Comments for Domain names

Comment on Tales of the past. Domain forums by Attila

Attila — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:40:11 +0000

@ Mike – I agree, Gary is someone pursuing a new vision to purchase only worthy domains rather then every domain in the book. I met with Gary in Hong Kong in the time of my life where I was this close to shutting everything down due to financial difficulties. Then I sold a few domains and was back in flush. He must think I am some whack job, but hopefully not :-p

AND Mike Mann just hand registered 13,000+ dot com domains…giving the new perspective of “must buy domains rather then search for one that’s available” Fortunately Mike is reasonable with his domain prices unlike Frank Schilling and his unreasonable “every domain has to sell for over $5k range…or F off and find another domain since you don’t know any better attitude” (no pun intended for Frank directly, but wish he re-think his strategy on certain domains only worth $500~$2,500 but asking $5k~$15k…)

Comment on Domain name success meter instead of valuation by Adam

Adam — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:21:17 +0000

Algis, something additional to think about . . .as a business gains customers, those customers become worth more than the original sale. 60,000 clients / month as in your example could also mean the next month or even 6 months later that those customers come back again and buy more (depending on what your selling). It’s a multiplying effect. You have to think of the lifetime value of owning a customer as well. You can market to those people and sell them more. Now that you “own” that customer you have the ability to make more money. I know many businesses that pay much more than their profit on the first sale to acquire a customer for life, because they know what the lifetime value of a customer is to them.

Laslty, a brand that picks up a great domain like fitness likely can leverage the branding potential of the name which has a totally different “meter” that is not easily calculated.

Comment on Domain ethics (with my own example) by Puranjay

Puranjay — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:55:51 +0000

You’re a good guy Algis but unfortunately, few people would do what you did (even though I wish it were otherwise).

I’ve never been in such a situation before, but once I bought a domain from DNF for around $15k. Later, that same domain was put up for auction at Sedo and fetched $12.5k. The buyer was from DNF as well and he appreciated that I didn’t sabotage the sale for what was a publicly known loss.

Another time, early in my career, I bought a domain off someone for $18k. The only problem was that I had $14k with me at that time and couldn’t spare the extra $4k. I promised to give him $14k and the rest within a week. He was skeptical but agreed. We didn’t sign any agreement or contract – just our words. A week later, when I sent him his $4k, he was really pleased and said that people who are that honest are hard to find. He also offered to write me a referral whenever I needed. I still have that email and it makes me feel good to know that someone thought of me that way.

Comment on Domain ethics (with my own example) by M M

M M — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:53:18 +0000

I agree 100% with the ethic part, I would have done the same thing.
but I don’t understand the ‘no longer for sale’ answer.
Instead of shutting the door in your both faces, I would have share this info with the buyer and let him/her to decide.
You never know other people motives and maybe you missed a good opportunity to sell this domain for a nice amount of money (even if not 32k)…

Comment on Domain name success meter instead of valuation by Danny

Danny — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 20:35:54 +0000

Great points – there are deals to be had for people who can do the analysis correctly. But the problem with online business in general, is that it’s changing so quickly. A site or domain that was generating $10k a month last year, could suddenly have lost favor – either from the search engines, or changes how browsers operate – and could have their traffic quickly disappear.

Comment on Tales of the past. Domain forums by Ben

Ben — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:28:58 +0000

I laugh when I hear people call domaining an “industry”! I would equate it to kids trading baseball cards. There are only so many quality .com’s out there. Don’t be fooled.

Comment on Tales of the past. Domain forums by Rob

Rob — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:23:19 +0000

There’s no such thing as an easy buck. And when there is, you need to be one of the first, before people looking for an easy buck arrive.

I buy domains that regular folk would like. I don’t look at monthly exact searches. I don’t look at trends and profitable niches. I just think “that’s a nice domain name – somebody might like that one day”.

And then I wait for someone to ask if they can buy it. It might take ten years, but I’m patient. Average sale price is 10x purchase price, but I expect it’ll take 10 years to sell them all.

I mostly just buy short .coms that can be pronounced and have some kind of meaning or sound GREAT as a brand.

Example, fela.net – bought as a dropped domain via NameJet for under $100, sold for thousands because as you can see, they had a legit use for it (as opposed to a spammy landing page).

It’s like being an antique dealer – not about plugging a domain into a valuation tool, but knowing what people might want.

Comment on Domain name success meter instead of valuation by Domain Magazine .Net

Domain Magazine .Net — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:20:29 +0000

Great article!
How about Cost Per Click (CPC) or advertising cost for the domain keyword?I think its very important to value a domain.
and how to value a short brandale domain: flippa, zynga, etc?

Comment on Tales of the past. Domain forums by jayjay

jayjay — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:37:32 +0000

” Well, of course obvious domains like cars.com are good no matter if you have domaining knowledge or not ”

And that probably explains the intrinsic value in a good domain! if you need a degree in domain rocket-science brain-surgery to understand the value of your digital assets then your digital assets are worth hot air.

Comment on Tales of the past. Domain forums by Mike Ramsey

Mike Ramsey — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:50:42 +0000

I think this is quite a negative post. Name one industry where there isn’t misleading information online on how to make it big, and name one industry where money just drops into the lap of any person who gets involved. You have to pick your gurus as smartly as your domains. There are some honest top domainers out there who do contribute value to the community, but usually you won’t find them on forums. Gary Lam is one such guy worth checking out – Google Gary dot com. Branding is everything online these days and the demand by companies and IMs for exact match domains is driving prices up daily. Type in search is also growing, and therefore shorter more brandable domains are the ones to get hold of.