Last night I purchased my very first domain name. It was the first time I had ever done something like that. And I don't even have a website. In fact I've never owned a website, ever. Purchasing my first domain name was very exciting. Don't ask me why. I guess because a few of my names were already taken. But alot of them weren't, so when I came across one that was available, I snatched it up. I must say that I totally lost control. You know how some people are addicted to buying stuff on eBAy? Well, I guess I had the same affliction last night. I was up all night till 6AM purchasing domain names! My first few domain names were purchased without any fanfare. And then, later, I put in this one domain name and GoDaddy.com surprised me with a special page/message that I hadn't seen during my first 3 or 4 aquisitions. It's a page that's headed "You've found a great domain...." and it had a big fat green check mark next to those words. That was kind of exciting. Especially since moments before I started buying my first domain name, my one tekkie friend "guaranteed" me that most of the names I create will already have been taken. Not all of the domain names that I purchased came with that message. All told, I purchased around 20 domain names and 15 or so had that message attached to them. Those type of messages did make me feel a little special, but I have to wonder if that's GoDaddy's way of tricking a person into buying more names. Now I know people sell domain names. So I just guess that a few of them might be worth something to somebody. Someday maybe, I really don't know for sure. And I know that you can get a domain name appraised. I know a little about domain appraisal, just a little. I'm real green, a rookie, so please keep in mind that my opinions are raw and possibly faulty. And what I read somewhere is that if you have to pay somebody to appraise your domain name, they said that you can't trust the appraisal because they (the appraiser) wants you to keep coming back to get another appraisal. So if a person has a name that's not worth anything, they, in this case GoDaddy, won't really tell you that. Supposedly, they'll inflate the value of the name a little. Now I don't know if that's true or not. GoDaddy.com charges 5 bucks for an appraisal, so according to what I read, you might not be able to trust their appraisal system all that much. Is that true? Some of my domain names are related to sex and real estate. I know that sex is one of the biggest markets on the Internet, so I just thought that that might be a good area to key in on. As far as real estate is concerned, we all know that successful real estate agents/investors make real good money, so I made up a few names that might appeal to that market. I also made up a few names that represent the software industry. And oh yeah, I also made up some names that might appeal to someone in the auto industry. They were all dot com names. I know that the lucrative market for dot com name market has come and gone. So I have no illusions about any of this. Despite all of the "You've found a great domain messages" that I received from GoDaddy, I don't know if I really did find a "great domain" like GoDaddy says I did or if I just made the GoDaddy people a little richer. Oh well... Let me just say that I know a little HTML and I expect to soon learn alot more along with CSS. So can anyone out there tell me if what I experienced last night during my spending spree (approximately $200!) was really worth it or did I just waste alot of money by getting all caught up in a buying frenzy? This is a very serious question as I don't have alot of money to spend recklessly. I was kind of excited all night long and I must say it was a very gratifying experience. I wasn't using any illegal substances, nor was I drinking, though it was quite the rush. I guess some of those messages that read, "You've found a great domain" kinda got to me. But now, later, I really don't know what to think. And oh yeah, I'm not bi-polar, at least I don't think I am lol...
So can anyone out there tell me if what I experienced last night during my spending spree (approximately $200!) was really worth it or did I just waste alot of money by getting all caught up in a buying frenzy? This is a very serious question as I don't have alot of money to spend recklessly. You will find out when you have built a website for each domain name, then watch the traffic come in But always remember make sure that you can monetize revenue from your sites (unless the sites are for enjoyment) 200USD is not a lot of money if you convert to more revenue with websites, If you just keep the domains unless they are worth a lot of money to re-sell not likely ... unless you are lucky.......... you will be looking at a loss of 200USD Good luck and have fun We have a motto 'the harder we work the more money we make' You will do well if you work hard
Congratulations at your find. I am sure the names do have potential when you couple them with great contents. If you intend to develop the web sites with those names, I am sure you will have the opportunity to harness their potential. If not, you could opt to sell the domain names but if they are not established or not in trend, you may not really get too well a value for those though. I am not sure whether to trust any 3rd party appraisals because those prices are based on some rules they derive but there is nothing to say that you will indeed find buyers at that price. But then again if the one appraising is the one buying then that would make a difference, otherwise it is really a willing seller-willing buyer which sets the price. New names would probably not get a good rating as one which is found on search engines and have a reasonable level of natural traffic. Save the $5 or so on the appraisal for now. Actually, depending on how you want to proceed with your websites, one way of getting something done is to install a relevant script (some comes free while others cost something) then just customize the design to your liking. What is important in the success of a web site is content and audience. It doesn't necessary need to look the nicest sites but what you offer must be what your audience wants. Yes, GoDaddy has a way of making you buy and buy. They will try to sell you some other service along the way. At the prices that they are charging for domain names, it is hardly enough to become financially viable, it is the options which are probably the biggest money earner. Incidentally, some people here gets turnkey scripts and install it with a domain name and sell them. People do buy those as I see some regularly doing here so it has to be profitable. One such popular source is Prozilla http://www.prozilla.com/turnkey.php . FreeTurnkey also offers some nice scripts http://www.freeturnkey.net/scripts.html . You can use a script for say for Models, make a few changes and use it to suit an automative website or something. Anything is possible, let your imagination run wild. All the best.
