A word of caution to all inexperienced domain buyers

This is for all the relatively inexperienced domain buyers out there, just some sound, good, down to earth advice from an old boy in his 40's who has been involved with the domain industry for quite some time.

It's actually painful to me, to see many of the names that many of you are hand registering, thinking that such name/s are going to earn for you, a considerable amount of money on your initial investment. Sure $9.00 or so isn't a lot of money for one domain, but when you get carried away and register many, of which, nearly all are worth next to nothing, this irks me.

Believe you me, I would love to see nothing more than many of you earning some decent money from your domain names, but the sad truth is, that many of the names that all of you inexperienced guys are registering are worth, pardon my french, dick shit, in other words absolutely zilch.

Think!! Before you buy, exactly, what you are doing. Do you have a plan in mind, for the development of the name that you are about to register? Believe you me, all of those $9.00 reg's add up and for many of you, before you know it, you will have registered a hundred or more names, costing about 900 bucks, with about as much chance of getting a serious return on your initial investment as me finding a snowball in hell.

The only pockets you are lining, are the domain registrars by registering such wanton and utter crap. 80% if not more of the names one see's on these forums, across the boards / forums are bloody rubbish, there's no easier way to tell you this.

Sure, you think the name you have chosen is God's gift to domaining, that it will earn for you, instant riches, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. My only desire with this thread, is that I save some of you money and hopefully, in my own small way, help to up the standards with the domaining industry.

When you choose names, this is for you inexperienced guys and gals, don't try to think so far out of the box that you exclude many of your would be, potential purchasers. Names that sell are true two word generics that make absolutely perfect sense, as in, the kind of thing that someone, or a great many people are likely to type in directly to their browser window. You want direct traffic and no-one is going to find your name or find it in the least attractive if many of you, keep on choosing the utterly absurd names that loads of you are registering at present.

Think very carefully about the name that you are registering. Better still, do your research and buy from the start in the aftermarket only, this will stand you in much better stead for the future.

Ok, it's not for me to tell you all what you can and cannot do, many of you are just going to have to be allowed to make your own mistakes and that's totally cool, but here are some tools that might just help you to make a more informed decision, in your choice and registering / buying of new domain names.

To see recent sales of domain names with keywords of your choosing use:

http://www.dnsaleprice.com

To check a lot of the stats of a domain name, including alexa ranking, valid page rank, number of links, age etc use:

http://www.dnscoop.com

To check on many other general stats use http://www.estibot.com

To look for expiring names with traffic results use:

http://www.tdnam.com

For another fantastic forum and to look into domaining a lot further, check out and read http://www.dnjournal.com

For complete newbies go to:

http://www.namenewbies.com

And:

http://www.namepros.com

For the latest .co.uk prices go to:

http://www.domainprices.co.uk

The most secure place to register your names is generally considered to be:

http://www.moniker.com

At Moniker you can also search for 500 plus names at a time under many extensions.

In providing this info, I'm just hoping that a few of you might save yourselves some decent amounts of dollar and not register absolute rubbish. I hope some of these tools are useful to you, if you do need instructions to use any of these linked sites, feel welcome to pm me and I'll do my best to help out in my spare time, any of you that I can. If it's a common question, I'll post into this thread again.

Too, if any experienced domainers want to contribute to this thread, please do so, with your own words of advice and/or caution for newbies just entering into this industry sector / links etc.

All the best to all of you.

Kindest regards and best wishes!!

Mark Magawr

 

good advice, thanks. i have decided to get out of this field

 

Wow, Totally agree. I have made my share of mistakes and later thought to myself "What a waste of money". When I try to explain something that comes across as a smart ass remark, I simply put it in a different perspective that might impact your thought process better...

For example, Mark mentioned above that the Reg's add up and if you compile about 100 you should have spent well over $900. It might seem like a small number when you separate those domains, but when you start getting emails from Godaddy saying all 50 of your domains are going to expire in a month, you realize that your gonna either have to give the domains away in the DP Forum or shed another $500 to keep your "God Given Domains".

Simply put, don't let the crowds take over your mind/wallet and maintain a business mindset... Maximize Profitability .... Buy One AMAZING domain that falls under the two generic word category and DEVELOP IT!
Then once you do one, next year you can come back to DP and find a schmuck that registered 200 .com's and you see one golden gem in ANOTHER INDUSTRY (niches niches niches!) Then you do the same... DEVELOP IT!!!! You can't be a jack of all trades and become successful in this business!

Okay time for bed.
Dan

 

If you develop , you will not regret registering domains

 

so don't register more than two or three domain as you need time to develop it. you need marketing skill to do so.

