investing in domains ...

200.com

yes

I really should't be answering these questions actually, I don't know enough.

LOL. then they better pay me back for my 20+ credits that are floating.

they say you can apply the cost towards buying future domains up until aug 10th 2k5

I too had SnapBack credits, I think they plan on giving us a "voucher" of sorts to participate in their auctions.

these snapback credits are bullshit. I'm going to demand they pay me back $1,000+ dollars. the only reason why I paid upfront was the EXCLUSIVE backorder rights to the domain if they secured it. They changed what they sold me, and I should have the choice whether or not I want to keep my money there. ridiculous. I see their logic, but it's flawed. Not the same product I paid for, so time for a refund. If they do secure any domains in my list, then I'll pay.

and it took them long enough to switch to this model. they stood by and watched pool, enom eat their market up.

This has been an *awesome* thread. I feel I've learned more about the domain business from reading it than the sum total of everything I've read anywhere else.

I won't claim to be in the domain business at all -- I've never sold a domain -- but over the last few months I've developed a terrible domain *collecting* habit. Nothing like the rich sweet multi-K$ domains mentioned in this thread, but unregistered available-for-$8.88 stuff that's just too nice to leave running around loose in the wild. A few obscure dictionary domains (figging.com, ouches.com, urtication.com, bastardy.com, ravishers.com) and lots of two-word stuff that's short and memorable and/or fits the kinky websites I develop (canedgirls.com, bitgags.com, toeporn.com, spankinghub.com, spankingsmut.com, that sort of thing.) Most of them I have at least a backup plan for, if not a primary development plan. But I'm quickly getting more than I could ever hope to find time to develop.

Some of you pros will doubtless scoff at this sort of name, but I'm confident that I can eventually sell some of them, for enough to show a profit. There still are decent names out there for the cost of registration, if you pay attention.

Anyway, thanks for all the excellent info!

Some great info coming out of this threads.

nothing to scoff at. Everyone plays their game, their own way. Some better than others. But your method is working for you and that's whats most important about the domain game. in my opinion, nothing wrong with two-word domains, i've bought and sold countless 2 worders. or three words for that matter if you have a gameplan: develop it, or find sponsors, or sell it... or a combination. Those that enter this industry, now, with the sole purpose of trying to resell without any plans for monetizing traffic or setting up sponsors will find it rough out there, not impossible, just rough. I never tought of registering toeporn.com, but you did, and you have a site up, and after seeing it, I say congrats on owning a great foot fetish name, i mean toe fetish. also, i like lustblog.com

it 's a very interesting and long thread and
i believe many of those who replied or just read
this topic - definitely bought a domain or two ;)

this game is addictive i think.
it would be intersting to know which names was bought for just $8,95 - pst em here
i bought the fiollowing:

pillsindustry.com
hpills.com (herbal pills)
and another one which i don't want to post here ;)

Thanks Taboo

Value is in the eyes of the buyer. I wouldn't "spend" 8 bucks on hpills.com as I don't care for pills.

However, if someone has some good gyno/medical fetish domains - hit me up Sexynurses.com would be a good example

Contact me at ICQ 18822023 or email: kraz[at]nichefetish.com

nice thread. definitely bookmarking this for future reference.

Ran a "domain drop" test today and placed 6 domains (all from a vein that I'm still mining) into the following drop services to see which service is most effective:

Drop Services:

+Pool: $60 paid only if caught, if multiple people bid, if goes to 3 day auction
+GoDaddy: $15, but only 1 backorder per domain, paid in advance, and get credit if not captured
+NameWinner: $30-$50 bids, extended auctions
+SnapNames: $60 paid only if caught, if multiple people bid, if goes to 3 day auction
+Enom's Club Drop: $30-$50 bids, but if multiple people bid, if goes to 3 day auction

fortunately I was able to get exclusive backorder at godaddy for all 6, so this was an almost perfect test.

Drop Scores:

+Pool: 0/6. never seen that before. glad though cause it's $60 a piece. SHOCKED.
+GoDaddy: 1/6. SHOCKED
+NameWinner: 1/6. for $30. suprised.
+SnapNames: 0/6. not suprised.
+Enom: 4/6. 1 is mine @ $30, 3 in auction. now I wish Pool got them for $60.

Glean what you want from my test. I learn something new everday. While it pays to backorder everywhere, I would not have used Snapnames if they didn't change their business model this morning. At least now, you only pay if they catch the name. I may reveal the names later, only after auctions are over. but these names were not the best drops from today. so they weren't really a factor because there's less than 3 people bidding against me in each enom auction.

