Are you capturing domains for SEO? Is your client looking for an interesting free name? Maybe you’re just dreaming of a career as a domainer yourself because you read about Rick Schwartz on the Internet?
Here’s what I’ve learned over a year of domain trading in earnest. As a warning.
If you’re not interested in my thoughts and just want to start trading domains, sign up for an account on Aftermarket and you’re done.
Will I reveal to you in this article my know how regarding domain search and acquisition? I won’t*.
* But at least I’m not promising you that in a clickbait title.
In return, I provide some tips as a signpost: which way not to go to avoid stepping into the domain swamp.
Spis treści
What do I mean by domaining?
Buy cheaper, sell more expensive. This simple rule of capitalist success is the essence of domaining. And indeed, if you have read the history of, for example, Rick Schwartz, the matter really seems so simple:
Men.com sold for $1.32 million in 2003, acquired for $15k in 1995. Plus earnings of about $350,000 during ownership
Candy.com $3.0 million + several million in Royalties + 12.55% Ownership currently valued at over $5 million+, acquired for about $100k in 2005. (Will end up being my biggest sale ever).
Porno.com sold for $8.88 million cash, acquired for $42k. Plus earnings of about $15,000,000 during ownership. Escrow.com’s largest cash sale EVER!
eBet.com sold for $1.35 million, registered for $100 in 1997
Teem.com sold for $36,000 plus stock. Final total after buyout $1.15 million registered for $100 in 1998
989.com sold for $818k, registered for $100 in 1997
899.com sold for $801k, registered for $100 in 1997
Portfolio of 10 NNN.com names (Undisclosed. Between $2.5 million and $3.5million)
9595.com sold for $180k, registered for $100 in 1998
iReport.com to CNN for $750,000 acquired for $5000 in 1999
Punchbowl.com too MyPunchbowl.com $60,000 plus stock
ChinaTours.com $200,000
TokyoHotels.com $200k++
RockStars.com $180,000
FreeSexCams.com $150,000
GayEscorts.com $121,550
PartnerCash.com $110,000
eCruise.com to iCruise.com $100,000 & Stock
235.com $100,000
SydneyHotels.com $100,000
eScore.com $100,000
RoomDividers.com $75,000
273.com $50,000
236.com to IAC (Undisclosed)
All you have to do is get some three-digit .com domain for $100 and sell it for almost a million dollars. It’s pretty easy to make money, with a pretty good premium.
The problem is that most of the domains Rick Schwartz, or the self-proclaimed “Domain King,” registered or acquired were registered in the 1990s. Today such domains no longer exist, one would like to say.
So what have I learned by trading domains?
Domaining in 2019 for beginners and intermediates is certainly not what it was during the dot com boom. It remained a potential source of income, but much less spectacular, based on strenuous toil, cleverness and solid craftsmanship.
Domaining in Poland is 2 independent branches
The methods of working and acquiring domains are sometimes similar, but Polish domaining is essentially two separate fields:
- classic domaining – attractive names
- domains for SEO
Of course, the two branches often meet; the ideal domain is one that has a pleasant, short and easy-to-remember name, but also a solid history of links and traffic.
However, in my daily work I completely separate the two industries. Domains for SEO are classic craftsmanship. Finding and acquiring them is like picking up a card in a factory – I find plenty of them every day – it remains to sift out the lousy ones, select the themes and voilà.
Domains for SEO are also, unfortunately, a smaller (but more reliable) income. I massively sell domains to agencies in amounts of 40-60 zlotys, which, after subtracting the cost of acquiring them, gives small amounts. However, with a lot of automation and quite a lot of them, it gives satisfactory results. As it is beautifully said: Social Security pays, sometimes leaving, moreover, a solid bonus in the case of really interesting domains.
Domaining in more classical terms is a completely different matter. Here, patience and intuition come into play, but sales, while rare, involve a much more solid cash injection.
When acquiring attractive domain names without a solid SEO history, we need to prepare for a long-term freeze on invested funds, perhaps even years. Well, and in addition to technical skills, we often have to show more cleverness.