sell the ones you don't want and keep the ones u want to develop. I spent $50 on domains yesterday for sites that I plan to develop, a domain name by itself (with the exception of a few) isnt worth much but developed it can be worth a lot.
Britishguy: I'm willing to work hard, I really am! The first step is for me to finish up learning HTML and then go onto CSS. After I do all of that, I'll be ready to put some sites up on the Internet. My goal is this: To be able to support myself without working a regular 9-5 job. I want to be able to make at least $2500/3000 a month on a regular basis. And that would be around 1312/1574 pounds of British money, monthly. I'll put in as much time as needed to fullfill this goal. I want to be able to someday live in a foreign country for a year or so, and support myself 100% by working from and with my computer. Maybe I'll live in London someday! Thank you for your post, BG. Eddy2029: You said: "Actually, depending on how you want to proceed with your websites, one way of getting something done is to install a relevant script (some comes free while others cost something) then just customize the design to your liking. What is important in the success of a web site is content and audience. It doesn't necessary need to look the nicest sites but what you offer must be what your audience wants." That's great advice, thank you Eddy. Mr. Hugo: As it turns out, I didn't purchase $200 worth of domain names. I purchased $500 worth! I went bonkers, is what I did! Totally nuts! I wound up purchasing 29 names! At first I thought I bought 20 or so names, and had paid only $200 for them. Half of those names came with the GoDaddy message that said, "You've found a great domain...." Which really means "Big deal. You'll be lucky to get your money back on the registration fee, loser!" As luck would have it, I'm actually pretty lucky in that GoDaddy will refund my money! Yes they will, all 100% of it. That was a real surprise. I found their customer service crew to be exceedingly helpful. Very nice, very polite and helpful, too. But that's just me. Thank you for your post, Hugo. L146705: Just how many sites do you have up and running on the Internet going at one time? Also, you say that I should get rid of the ones that I don't want to develop. One name I created is called, Hotsexrider.com That's a name that's geared to the adult entertainment industry. I will not be developing a site that's related to that subject. And I'm not sure if that's one of the names that I'll be giving back to GoDaddy or not. GoDaddy gives a person 5 days to decide if they want a refund. So I have a few more days left before I give the names back and get a refund. Do you guys think that I can get any money for that name from someone in the adult entertainment industry and if so, what do you appraise it at? Then again, maybe it's a name that's destined for the trash bin. Thank you all for your posts.
The first thing you need to do is stop buying domain names. Its not 1996. Anyone can make a website nowadays. I can make hundreds every day and all of them can have OK domain names. The thing that sets good (money making) sites from the rest is marketing. Most people will never earn more than $10 per day from their sites. Some people earn thousands a day. The difference is in the marketing. My suggestion is for you to pick 1 topic you know about and make a 50 page website about it. Make it the 100% best it can be and spend 6 months working full time promoting and making it really great. Then you may be ready to make a second site. Virtually all domains you can buy are only worth the price you paid for them I'm afraid.
I think You can register more domain, But The name must be have potential buyer and values. For examples, Magics.biz
A 50 page site? What's the advantage to having that many pages on one website? I mean, as opposed to a site that has only 2 pages or so. Thanks for entering the thread, M4.
50 pages is quite a small site actually. I work on sites with over 100,000 pages and some have millions. If you have a site about cars then the front page may get some traffic from the search engines about cars. If you then add a page for each car then you have 500 pages each getting maybe 1 visitor per day. That suddenly adds up to 500 visitors.
So it would seem that more pages (up to a point) means more money in the pocket of the developer. Knowing how to use CSS is an absolute imperative, I would imagine.
I would think that having more pages means that search engines such as google is able to spider more of your site and thus you get more listing on those search engines, it makes your site more valuable. Well, start your site small then slower grow it. I don't expect anyone to make a 100,000 pages site right away if the contents are unique.
