Your Best Domains

[hnh]

I thought it'd be cool to see where everyone got their best domains from:

a) original reg back pre-dot com bust (ie. you've been around for a while)
b) expired domains (via snapnames, namejet, tdnam, pool)
c) reseller forums (dnf, etc.)
d) auction sites (sedo, ricklatona, traffic, live auctions)

I've focused mostly on option b, since I've found a fair bit of crumbs that drop unnoticed, though it's really time consuming to filter through all the lists. Do most people here have large budgets to spend on resellers/sedo, or are a lot of original 1990's reggers still around?

[Vijaya]

deleted

[draggar]

Drop catch that didn't even go to auction.

[owntag]

Reach the domain owner(non-domainer) and negotiate a deal privately.

You may be able to buy mid - high 5 figure domain for low - mid $x,xxx

[hugegrowth]

hand regs since early 2000, drop catches for .ca domains (TBR)
and lastly some deals at dnf and other forums.

[urlurl]

some cheap LLLL's on ebay
Pool.com
hand reg.

[mark]

options a,b,c,d; they are everywhere if you are willing to spend the time to search for them.

[victornumber]

b

[randomo]

I've focused mostly on option b, since I've found a fair bit of crumbs that drop unnoticed, though it's really time consuming to filter through all the lists.

Do you use a service like FreshDrop? Very handy for cutting down the time spent looking through drop lists!

[hnh]

I did.. but I cant now :(

[PokerPie]

My best names have almost all come from forums, with a couple of gems from expired domain auctions. I don't think I've ever even renewed a domain I've handregged. They all seem so good at the time, but then 11 months later I always find myself scratching my head wondering what I was thinking.

[Domainate.com]

Reach the domain owner(non-domainer) and negotiate a deal privately.

You may be able to buy mid - high 5 figure domain for low - mid $x,xxx

This is how I've gotten both my best sale and my business name, but I really don't do it that much. It's taken a lot of emails to get the few names I've gotten from that process.

[Slipxaway]

I get a lot of my names through GoDaddy auctions in the $5 closeout bin or from the expiring pool, usually for the $10 starting bid. I also contact private owners. Contacting private owners who are non-domainers is also a good strategy, because if they are asking more than you have, you might be able to work out an arrangement to broker a sale for them and at the least make a commission. I recently participated in my first auction at Snap, for a domain ... I got up to $800 and had to pull out. It sold for $3k something. I still want it. A lot of hand regs... It's still possible to find some half decent domains that drop or dropped awhile back and have remained unclaimed. I recently hand regged BrandClerk.com Not the greatest name ever in the world, but you try finding a half decent branding name, especially one that has to do with selling and then you'd learn to love it as much as I do for the $5 I paid for it.

I think it just takes a good eye, there are still bargains to be had and still opportunities to turn less than stellar domains into nice sales.

[iamjimmorrison]

I am still struggling with the whole name thing. Since getting into this about a half of year ago, I have been all over the place. I think I get some good names, but what I learn so far is that this industry seems to vary widely, with not particular formula for success.

I have hand registered half of my domains. I have picked a few up off of closeouts on G.D. for $5 plus registration, and the $10 starting auction. I only have sold two domains so far...so with over 70 in inventory for sale and/or development, I largely do not know for sure what I have in worth. I have several that have high valuations on Valuate (beta.estibot 2.0)....just sold one that was valued for $3000 on Valuate for $29. So that seems to be a swing and a miss....still think great name, and maybe I sold in wrong place (Bido, accelerated auction)...but any advice here is welcomed. I am not proud. The other domain I sold on sedo, hand registered, and it sold for $250....now that got my adrenelin going...one step toward domain name addiction.....advice welcome! Merry Christmas

[PokerPie]

I am still struggling with the whole name thing. Since getting into this about a half of year ago, I have been all over the place. I think I get some good names, but what I learn so far is that this industry seems to vary widely, with not particular formula for success.

I have hand registered half of my domains. I have picked a few up off of closeouts on G.D. for $5 plus registration, and the $10 starting auction. I only have sold two domains so far...so with over 70 in inventory for sale and/or development, I largely do not know for sure what I have in worth. I have several that have high valuations on Valuate (beta.estibot 2.0)....just sold one that was valued for $3000 on Valuate for $29. So that seems to be a swing and a miss....still think great name, and maybe I sold in wrong place (Bido, accelerated auction)...but any advice here is welcomed. I am not proud. The other domain I sold on sedo, hand registered, and it sold for $250....now that got my adrenelin going...one step toward domain name addiction.....advice welcome! Merry Christmas

Got some advice for you that you probably aren't going to like to hear (I know I didn't like hearing it). Most of the domains you own now are probably worth reg fee and the ones that aren't are probably worth low xx. Newbies just don't know what makes for a good domain name.