Polish domain market is smaller than you think
It’s sad, but true. Polish entrepreneurs or investors are not able to pay for a good domain name even a fraction of what .com investors offer on the global market.
Of course: a smaller market, the Internet boom has gone a bit sideways, that’s all understandable. But already even industry websites CenyDomen.pl and DNS.biz.pl have stopped publishing reports of the highest sales in the .pl market. Is it because of their height?
Latest report: the highest sales of March 2019. In the .com market, the two-letter .com for $900,000. Leads.com for nearly half a million dollars. Nomen omen DomainNames.com for $370,000, and so on.
And with us? Hat.co.uk for PLN 26,500, Academy.co.uk for PLN 19,000 and long, long nothing. The rest sell for a few thousand zlotys each.
No, I’m not complaining, I’m simply warning that this is the nature of our market.
Every day between a thousand and several thousand .pl domains expire. I download and analyze each such list daily. Sensible domains hit a few. The competition to get them is high. This is the reality – a difficult niche, but not hopeless.
One more thing. Let the fact that there are almost 2,000 three-character .pl domains available off-the-shelf for registration at this moment testify to the secondary market for .pl domains. Almost 800 of them (!!!) are domains without special characters and digits, i.e. the most valuable ones. They are lying fallow, ready for registration. Unthinkable for .com domains.
Quantity, not quality. Quality, not quantity. It depends.
Quality or quantity? Here the answer is simple. As Mr. Schwartz says, when hunting domain, you need to use a sniper, not a shotgun. That is, invest precisely in something of value, rather than hoeing and buying and then trying to sell what you can find.
I agree with Mr. Schwartz to the point where we start capturing domains for SEO. This is where quantity matters. The domain has to meet the requirements you set up – it’s up to you to decide which ones. But any that meet them should be in your portfolio immediately. If I’m putting up my backend, I can be more picky, but if I’m getting a domain for trade, it’s enough that the domain meets my minimum requirements. Eventually it will find a buyer anyway, because how many SEOs, so many needs and opinions.
Don’t be one of THOSE people
Ok, everyone has seen this type of person on Facebook groups:
Well, no, it doesn’t work that way. If you register 20 domains that you think are oversold, you have just made a mistake, because since these domains were available for registration, it 99% means that they were not oversold at all.
Your job is to find the 1% that is actually worth looking at, but you won’t do it by trial and error, but at most by cleverness. Registering random domains “on the spur of the moment” is NOT a sign of cleverness.
Don’t pay attention to your competitors’ prices
Look at these prices: it looks like a piece of good business, doesn’t it?
Let’s look especially at the last example: doctors.com for $40,000: YUM, WHAT a tasty offer. Well, no, I do not ridicule this type of activity. I myself happen to inflate the price of a domain, and knife someone will be tempted.
I would caution, however, against being inspired by these types of prices. Let me assure you that I took the above screen shot on the first random subpage of one of the domain exchanges. There is a lot of it.
Absolutely do not be inspired by these prices when planning investments. One in 1,000 of these domains will perhaps sell. The rest will hang here for all time, until finally the owner agrees to an offer that is a ridiculous fraction of the initial amount.
What if you really wanted to be the proud owner of a domain named “doctors”? Well, here is the beginning of a list of more than 100 domains with a member of doctors available for registration right away, in amounts of 15-100 zlotys. With the $39,878 you saved, take your family on a dream vacation.
The .com market is no slouch – start modestly
We complained about the .pl market – it’s time for .com. In a word: drama 🙂
First of all, it is very hard. Some billion people co-contesting with you is a pretty serious obstacle. The chance of capture in the model a’la Aftermarket – negligible. If you already hit something interesting – the Asians or the Russian brothers have probably sprouted the domain with their spam on all possible sides. It’s tough.
And that’s why, carried away by unnecessary euphoria, don’t jump into this market like a boar into acorns. I scored my first .com domain sale after a couple of nice months. And it’s still not easy to get them.
In addition, registration and renewal costs for .com domains are generally much higher than for .pl.
Don’t let the prices taken from the sky in the previous paragraph fool you. If you want to enter the .com. market, do it slowly, like a steady head of the family before entering the sea. Cool your skin, and plunge in like a cetacean lazily sweeping its eyes over the jagged rocks of a Norwegian fjord.
