Trading in Domain Names?

[Taltan]

Its an interesting industry, and many have done very well off it over the last 15 years. I guess unlike real land the main issue is the assumption of finite supply. For example you could have 100 million ".au" registrations and the OSI convention gurus could decide that ".aus" can now be used. I'm not a tech head but I believe Internet 3 is a new concept and I assume its conventions have yet to be determined.

Other than that it should make good money and I would look at say a place like India where internet use is growing a lot faster than Australia.

 

[netfleet]

Ah, so maybe there is a bit of interest here after all. Great.

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.

Some registrars in the US have gone a step further with 'domain sniffing'. This is where they analyse people's checks for domain availability and have automated programs that count the number of queries that people make.

If there are x amount of queries, they grab the domain for themselves assuming that these availability checks indicate a certain level of demand out there.

Moral of the story is - if you're interested in a domain name & it's available, grab it quick because merely checking the availability might mean it gets snaffled from under you!

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

You have 2 real options for making money out of a domain. Easiest is to 'Park' it - this will use a third party (like Namedrive, Sedo or Fabulous (an Australian listed company)) who act as an aggregator and plaster it with relevant ads. You get paid a few cents if people click on the ads (after Google's cut & the aggregator's cut of course) - think of this as your 'dividend' on the investment.

Dead easy takes 5 minutes to set up an account and 30 secs to add a domain.

So shoes.com.au would have ads by Reebok, Nike, John's Sports shoes etc..

A lot of people hate these sites but my view is it's better than nothing from a users point of view (because the ads are relevant) and a good temporary option while you work out what to do with it.

The other option is to develop it. You can still make money from ads but developing real content and building links (something you wouldn't bother with a parked domain) will mean you should start to show up in the search results and get traffic that way. You also get a better yield this way as you can cut out the parking middleman and sometimes even the all powerful Google.

Takes much longer but it is an investment in your virtual property...

Its an interesting industry, and many have done very well off it over the last 15 years. I guess unlike real land the main issue is the assumption of finite supply. For example you could have 100 million ".au" registrations and the OSI convention gurus could decide that ".aus" can now be used. I'm not a tech head but I believe Internet 3 is a new concept and I assume its conventions have yet to be determined.

Other than that it should make good money and I would look at say a place like India where internet use is growing a lot faster than Australia.

The good thing about Australia is that trading has only been allowed since last June so the only options to make money up til then were to monetise or develop.

Your example of a new extension being released (eg .aus) is a very real risk to values of existing domains. However if it did happen there could be fantastic opportunities too - you might be able to get flowers.com.aus for example.

However .AU is pretty firmly entrenched (esp com.au) so will always have strong demand.

India is a great opportunity with only a 7% internet penetration and over 1billion population. Language and culture differences could be a real problem though.

Same with China - potentially a massive market. But be careful, I heard of a guy who paid big bucks for a name in mandarin script that he thought meant poker. Turned out it did but a poker like you would use to stoke a fire...

There are still plenty of opportunities in Australia though. As long as more and more people put up websites, the demand keeps growing. Unlikely anyone will turn a $25 rego fee into $100,000 (those days are gone) but to turn it into $200 or $500 is very achievable...

 

[Aussiest]

'Park' it - this will use a third party (like Namedrive, Sedo or Fabulous (an Australian listed company)) who act as an aggregator and plaster it with relevant ads. You get paid a few cents if people click on the ads (after Google's cut & the aggregator's cut of course) - think of this as your 'dividend' on the investment.

Dead easy takes 5 minutes to set up an account and 30 secs to add a domain.

So shoes.com.au would have ads by Reebok, Nike, John's Sports shoes etc..

A lot of people hate these sites but my view is it's better than nothing from a users point of view (because the ads are relevant) and a good temporary option while you work out what to do with it.

The other option is to develop it. You can still make money from ads but developing real content and building links (something you wouldn't bother with a parked domain) will mean you should start to show up in the search results and get traffic that way. You also get a better yield this way as you can cut out the parking middleman and sometimes even the all powerful Google.

Takes much longer but it is an investment in your virtual property....

So, if i parked my domain with a 3rd party provider, would i:

1. have to pay a monthly hosting fee? Or does provider pay this?
2. be able to get full control of my domain back whenever i like (eg, use it for other things)?

Does the 3rd party provider ask for the auth code and registry key?

How difficult is it to use a formerly parked domain for a business website?

