Hello Fellow Marketers, Every time I mention “domain names†a couple people in the room tend to get this shocked and scared look across their face. Most of them, I find out, are old computer technicians or retired web developers. As they back away from the conversation the entrepreneurs and business savvy programmers crowd around with a look of interest. The good news is that domain names are not the same “investments†they used to be. Rather than spending ninety dollars a year you can now spend nine – though the availability has diminished a fair bit. The scary, exciting, gamble of a truth is that you can actually register a domain name for under ten dollars today, find the right person a month later, and sell it for ten thousand. It does happen. These are the top recorded domain sales of the year – notice that two of them took place yesterday! Realistically, these domain names would have been registered long ago and “aged†until someone was willing to sell. As you can see, the value of domain names is exploding. It may seem a bit confusing but I’ve got the information to get you started. Everything you’ll need to know about domains into three broad categories. 1. Domain Name Length Length is a major determining factor in many domain purchases made today. A couple reasons for this are because shorter domain names are easier to remember and generally easier to pronounce. The market for short domain names is popular among resellers. Check out the NamePros.com Forum to see an active domain name community – mainly used by resellers. I personally register short domain names for the aesthetic reasons, and because of the simple and secure golden rule. Every combination of four letters plus the dot com is registered. So no matter with four letters you can think of – somebody owns that dot com. The availability of short domain names is shrinking and the value is growing. The golden rule is that almost all domain names will grow in value over time because of scarcity. I know my college economics teacher would love that I’m bringing scarcity into the mix, but it plays such a fundamental role in appraising domains and it adds some sort of urgency to their acquisition. 2. Domain Name Relevance You can have a short domain name but unless it has some relevance to a prospect – it will never get more than reseller values. Domain names are like virtual real estate, and having one that is descriptive is like having a beachfront property with an incredible view. Relevance plays an important role in the domain name market a couple of ways. One paramount factor is keyword optimization for search engines. If someone searches “Shop Kitchener†and your domain name happens to be “ShopKitchener(dot)com†you have an immediate – and permanent – advantage over all of the competition. Having a domain name that you can optimize in the search engine can save a bundle of cash when you’re looking at internet or search engine marketing – and it’s an exceptional way to drive traffic to any web based business. Another “relevance†concept is based on the brandability of a certain domain name. A domain name can be a brand – think Amazon.com. Brandable domains are difficult to rate or appraise, for example Coke.ca wouldn’t make sense if the soda pop giant wasn’t around. 3. Domain Name Extension (TLD) The third but still incredibly important point is about the domain name extension. Is it a dot com or dot net? In recent months the amount of extensions went from your basic country specific ones to a whole new era of opportunity. Now private investors can register extensions, like dot market or dot hotels. So you ask: what are you supposed to look for with so many extensions? What’s the best? I’ve always been a strong believer that in order to succeed in business you should either be the first or the best at what you are currently doing or offering. I feel the same way about domains – why settle for the dot ca when you could have the dot com. The extension “.com†has had more publicity, more acknowledgment and speaks big business better than any other extension. If that isn’t enough then I have one more reason for you. If you own any extension other than the dot com, people searching for your site will tend to enter the dot com version and you will loose traffic. Now that you know about domain names I want to tell you how you can gain a great amount for so little – using domains. You can register domains at many registrars, Fabulous.com and GoDaddy to name two popular ones. They will cost you anywhere from $7-$10 a year to claim an available domain and then you own that little piece of the web. Say you find a couple that are good names but you don’t have a use for them. Why not give them away? That’s right, give them away. It only cost you ten dollars and if you give a domain name to someone that will benefit their business, or spike their interest – you’re getting much more back. For those of you who plan to take the next step in domain names take a look at my recent blog post: “My Domain Isn’t Selling†The 5-Step Super Secret to Selling Your Domains! - at www.turnfire(dot)com/blog/ Cheers, Kris (sorry cannot post links yet)
I use http://domain.ezspl.com. Cheap, affordable and really cool interface. These guys accept paypal also.
I believe relevance to target brings the best search results. Too bad I haven't kept that in mind when creating my silly sites!
Excellent post Krisism! As I recently posted, I found a site that lists keyword domains that are available to register. That site is http://keyworddomainlist.info I found some good domains there. Don't underestimate the value of having the keyword in your domain name.
Thanks for the comments guys - great to hear some feedback. I do have a blog actually with a lot of similar articles posted daily - at www(.)turnfire(.)com/blog/ (sorry can't post links yet.) I also love keyword domains - they rock, easy to optimize, and if you find the right niche - easy to convert. I'll make sure to put lots of good quality posts up here and I love all the feedback. Cheers, Kris
Domain length seems to be hot now since most of them are already taken. Most of them will sell for quite a bunch of money.