What you did was right... perfectly right... just one thing. Never purchase a product on the web on a shopping spree. You could purchase 2 -3 domains thats fine not 15-20 ... thats not bad but can you think of the time you will need to put these domain names to work. It will take you a minimum of 15-20 days to just get the site up and running. And a domain name is worthless without a website. and a website requires more investment like the hosting to start with and then a designer whome you will pay a minimum of 30$ per website from china or india for a 1 page website .. Add it up and it amounts to around 500$ more... Now its not just 200$ you spend but around 700-800$ ... am sure that its a lot of money now. But not to worry. You always learn from mistakes ... the investment you made is a wise one if you will use it. So USE IT at the EARLIEST now. and you bet you will see the results... You will cover the 800 in a month may be 2
Thanks for the info. I did not know that you can get a refund from the domain names you have purchased. There is something new to learn each day.
In short, no you're not crazy, though finding and buying domain names is the easiest thing you'll do. I'd suggest you pick a domain name, get hosting and start developing a site today. You'll learn a lot in three months and you'll regret waiting all that time before beginning development. Just jump right in.
Keep the domains which you think are valuable enough for you to develop on within the next 365 days. Sometimes if you get a good name, it is worth keeping it because once you release them into the sea, you will never get a chance of getting it back.
I despise GoDaddy for hosting, but I use them for the majority of my domains (about 20 through them right now). I'll never use 1&1 again. I registered two domain names last summer with them. While other registrars I used only took a day at most (usually quicker) to register something, they had a "mysterious" delay with these (and I'll note they were entirely unrelated to each other and very specific to projects I was running... nothing a general person would think of based on keywords or something). During their mysterious delay that they couldn't explain (they basically put it "on hold" for an 8+ hour stretch before even acknowledging the order) some one person in Panama suddenly swiped them both up. Now like I said, there's no way some other random person possibly wanted both of those unrelated domains that I did during that same few hour period. I complained... loudly (I've got a great track record of knowing how to get what I want from larger companies when they screw people over... the "diplomatic" approach wasn't working with these people). I won't go into details, but suffice it to say, the person cancelled their registration w/in hours, and 1&1 processed the registrations on their own and got them immediately. Hmmmm... Whatever. I despise them. They're the most difficult and obnoxious group of people to work with. And thanks for reminding me, I wanted to change those domains over to Godaddy before I forget again. Jenn
I've picked up a few even knowing it might take more than a year to get to the project... not for the sake of just sitting on them, but because I want them for something very specific, and with the way my schedule changes, I could work on a new site next month, or I won't get to it for 18 months or so, because other things come up that are more pressing. I'd say if you know you'll use it, get it. If you're not sure, or you're just toying with the idea, don't.
All in all I loved the full text of your post. But I just had to comment on the one snippet above. You say that a domain name is worthless without a site attached to it, and with a little traffic built up. Are you sure? Well...I am under the impression that you can sell the names without a website. Am I wrong? I understand that the dot com boom is over. I fully understand that. But when I made my purchases during my first ever purchase of a domain name, this was what I was thinking: "Okay, this name (the name I just created) sounds good. I think it might appeal to somebody. It might appeal to a real estate agent, a car dealer, someone who's thinking of starting an adult entertainment site (a.k.a. a porn site) a software dealer, or a stockbroker. I know that this is a little like gambling, but my gut tells me that this is a good name and that somebody out there might pay me a little money for it." And I hoped to make maybe a couple of hundred dollars off of each name. (200USD=104BP) That's all. Just a couple of hundred dollars. I am fully aware of my rookie status, and so I just might be a wrong. And naive. And dumb. If I'm wrong, then let me have it. That's the only way I'll learn. I feel privleged to be on a site such as this. I never would have dreamed that I would have anything to do with web design. I love the Internet. It's a fantastic invention. I'm just glad that I'm not blind and that I'm able to use it each and every day. Hopefully in a year from now I'll be alot further along than I am now. BTW, another one of the names I bought was Hotcarbuilder.com Though I'm not into cars. All I do is put gas in them and drive them around town. But my thinking at the time of purchase was that some car builder out there just might like to have that name on their business card, and (maybe) pay me a couple of hundred dollars/104BP for it. As it turns out, I'll probrably give the name back to GoDaddy, get a refund, and instead start keying in on building my first web site. Thank you for your post. P.S. I know that alot of people buy expired domain names, and that that is (probrably) where the real money is. But I haven't ventured over into that area yet. I think the first thing I should do is learn the HTML, learn the CSS, and get a site up and running, and get it up out there on the Internet. I feel and estimate that I could learn the CSS in 2-4 weeks. After I complete that hurdle (building a site of my own, with my own skills, and putting it out on the 'Net) I can then turn my attention to search engine optimization. Maybe then I won't have to worry about buying domain names anymore, be they expired or be they invented. Does that sound like a good game plan? If it's not, please let me know.