Other option: in relation to building links myself, i'm assuming i'd approach relevant business with web-addresses? Not sure on how to charge payment... Would i have to include some content, eg, an "About Us" section, and perhaps some informational blurb?!

Thanks for answering NetFleet, really quite interesting

 

[netfleet]

So, if i parked my domain with a 3rd party provider, would i:

1. have to pay a monthly hosting fee? Or does provider pay this?
2. be able to get full control of my domain back whenever i like (eg, use it for other things)?

Does the 3rd party provider ask for the auth code and registry key?

How difficult is it to use a formerly parked domain for a business website?

Other option: in relation to building links myself, i'm assuming i'd approach relevant business with web-addresses? Not sure on how to charge payment... Would i have to include some content, eg, an "About Us" section, and perhaps some informational blurb?!

Thanks for answering NetFleet, really quite interesting

No problem at all - you are very welcome.

Parking is very easy.

You don't have to pay for hosting - you just change the Nameservers at the registrar to point towards their web server.
You can take the domain back at any stage (just change the nameservers to wherever you host your website)
You will be paid for every ad click on the domain
You definitely do not give any passwords or auth keys!

There's no problem using a formerly parked domain as a new website. The opposite can raise problems... if you, for whatever reason, let a highly developed website go and park the domain instead, Google will recognise the lack of 'proper' content and devalue its search ranking.

Building the site is a whole new discipline. Not so much to do with domains as it is to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). (although a good domain gives you a great headstart).

But in a nutshell, get as much unique quality keyword rich content as you can and build as many possible incoming links as you can (Google judges each incoming link to a site as a 'vote' for the site & rewards it with a higher position in the search engines).

You can buy links but if Google catches you, you may get penalised!

The best way is to organically do this - create content that is good enough for people to voluntarily link to from their website and blogs etc.

Once the site is up and running you can then add ad feeds from Google which will automatically generate relevant ads to the webpage (clever stuff - Google will 'read' the page to get a sense on the subject and present advertsiser's ads that fit. They then charge the advertiser & pass on a few cents to you, the website publisher)

Hope this helps!

 

[marklar]

Oh my goodness, that last post is pure gold! Go on, antagonise Google and see what that gets you.

I'm done arguing with this guy, I have my suspicions why he is here as do some of you. I urge you to exercise caution and Do Your Own Research before you consider investing in "Domaining" or "Domaineering" or whatever buzzword it is called these days. Talk to your friends who work in I.T., explain what his business model is to them and see what reaction you get.

netfleet is in my ignore list now, but if anyone else would like to discuss anything I've raised in this thread with me by PM feel free to do so.

I now return you to your usual programme

m.

 

[MrBurns]

Oh my goodness, that last post is pure gold! Go on, antagonise Google and see what that gets you.

I'm done arguing with this guy, I have my suspicions why he is here as do some of you. I urge you to exercise caution and Do Your Own Research before you consider investing in "Domaining" or "Domaineering" or whatever buzzword it is called these days. Talk to your friends who work in I.T., explain what his business model is to them and see what reaction you get.

netfleet is in my ignore list now, but if anyone else would like to discuss anything I've raised in this thread with me by PM feel free to do so.

I now return you to your usual programme

m.

You're joking, no one is going to invest in domain names unless they know what they're doing unless they're complete dopes.

 

[netfleet]

Oh my goodness, that last post is pure gold! Go on, antagonise Google and see what that gets you.
I'm done arguing with this guy,

Great! I'm still a bit bemused as to the motivation behind your unprovoked attack so thank you for leaving me alone now...

I urge you to exercise caution and Do Your Own Research before you consider investing in "Domaining" or "Domaineering" or whatever buzzword it is called these days.
m.

Finally marklar, you're talking some sense. "I urge you to exercise caution and Do Your Own Research before you consider investing..." should surely be a golden rule in any investment. Well said.

In terms of risk, there is considerable risk in that there is a danger you rush out and register a heap of names that are essentially worthless (or worth less than their renewal fee).

The best advice I could give to anyone investing in domains is to always have an end-user in mind.

Think what sort of business or person would place value in that name.

As an example of how not to do it, in the US, domainers started getting a bit carried away with the domain name market and ended up registering every single combination of 4-letter.com domains (all 456,976 of them)

Naturally when this "LLLL.com buyout" (4-letter.com domain) was completed, because there were no more available combinations, the price of these rare domains increased on the aftermarket. It got to the stage where the absolute minimum you'd get for an LLLL.com was $50 or something.

