Archives for May 2008
Introduction to the World of Domaining
If you are a full-time domainer (or a very heavily involved part-time domainer), one of the toughest things to do is explain to people what it is you do and how exactly you make money. I often find a more confused face once I finish explaining the world of internet real estate.
On some rare occasions, I will get someone that sounds interested and wants to learn more. Where do you point someone like this? Going forward, one place I will be sending this people is Domaining 101. While this post is very basic, it does a great job of providing many of the essentials a domainer needs to get started.
Domaining.com To Require Paid Subscription?
So far it looks like very few details have been released, but it looks like before long it will be subscription based. So, how will this affect their readers?
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a big fan of Domaining.com. While they technically aren’t feed scrapers, they don’t do any work. They don’t write content, they don’t do research, they don’t post any original thoughts. They just publish an excerpt of what was already published elsewhere.
As a person that runs a domain blog, I don’t like that it takes away from the need to visit the actual blog. Now they want you to pay them? I think this is a bad move on there part.
Miscellaneous Domain Name Statistics
One of the feeds I monitor is a website called DotWeekly. It is one of a large number of domain blogs that have shown up over the past year, but I like it because it offers some interesting incites from time to time.
Todays post is a compilation of off the wall domain stats, which I really enjoyed. Here is a bit of the information provided:
GoDaddy.com continues to rule the registrar league with a positive gain of 560,423 domain names over the past 30 days and now with a total of 25,260,275 domains under it’s control
NetworkSolutions.com continues to Lose domain names and has had a negative lose of 11,099 domain names over the past 30 days. NetSol still holds the # 3 spot for the most domains under control, but it looks as if Tucows will gain that # 3 spot within a month or two.
There are currently 987 ICANN domain name registrars.
Sedo Parking gained 3,473 domain names.
Click over to view the rest of the statistics.
How Resellable Is That Domain Name?
Lately Rick Latona has been giving you some great things on his blog to think about before making a significant purchase on a domain name. Today I wanted to add something to the list that I spend a lot of time considering before buying domain names.
Have you ever seen a domain name for sale that is accompanied by an incredibly long description or explanation of why you should purchase it? Things like what it means in another language, what it is a misspelling of, or a full paragraph about how incredibly valuable it will be someday. If its going to be so valuable, why are you selling it?!?
Before buying a domain, I always take the possible requirement of a explanation into account. Generally if it requires explanation, I don’t buy it. The two exceptions to this rule are when people provide related domain sales values and when details are provided for geo domains. If you’re try to sell me a geo domain, let me know the population, tourism information, and any other information that might be useful. I will of course verify that information prior to purchasing, but it gives me a snapshot and grabs my attention.
If a domain is going to be truly valuable (non-geo), it should really sell itself just by typing the domain name. If an explanation is needed, it probably isn’t worth nearly what you think it is.
Brandable or Media Domain?
Since the beginning of 2008, I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve made a lot of really good domaining decisions that have resulted in a good amount of generated income. Add that to my affiliate income, which has at least tripled since the first of the year, and things are really starting to look up!
One thing that came with this success was my decision to form an online business to keep everything under. This has obvious benefits come tax time and will make it a lot easier for me to calculate earnings vs. expenses, etc. If things go as planned, this business will eventually become a LLC and be operated completely separately from my personal interests online.
Anyway, as I’ve begun to make this transition, I quickly realized that I had a VERY important decision to make before I get started. That is of course selecting the name of the business (and the corresponding domain name).
Of course, I felt that finding a good name shouldn’t be a problem as I have a huge portfolio of brandable domains that would work great. The problem I’m running into is that I would like the name to include the word “Media” at the end of it, but that kind of goes against my instincts as a domainer. An example would be something like using FireballMedia.com instead of Fireball.com.
Obviously we all know which is better and more valuable, but if you were starting up your own media company, would you rather use the media version? All input is appreciated.
How Did You Get Started Domaining?
Whether you began back in 1998 or now in 2008, every domainer had to start somewhere. With good strategy and careful investment, even a new domainer today can achieve a lot of success and make a good living domaining. So, how did everyone get started as a domainer? I always enjoy taking a look back, so I’ll get the ball rolling.
Although I wasn’t to long ago compared to many domainers, I suppose I technically started domaining back in early 2006, though it wasn’t necessarily intentional. I had just purchased my first few domain names, all with the plan of eventually developing them. After grabbing my first and last name domain, I figured out some areas I could work with, did a lot of research, and grabbed about 10 domains. Over the course of the next year, I established maybe 3 of these sites with some success. The remaining 7 domains were coming up for renewal and I wasn’t sure if I had time to develop them. Rather than just let them go or renew them, I decided to see if anyone else wanted them. With a quick search, I discovered Namepros and posted my domains. After a couple days, I had collected several hundred dollars on my investment and realized I may have been taking the wrong approach to establishing myself online!
To test my skills, I used some of that money and went out and purchased another 20 keyword-rich domain names to work with. After about a week, I had made back more than I’d spent and still have about 11 domains left! Again, nothing major, but it showed me that I had the research skills necessary to find success in the world of internet real estate. Over the last year my portfolio has continued to grow as I started delving into the world of backordering domains and it has really been a fun ride. As I look towards the future, my hope is to continue to mix domaining with developing and hopefully create a steady and profitable web prescence.
So, that is my story in a nutshell. How and when did you get started domaining? Who were your mentors?
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