I have talked to some guys who do type-ins and they say the volume is slowly drying up. Is that true or was it just his portfolio had "aged" or soemthing.

In my experience, this is true, thought it depends what you mean by the word "slowly". :winkwink:

This will probably refer to when KRL spoke about holding onto your investments for too long. He probably did that and the value started to sink for him. :2 cents:

Woops, guess i am wrong. hehe.

I thought it made sense. The guy probably missed the peak of his domains worth. Just a observation from what i KRL wrote earlier.

I haven't seen that happen on the domains I have with type-in traffic or the ones I've had deals on.

Its mind boggling how steady type-in traffic. Everyday you wake up look at the stats and the traffic is there and you just shake your head how reliably it arrives like clockwork.

Type-in traffic is very reliable on the high end domains and obviously incredibly lucrative since you have zero cost of traffic acquisition beyond your investment in the domain.

I was also puzzled at reading the DNF sales thread. So many jokers showing up there now (maybe member domaintalk is AKA dntalk?). :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Anyway, glad this thread turned into something positive. Very nice to read KRL's thoughts on electronic real estate and how he plays the game. :thumbsup

Cheers

I thought the same thing. :Graucho

and what is your experience on your names?
is the traffic today on them f.e 10% lower than it was 1 year ago, or what?

Actually what I mean by that is timing is everything when you are in the selling mode.

Like right now, we've got a valid deal prospect on Men that is very tempting.

The question becomes do you take a nice pop after a year of ownership or hang on and see what next year or 3 years or whenever brings.

The thing I worry about is that when you are at this level of investment, even though I don't see anything on the radar right now, technology scares the living fuck out of me in terms of deal investing, because all you need is one major technology based way of doing things to change and your million dollar domain could be worth literally zero overnight.

For example, what if the Net goes to an audio input based system of finding things vs the current keyboard based way. Which I do think it will eventually, because the current search process is dysfunctional and typing all day is insanely a pain.

I envision the day when you will talk to your PC like a concierge to find sites and information. You won't type in what your're looking for, you will tell your PC concierge to find specifically what you are looking for.

This could have a dramatic impact on the value of type-in domains because you won't be typing in you will be telling your PC what to find.

It has to go to this because the search process is not effective from an efficiency perspective in its state. You get too many bogus search results and good ones are lost in a sea of millions of sites and it takes forever to find exactly what you are really hoping to find.





So what if

Another big factor you have to watch are regulations.

What if the government decides ok if you have a big type-in domain you have the responsibility to build a real site on there and not just a page of PPC links.

Kind of like zoning laws are in real world real estate.

It'd be like saying ok you own a premium property on 5th avenue, you can't put a 1 story house on there, it has to be a high rise building to match everything else in that league.

This could also have a dramatic impact on the type-in domains because nearly all the guys that own these don't develop them and just put PPC links on them.

So now it would mean invest and build or you lose the rights to the domain.

That could be Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! for all those guys and you'd see a mass flood of prime domains offered for sell and it would be a buyers market.

thanks for the great idea.

My type-in traffic has declined slightly over time.

People think type-in traffic is forever. It is not. It is a temporary means to finding what you want, but as KRL points out, all it takes is one shift in technology and your real estate is worthless from that perspective.

That's why you'll find most of us in the biz won't pay more than a year or two tops revenue.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh fucker. :)

KRL I agree on the technology change risk, but not on the government regulation risk.

I simply can't imagine the government ( which government? ) telling peopel what to put on type in ( or any other ) domains...

The other thing you want to do when selling is be creative.

Make it easy to buy. Finance the purchase for the seller and get benefit from doing that.

Like a domain you buy for $100,000 for example. You have a buyer at $500,000 and they have some exciting plans for it, but don't want to layout $500K.

So you say ok lets do it like this. $100K down and I'll finance the acquisition for you with 4 quarterly payments of $100K each to complete the deal and I stay in for a backend piece of 10% on it. Most guys will jump on that. So you get your 5 to 1 pop plus stay in for the long term ride on it.

I also think of the day when domain names become obsolete.

Is it best to have something (anything being better than nothing) on a domain thats being developed even prior to its site launch?

I'm asking because my partner and I are in development stages of cheapies.com and (edited to take this domain name out of public eye).com. We don't have anything as placeholders .. hell I don't think we even have the DNS set for one of them lol
after reading this I'm thinking thats not exactly a good idea

thanks for all the great info KRL

100 domain gurus helping out us idiots

I couldn't imagine the government telling me what I could or could not put on my 900 programs, but they did.

I couldn't imagine the government advertising to the public that if you don't want to pay for your 900 calls you don't have to, but they did.

I couldn't imagine the government telling me that girls moaning and groaning on a a 900 line was obscene and that I would be charged with interstate distribution of obscene material and fined $75,000 per day if we didn't immediatly shut down our phone sex lines, but they did.