So for a while there it was great - people had rushed out registered 1,000 names for $7 and could expect a bare minimum of $50,000 if they were to sell them all.

However this was not sustainable - it was in effect a kind of ponzi scheme and when this dawned on people and people realised there really was no value in JQXZ.com, prices collapsed and a lot of people lost a lot of money (the people who had bought in at $70 especially).

I'm sure you would have seen this exact situation in the stock market before.

So, the two pieces of advice I would give potential investors to mitigate risk would be:

1) Remember the end-user
2) Start small. A domain here and a domain there is how all successful investors started - learning along the way. Thankfully you can start with as little as $25.

 

[theasxgorilla]

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.

Google says they'll do no evil. Believe it or not, that counts for a lot. The eyes of the cyber world watch their every move. Unfortunately netfleet you have neither the profile nor the reputation. With 26,000+ members and millions of monthly visitors ASF does.

Marklar is right, your sites/portals/whatever should not be trusted by any users. You said yourself you're not that technical so you're probably not qualified to understand why.

 

[Aussiest]

No problem at all - you are very welcome.

Parking is very easy.

You don't have to pay for hosting - you just change the Nameservers at the registrar to point towards their web server.
You can take the domain back at any stage (just change the nameservers to wherever you host your website)
You will be paid for every ad click on the domain
You definitely do not give any passwords or auth keys!

There's no problem using a formerly parked domain as a new website. The opposite can raise problems... if you, for whatever reason, let a highly developed website go and park the domain instead, Google will recognise the lack of 'proper' content and devalue its search ranking.

Building the site is a whole new discipline. Not so much to do with domains as it is to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). (although a good domain gives you a great headstart).

But in a nutshell, get as much unique quality keyword rich content as you can and build as many possible incoming links as you can (Google judges each incoming link to a site as a 'vote' for the site & rewards it with a higher position in the search engines).

You can buy links but if Google catches you, you may get penalised!

The best way is to organically do this - create content that is good enough for people to voluntarily link to from their website and blogs etc.

Once the site is up and running you can then add ad feeds from Google which will automatically generate relevant ads to the webpage (clever stuff - Google will 'read' the page to get a sense on the subject and present advertsiser's ads that fit. They then charge the advertiser & pass on a few cents to you, the website publisher)

Hope this helps!

Thanks NetFleet, that is very helpful.

Just as a matter of interest, how much is realistically possible to make with just one parked website? I'm assuming, not much.

I'm gathering i would still have to pay for some sort of hosting?

 

[Uncle Barry]

Good morning.
Netfleet, mate don't think twice, your light years ahead of most and on the right track !

And to all the knockers, (no names, no addresses and its not me, ) I know someone who now makes over...over 1 mil AU Dollars with Netfleet's concept and or ideas.

Its 100% legal..... no problem there.

This person spends far less time in his 'business" than 99% of the posters here trying to make a dollar from the Markets.

And I think it would be fair to ask, how many people posting here make OVER 1mill from their efforts in the Market ?

Kind regards,
UB
Netfleet, mate, please don't tell anybody more, PLEASE !
Just forget to tell ANYONE.....got the message.

Think, there is only one cake, if you cut it into too many slices, you will only get a few crumbs ...think
thanks.

 

[netfleet]

Google says they'll do no evil. Believe it or not, that counts for a lot. The eyes of the cyber world watch their every move. Unfortunately netfleet you have neither the profile nor the reputation. With 26,000+ members and millions of monthly visitors ASF does.

Marklar is right, your sites/portals/whatever should not be trusted by any users. You said yourself you're not that technical so you're probably not qualified to understand why.

I'm sure that ASF is a more trusted site than my site for you guys. But that's not the point. ING doesn't trust ASF anymore than it does my sites. That's why they employ a third party affiliate company to vet all sites before doing business with them.

ASF and my sites have had to follow the exact same criteria to be allowed to show affiliate ads like these.

Dangerous to judge a site's trustworthiness by the number of visitors and/or members as well so keep that in mind.

Golden rule with any web use is, if you don't trust a site/link/company err on the side of caution. Thankfully I think most visitors on my site see it for what it is - a fairly simple debit card comparison site where they can gather some info & then go on and apply for cards if they want.

Thanks NetFleet, that is very helpful.

Just as a matter of interest, how much is realistically possible to make with just one parked website? I'm assuming, not much.