First off stick with .com's with no dashes for now, until you figure things out (probably eliminates at least 1/3rd of your portfolio already, right?). Next you want either very short names (LLLL.com or shorter - nothing with numbers longer than 3 characters) - or names that have both a high number of results in Google when you search it in quotes (at least 1,000,000 results) AND a high search frequency when you check it via the Google AdWords Keyword Tool - EXACT SEARCHES of at least 10,000, preferably a lot more. One word dictionary .com names are also generally good regardless of their Google statistics, but high results and search frequency will make them very nice domains. The final group is names that have establish traffic and revenue. If they are generic .com domains you can expect to pay several years' worth of revenue minimum, but you'll still probably have made a good investment. If they are typo or TM domain's you can get them as low as 18-24 months or even less, depending on quality.

A lot of the top domainers suggest guys like you to buy 'one very good domain' instead of a bunch of mediocre stuff, and to develop a profitable website around it. I'm not sure how I feel about that but it's one school - if I had started that way I'd at least have one very good $x,xxx domain right now instead of hand-registering and buying at auction the hundreds of garbage names I started with - 99% of which I did not renew after one year. The biggest problem with this advice is that a newbie isn't going to know what a 'very good domain' is and will probably end up overpaying for a mediocre domain that they like. If you do go with this method, definitely try and get a few opinions about whether you are paying 'reseller' or 'end user' value for the domain. Never pay more than reseller.

Merry Christmas and good luck.

[tekz999]

Mainly dnf and tekz999.

[hnh]

A lot of the top domainers suggest guys like you to buy 'one very good domain' instead of a bunch of mediocre stuff, and to develop a profitable website around it. I'm not sure how I feel about that but it's one school - if I had started that way I'd at least have one very good $x,xxx domain right now instead of hand-registering and buying at auction the hundreds of garbage names I started with - 99% of which I did not renew after one year. The biggest problem with this advice is that a newbie isn't going to know what a 'very good domain' is and will probably end up overpaying for a mediocre domain that they like. If you do go with this method, definitely try and get a few opinions about whether you are paying 'reseller' or 'end user' value for the domain. Never pay more than reseller.

Merry Christmas and good luck.

I disagree to a certain extent. Any newbie starting out is going to have to take the leap of faith and invest quite a bit of money in "education." You can lower this cost by being very stingy with your money in the early months of your career, although you should probably be ready to lose at least $xxx.

What you're going to find out soon is that this market is a lot more saturated than it seems, and good deals are far and few in between. Now... my question is whether most of the guys on dnf (the other forum is completely worthless for professional advice) actually take the time to seek out these deals or do they actually blow through 10k's at sedo auctions, hoping to flip it for a profit later on to other domainers.

[iamjimmorrison]

Got some advice for you that you probably aren't going to like to hear (I know I didn't like hearing it). Most of the domains you own now are probably worth reg fee and the ones that aren't are probably worth low xx. Newbies just don't know what makes for a good domain name.

First off stick with .com's with no dashes for now, until you figure things out (probably eliminates at least 1/3rd of your portfolio already, right?). Next you want either very short names (LLLL.com or shorter - nothing with numbers longer than 3 characters) - or names that have both a high number of results in Google when you search it in quotes (at least 1,000,000 results) AND a high search frequency when you check it via the Google AdWords Keyword Tool - EXACT SEARCHES of at least 10,000, preferably a lot more. One word dictionary .com names are also generally good regardless of their Google statistics, but high results and search frequency will make them very nice domains. The final group is names that have establish traffic and revenue. If they are generic .com domains you can expect to pay several years' worth of revenue minimum, but you'll still probably have made a good investment. If they are typo or TM domain's you can get them as low as 18-24 months or even less, depending on quality.

A lot of the top domainers suggest guys like you to buy 'one very good domain' instead of a bunch of mediocre stuff, and to develop a profitable website around it. I'm not sure how I feel about that but it's one school - if I had started that way I'd at least have one very good $x,xxx domain right now instead of hand-registering and buying at auction the hundreds of garbage names I started with - 99% of which I did not renew after one year. The biggest problem with this advice is that a newbie isn't going to know what a 'very good domain' is and will probably end up overpaying for a mediocre domain that they like. If you do go with this method, definitely try and get a few opinions about whether you are paying 'reseller' or 'end user' value for the domain. Never pay more than reseller.