I couldn't imagine the government telling me I had to have a certain size font in my TV commercials, but they did.

etc. etc. etc.

Trust me, at any moment the government can step into your business and fucking dictate a new way of doing things, with new rules, regs, laws, or just downright morally and politically motivated messing with you.

Anyone who doesn't believe this has never had it happen to them.

And it will happen. Technology has proven that over and over.

The only thing guaranteed in business is CHANGE.

Thanks again DB. Adam just closed down the bogus seller thread over there.

:thumbsup

good lol...

i remember coming across a site that was selling my domain sexequip.com the other day and they said they had it appraised at 300-400k :)

oh heres a question... 4 letter .com's.... will they be as valuable as 3 letter .com's soon?

Real Estate laws are put in place to keep things stable in a community, they serve a huge purpose I think. If you go to some countries outside of North America you see that they may not have these laws in place and things are just chaotic. With domains a PPC search page or whatever does not affect your neighours, the resale value of men.com is not affected if women.com is filled with pop-ups and spyware. So while comparisons between domains and real estate are valid, in this aspect of regulation I don't think it applies.

Also with top level domains being an international thing no one goverment can set these laws. Maybe country code domains sure, but not the top level ones.

Values seem to be rising for everything.

yah i know, but do you think 4 letter .com's is a pretty safe investment and should all be snagged?

The person is now in Adam's java chat program saying that it was his "partner" named cdmd3 (a.k.a. Orr) who listed it for sale after having talked with you.

:helpme

All I'm saying is you never know what governments can do since they can do anything they want to.

Example:

Currently individuals who want to set up an Internet account or even use a computer in an Internet cafe must first fill out the Police File Report Form which goes to the local MPS and to the provincial-level MPS Computer Security and Supervision Office. New users also need to sign a Net Access Responsibility Agreement in which they swear not to threaten state security or reveal state secrets or to do anything that "endangers the state, obstructs public safety, or is obscene or pornographic." Finally, if they are getting a dial-up account, they must provide their ISP with detailed information including the MPS permit number for their modem.

technology change is obvious but that is something that *might* happen in future

the current domain system is quite stable at this moment, although new extensions are added, but the "dot com" still rules for sure

so i was just interested what are the general trends in generic ( adult ) domain type in traffic. I can imagine that the type in traffic in adult was higher f.e in 2001 than it is now ( just a guess though ), since back then there was less free porn so people who were surfing porn just typed in hotteens.com or naughtybabes.com in their browsers and now some of them go simply direct to TGP's

but i am wondering if you still see a steady decline in traffic nowadays, f.e today compared to 1 year ago :Oh crap

but I am not sure if you want to share it here :error

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I talked about this with a friend, dntalk has taken some heat over the last few days for unethical tactics when acquiring domains. Both are from the middle east, both regged in sept 2004 plus both seem to have a very unethical business M.O.

:2 cents:

Its been all tracked down now. :)

Type-in traffic has been, from the beginning, a bit of a miracle. Any slight change in Internet technology could wipe it out--and that's been the case since the beginning.

KRL is right about government intervention, though the fact that many of us are structured in different countries means that we can get around any US intrusions. But never underestimate how quickly governments can shake your business model upside down. KRL's experienced and been through many cycles of this stuff, and I believe that Bush will use some of his second term to make things difficult for the business.

Time was, you invested in perhaps 3-5 years revenue on a domain, because Internet traffic was still growing exponentially. Now that is no longer the case, at least in the first world that is English speaking. I'd love to be Chris Chena, tapping the Latin market, as that is nothing short of explosive, and Chris has told me of some of the scale of his projects.

To Polish's question: I was convinced a few years ago that type-in traffic would be doomed by the rise of Google. But as sure as night falls, people still type direct into their browser the object of their fascinations. :upsidedow

Tomorrow is never guaranteed, in business or life. Prepare for change and it won't hurt as much when it comes.

The other significant factor at play now is, as KRL was saying, is that players from outside the domain world are now hovering, ready to buy up significant portfolios, whereas in the old days it was only other guys in the business, really.

I can't talk about it now, but there will be a deal in the next few months that will significantly change the landscape and drive domain values to peak levels.

:pimp

haha, that's really a cool one.

damn I passed on exploited.com @ 10k late last year... then couple weeks ago i noticed slavik had it.. seems it's still his data in the whois.

hey KRL, is there anyway of contacting u to discuss something that is non domain oriented.

nice fucking domains

Shoot me an e-mail at [email protected] or ICQ 123583718. I'll be online later.

Like DomBuyer stated above, during the next year you're going to see some enormous porfolio deals get done. Prices are going to go crazy and people will be shaking their heads in disbelief at some of the names selling for crazy money.

With all the media attention, there'll be lots of money chasing good names.

And like stated above, just always be prepared for change and the unexpected from technology shifts, government regs, and the like, cause it can have a profound impact on values.