According to forbes "domain name sales in the first half of 2008 reached $68 million, up about 12% from the same period last year." It is estimated that entire aftermarket did $700 million in sales in 2006. Since then, sales likely have topped $1 billion.
That story seemed like a show piece. I think they only skimmed the surface. However, the future of the after sale of domains and the SALE of domains in the future may become devalued as alternatives like OpenNIC gain more resources to give a truly democratize alternative to the ICANN dictatorship. Watch what happens in the next two years with domain names. You will be surprised I am sure.
Domain names are Internet real estate. Special or unique names are really valuable as you know. The big earners are English language, single words (these get 'type-in-traffic') e.g. Vodka.com sold for US$3 million not that long ago. People monetize domain names by: 1. Trading (selling) the domain names. 2. Using ‘parking services’ to generate passive income through advertising. 3. Redirecting incoming traffic to other related sites which they control. 4. Building a web site to capitalize on existing traffic or incoming links. I think a few forces could help constrain domain name prices, such as Google penalizing parked pages, and new domain postfixes being released, e.g. '.me'. There's really no limit (besides the ICANN monopoly) to the number of postfixes that maybe available in the future. Regards, Murray
Yep. And as the years go buy, more & more sales will happen with bigger & bigger sales. The internet is still very young with many people still not on the net in this world.
the domain market is growing fast, it is still very unregulated compared to many other markets which makes it also very risky compared to other markets. However the domain market will be growing fast for many years to come.
As much as I love to be optimistic, I have my concerns. How much longer do we see domain sales continually growing? I know this is more of a business aspect... but can the demand keeps it's pace? And let's say I wanted to get into the market(which I actually do) and make some money from this... what could/would I realistically make? I know this discussion has been asked a million times, but if I work at it as if it was a part time job, could I make $1,000 weekly(average)?
well the reason it will grow is because most of the population use the internet but most dont know about the domain market, demand will be there as there will always be new opportunities and new trends, u could make $1000 weekly but not straight away, I am not making that amount but I know it does need some time. No one started earning thousands straight away unless they were very lucky but those are extrems, most people invest now and make thousands in lets say 2 years.
@hecto: thanks a ton for that, I knew that the reality of dn selling would take a year to actually make decent profit. I really to see what some of my old domain names are worth, have sold one or two in the past for about $50... but it was the waiting game and not having money that definitely made me never want to do dn selling. So, I guess nows a good time to get back into it... just hope it's not too late.
yeah I think I am on the same boat as you here, I got into domains anout 2years ago and quit...well I didnt carry on. Anyway for about 5 months I have jumped back in and I think I am here to stay now...at least a few years.
good to hear hecto Keep me posted on what you pick up/ sell, etc. ...I was thinking of starting a group where it would be like a group of people like us and just kinda blog about their experiences. I know this is done, but I just would like to get into this myself and think it'd be cool to have others help out. I do have a question that is a bit off the original topic: Where is the best place to buy dn's then? I mean is it smarter to just get them off 'godaddy.com'ish places, or buy one's that people already own?
I think you could make a lot of money if you made a domain selling site... I.e. allow people to submit you domains and sell them with like 5/10% commission xD
I'm very optimistic about the domain industry too, I think it will just get much bigger as more people buy a domain and gain interest in the market.