Trading in Domain Names?

[Aussiest]

Look it wasn't a 'viral marketing' excercise by any means. I am just genuinly interested in a trader's assessment of such an investment. Most people in domains (myself included) do not have your skills but just fell into it one way or another.

Of course it is in my interests for more people to invest & trade as it's good for the site.

Anyway I'm happy to answer any questions about it - you'd be surprised to the extent of it & who are involved (did you know Fairfax owns 33,000 .au domains and another Australian listed company owns around 550,000 domains)

Well, seeing as you asked...

I think the domain name business is a great business to be in. By the looks of it, you have done quite well. I do think, however, that you need to have a lot of IT knowledge.

The only thing is i think it's a bit lecherous sometimes. For example, if somebody has a business and somebody else rushes off to register the domain and then tries to sell it back to them at an extremely elevated price.

 

[MrBurns]

Well, seeing as you asked...

I think the domain name business is a great business to be in. By the looks of it, you have done quite well. I do think, however, that you need to have a lot of IT knowledge.

The only thing is i think it's a bit lecherous sometimes. For example, if somebody has a business and somebody else rushes off to register the domain (i know a savvy business person should think of this, but until recently, domain name registration was not a concern for a majority of business owners).

You cant take someones elses business name ie: Coke or something like that, that's cyber squatting and there are penalties but you can take excellent domain names that businesses should have thought of but didnt.

 

[marklar]

phishing is nothing to do with domaining. And I don't think there has ever been a phishing attack using a .AU domain name.

Gotta start somewhere. As I said, DNS is based around trust, you have an opportunity to leverage that trust through registering dodgy domains.

The namespace is highly regulated (some would say overregulated).

And yet...

For example I tried to flog debitcard.com.au to the banks.

So you, having no financial qualifications or license yet were able to register a domain in .com.au that was ultimately destined for one of the banks. I'm sorry but that is hardly regulated at all. Mr Elz would have told you to get stuffed.

Think of the last time you got an email pretending to be from a bank. Check out the link - it's never a .au domain.

Correct, it's from a registry that is cheaper than .com.au. and most people don't understand the difference.

Put it this way, if I was launching a new website (maybe a new business), I'd be happy to spend a few hundred to a few thousand to have a half decent domain if I'm going to try and market it at all (rather than compromise on a crappy hand-registered name)

So eBay and Google were all household words before they got started? And they paid a few hundred thousand dollars to get their domain names?

I understand your point re the placeholder sites but remember if they weren't registered what would you see? "This page can not be displayed..." At least a parked site might give you some useful links (albeit ads)

It's no better than Verisign implementing wildcard DNS entries in .com and .net 6 years ago. IT WASTES TIME AND NETWORK BANDWIDTH!

In case you can't tell, I have very little time for people that domain squat.

m.

 

[netfleet]

Well, seeing as you asked...

I think the domain name business is a great business to be in. By the looks of it, you have done quite well. I do think, however, that you need to have a lot of IT knowledge.

The only thing is i think it's a bit lecherous sometimes. For example, if somebody has a business and somebody else rushes off to register the domain and then tries to sell it back to them at an extremely elevated price.

You really don't need any IT knowledge at all. Of course it helps especially when it comes to developing but I'm no techie by a long, long shot. Business (and trading, I suspect) acumen is the main thing.

What you are referring to in your 2nd paragraph is known as cybersquatting. A simple phone call to auDA (the domain name regulator) will strip the registrant of the domain. This is not the case in other countries though where you have to lodge a formal complaint to the WIPO

...

So you, having no financial qualifications or license yet were able to register a domain in .com.au that was ultimately destined for one of the banks. I'm sorry but that is hardly regulated at all. Mr Elz would have told you to get stuffed.

Correct, it's from a registry that is cheaper than .com.au. and most people don't understand the difference.

So eBay and Google were all household words before they got started? And they paid a few hundred thousand dollars to get their domain names?

In case you can't tell, I have very little time for people that domain squat.

m.

Sorry but you're wrong with debitcard.com.au. Are you saying that I have no rights to that domain? It should have been left dormant until a financial institution registered it on a whim? Have a look at the site - you may even find it useful.