I'm gathering i would still have to pay for some sort of hosting?

You assume right

My best parked domains earn a few dollars a day at best. So, for one domain, it's hardly worth setting things up tbh.

However whilst $2/day doesn't sound like much, if your holding costs are just a $25 renewal every 2 years (or 3.4c/day) then it's fantastic. All you then need to do is find a way to multiply by 10,000!

Then on top of that, you supplement your income with sales.

And no, you don't have to pay a cent in hosting (or other charges) because the parking company make a clip on your income.

For each click, the advertiser pays Google say $1.20. Google take their cut of 70c. The Parking Company take a cut of 20c and you, the publisher get 50c.

Good morning.
Netfleet, mate don't think twice, your light years ahead of most and on the right track !

And to all the knockers, (no names, no addresses and its not me, ) I know someone who now makes over...over 1 mil AU Dollars with Netfleet's concept and or ideas.

Its 100% legal..... no problem there.

This person spends far less time in his 'business" than 99% of the posters here trying to make a dollar from the Markets.

And I think it would be fair to ask, how many people posting here make OVER 1mill from their efforts in the Market ?

Kind regards,
UB
Netfleet, mate, please don't tell anybody more, PLEASE !
Just forget to tell ANYONE.....got the message.

Think, there is only one cake, if you cut it into too many slices, you will only get a few crumbs ...think
thanks.

Thanks Uncle Barry for the support! I understand exactly what you are saying re the cake and for a couple of years, I was steadily acquiring profitable domain names on the quiet enjoying the lack of much serious competition.

However, these days, I've taken a change of direction and whilst I still acquire a handful of domains each day, I'm keen to see real trading activity build up like it has overseas and to do that, the industry needs more buyers and sellers. To that end, I'm happy to talk with anyone who has an interest in the industry.

Sorry Uncle Barry, I see your point but even if the cake is all chopped up and in crumbs, there is still money to be made if people actually start trading their crumbs

 

[theasxgorilla]

Dangerous to judge a site's trustworthiness by the number of visitors and/or members as well so keep that in mind.

Some would like to suggest this is the case due to all the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) surrounding cyber threats but actually it's an extremely efficient method. It's a matter of common business sense. A site with a lot of visitors/members is an asset to the site owner. Successful site owners, as a rule of thumb, are motivated to protect their asset and it's reputation, and more importantly, can afford to do so.

Golden rule with any web use is, if you don't trust a site/link/company err on the side of caution.

Exactly, so remind me again why I'd turn up to a domain name that I arrived at by accident with a list of links and start clicking through them???

 

[netfleet]

Some would like to suggest this is the case due to all the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) surrounding cyber threats but actually it's an extremely efficient method. It's a matter of common business sense. A site with a lot of visitors/members is an asset to the site owner. Successful site owners, as a rule of thumb, are motivated to protect their asset and it's reputation, and more importantly, can afford to do so.

Wrong again. Sheep mentality. If lots of people are doing something it must be right & reputable. For an example of a site with all sorts of dodgy characters have a look at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ - and it has nearly 300,000 members - 3,000 online at any given time so, by your logic must be extremely reputable?

Exactly, so remind me again why I'd turn up to a domain name that I arrived at by accident with a list of links and start clicking through them???

How do you mean arrive by accident? If you are still talking about debitcard.com.au, you would probably have found it by searching for 'debit card' in Google, hardly by accident.

Then you would realise it's a comparison site for debit cards.

So, you might read a review of each card, then perhaps click a link which would take you to the official card provider's site where you then might apply for a card. (exactly like what happens if you click on the ads on this site)

Tell me, please, what is so wrong with that?

 

[MrBurns]

That site debitcard.com.au has a Google page rank of zero, so you must get bugger all traffic.

 

[netfleet]

That site debitcard.com.au has a Google page rank of zero, so you must get bugger all traffic.

You're right we don't get much. However it is still number 2 in Google for a search 'debit card' so that's the main source. Plus we get the 'holy grail' of domainers - type-in traffic.

Believe it or not but plenty of people just type in what they are looking for and add a 'com.au' into their address bar, assuming a site relevant to the subject will pop up.

Saying that though high PageRank doesn't necessarily imply high traffic. ASF is only PR3 - I have sites which are PR5 which receive much less traffic.

