Hi guys and gals!!! I thought I'd give you a nice little case study that could save you a buck or two and spare unwanted disappointment. Many gurus advise you to buy dropped domains because they got PR, traffic and indexed content. I will not advise otherwise because I've bought some myself. However, what I would like to show you is that you need to use common sense or you'll soon find yourself a good couple of hundred bucks down with nothing to show for it. I've been monitoring the Tdnam Expired Auctions from time to time sifting out domains that are at least PR2 and Alexa 8 million. If a year ago you could pick up one of those for 20 - 50 bucks, now, for a reason unknown to me, final price will end up in hundreds. spamblocked com - bought for $1,505 - where are they now: parked page, dropped Alexa, no indexed content, revenue close to 0 - verdict: idiots! themusiclover com - bought for $300 - where are they now: see above add-sites net (it was a good quality directory) - bought for $330 - where are they now: apart from the fact that there is still some indexed content, the verdict is the same denimblogs com - bought for $157 - where are they now: estimated revenue $3 a month, estimated period to recoup the investment - 4.36 years - verdict: idiots! fallsidehotel net - bought for $453 - where are they now: this is the only domain in this case study that is not parked, however, it has lost PR and been dropped from index due to [drumroll] how did you guess: duplicate content - verdict: noob! Knock, knock, wakey, wakey! People, you don't buy dropped domains to park them, at least not at that price. You buy them to develop them and capitalize on the content, you buy them to prop up your niche network. There should be at least plan B (in case the domain name is not making money) which is selling the domain name. Can you sell spamblocked com with a profit? LOL, no, you cannot. Maximum $1000 If you look at whois, you'll see that they are all the big American companies that are so big that they cannot be bothered to review their recruitment side of things and sack all the monkeys and bots that are working for them. Can we start a nice little discussion here? Why do you think people are being stupid and paying more than they should? Have you ever bought something and then regret it?
I was wondering the same things about all those dopey prices being paid for dropped domains. I'm sure an occasional good site gets around, but there is a reason why they get dropped. However, I did get deals on dropped names ( < $20 as I recall ) and then turned around and made casino directories out of the. However, I added my own links with original text. Now I have a nice pr3 directory at http://www.iukar.com/ ( I like that one the best) and another one that is pr2. They both held their pr value and I'm happy!
Domainers don't buy domains in bulk to develop them and no, they don't make a profit off EACH transaction. As long as they have profitable flips they can afford to lose some $x,xxx on such "premium" domains.
I bought over 500 domains..and i've only gotten offers for 3 of my domains. Most domains were bought at reg fee.. but about 10% around $100 - 1000 range. A few I bought for around 3k. Alot were bought at $69 namejet, $59 snapname, $60 pool..etc.. Total cost of all the domains i bought came out to be around $15,000 over a year's span. Guess how many offers I got to buy my 500+ domains? A LOUSY 3!!! but guess how much the Lousy 3 sold for??? 1. I bought at reg fee sold for $1200 2. Bought at reg fee sold for $800 3. Bought at auction for $400 sold for $18,000 So now I got over 500+ domains that I value one way or another.. So there's hope for domain ownership.. You just have to find that lucky one that iwll pay for your whole portfolio. I develop only about 10 - 20 of them.. The rest I stick on SEDO. I use sedo now cuz it lets people knwo I'm willing to sell.
Yep, need to use your eyez and check other parameters too! In fact many many reasons. Don't assume the site is bad only because it gets dropped. Consider: owner dead, gone to jail, got fed up, got married (that's even worse), company gone bust, plonker forgotten to renew hosting, etc. Yeah, you're right but some of my examples are extremely obvious. You cannot successfully flip spamblocked. Well, I know I know, you oughta take risk to succeed but then, why risking with something that is so obviously terrible or why ruining the added value of a domain name (indexed content and page rank) by parking the domain name? Take denimblogs for an example. Sell it as a domain only (no content, no PR) - what, $100 for that? Not much more. Flip it as a functional site with PR... and put it on sale for $300. Why would you dish out $157 and then ruin the site and diminish its value?? Please don't think I'm trying to insult you but let's play with this scenario: So you've spent $420 on the three domains you sold. Why did you put the remaining $14,580 down the drain? Maybe if you did your research a bit better, you would end up with just 50 good domains and no junk names. In that case your profit margin would be much higher. What I'm trying to say is: before buying a domain name, make sure there is a value in it, because it is possible that the only two persons thinking that this domain is the next big thing are you and the seller. LOL! Thank you for all your comments, I really enjoyed them.
"Please don't think I'm trying to insult you but let's play with this scenario: So you've spent $420 on the three domains you sold. Why did you put the remaining $14,580 down the drain? Maybe if you did your research a bit better, you would end up with just 50 good domains and no junk names. In that case your profit margin would be much higher. What I'm trying to say is: before buying a domain name, make sure there is a value in it, because it is possible that the only two persons thinking that this domain is the next big thing are you and the seller. LOL!" From your thinking you obviously know nothing about domaining. Domain names don't sell overnight. Unless it's a 3 or 4 letter domain and even that shouldn't be sold over night as you may get higher value from a differnt party. I won't waste more time explaining but there's reasons why some people have 100,000 domains and poor smucks just spend their time critizing them for spending money on 90,000 of those domains when only 1000 makes money. one day you will get a clue. good luck
Buying a expensive high ranking domain and then parking does not seem like good business no matter what you plan on doing with it. You have to understand 95 percent of people who go into business fail .
Is there any benefit in buying an expired domain that has some pr and backlinks and then 301 it to another site? Would the links from the expired domain now be reflected as links to the new site?
Whoa, whoa! Someone has a really bad attitude here, eh... I've made more money than you, having spent less (I do my research)... but then I'm trying to talk to a person with four eyes and two mouths... what the heck! You're not even real, are you? Good point! You're right. It is better to retain the expired site's structure and put text links to another site (if the topics are relevant!!!). If you're lazy, you can do a redirect... for traffic purposes.
Case study on selected domains? Not a good way to do it: if I buy 10 for $1000 each and 9 go bust I can still win if I sell one at $20k.
spamblocked.com and themusiclover.com are actually pretty decent names, and wouldn't have been purchased for their pr and traffic.