Ok. for those that want to test the waters of the DOMAIN DROP game...

tomorrow some good domains are dropping. one of the best is a 3 letter .com, which happens more often then you'd believe.

PRD.com

Now some of the haters will flame me, but I want to give you all a taste of how seductive, successful, addictive and frustrating this game can be...

so, go open accounts at:

SnapNames.com
Enom.com (join club drop)
Pool.com (sign up for your own affiliate code before adding domains)
NameWinner.com

some of the services may run a credit check of $60 to verify who you are, I'm not sure cause it's been ages since I joined.

But if you want to see how the game is played, you need to add PRD.com to your watch list at each service. You must do it before Noon (EST) tomorrow to be safe. And between 2-4 est you'll find out which service, if any of them captured the domain, and you can watch the price rise, probably far above $12,000. What's the point? It's a great way to learn the ropes without risking much if any money because none of us are getting it for $60 tomorrow but we'll all have a chance to watch the same domain, a premium one, see which service catches it and discuss the auction in progress. Goodluck to all of you. Perhaps someone here may actually buy it in the end.

why PRD?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=prd
could stand for so much.

p= people,pet,porn,private,privacy, public, photo(grapher/phy),publishers,payment,preview etc...
r= review, restaurant, real estate, rent(al(s)), reply, resource, religion, etc...
d= digital,division,dept,database,domain,dealer etc...

Product Review Database
Porn Review Database
Parks Recreation Department
Press Release D...
Public Relations D...

perhaps some celebrity, CEO, or corporations initials that would pay handsomely for it.

quick flip, potential lawsuits/wipo, but perhaps plenty of ways around it because it stands for whatever you want. if I was still buying, this would be on my "must have" list. but I already spent too much this year on 3chars.

Hey Taboo, I don't want to be the second AVM in this thread and I really appreciate your sharing of knowledge here ( although most things aren't really new to me ) but i can't say i understand your reasons to share all this knowledge.

It's like suddenly Wired Guy would share all his secrets on how to get the best results in the SE game...That simply doesn't make much sense. He would only get more competitors.

... And the same IMO applies to you.

Let's say you are bidding at Pool for a top expiring domain and when you get only 1 more GFY'er involved in this game ( lets say someone with some spare $$$$ ), then you may have to end up paying a few $k more for expiring domains, only because there will be more persons bidding on them. I understand you may be really rich, but I'd still spend that few k in other way :-))

No hate, no offense, just a honest friendly question - why are you doing it.

No doubt you could flip PRD.com

But you really think you can get $12K for PRD.com?

I've seen guys peddling 3 letter domains for much less and still no buyers.

PRD.com *should* fetch 4k-5k

And it will definitely get that off the drops.

But I know it will go for more just because it's dropping.

Watch SN grab it, heheh.

Probably grab $6k+ at where ever it gets auctioned off at.

Unless godaddy? ;)

not me. I think if pool.com catches it, might go that high, it'll at least hit 5k. I've seen plenty of 3s go for 5fig. and you're right, lots of them never sell because they include the letters no one wants... X,J,Q,Z,K etc.

Here's an example, right now on pool.com these dropped:
ohz.com, $2,357.00 19bids, closing 2004-08-12 16:34:00


fyi, another domain, not a 3:
headgear.com, $5,469.00 32bids, closing 2004-08-12 16:34:00


these sold, this year at pool after a drop:
wwu.com $10,050.00
akb.com $6,100.00
nbc.net $6,100.00
ogv.com $5,567.00
322.com $4,650.00

just checked out dnjournal.com and topten hasn't been updated yet. damn. anyone got the scoop for this week?

by the way, I go to chena.com a lot, just to see if he posts updates and it always inspires me to work harder when I read his front page:

//
We have more than 1,000 sales per day
We have more than 200,000 paid (sponsored) clicks per month
We have more than 5 million unique visitors per month
We show ads from more than 90,000 sponsors on our network
We invest 6 figures (USD) every month in top websites and domain names with high traffic
//

Lol. valid points you're making. it's because I've chatted/met ppl who want to jump in headfirst and drop all their money into 1 bad name or 1,000 even worse names. when i saw this thread, I was afraid that ppl would think that this game is easy, that their money would lead the way. At least now, they have a little more knowledge than they did before. so they can make the right decision, and some of them may stay away completely. but at least none of them will end up buying crapcrap.com for $10K and come here asking us what we think after he already bought it. If you visit other domain boards, they will tell you exactly what you want to hear while they try to unload their crap domains on you. they eat noobs alive. sometimes, due to all the misdirection and lies, the noobs, who are good ppl trying to make a buck, lose everything they had. I don't like to see it happen. I came to gfy to network with sponsors/WMs for my portfolio, but when I saw his thread, and what he was going to spend.... you know the rest.