 

Good one. After years of buying domains like an addict, not used most of them, I saw only my money being wasted. Only now, I have slowed down and am choosing names in a proper way, even still some times i get carried away.

Good advise.

 

Excellent post, i wish every newbie domainer could read this before wasting his money on worthless crap. +rep.

 

Great advice. I learned the hard way. Doing well now . Experience pays off!

 

Great post there Mark, rep added.

I see many names here in the appraisal section that don't have any potential for resale. Even if you offer people advice to read & learn all they can before they spend any money, people will still rush out & reg many names hoping they hit the jackpot. In today's market, domaining is a lot more competitive & is a lot harder to find good names, although there's still many out there. It doesn't matter how much good advice you give people, some people just learn by losing money before listening to good advice.

 

Domaining is almost an art form and to master it would take some time
There is a learning curve and even experienced domainers have at one
time regged crap names.

Stick with your niche or your interest area,read the news,magazines,
subscribe to your favorite blogs you might spot a trend if you are lucky.

For example LLLL.coms are being perceived to be of good value now
so those who had the foresight to register even crappy letters are
making a good return on investment.

There is no sure shot way in domaining since almost all the good names
have been taken so it requires a lot of patience and keep on learning.....

my 2 cents worth

 

Many thanks everyone for your comments, appreciate it.

I was actually a little worried waking up thinking, ooh hec, what did I write on on DP last night before I hit the sack, but it looks ok, not upset the applecart too much. That post was what half a bottle of red wine does to your head, when normally I never drink or just very occasionally lol.

The reason I wanted to post something along this vein was to give the advice once and for all, so I didn't have to keep on feeling the need to tell others pretty much the same things over and over again, at least now, I can simply refer others back here to this post. Whether they take any notice or not, is of course up to them.

Don't get me wrong, when I first started domaining, I too was falling into the same trap, registering names willy nilly, but quickly came to my senses when I started doing the sums and then quickly came to the realisation of a simple question in my mind, what separates a just plain good name from a truly fantastic one, then went away researched and read everything I could on the subject for 16 hours plus a day, 7 days a week for 2 months solid, after which I had more of an idea what could work, and what was an absolute dead duck name, right from the get go.

Even though now I see hundreds of names daily which I make up for one or two clients (available domain lists in specific industries) and come across some real beauties, even then I'm particularly fussy now about which names I will personally register for myself. Although ok, last week I did, I admit buying 9 new domains which were hand regged, all to do with a niche in real estate in one way or another, but that is actually very rare for me. Couldn't make up my mind between them, so registered them all. Will develop just two of them, and sell off in time the others - an example: AllPropertyVideos.com and GlobalPropertyVideos.com 3 words I know, but developed, should be ok with them. They're actually a natural extension of my other business which is currently expanding it's horizons and market reach - low altitude aerial photography, elevated photography otherwise known as mast photography.

So there you have it. I know I can write a little bluntly at times, comes from being very passionate about life, please don't read my words the wrong way or be insulted by my expressions. My only real concern is seeing a lot of you youngsters make some real money and to succeed in this business.

I hope you all have a truly fantastic week, all the best with my kindest regards.

Mark Magawr

 

Excellent thread! Would like to see this conversation continue.

 

No worries, sure I can oblige, just not right now, must hit the sack, bloomin' knackered, almost 5am - must go to bed, otherwise I'll be in no fit state tomorrow weather depending to do this aerial photography contract for the university, but sure, we can carry this on another time, tis all good.

All the best!!

Mark Magawr

 

Very good post and I can relate to this in more ways than one, for me it's having a bright idea and then making a site or several, and then I have another idea a week later and make another site ( this has been a pattern for me for the last year ) then the previous sites are put on the back burner.

Now I have so many sites, blogs and third party sites, that I simply can't keep up, I don't want to let them go either as many have PR and/or reasonable traffic.

 

So you could probably sell a few and make a decent ROI

 

Great (and long overdue) post

 

makes sense, but can you explain further? it seems like it is extremely hard to sell a developed site nowadays, everyone wants a lowball bargain and then it is hard to find a way to sell it without spending a bunch of time with tire-kickers and then finding a forum to sell on that will actually get bids and then dealing with potential rip-off people reversing paypal etc....

I would like to know if you have luck in selling for all the trouble it is?

 

Thanks Mark
Your post very interesting and I got some info I really missed as domain owner

 

thank u very much for advice.
i was just entering into domain investing and trading, now i ll do some research and then enter. especially thanks for the links.

 

If you have a good quality site which is earning revenue and you are asking a non-outrageous price for it, you should have no trouble selling.