 

[theasxgorilla]

Wrong again. Sheep mentality. If lots of people are doing something it must be right & reputable. For an example of a site with all sorts of dodgy characters have a look at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ - and it has nearly 300,000 members - 3,000 online at any given time so, by your logic must be extremely reputable?

We must be talking about two different things. I'm referring to the technical security risk of clicking through links at one of these sites where someone has setup a link list while they squat a domain name, hoping to generate click through traffic and thereby an income, and eventually if they're lucky to sell the name itself for a profit.

How do you mean arrive by accident? If you are still talking about debitcard.com.au, you would probably have found it by searching for 'debit card' in Google, hardly by accident.

Then you would realise it's a comparison site for debit cards.

So, you might read a review of each card, then perhaps click a link which would take you to the official card provider's site where you then might apply for a card. (exactly like what happens if you click on the ads on this site)

Tell me, please, what is so wrong with that?

Again, we are probably talking about two different things. I am referring to people registering purposely misspelled domain names, or slight variations of reputable domain names hoping to catch unbeknowst surfers and get them to click through links of the phony page.

What you describe above is not the business of domain name trading that you described in detail earlier.

 

[MrBurns]

We must be talking about two different things. I'm referring to the technical security risk of clicking through links at one of these sites where someone has setup a link list while they squat a domain name, hoping to generate click through traffic and thereby an income, and eventually if they're lucky to sell the name itself for a profit.



Again, we are probably talking about two different things. I am referring to people registering purposely misspelled domain names, or slight variations of reputable domain names hoping to catch unbeknowst surfers and get them to click through links of the phony page.

What you describe above is not the business of domain name trading that you described in detail earlier.

I think the original post was aimed at discussing domain name trading but quickly moved to the use of domain names to make money as link farms.

Trading domain names would be like watching grass grow, it's not exactly a thriving business as far as I know.

Promoting domains to carry Google ads for instance to generate income is a big industry to the point where there are probably too many sites devoted to this purpose, they are usually boring and very obvious, BUT if it works who am I to knock it ?

 

[Aussiest]

Netfleet,

Do you guys design/build websites?

 

[netfleet]

We must be talking about two different things. I'm referring to the technical security risk of clicking through links at one of these sites where someone has setup a link list while they squat a domain name, hoping to generate click through traffic and thereby an income, and eventually if they're lucky to sell the name itself for a profit.

What you describe above is not the business of domain name trading that you described in detail earlier.

Ah OK. Yes, two different things. However, at some risk I will defend what you are talking about anyway.

Firstly, please read the definition of cybersquatting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting It all depends on a trademark or a brand.

Registering a completely generic name and getting Google to dump a bunch fo relevant ads on it with the hope to make a few cents through clicks and possibly sell it one day is not the same and, in my opinion, perfectly legitimate.

Whilst I admit, sites like these do not generally deliver as much value as a well thought out content rich commercial site on the subject matter, again, in my opinion, these links/ads are better than nothing at all.

For an example, I'll ironically suggest www.cybersquatting.com.au (note: please do not click on any links) as one of these type sites.

I think the original post was aimed at discussing domain name trading but quickly moved to the use of domain names to make money as link farms.

Trading domain names would be like watching grass grow, it's not exactly a thriving business as far as I know.

Promoting domains to carry Google ads for instance to generate income is a big industry to the point where there are probably too many sites devoted to this purpose, they are usually boring and very obvious, BUT if it works who am I to knock it ?

Link farms are again a different type of site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm - sites that are put together withg links aimed at gaming Googles search algorithm.

I think it's a shame when shady activities like 'squatting' and 'link farms' get incorrectly tied up in this business. It's not what it is about.

In terms of actual trading, you are right - trade is VERY thin on the ground. It's a cagey affair with the lack of trading history (sale prices) meaning sellers err on the side of caution with high asking prices & buyers are conservative with their offers. However when you can earn revenue in the interim with parking (see above) and sales when they do happen generally tend to give an ROI of at least 2000%, it's still a viable business.

Netfleet,

Do you guys design/build websites?

We've developed a few but usually we outsource when we do it. Our skills are rather in the domain and business side of web publishing. If you are looking to put together a site, feel free to PM me and I can give details of some good designers.

 

[theasxgorilla]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/24/2607581.htm?section=australia

Ooops. The limited is set to become limitless. Here's where the comparisons between virtual and real real estate must end.

I heard a rumour the other day that it will soon become possible to just register .companyname. And that to do so you have to be the company.