regarding creating more competitors for myself, I'm not playing the drop game anymore chasing premiums. I grab a few domains, new/drops that fit into my portfolio and that I can get cheap, but i track the news and the premiums because I'm putting together some domain resource projects that I've owned for awhile, i.e. DomainLicensing.com, DomainNews.com, DomainIncubator.com (which went live this morning, only 1 page ). you can see some of my portfolio there, I've got nothing to hide anymore because I'm developing my domains into businesses now and doing lots of mainstream pr.

i do apologize if I'm stepping on someone's toes with the info i shared, at least you presented the problem to me differently, little more tact than AVM did. But I called for a truce with him cause it was interrupting the sharing process. I promise not to share anymore dropping names from this point on, not because they are hard to find, but because it's time ppl use what they learned here and put some sweat into it or they won't value it. maybe someday someone will return the favor when I step into another industry I know little about. The best part though, is I've received emails from people that want to barter with me, i.e. webdesign or tgp/seo tips for domain advice/guidance which is great. and as you can see from this thread, lots of people are coming back and sharing info and they're shocked that this thread is real.

someday we can put all of our knowledge together and build our own empires. but since only a few share and only a few are willing to work together, they're the ones that will be successful. look at all the networking potential.

share a little. learn a lot

The other way to look at it is If you already have a domain collection, and have stopped buying a lot, bringing in more competition and driving up prices will just raise the value of the ones already own.

The bottom line is you can make a fortune in the domain game if you have capital to work with and know what the true value is or can be for the properties you acquire and you buy them for far less than they are truly worth.

Well said Krl

Everything you said is correct.

but because of so many strategies, combinations of strategies, or sheer luck... it doesn't matter how much capital you start with. Or what your "perceived value" of the domain is. This market can bite you in the ass and you could lose your house if you're not careful. and yes, some have come crying to forums saying exactly that. and its painful to read. if you started with $100 today, you could still make a fortune. if you started with $100k now, you could lose it all if the domain market u-turns and the vein you "wisely" mined is obsolete. with $100.00, your risk is minimal, but so are your options and the opposite with $100k.

There is great risked involved in having lots of capital and we all know it doesn't translate into success by any means. Not even in the adult world. I only need to point to the cash/stock acquisition of business.com back in the heyday of the original domain wave. When the incubator, eCompanies (started by ppl from Disney and Earthlink) made that $7.5M cash/stock acquisition, the domain market skyrocketed and other companies with massive funding followed their lead for fear of being left behind. Where is that site now in terms of competing with Hoovers, WSJ, Thomas Registry, etc? For the $7.5M they spent you would think the name Business.com would be the juggernaut of the internet. It isn't. maybe in the future, but not now. In fact, they get laughed at when ppl look at the first bubble. But back then, because of perceived value, other incubators, VCs, fortune 100s,etc went on a buying spree believing that a category-killer domain = success on the IPO markets or guaranteed other liquidity events. Before domains were bought, there was an exit-strategy already in place. eBusiness.com was bought by another incubator, IdeaLab, for far less than Business.com, but because of "perceived value" at that point in time, it was a great coup for them. When was the last time you visited either site or even knew that eBusiness.com existed? That new bubble looks like it'll be fueled by smarter purchases because the net has matured into "fee over free" (thank god) and there is an easy way to monetize traffic now. But all this could disappear overnight for too many reasons I would not get into now, some of which are tech-influenced, some aren't. But even smart companies miss the boat sometimes, for example, ebusiness.com, because it never really launched, should have been flipped a few years ago when a Fortune 100 rolled out their 100+ million dollar ad campaign that featured the "ebusiness" term everywhere. but it's still owned by the same ppl because they weren't exploring all their options. Why do I keep bring them up? Because when I approached them and told them I could flip it for them in less than 30 days for $10,000,000 and anything above that price would be mine to keep, they rejected the idea and said impossible: "The Game is Over" - if you had only seen the site back in the day, you would have smiled (wayback machine at Internet Archive to see for yourself). Their incubator had received over $1 Billion in funding, but because of investors suing for their money back because of "overhang" and more misses than hits, they have less than $150,000,000 left. Which is a lot of money to have, but sad when compared with the amount that got "vapor"ized . All this is publicly available at lexis-nexis and searching tech law firms and vc boards. But maybe they'll get a chance during the second wave to try to build or flip again.