Nice post from 'Krisism".. But for Google all the domains are same, and not considering any fo those notes. ITs ranking and giving traffic based on the optimization
As an 'old programmer' and 'retired web developer', I can't say I'd be backing away over domain names for the reasons you listed; cost or investment, since that's not been true for at least a DECADE. Unless they stopped doing websites before the turn of the millennia, I suspect you failed to grasp the REAL reason for their trepidation. That being the abuse by SEOTards of things like domain names as part of their black hat nonsense strategy. Deserved or not, the nutters who have turned SEO from a small but important part of building a website into a cottage industry filled with scam artists have given a great number of things bad reputations. The experienced developers who went through the dot-com bust will kneejerk into backing away when you start talking things like that just because of the bad reputation -- whether it is deserved or not. It's one of those cases of something important having been given a bad name. See CSS resets for something similar, where the issues caused by the universal reset on forms and the bloat caused by massive resets like "reset reloaded" has resulted in resets getting a bad rap -- when not using one can be just as bad. There are a number of things you can talk about at length that experienced developers will either scream in your face "JUST PICK ONE", or will make them back out of the conversation faster than a Frenchman along the Belgian border sixty years ago to the day! Domain names are one of them -- some sick market-speak buzzwords like "target audience", "engaging user experience", "advertising revenue stream" can have a vastly similar effect because the last time marketing types were throwing around terminology like that it didn't end very well. Of course, you'll always have the people with their heads in the sand saying that could never happen again, the same way people said that when Peter Schiff said the same thing about the realty bubble, and guess what?!? That's why a number of us are foreseeing the same type of collapse in the very near future... and we are decidedly in the minority since most people would rather accept a big fat lie, than a difficult to accept truth. That said, the rest of your article hits some good points and people would be well served by paying attention to it. Domains should be memorable, easy, and relevant to the product/company/topic... with the 'trust' of TLD's being important. (and why having just any TLD can work against you) You'd think all that would be common sense -- but like a great many things it isn't... I've been seeing people running around using their full long-name (first+middle+last) as their domains, which to be frank is often less useful than a handful of made up characters or pulling a fake word out of one's rump. Someone might remember Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla as a name, but good luck spelling it, especially in all one case as one word. 'Cause saying all those nouns over and over can really wear you down... I take issue with the buying and selling of domains at the private level -- I know there are legitimate people doing it for legitimate reasons -- but squatters piss me off and the sleazeballs who just build scam traffic sites for the sole purpose of a quick turnaround -- preying on the ignorance of people who think they can just buy an existing site and have everything be hunky-dory, well, ever heard of "Old Yeller"? ... and for that reason, I really like the "Just give them away" attitude.... having watched for a decade trying to snipe a domain when it expired that someone was squatting on (deathshadow.com) wanting ridiculous money for (a grand) and FINALLY getting it after it expired just three or four years ago for the normal price of a new domain -- it would be nice if more of us out there were willing to hand over domains we aren't doing anything with to people who want them. Charity, we don't ALL have to be {string of expletives and interjections omitted} Oh, and I should mention my favorite registrar, http://www.namecheap.com/
@deathshadow, why would go and dig up a four year old post in order to 'critique' it? Are you that desperate to try and flame me? I realize you're retired and have your entire day to troll forums, but please could you at least try and be a little more positive - or just go away. You think domain name length, relevance and the TLD are not good criteria for buying a domain name? I wrote that post four years ago and I would stand behind each of them today. How many domains have you bought and sold my friend? Since writing this post years ago, I have sold close to two hundred domains, some at ROI's of up to 300%. All based on a simple understanding of valuation and of course, experience in the market. I'm not interested in fighting with you. You may have some good knowledge from reading your PHP.net manuals, or from some past experience. But stop shitting on people and let's make this a better place for all, together. I welcome all opinions and feedback - I'm certainly not a perfect person or programmer. I genuinely hope you can take this to heart. Do something awesome with your time, after decades of work you should enjoy it. Cheers
Odd, it came up as a recent post -- I do not bump old posts on purpose. Though the forums have been acting screwy as the devil lately -- This is like the third or fourth old post that ended up on the new posts list without a new post in it. Gonna have to start watching the date on posts like a hawk. Though the 404's and ngnix errors are getting a bit tired too... Though it's also odd you seemed to think I was flaming you when I was AGREEING WITH YOU!!! Did you even READ the post?!? Only thing I disagreed with was the reason old-school guys back away -- the rest of the post was AGREEING!!! GAH!!!
It is possible that someone posted here before deathshadow, which bumped the thread into RSS again (and the post was deleted in the meantime). This really sucks BTW and although Shawn said that this is normal, I think that it is BS (this wasn't happening when the forum was running on vBulletin). Krisism: I personally like his passionate essays, compared to all other crap posted on the forums, reading them is quite refreshing.