In a world where most all real “one word” areas, in almost all major dialects, having any possible commercial value are already parked or being used for a real web site, how do you speculate on potential resale profits without paying an income to someone who already owns the domain you have interest in? Making things tougher, how do you obtain such areas, without paying a king’s ransom, in a prestigious off shoot, such as. com,. net,. org,. european, or. company. uk?
In this article I review some of my own real life experience in domain questions, and offer advice that will hopefully save you some time, as well as help you avoid wasting your money. By no means am I suggesting that my approach is the only way to proceed successfully. Far from it, there are numerous approaches that have actual or potential merit. Prestige Park Grove I merely posit one potential strategy among many that may prove useful to you.
Practical Considerations
Regardless that the majority of one or two word, commercial valuable names in prestigious extensions are already registered, the domain market is not a “seller’s market. inch Actually, it is not a “buyer’s market” either. This apparent paradox devolves from the fact that even though such a high percentage of really good website names are already registered, sellers parking areas for resale in general are unrealistic regarding their price expectations. Thus, what could be a seller’s market if domain owners were more reasonable in general is in reality a “stalled market. inch The sad simple truth is that in order to obtain a really valuable domain that is already registered, there is a high probability that you will have to pay more than you can later sell it for.
To understand precisely how “stalled” the domain resale market is, if you registered say 100 fair, but not great quality website names, and advertised them for sale, you will get one or two lowball offers a year. Assuming you’re paying $10 a year for each domain to keep them inforce, you might break even. Amount of value for the time spent, to say the least.
The above considerations specify three critical factors you have to consider if you wish to be successful as a domain supplier:
You need to focus mainly on unregistered areas, as opposed to buying them in the supplementary market.
You need to be realistic in your price.
You need to focus on a small to medium number of really good names, instead of a massive quantity of below average names.
The Big Conflict
A quick mental review of the above material presents an apparent conundrum. High current value commercial names are in general registered and too costly to speculate on, and fair to poor commercial names will get very little action. So how do you proceed with any hope of being successful?
Basically, the answer (or better put, one answer) is focus on the future. If you do some investigation, you’ll find out quickly how difficult it is to obtain an unregistered domain that is of high enough quality to turn around quickly at a big profit. This is because virtually all of the areas having high current commercial value are already taken.
A solution, but of course by no means the only solution, is to think in terms of what might become valuable many years down the road. You will of course be wrong in a high percentage of these speculations, but even one or two winners is beneficial for a ton of losers and leave you with a fine profit.
So Now What?
There are numerous ways to approach future focused domain questions. One of the best, and most enjoyable, is to pay attention to a subject you already are interested in. Instead of remaining a casual aficionado, be a real master on the topic. Read books, study relevant web sites, and perform other kinds of research relative to material that focuses on emerging developments in your field of interest. This method is very effective in topics that are susceptible to rapid and frequent advances in underlying technology, such as medicine, computers, communications and networking gear, environmental protection, and home consumer electronics, just to name a few.
Another approach is to look at the question more broadly, and perform search engine queries on phrases like “emerging developments”, “best new product ideas”, “design award winners”, “future trends”, etc.
Regardless of which approach you use, it’s important to be careful not to register a url of your website for a product that is already branded, as the brand owner may be able to unilaterally confiscate your domain without compensation. The brand database at uspto. gov can be of enormous assist in this regard. If there is a “live” brand for the name you are looking for signing up, you will be at obvious risk of potentially losing the domain without remuneration.
Getting Specific
None of us are smart enough to what happens acronyms might become important in the future, although if you keep very current in a particular field, you might be lucky to register an important one in a prestigious off shoot before someone else does. I view this scenario mainly as an occasional stroke of luck, as opposed to a technique.
Another point is that even if a single real word domain is not commercial important now, there is still a very high chance that it is already registered anyway. Thus, the best approach is to pay attention to short, two “real word” areas, in prestigious extensions, having high potential future commercial value. Even areas in the quality extensions having two real words that are of high current commercial value are for the most part taken. This may surprise some people, thinking that only the great single real word areas are mostly registered, but it is just not true (if you don’t believe it, try and find a good current commercial quality two real word domain in a decent off shoot, and you’ll be unpleasantly surprised).