Look at ClearDay.com, formerly an internet wedding album site that flipped their domain this year for $60,000. (Internet Archive).

Look at the #1 reported sale for this week:
BoiseRealEstate.com $50,000
http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

I'm sure some of the current owners of other "CITY/STATE"RealEstate.comS have no idea of what they are sitting on. Can't hurt to contact them and see what they're selling for before other realtors read in realtor newswires about this week's purchase. Why did I bring this up, because I'm sure there are plenty of smaller, localized CITYRealEstate.comS available right now for under $10. So for those that want to get in cheap, look to your local markets and spend some time seeing if any domains are yours for the taking. because they won't be in a week because every realtor out there will scoop them up if they haven't already. I don't want people to think they can't start with $10, because they can, I just showed them how.

After reading the dnjournal article, I found 5 in my local area that were sitting there and shouldn't have been, if I was doing my job. But play it smart, don't grab every city, region in your area, only those where you know a realtor would want to advertise, buy or license, YES license the domain from you. AND do NOT reserve domains with the word REALTOR, it is a trademarked word and you will get a guaranteed C&D in the mail.

also, check for:
NameofCity Homes.com
NameofCity Realty.com
ISellNameofCity .com
NameofCity Guide.com
NameofCity Online.com

if you want to stretch the vein, not always a good idea, try these terms: Search,Portal,News,etc.

good luck.

i'm deep in the mines right now. meet you there.

if you want to reserve your domains at low cost with lots of easy access to modifying and transferring to buyers, use godaddy.com

i'm not affiliated with them, but it's one of the registrars I use and I recommend them. They have a bulk domain checker as well, but if you abuse it, they'll block you for 10/15 mins at a time.

branched out. found 4 more.

Bump for Taboo

PRD is $3570 right now so 4-5K is an excellent guess. If it goes to Pool, it should fetch more.

Thanks for update. I assume that's namewinner. PRD is $3200 at enom.

update on another 3 letter that dropped a few days ago:
ohz.com $3,000.00 ends 1d 6h 40m

Taboo, I took your advice on the city + suffix/prefix names, however my question to you is, how would you personally go about marketing these domains to potential buyers? If you don't mind sharing, I'd greatly appreciate it.

find a host that will let you point all the domains to one page. list them all on the page with your different prices or licensing fees beside each domain. I would ask for an annual fee and point it to their site. tell them they can license/buy multiple names at a SMALL discount.

marketing it? easy. pick up the phone. go to your supermarket, bank, gas station, etc and pick up the free real estate guides and call the realtors in there. Call the ones who have a domain name that sucks and tell them who you are and how you are calling EVERYONE in that guide. you may even close the deal by the time you hang up the phone. this target market understands the sales process, commissions, marketing, etc and they have money and a huge desire to compete in their marketplace. you are their wake up call. Then call the ppl who don't have domains, and explain the concept. they know they want one, but haven't gotten around to it yet. and especially call the ones who are using their own personal name as their domain name because they need a more memorable domain.

pricing, all depends on market. if the houses in that area are EXPENSIVE, then you charge more. you know what you need to survive. if you want to outright flip it, then ask for whatever price you want, and keep in mind they make plenty of money.

You could always build the sites and charge small monthy fee per house ($5-$15) or per agent ($50-$100 unlimited ads) to be on the site. but that takes work, and some ppl don't want the hassle. it is lucrative, because all the realtors that advertise in the freebie newspapers are your target customers and they have already shown they understand the concept of advertising. Hook up with an SEO who wants to partner with you or milk the search engines yourself by learning the game slowly. you can charge them much more after you've built up your reputation.

I use to own some smaller city names and have sold them to agents in the past and wish I had licensed instead, but I assumed that the agents had bought up the domain market. I found out that's not true after my mining tonight. I'm entering the real estate game in a different way with LocalListings.com (''check your local listings") but I can still make time to buy a $7 domain and sell it for $2k-10k+.

here's some of what I picked up so far:


for Maryland:
isellgaithersburg.com
gaithersburgguide.com
gaithersburgsearch.com
germantownguide.com
germantownsearch.com
abingdonrealty.com
isellabingdon.com
abingdonguide.com
abingdononline.com
abingdonsearch.com
iselllaurel.com
laurelguide.com
laurelsearch.com

for Virginia:
fairfaxsearch.com
restonguide.com
restonsearch.com

others:
santafesearch.com
tempesearch.com

and one I can flip/build right away:
ISellPhilly.com

some of these cities won't mean anything to most of you, but to the realtors in those areas, it's their cashcow.

back to the mines...

and don't forget to look for:

CITY.com,.net,.org
CITY+STATEABBREV.com
CITYSTATE.com

when I posted this, i am not trying to advise you to register the above AND attaching the realestate keywords to it. while it may be good for SE's, I was making the point that some simple terms are available like:

CityState.com

not:

CityStateRealEstate.com

though I would like to hear others opinion's if they think those would be great domains to own.

i.e.