Merry Christmas and good luck.

Poker Pie. I do appreciate your taking the time for the above. Advice is good and VERY useful. I will have alot of sludge that will not get renewed when their time comes up. Fortunately, I have completely stayed away from hyphenated, numbers and names that do not make sense. I do focus on .coms, with a few .nets and .orgs (probably about 5 apiece). I do have quite a few .infos, about 10 or so. They were cheap to register, and this was one of my early mistakes. A few of these will be developed into mini-sites or e-commerce and I will try to maximize via SEO and PPC...again, most of this learning.

I do struggle a bit with reseller vs. end value estimates. As you know, there seems to be no one way to value these things. I do realize Valuate is end user, but I use it as a relative value.

Some examples of names I own are gettable.com, drivercd.com, cheesehead.info, genvar.com, donationcharity.com. These are some of the decent ones. There is a bunch of sludge in the inventory. The good news is, I only have invested about $1100 in names so far, and I have revenue from just two sales of $279 (cost for these were $21)....so the final question will become, I am focusing on sales and trying to figure the best place to do so. I just let the last one go on Bido, getting just $29 for a name that was decent, and had traffic on it. So any advice on selling is appreciated. I am learning by watching and particpating in these forums.

Again, thanks for the advice....and no advice is too harsh to take if you really want to learn something.

Best...iamjimmorrison

I disagree to a certain extent. Any newbie starting out is going to have to take the leap of faith and invest quite a bit of money in "education." You can lower this cost by being very stingy with your money in the early months of your career, although you should probably be ready to lose at least $xxx.

What you're going to find out soon is that this market is a lot more saturated than it seems, and good deals are far and few in between. Now... my question is whether most of the guys on dnf (the other forum is completely worthless for professional advice) actually take the time to seek out these deals or do they actually blow through 10k's at sedo auctions, hoping to flip it for a profit later on to other domainers.

hnh...see the latter post...yes, I am into it a bit, and I believe there is a cost for 'education' and happy to spend it. Forturnately, the one who got me into this industry was a decent mentor that at least started me on not buying some of the normal mistakes. They are not great names, but not the normal bevy of sludge newbies tend to have. But this industry appears to be quite saturated with deals difficult to find. With my lessor experience, I will not go for truly premuim names, that would likely be wasted $$ on my part right now especially since I do not have the time to develop like I would like to

[biggedon]

I thought it'd be cool to see where everyone got their best domains from:

a) original reg back pre-dot com bust (ie. you've been around for a while)
b) expired domains (via snapnames, namejet, tdnam, pool)
c) reseller forums (dnf, etc.)
d) auction sites (sedo, ricklatona, traffic, live auctions)

I've focused mostly on option b, since I've found a fair bit of crumbs that drop unnoticed, though it's really time consuming to filter through all the lists. Do most people here have large budgets to spend on resellers/sedo, or are a lot of original 1990's reggers still around?

Hi

b 4 eye say best, what is best?

is best the highest earner,

the longest owned with the most potential,

the consistent earner year after year

or the one that gets lots of offers?

since it's about your best, then you should still own them.

many of my best domains that i still own, were originally purchased from other domainers on dnf and other forums.

i also got quite a few choice domains from enom's old "club drop", before they went nj on us.

in those days and prior to, overture was real and in effect, so you could almost be assured that every domain you caught that had overture score with the extension included, would get traffic!

at one time, 75% of my portfolio had some ovt w/ext and was producing revenue on the regular.

now is a different time, but i still manage to hand register a few good domains, where after a few years they move up the list from good to best.

i've also managed to catch a few domains from snap or namejet, that have moved to the "best" list as well.

but best to one, may or may not be considered best to another.
so when considering best, some foundation of criteria should be applied.

imo...

[blogcrash]

Since i still don't have $x,xxx to invest, i continue going after droped names for reg fee.

And i can't say i'm going bad with this option.
I started with $100 when i reged my first name.

After 1 year and 3 months i have a 220 domain portfolio, some high cost licenced scripts and joomla components to develop some websites in the near future, and sent almost $xx,xxx to my bank account.

All this with $100 !!!
But yes, it's true... in all this process i reged a lot of junk!

The secret is to learn with our newbie mistakes.

3 weeks ago i reged BiofuelSolution.com from a drop (reg fee)

Already had 2 contacts from potential end users.

So, in conclusion, you can find some good names on drops for reg fee.
But read a lot, learn from experts here on DNF, and think like the end user you will want to sell the domain before reg it.

Good Luck and Happy 2010

PS: My biggest problem still is my poor english! lol