The business of selling domains: how to make real money on the Internet
The business of selling domains. A real business where insight and timing are critical. Where smart people can make money by making smart moves. In other words, a real Internet business that could make you a millionaire. If you have the skills, the intelligence and the courage, and the key ideas.
Why do people buy domain names?
Everyone in the business industry is aware of the value of the right domain name. It is the brand name of the company and is essential for driving traffic to the main website. The right domain name is worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars to a business. The correct name is so generic that a user can type in a random phrase and add .com or .net and land on the respective business site. Check out some very recent domain names that have been publicly auctioned.
Lips.com sold for $135,000 under the moniker TRAFFIC
Note.com sold for $115,000 at Moniker TRAFFIC
Forest.com for $110,721 on SEDO.
And Coed.com for $88,240 at Moniker TRAFFIC
How to really make money selling domains?
That’s some serious money. Imagine where you would be right now if you had bought any of these a few years ago when domain names were so cheap that people could buy these basic names for less than $10.00 per name. Better yet, imagine where you’d be if you had the foresight to have bought two of these basic domain names.
That’s how lucrative domain reselling can be: These six entities each sold for $10,000.00 in the recent
TechnologyFund.com with the nickname of TRAFFIC
PinkRoses.com at Moniker TRAFFIC
Pensions.net under the moniker of TRAFFIC
FreeSoft.com under the name TRAFFIC
EatFree.com at Afternic/BuyDomains
212.net with the nickname TRAFFIC
Four of these break the rules of a one-word domain name, but meet the needs of a specific company and are worth the thousands the right company put up to secure the name.
There are a large number of websites dedicated to the marketing and sale of domain names.
nickname.com
Moniker is the sole provider of proprietary domain asset management services. The company provides a single point of access to manage domains and maximizes the sale of those names. Moniker is the company that recently handled the sale of the domain name Porn.com for $9.5 million. The company also ran Sex.com, which was sold for $12 million in cash and stock. How about Autos.com for $2 million, Cameras.com for $1.5 million, and Scores.com for $1.2 million? Moniker also handled sales for student.com, ethanol.com, cardiology.com and more.
sedo.com
SEDO has over 500,000 members trading domains worldwide. SEDO currently has over 8 million premium domain names available and is working globally in over 21 languages. SEDO offers its users all the necessary tools to buy and sell domains, including domain name evaluations, brokerage services, promotion, and a domain parking program.
Check out these numbers: 1,500 domain sales per month generating $3 million in sales: 8,000,000 available domains, 3,000,000 of them parked.
Afternic.com
Afternic.com is another leading domain name company recognized for its work in the secondary domain name business. Offering an extensive exchange network, the company works with partner domain name registrars and then refers buyers for post-sale domain purchases. Afternic is another one stop shop that provides an anonymous selling environment for potential bidders.
Afternic managed the $1 million sale of Fish.com. Since 2002, the company has experienced triple-digit annual growth rates.
1DollarDomainPage.com [http://www.1dollardomainpage.com]
1DollarDomainPage.com is a one-stop portal featuring the latest in the field of domain marketing. The site advertises domains for sale by category and offers free classified advertising space, options such as hosting services, leasing, job opportunities, and other items for sale or wanted. It also offers a number of live chat rooms that are available to all pixel owners, including rooms that offer discussion options dedicated to beginners and newbies to the domain business. The site also offers split chat rooms for those who are selling or buying and even offers a focused chat area solely for those searching for a specific domain or website.
MillionSnapNames.com, TdNam.com, GreatDomains.com and more.
How much will people pay for the right domain name? To Lot!!
We’ve already talked about Porn.com and Sex.com, but what about diamond.com, business.com and beer.com? Each sold for $7.5 million each in 1999. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, the general consensus was that no other domain name would reach the lofty heights that business.com was able to reach. Man, were the people wrong! Casino.com sold for $5.5 million in May this year, Korea.com sold for $5 million in January, and Shop.com sold for $3.5 million in 2005.
Domain names have their own image
Let’s face it, image is exceptionally critical to any business and domain names further your own image. Short one word names with the dot com after them are in extreme demand. A domain name must be memorable because a domain name must be independent. Today’s customers write the most commonly used domain names simply from memory. A great domain name means search engines are simply not needed.
Although everyone wants that one-word name, it’s possible to create some really useful domain options using simple prefixes. A simple example is the use of the word auto and the long-defunct domain name auto.com. Other options may work for that same term, automart.com. autodepot.com, autoland.com, usedauto.com, etc. The trick is to be creative but come up with something simple that sells the business in question.
Do you have skills to predict future trends? What names might matter in the years to come if a black woman or man were elected president, if an issue other than terrorism began to creep into the global psyche? If it goes green or the United States revamps its health care system, what will be the key domain names that will represent the future? What names today represent a great business opportunity for you tomorrow?