It's the business of publishing to a large extent. Is there anything wrong with me publishing relevant information on a wide range of subjects using generic domain names? Even if it is supported by advertising (as is most publishing of course)

And, phishers do not use .com domains rather than com.au to save money! The different between US$7 pa and A$12.50 pa is not going to sway them from their eveil schemes to scam people out of thousands of dollars. I reiterate, they don't use com.au because of the regulation (you need an ABN for example)

Not sure what you mean with ebay & google - these are not generic domains. But, just say some canny speculator, many many years ago had registered a heap of nonsense domains that he thought sounded quite good and coule be considered 'brandable' would that be so wrong?

If they had have done that & the now Ebay fancied the name, they probably would have bought it from the speculator for a few hundred bucks (after all it wouldn't have had much inherent value prior to the building of the brand). All sounds pretty fair to me. A developer buying a block of land from a land owner.

With all that said, it is quite a wild west type industry and I can understand and respect your concerns. It's so new (esp in Australia) that boundaries are continually being pushed and tested. But, so some extent that adds to the appeal - being involved in something that's so new & exciting.

 

[marklar]

Sorry but you're wrong with debitcard.com.au. Have a look at the site - you may even find it useful.

OK, lets have a look. First "Apply" link for an ANZ Everyday Visa Debt card redirects to:
*Link removed*

s2d6.com is an affiliate link site and doubleclick - an advertising site.
Strange that neither of them is ANZ... maybe I won't give whatever site I end up with my personal details thanks all the same.

Is there anything wrong with me publishing relevant information on a wide range of subjects using generic domain names? Even if it is supported by advertising (as is most publishing of course)

Yep. I work for a financial institution that may or may not be being hijacked by your site, redirecting potential customers to sites that are not controlled by said financial institution; you better believe I have a problem with that.

Not sure what you mean with ebay & google - these are not generic domains.

Exactly. They started what many would claim to be a successful business with a domain name that was publicly available, not something high-priced from a squatter. If eBay wasn't available it might have been fBay instead.

With all that said, it is quite a wild west type industry and I can understand and respect your concerns. .

LOL! It hasn't been the wild west since the dotcom boom ten years ago.

Best of luck with your business model dude, I've got a rack of 28.8k modems taped together if you want to start an ISP. I'll even help you get some cheap advertising space on GeoCities

m.

 

[Gerkin]

I have a few domains registered, both with .com and .au. I always buy both the .com and .au (in my pty ltd name) at the same time. I'm looking at starting to develop some of them into websites with affliate links and advertising, in the hope to a) create revenue and b) flog them off later.
It sure is a new however if you stick with what you know you can make money out of it.

 

[netfleet]

OK, lets have a look. First "Apply" link for an ANZ Everyday Visa Debt card redirects to:
*Link Removed*

s2d6.com is an affiliate link site and doubleclick - an advertising site.
Strange that neither of them is ANZ... maybe I won't give whatever site I end up with my personal details thanks all the same.

Yep. I work for a financial institution that may or may not be being hijacked by your site, redirecting potential customers to sites that are not controlled by said financial institution; you better believe I have a problem with that.

Exactly. They started what many would claim to be a successful business with a domain name that was publicly available, not something high-priced from a squatter. If eBay wasn't available it might have been fBay instead.

LOL! It hasn't been the wild west since the dotcom boom ten years ago.

Best of luck with your business model dude, I've got a rack of 28.8k modems taped together if you want to start an ISP. I'll even help you get some cheap advertising space on GeoCities

m.

Are you seriously suggesting that this site is actually 'hijacking' potential customers of the ANZ??!!

You correctly identified the link as being an affiliate link - set up expressly by ANZ so that they can identify us as referring a client to them and pay us a referral fee if they go on and apply for a debit card.

Precisely the same as the ING ad on this site which redirects to:

'http://clk.atdmt.com/goiframe/115563027/151180890/direct/01'

The ANZ approached us through an aggregator of such affiliates to place this link on their site.

Your response is an absolute classic case of fearing what you don't understand.

Because you can't grasp what it's all about, the words 'redirect', 'affiliate, 'advertising site' all take on sinister meanings to you and the online advertising world is a scary place full of scammers and traps.

You pretend to have a handle on phishing and squatting but in both cases in this thread you've defined them incorrectly.