Don’t jump on the bomb from the first better platform, because…. Enough metaphors, I think the point is clear.
Without investment you will remain a savant
This is the most important lesson I learned from my year of domain trading. Perhaps not so much the most important, but the one that has matured in me the longest.
It’s impossible to achieve much by still staying at the same level of investment. Yes, better and better ideas keep coming to my head, I’m gaining experience, I know what’s in the grass. But acquiring domains at a certain level is already impossible without a major investment. Without this, you will be selling domains over and over again for SEO at £50 a piece. And, unfortunately, this is not a scalable business; there are only so many domains that Internet users have registered and abandoned; it’s not a bottomless well.
Therefore, if you want to get to the next level, in addition to registering and capturing, you must also learn how to buy and bid smartly. There is no other better way up.
DO NOT write your own domain capture software
This is advice of the “don’t eat yellow snow” genre, but let’s be clear: writing your own software or any attempt to capture domains on your own without intermediaries is…. stupid.
If you haven’t yet moved on with your eyes to the next paragraph, I am forced to explain why they are stupid. Well, standing with your, God forbid, soft, against multi-million dollar businesses based on professional capture is, to put it lightly, imprudent.
Perhaps my soft was imperfect, perhaps you will create a better one. But I don’t think so.
Above all, however, not being a registrar, i.e. a partner of the NASK, you will not be able to send a request for registration of a particular domain to it with millisecond accuracy, because you will always be doomed to the intermediary and its response time.
And if you’re thinking of becoming a NASK partner, here’s where I toss in the instructions – remember to make a pre-paid down payment for a good start of cooperation in the amount of PLN 10,000.
Find out for yourself. No one shares knowledge
As you can see, in writing these words I am operating in generalities. I do not give you ready-made lists, places, patents. I’m just saying which way to go.
No one will give you a ready-made instruction. Domaining, in all its varieties, is based on cleverness and technical ability. No one is going to sell you their know-how cheaply, especially since, as we’ve established, the market is not as big as you might think.
Do an experiment. Try a simple Google search: at what time are unpaid .com domains released. Among the answers you will find a variety of hours, as well as information that it happens 24 hours a day. What is it really like? You will quickly notice it if you just start watching.
Forget hyphens, numbers and Polish characters
This is the absolute basis of domaingin: numbers, hyphens and characters outside the Latin alphabet are leprosy on the healthy skin of a domain portfolio.
Even if you think that, ب_ب.co.uk domain looks cool, know that you are burning through money when you buy it.
In justified cases, you may allow the thought of buying something with numbers in the name; however, the general and very correct rule is to beware of anything that is not letters.
In no other industry will you conquer so much with cleverness
In no industry that I know of, to be more specific. Why?
Because the paths to success in domaining are as numerous as the neural connections in the central nervous system. That is, not much in the case of some and very much in the case of others. If you belong to the latter group, the only obstacle is your budget and your own imagination.
If I were to count in how many ways, sometimes completely abstract, I have analyzed, sifted, searched, reworked lists of domains taken from various, strange and bizarre places….
Well, it would be appropriate to give an example, so here is a little patent at the end – where to get a tip for a good domain. Example one and the last, bye-bye:
- I am looking for an interesting domain, maybe something popular, after some company?
- But what company drops a good domain name, well what company?
- A failed company, that’s what!
- But how to warn others?
- You need to buy an option on the domain!
- But where to get a list of domains of companies that have not yet collapsed, but will collapse for sure? In the dark? I’m going bankrupt because of these options!
- If only there were a list of such companies….
- Or does it exist?
- And it’s updated daily, on top of my taxes!
- BANG Judicial and Economic Monitor of the Ministry of Justice
- And once two review the latest PDFs in Chapter III. NOTICES REQUIRED BY BANKRUPTCY LAW
- And once two stalk the companies listed there in search of interesting sites
- And register options for the best domains you can win this way!
- In a few months or so, company goes bankrupt, doesn’t renew domain = PROFIT
Enjoy searching, registering, acquiring and trading!
