Is the expired domains business market still profitable?
 

By profitable, I mean generating at least $2.00 per $1.00 invested.

I figure the cost of running this model for 1,000 domains would be around $10,500 which is broken down as follow:
- Domains cost from a registrar that do free URL forwarding: $8,000 ($8 per domain)
- Creating a landing page: $1,000 (40 hours at $25/hour including script, design, content)
- Maintenance of the network: $1,300 (1 hour per week at $25/hour X 52 weeks)
- Hosting: $120 ($10 per month for virtual hosting)
The annual expense after the first year would be about $9,500 if we exclude the landing page cost which is a one time expense.

According to information I got from various people, I figure each domain will get about 10 hits per day (some said 2 other said 20+), so the total traffic per year I expect to get from the 1,000 acquired domains should be around 3,625,000 hits. From these hits going to the landing page, I figure about 5% (182,500) will click on one of the sponsors links.
From that 182,500 sponsors visits, I estimate a conversion ratio of 1:500, which comes out to 365 signups.

Assuming the average signup brings $30, the generated gross revenue from this model is $10,950 per year for an expense of $10,500 for the first year and $9,500 the following years.

If my numbers are correct, I don?t see how the expired domains game is a profitable business!

Profitable, but why lots of costs and time on domains? You can easily gain 3.5 mill hits per year with 10-12 domains. One database, several shitty TGPs, with better revenue.

To diversify your traffic source:winkwink:

And I'm not sure you can pull in a ctr of 1:20 with a TGP site!

or choose a good landingpage with a PPC sponsor :>

high traffic expired domains + other people's parking = easiest $ ever

(see www.textocean.com sedo stats for an example, only been parked for like a week)

Manowar, do you own textocean.com ?

and why does it receive so many hits? im lost a little, it doesnt seem to be a typein / typo domain...

Couldn't you make your own PHP landing page and get even more $$$?

You're making something that is simple into something complex.

K.I.S.S. always always always.

To succeed in the domain biz you just need to be an astute buyer, a master at monetization, aware of new keyword trends, and know when to sell and unload domains beginning to weaken in performance.

:thumbsup

PS - Your numbers are all off by the way.

you can get domains for much cheaper than $8 if you're gonna buy 1000

care to share your numbers?

expired domains suck :(

I'd be interested in knowing where you can get domains with URLs fowarding for less than $8.00/domain.

never understood that biz, can anyone give me a link to where you might discover these experied domains?

There are lots of scripts and sites that list expired domains. There are lots of sites and script that list expired domains, search for "expired domains" on Google for links...

Hey Alex,

I used to have a script that would poll available domains which were listed in DMOZ and Yahoo Directory. Although I didn't configure the two, you could also have the name registered for you via an Enom reseller account.

I don't know if you meant to only buy expired adult domains, but the other benefit you receive is unsolicited offers for the names. $100-300 isn't an unrealistic offer.

why pay $8 when you can pay $6.75 at fabulous.com

If I can get better numbers (i.e. at least $2.00 return for every $1.00 spent), i will probably start with adult domains and then branch out into mainstrean a few months later.

Used to be a popular site. Lots of backlinks and alexa :upsidedow

Does the price includes free URLs forwarding?
There's lots of places where you can get domains for less than $8/domain but they charges extra for the forwading service.

Just picked up www.vip52.com

in the alexa top 100,000

:upsidedow

yes, that's why i posted...

the lower the number the better...

Iyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Owwzzz It Angin Chuck

Yea Im Gud Cheers!!! Wts Da Beef

about 60,000

What tools do you use to snap expired domains? The big guys seem to snatch up all the nice domains before I can even check them...

Hit me up on ICQ: 216233171 sometime, I'll let you in on the info ;)


just put $1k price tag on www.vip52.com ... I'd rather let someone else monetise the amount of traffic and just take a profit on it from sale.

If it indeed include url fowarding to any site on my choosing, then it is a great price and will improve my numbers:thumbsup

You can get domains for $5.99 at www.1and1.com

If I were just buying for the flip like you guys I'd buy all my domains from them.

It's not just the price of purchasing the domain, the registrar must also include the URL fowarding service in the price.

I know namecheap do that, and with vouchers the price is $7.99 all the time.

a bit high though

fabulous rocks your boat, just make sure you signup for a premier account or wtf they are called

compared to the $35 I'm paying for some of my domains, $7.99 don't seem that expensive:winkwink:

Alex you are one weird ass dude. Weren't you the one saying PPS programs can't work either? Anyhow if you can't make more than $10,000 off of 3 million hits you need to carry your ass to McDonalds and ask for an application. Good Lord man.

Manowar care to share your expertise?

That was Alex from San Diego, the former owner of JSA, if Im correct.

No it wasn't me; and were talking 3 million page views, not hits sent to sponsors.

I'd like to be a little more active in this market again... I stopped since deleteddomains.com went paid... Maybe I ought to signup again.

The expired domain market is one of the most competitive markets out there. Any domain that might have decent traffic and or revenue is almost always caught by one of the drop catchers like SnapNames.com, Pool.com and Enoms club drop and sent into an auction where prices get inflatted fast.

The only way to do OK in the game without alot of $$$ is if you target a small niche market that isn't over speculated. Even doing that will be difficult and the income will be low.

Would you consider domains getting 5 to 20 hits per day to be decent traffic for a mainstream site?

If you can monetize the traffic 5 hits a day is good enough. All depends what kind of traffic you have.

Totally. I have found with expired domains, typein traffic is gold.

cool. thanks for the info.