If I registered ebay.com.au in 1996 for example, way before the company was conceived and then the now Ebay came along and bought it from me, then IMO that's perfectly fair. I reiterate - it's equivalent to a land owner being approached by a company that plans to build their worldwide headquarters there. Should that land owner never have bought the land. Should he have left it there to be claimed by someone else?

Here is a definition of squatting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting

As you can see it relies of trading off the goodwill of an existing brand.

Anyway, I didn't come on here to defend the industry. It exists and is thriving whether you like it or not. People are allowed to make money online without breaking any laws or crossing ethical boundaries.

My real question was whether the Australian domain industry, in particular could be considered a viable trading marketplace or whether the market is just too small and/or reliant on luck. The fact is the vast majority of domain owners are hobbysist with a couple of dozen names registered or bought using less than scientific methods but they seem to do OK.

Dark Blue Sea a listed Australian company, have put a more business-like approach to their domain names (mainly .com's)

Say they register 1,000 domains for $7 pa. They might receive an everage income of $4 pa per domain. That equates to a loss of $3. However they also have calculated that they have a 1% chance of selling each domain pa for $500 which effectively adds a further $5 pa of value onto each domain. So, on average theire revenue is $9/per domain and a holding cost of $7/domain.

Applying this logic they have registered over 500,000 such names.

Plus, as more people come online, the average value of the domains will increase.

Does this make solid trading sense to you guys?

 

[marklar]

Are you seriously suggesting that this site is actually 'hijacking' potential customers of the ANZ??!!

You correctly identified the link as being an affiliate link - set up expressly by ANZ so that they can identify us as referring a client to them and pay us a referral fee if they go on and apply for a debit card.

I never said it WAS hijacking potential customers, but you admit it's a domain that is outside your control and outside ANZ's control. I don't know who s2d6.com is, why should I trust them to redirect MY web browser? They may be trustworthy today, but who is to say they will be tomorrow? What is my legal recourse with them if they do something nefarious with my personal details?

You know what? If I want to go to ANZ and apply for a card I'll jolly well type in www.anz.com.au thanks all the same.

Your response is an absolute classic case of fearing what you don't understand.

Because you can't grasp what it's all about, the words 'redirect', 'affiliate, 'advertising site' all take on sinister meanings to you and the online advertising world is a scary place full of scammers and traps.

LOL! You have no idea who I am or what my experience or expertise is, but part of my job is to educate end users to NOT click on links they don't trust. I don't trust your links, I'll tell my end users not to trust them either.

You pretend to have a handle on phishing and squatting but in both cases in this thread you've defined them incorrectly.

It all relates back to an abuse of TRUST (see, that word keeps coming up again). What you do with that abuse of trust once you've exploited it is really beside the point.

If I registered ebay.com.au in 1996 for example, way before the company was conceived and then the now Ebay came along and bought it from me, then IMO that's perfectly fair. I reiterate - it's equivalent to a land owner being approached by a company that plans to build their worldwide headquarters there. Should that land owner never have bought the land. Should he have left it there to be claimed by someone else?

Many local councils have development caveats on their land, use it or lose it; they can tell you what you can and cannot build on it and you can be taxed on its value and your improvements on it, this does not happen with domain names. Land is a finite and tangible resource, a domain name is neither, it's not an equal comparison.

Anyway, I didn't come on here to defend the industry. It exists and is thriving whether you like it or not. People are allowed to make money online without breaking any laws or crossing ethical boundaries.

And now you're making the same arguments that spammers make. Congratulations! That's a mighty nice hole you're digging for yourself.

Plus, as more people come online, the average value of the domains will increase.

Does this make solid trading sense to you guys?

I'm sorry but it doesn't to me. Based on last years' figures there are over 11 million names in the .au namespace, 625 million throughout the greater Internet (.au is ranked 12th after .net, .com, .jp, .de, .it and a couple of other countries) and a year ago ICANN further relaxed the rules for Top-Level domains. The namespace is getting bigger in leaps & bounds.... quick go hoover it all up at $7 pa, maybe someone will want to buy it. :silly:

You going to start selling IPv6 addresses too?

m.