MiamiFloridaRealEstate.com

if you don't know, PRD means "FART" in Czech...

well someone dropped a big one!

others I picked up mining this morning:

Maryland:
owingsmillsrealty.com
isellowingsmills.com
rockvillesearch.com
isellsilverspring.com
silverspringguide.com
silverspringsearch.com
towsonrealty.com
iselltowson.com
towsononline.com
towsonsearch.com
isellwhitemarsh.com
whitemarshguide.com
whitemarshnews.com
whitemarshsearch.com
bethesdaguide.com
isellchevychase.com
chevychaseguide.com
chevychasenews.com
crystalcityrealty.com
isellcrystalcity.com
isellannapolis.com
derwoodrealestate.com
derwoodrealty.com
isellderwood.com
derwoodguide.com
derwoodonline.com
derwoodsearch.com
derwoodmaryland.com
derwoodmd.com
isellhagerstown.com
hagerstownguide.com
hagerstownsearch.com
abingdonmaryland.com


Virginia:
crystalcitynews.com
crystalcitysearch.com


City names with multiple locations:
eastonguide.com
eastonsearch.com


Misc:
fairfieldguide.com
fairfieldsearch.com
isellac.com
isellatlanticcity.com
phillypennsylvania.com
insiliconvalley.com

//

non-real estate related:
soccercheerleader.com
soccercheerleaders.com
soccercheerleading.com

I was inspired after reading:
http://bbs.gofuckyourself.com/showth...postid=5005768
and seeing:
http://www.joker-inc.com/files/soccer02.html

Is the term "property" commonly used for real estate in the US?

eg city+property.com

yes. but properties, apartments, apts, rentals, forrent, condos, houses, etc.

MiamiProperty.com
MiamiProperties.com

both could work, but I've seen properties used more by real estate investors. and dont get CITYapartments, without CityApts or vice versa only because its a better package to market together, even though they'd be great apart.

i would've posted sooner but had to check to see if CITYapartments.com,CityApts.com,citycondo.com,city condos.com
were available.

Thanks, that being the case I've found a nice one.

BTW, what's "forrent"? We don't use that term in Australia.

Hey Taboo,

Thanks for recognizing the potential of viplounge.com (I was the one not sleeping that day ). Feel free to drop me a line if you had a serious interest in it, although I rarely sell (I mostly buy, e.g. shareholders.com was me; we recently acquired Miracle.com too).

Sincerely,

George

NICE. NICE & NICE.

I probably can't pay you what you'd want. be happy i got out before shareholders.com dropped because if i didn't get it, you would have spent much more. i would've paid beyond what you paid. very nice score. If you're looking for a development partner on shareholders.com, check out our DomainIncubator.com and email us.

"For Rent"

some ppl advertise CITYforrent.com, not the best in my opinion. also, anyone know if they use the term "For rent" in UK or is it "To Let"?

LOL, OK I read it as one word.

The term is used in Australia and I assume also used in the UK (ie we tend to use the same terminology). Probably not a good term though, 'cause it introduces yet another word into the domain domain, ie two words when one would do.

"To let" is also used.

And if LondonToLet.com was available I dont know if it would be worth it, because the .co.uk might be more marketable. but there's plenty of gold in everyone's local market.

back to the mines...

I bought wildestcollegeparties.com about a year ago for $8.95 off of Godaddy and have already had two offers on it for over 5k, its not for sale though becasue we have plans for it. So yea if you find the right domains you can make good money.

I also just registered ourstash.com which I think is a pretty cool domain name.

congrats. other's here might tell you to sell it because you can re-invest in other names, but I gotta respect ppl who want to develop domains. if you have plans for it, try to grab the variations/typos asap. and good luck. keep in mind that recently xxxmodel.com dropped and went for $3k, so you might be able to score something equally as nice on aftermarket with 5k in your pocket.

Taboo, great advice on local domains

What about industries other than real estate? Do domains like <local city>jewelry.com or such have any value?
How would one market them? Just call up people in the industry and see if they are interested?

Thanks for the great thread!