One of the best according online marketing experts is buying and reselling domain names. Imagine turning a tidy profit on something pulled out of thin air, registered, and auctioned off to the highest bidder- all from the comfort of your computer chair.

How high does the bidding go?

It’s rare to see any domains selling for more than $10,000. However, it does happen on occasion.

More commonly, when you visit reseller auctions, you will see top prices in the low thousands.

(parkourblog.com currently at auction with bidding up to $1060 at GoDaddy.)

Often, there will be no bids or bidding from $500 and up. It seems that if a name is desirable at all, it jumps the really low numbers.

Other places to purchase domains (frequently bundles of several names sold as a group) are e-bay and craigslist. These are more hit and miss, with domainers looking for discounts and closeouts on multiple names in a package. The bidding for these doesn’t seem to be much more than $100.

How to increase perceived value.

The most common practice is to generate good site statistics (visitors per day/week) and increasing page rank with the addition of SEO themed material and lots of links. The site mentioned above, parkourblog.com, was getting 4000+ hits a month with no content related to blogs, just links.

(more…)

Step One

finding a good name

It’s intimidating for the novice domainer. How can I find a marketable domain name that isn’t already snapped up; aren’t all the good names already taken?

The simple answer is no.

The mathematics of name combinations mean that even the coveted .com domains are nearly unlimited.

Here’s how it works.

Every time you add another word (usually a descriptive adjective) the number of possibilities multiplies. As an example (one I’ll use throughout this article) I chose ‘poker’ and ‘casino’ as my root names. Then, I started coming up with add-ons. With just two ‘root’ nouns going in, and seven adjectives, I get 14 names to try. By combining adjectives (see: honest and play used together below), I multiply by 6 more to get a total of 14 times 6 = 84 combinations.

I couldn’t get through most of them before I had five unregistered names.

(more…)

First, a word about navigating the Internet  in general.

I’m a URL guy.

I actually type URLs into my browser. Sometimes they are complicated and drawn-out, but that’s the Internet I grew up using. But there’s a change in the wind.

The ‘lay’ public is moving away from URLs as the way to move around the web. What they do (and I encourage you to watch your fellow humans to verify this) is type the main part of the URL (company name or product) into the search box and then click whichever link on the list presented seems right.

For some users, it goes even further, you give them an actual, working URL to enter and they type it into the search box.

(more…)

Each type of web site hosting meets a different need.

Prices increase as features are added. Choosing the right type for your needs is a matter of informing yourself of the options and matching what you want to accomplish with what is available.

If it’s free, it’s for me!

Free is generally good.

But, even free has a cost. Services that offer free hosting usually recoup their investment by requiring ad space on your page. Yahoo offers geocities under this model. They run a frame along the right side of the page with their ads. Any traffic to your site becomes traffic for their ads. This doesn’t mean that free hosting sites aren’t useful.

(more…)

Are you a seasoned domainer or a noob? Are you looking to buy a domain and resell it quickly or hold a domain name for long term profits? The following article should be of interest regardless of where you are with your domaineering goals.

Latest Domain Name News & Notes For Serious Domainers

Amateur gives bad domaining advice

I just read a really interested story over at domainnamewire where Andrew discusses some advice given out by an amateur who believes he has cheated the system somehow. The interesting thing is that the guy dispenses bad domaining advice …

The power of brandable domain names

If you follow the various domaining discussions at places like DNForum or NamePros you can still find a number of doubters who smirk at the mention of a meaningless 5 letter .com domain name. 5 letter domain names due to their vast …

Free Domaining Resources at DotSauce

One of my favorite domaining blogs is DotSauce, written by Mark Fulton. One of the things that makes his website special is the premium content section. In this section, he offers additional tools, bookmarks, coupon codes and articles. …

Domain Names Flip For Big Bucks

Domain Names Flip for Big Bucks - Buying and Selling domain names or “Domain Flipping” has become a tremendously popular way of earning money. Everyday people are buying and selling domain names they think will have strong commercial …

Trend watching for domainers

I was having a discussion about domain names with a friend who is a computer programmer, a few days ago and he asked me why I continue to look for unregistered domains when the best domains are taken already. …

Things I’ve Learned in 2 Years of Domaining

When you buy a domain direct, if at all possible, create your own account at the same registrar. Why? Transferring into another account usually takes a few hours. Transferring away, to another registrar, takes up to 5 days. …

For more domaining advice, news and notes, subscribe to The Nameify.com Blog or check out our exclusive domains.

For a band, everything.

Your band’s name is simultaneously a trademark, a slogan, and a comment on the type of music you play.

‘Hot Sexy Swine’ isn’t going to play Christian rock. And ‘DethKlok’ isn’t going to do classic country gigs. (DethKlok, in case you haven’t heard, is the fictional heavy metal band featured in Metalocalypse, Cartoon Network’s late night satire show.)

As I write this, HotSexySwine.com is available if you want it, but DethKlok (and several other spellings) is not. (more…)

For the successful domainer, it certainly is. But you don’t have to wait till you retire, domain name reselling is online, remember?

You can live anywhere there’s a solid Internet connection, and Jamaica qualifies.

So how much is property on this island paradise? Well, for whoever sold Pizza.com for $2.6 million might want to put a down payment on a nice castle, available for $7 million (firm). The rest of us would probably be looking a little lower; perhaps an oceanfront condo at $760,000 fits your budget better. Still too much? You can’t beat $156,000 for a four-bedroom house in a gated community. (And your heating costs are nil!)

(more…)

That was the problem ICANN faced last year when .asia was first opened to registers. The collision foreseen was between competing factions (all wanting the same .asia domain name) with similar claims.

But Who’s ICANN? The acronym stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. They are a non-profit group who is charged with keeping all the URLs straight. They don’t invent domain names, they just keep track of them so that when you type IBM.com, you are linked up to the right IP address for IBM (or whoever owns that domain name).

Now, back to the problem.

(more…)

The days when Sex.com sold for $12 million (2005) are gone, never to return.

Perhaps so. Perhaps the huge money is gone.

On the other hand, it could be that the market is just finding its level. The days of huge ticket domain name sales weren’t that long ago: last year at this time, Creditcheck.com sold for $3 million and Seniors.com for $1.8 million.

But even then, the average domain name was selling for $2,000 - $3,000.

It was only the rare big-ticket name that made the news.

The market hasn’t changed that much. Hot names are still selling for large dollars.

(more…)

We’ve all seen bad websites. Websites that are pretentious, lame, or just downright stupid.

Here, for your amusement, are the 10 worst, in Late Show format:

10

It’s a whale. A full sized whale.

OK, I know there are people out there who are fans of whales. And maybe the thought of a whale scrolling by (at an extremely slow pace), one square foot at a time spins their prop. Those people need to get a mortgage. Or a job.

Oh, it’s in German too! I don’t read German, so there might be a point but I highly doubt it.

9

This is great. You fill out the addresses (return and to) on a picture of an envelope and then write a letter and they mail it for you. Yeah. Oh boy! And it’s free?!

(more…)