 

[Gerkin]

This has just become a self promoting thread from a new poster only interested in putting his own business forward.

 

[netfleet]

I never said it WAS hijacking potential customers, but you admit it's a domain that is outside your control and outside ANZ's control. I don't know who s2d6.com is, why should I trust them to redirect MY web browser? They may be trustworthy today, but who is to say they will be tomorrow? What is my legal recourse with them if they do something nefarious with my personal details?

You know what? If I want to go to ANZ and apply for a card I'll jolly well type in www.anz.com.au thanks all the same.

You certainly suggested it. Anyway, by the same token, I hope you will be advising your fellow forum members not to click on the ads on this forum which use the exact same technology. The very ads that support the running of the forum.

LOL! You have no idea who I am or what my experience or expertise is, but part of my job is to educate end users to NOT click on links they don't trust. I don't trust your links, I'll tell my end users not to trust them either.

That's fine. You're right I have no idea what your job is or your area of expertise. However I do know that it's not in domains and yet you are persisting in trying to discredit the industry.

And now you're making the same arguments that spammers make. Congratulations! That's a mighty nice hole you're digging for yourself.

Hmmm I'm not sure I understand? What hole?

I'm sorry but it doesn't to me. Based on last years' figures there are over 11 million names in the .au namespace, 625 million throughout the greater Internet (.au is ranked 12th after .net, .com, .jp, .de, .it and a couple of other countries) and a year ago ICANN further relaxed the rules for Top-Level domains. The namespace is getting bigger in leaps & bounds.... quick go hoover it all up at $7 pa, maybe someone will want to buy it. :silly:

You going to start selling IPv6 addresses too?

m.

Correction.

There are approx 1.2m .au domain names (you are out by a factor of 10)
There are approx 160m domain names in total (you are out by a factor of about 4)
ICANN have not yet relaxed the rules for TLDs - this is forcast to take place next year not last year.

Anyway, the relative size of the .au market does not necessarily indicate whether it's a viable market or not. What's the relative size of the ASX globally?

I'm sorry Mark but I'm a bit bemused by your attack on what I do for a living. You don't know what it's all about and again, I think it must be driven by fear (of the unknown).

You have tried to adopt an authorative postion relating to domains and the internet but have demonstrated a real lack of knowledge in this area.

1) Incorrectly stated that in the mid nineties, the handover of control of .au namespace control to MelbourneIT resulted in phishing attacks. There has not been a single documented attempt at phishing using a .au domain name (this mistake concerns me as you stated preventing these attacks kept you in a job )
2) Incorrectly defining (cyber)squatting
3) Suggesting that one of my sites could be 'hijacking' visitors when it was just using the exact same technology as many thousands of other sites (including this one)
4) Mistakenly estimating the numbers of registered domains by many many times.

So, my suggestion is - stop trying to discredit this little industry. You aren't succeeding and your arguments are riddled with holes and in many cases are just plain wrong. There's no way I would even thing about doing the same with your industry (share trading) however I felt about it because I know and accept I don't have any knowledge.

This has just become a self promoting thread from a new poster only interested in putting his own business forward.

Nonesense. I haven't even mentioned my business name and have spent nearly all the time defending an unprovoked attack on 'my' industry.

I am guilty of being a new poster though, you got that right. Nice welcome you guys give around here by the way.....

 

[Gerkin]

But you did show us one of your links? As I said its in the interest of self promotion. You have only talked about your business, and you have dropped in your affiliate advertising website, Why don’t you go in and actually talk about stocks like this forum is for?

 

[MrBurns]

But you did show us one of your links? As I said its in the interest of self promotion. You have only talked about your business, and you have dropped in your affiliate advertising website, Why don’t you go in and actually talk about stocks like this forum is for?

This is the general forum you can talk about anything you want , if you dont like the thread dont contribute. Simple.

Domain names can be gold, if you have a good one it will make you a lot of money IF you know how to use it.

 

[Gerkin]

This is the general forum you can talk about anything you want , if you dont like the thread dont contribute. Simple.

Domain names can be gold, if you have a good one it will make you a lot of money IF you know how to use it.

Bit strange how someone comes on, provides affiliate links for which they get paid for isnt it?

