shouldn't affect it one bit

do you really believe this?

ok I didn't buy "mastercard". I bought "mastercardguide" which is not the same word and it is not copyrighted :)

do you really believe this?


lol I am only half jocking here but I have been known to do very well in court due to technicalities.

i think trademark lawyers and law makers have figured out more technicalities than you by now

does it cost much when trasferring a domain? Say I am selling my 4UM8.com to someone,
what are the fees involved, if any?

at most registrars:

-pushing between accounts at the same registrar is free
-transferring to another registrar costs the price of renewal and adds 1 year registration, so basically free
 
do you really believe this?

do you really believe this?


yes, I believe all that stands to reason, till proven wrong of course.
It gave me some ideas though, one way or the other so it was a good exercize :)


at most registrars:

-pushing between accounts at the same registrar is free
-transferring to another registrar costs the price of renewal and adds 1 year registration, so basically free

that's most valuable, thanks. I think there's fun to be had with this domain lark.
 
My tactic can be summarized as this:

Go local, buy nice domain names. E.g. laptops.gr

Park them with ppc

Point a few splogs to them, so they seem like they have traffic "Oh look, my domain gets 200 uniques per month! It has backlinks too. Its da shit. Buy it"

Go to your local auction site, put up some stats and slap in a big price like 5000 euro. If your moral compass is completely smashed, write a fake domain evaluation :)

Automate the whole process as much as you can. Resubmit auctions as needed.

That way, you will get some ROI with PPC, and a huge capital gain when you sell. The domains cost about 23 euro per year. With a 1000 euro investment, you can have 40 domains set up.

Also, check alexa for the local top 100 sites, and figure out variations. For example, there is a huge torrent site called blue-whitegt.gr You can all see the possibilities for mistypes.

Another hint: In countries that the internet has just kicked in, people dont really know the value of domains. I believe some people cannot distinguish between a domain and a website. So make a generic template with rss feeds and the target keywords, and set them up at those domains.

I know it seems like a lot of work, but when you get your first 5000euro deposit on your account, you will get addicted.

Suckers are out there. Just find them
 
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