Hey i might as well come on here, put my website as my signature, all the people on this site see my website then you go to it, then you would click on the affilaite advertising and then i get paid. Yeah i might just do that, easy.

 

[MrBurns]

Bit strange how someone comes on, provides affiliate links for which they get paid for isnt it?

Hey i might as well come on here, put my website as my signature, all the people on this site see my website then you go to it, then you would click on the affilaite advertising and then i get paid. Yeah i might just do that, easy.

God idea but you wont get rich on the clickthroughs from here

 

[Gerkin]

God idea but you wont get rich on the clickthroughs from here

Course i wont but it was essentially the same thing he was doing ie self promotion. If you dont agree show me one post of his about another topic?

 

[netfleet]

Bit strange how someone comes on, provides affiliate links for which they get paid for isnt it?

Hey i might as well come on here, put my website as my signature, all the people on this site see my website then you go to it, then you would click on the affilaite advertising and then i get paid. Yeah i might just do that, easy.

It was marklar who posted the link after his investigation to try and discredit me. Don't worry though I'll only get paid if someone on this forum happens to

a) click on the link
b) then sign up for a debit card with ANZ within 60 days

In reality how likely is that? Do you think that's my grand plan and why I've been spending all this time responding to this thread?

Look, my motivation for posting here is to get a genuine feel for what more traditional Aussie traders might think about domain trading.

I think my question has been answered to some extent...

No, we don't understand, we don't want to understand, we're afraid of things we don't understand and we're happier with our stocks and shares.

Ah well... good luck to you all. I had thought forums were all about sharing information, ideas and expertise but I must be wrong.

 

[MrBurns]

It didnt seem like self promotion to me and I really dont care anyway as I'm interested in the subject matter, those in here who arent just p#@# off for goodness sake !

 

[Aussiest]

I remember registering a .com domain name a few years ago (it didn't previously exist - i came up with the name). I did it over the phone, and at the time the call taker commented on what a good name it was. I assume he 'flagged' it. I eventually let the name expire. My choice.

However, immediately after it expired, i noticed it had a whole bunch of links on it and was for sale on a premium domain names website, for 10X the amount i paid for it.

Fair enough, i let the name expire. However, i do find it down right thievery that the domain name was swallowed up by the registrar and put on the market for an inflated price rather than being offered back to the consumer at fair value.

My only conclusion is that these people rarely have ideas of their own and that their business survives on opportunistic methods.

Nothing against you NetFleet, i would hope that you would operate with more ethics :. This particular company i will never use again due to their inflated prices and lack of ethics.

I actually have a pretty good .com.au registered. I wonder how i'd go about setting up links and making $ out of it?

 

[MrBurns]

I remember registering a .com domain name a few years ago (it didn't previously exist - i came up with the name). I did it over the phone, and at the time the call taker commented on what a good name it was. I assume he 'flagged' it. I eventually let the name expire. My choice.

However, immediately after it expired, i noticed it had a whole bunch of links on it and was for sale on a premium domain names website, for 10X the amount i paid for it.

Fair enough, i let the name expire. However, i do find it down right thievery that the domain name was swallowed up by the registrar and put on the market for an inflated price rather than being offered back to the consumer at fair value.

My only conclusion is that these people rarely have ideas of their own and that their business survives on opportunistic methods.

Nothing against you NetFleet, i would hope that you would operate with more ethics :. This particular company i will never use again due to their inflated prices and lack of ethics.

There's really nothing unethical about that, you let the name expire, they took it up and worked with it, you didnt.

It really sounds more like sour grapes from your end.

I had a great number plate once, I handed it back and someone else took it straight away, now I regret it, my fault, end of story.

 

[Aussiest]

It really sounds more like sour grapes from your end.

It is sour grapes. However, i've learned my lesson.

My points of contention were:

1. It was my name, they didn't think of it
2. They must have flagged it when i first registered it as the day after it expired it appeared with links etc.
3. Their business operates on vulcherous and opportunistic methods.

I wouldn't have cared if another consumer had have grabbed it. It just really annoyed me that they grabbed it and hiked the price up.

It's a little different to your number plate example. It's not like VicRoads (or wherever you are) took it back from you and hiked the price up 10-20 times. There are regulations for that.

Anyhow, enough said.