We have seen many trends come and go, and other niches are evergreen like 3L.com. I was having a couple chats about brandable names and the trend was the people were displeased with a lack of sales/offers for made up words.
That frustration took me back to a post I read from Brandworthy on Namepros. He has been one of the more successful sellers on BrandBucket. He had mentioned about a month ago:
Is it my imagination, or have pure brandables gone very out of fashion? Seems that made-up names are no longer getting any interest from investors, although without any insights into BB sales it’s hard to know if these names are still selling on their marketplace? Double-letters are now the new “pure brandable”?
I know for myself I own a few and they have not received any offers, while I have been selling two word brandables and modified keywords.
Lately crypto and coin related names have been popular on the Sedo sales charts. Whether that trend continues remains to be seen.
3L and 4L are always in demand with prices fluctuating.
So what kind of names are you buying and what are you avoiding?
In .com my purchases over the last year consisted of a few keywords (English, Japanese, Korean) and a few combination keyword names.
Absorbing.com
AiAutomate.com (Ai + Automate)
CryptoAdvising.com
CoinAdvising.com
Dongjeon.com (Coin in Korean)
Terebigemu.com (Video Game in Japanese)
BideoGemu.com (Video Games in Japanese)
Other extensions: Keyword names
Application.company
Cryptos.company
Names.company
Power.company
Wallet.community
Wallet.company
Wallet.news
Meant to add what types of names I’m avoiding, but hit submit to soon.
Trying to avoid longer domain names. Meaning anything over 16 if possible, unless the name is just spectacular. I’m trying to stay with buying short names consistin of one word plus extension. I believe with the window of opportunity and new gTLD’s offering up short, sweet and beautiful looking url’s the cumbersome process of having to use 18 + character .com domain names for email addresses should happen less and less.
Emails like info@automation.company look more professional and are more appealing to me than (example) info@automationcompanyonline.com
I can tell you know, you are going to have difficulty in liquidating these for a reasonable amount.
You have your work cut out for you, we are seeing category killer gtlds sit stagnant.
There are some sales happening. Below I’ve listed just a few. These aren’t 6 figure sales, but they are ROI worthy for the sellers and could also be developed into some great sites by the buyers.
Auto.community – $3,484
https://namebio.com/auto.community
Crypto.one – $11,701
https://namebio.com/crypto.one
Crypto.company – $2,999
https://namebio.com/crypto.company
I might register Reefer.Exchange
Slightly off-topic, but we’ve sold a number of cannabis related names in Canada recently – like http://weed.for.sale/
i don’t pay much attention to trends. Typically they don’t last. I do try and avoid outdated words like the bunch of keywordportal.com that dropped recently.
Made up names aren’t really useful because if it’s a made up name anyway, I can just make up my own name too. There’s little reason to stick to some made up name if the Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, domain name, etc. are taken. For a made up name I want everything to be clear and I can go in and take it at the regular price. I don’t see any value in paying anyone for their made up name when I can just go make up my own. There’s no inherent value in the vast majority of made up names anyway.
The new gTLDs have turned into a bust mostly. Their reputation is one of scams and spams, so a lot of places are blacklisting them now. A lot of subs on Reddit have blacklisted .xyz, .online, .store, etc. because they’re so spammy. E-mails from a lot of them are blocked too because the gTLD reputation is horrible.
One year ago, I researched all of the potential candidates running for President in 2020 and purchased all available “lastname2020.com” – This week I sold Klobuchar2020.com through Godaddy premium listings for $1,288.00! I’ve had no luck with brandable names, although I think some of mine are pretty good, like Autoroo.com, Solardoo.com and more. For a complete list of my average domains that have not gotten a bite visit AverageDomains.com
Frankly, like a lot of domainers, I’ve simply move over to ETHEREUM (Ether and other plays), which is just more exciting that domains are today, particularly the secondary market.
Of course there will always be good sales of great (…and often, not so great) domain names. But at this point if I’m going to make another 5-15 year investment in something, it needs to have enormous potential, and offer the types of returns (both absolute, and relative) that VCs have always looked for, i.e., 50x – 500x.
And that’s never going to happen for any domain name that you purchase in the secondary market at this point in history.
The whole game has simply become one of ‘hot potato’ and the ‘greater fool.’ Numerics are the quintessential example of that.
The only real aftermarket demand today comes from VC-funded startups, all of which are looking for one-word dot-coms. But the average domainer can’t afford to put up $40K in the hopes of selling that name to someone in the next few years for $100K. It’s the wrong game to be playing for the little guy.
So Gene are you talking about just holding Ethereum the cryptocurrency, or are you developing using their platform? Thank you
Hi Raymond.
Definitely both… acquiring Ether currency, and working on a project that involves Ether as Central to the non-trading business model. It’s in the loyalty space.
loyalty schemes is a great use-case for crypto & blockchain.
ETH 2 word is mobile friendly that is the killer of ether
unless you are some kind of developer i don’t see the exciting in coins. personally i don’t believe ethereum will be around in 10 years.
I don’t like some of the new tech brandbles i see lately
Buying:
– short .com domains
– .com & .org Crypto domains
– .com Financial domains
– .com Cannabis domains
– aged domains
Avoiding:
– Non .com domains
– TM domains
– Long geo domains
– Dictionary words with ingly, rific, ed, ness, and other excess letters on the end
Short eth, ether, crypto, bit, coin .com and .org domains
(I’ve had offers, but none to meet my expectations)
I registered or purchased over 50 .ai domains (sold 12 so far, all to end-users)
Short health/med domains (.com)
I try to keep the URLs 10 letters or less.
I registered only about 20 GTLDs — I dropped most — probably will drop the rest.
I had 2 decent 5 figure .com sales this week after a 3 month dry spell.
CRYPTOCURRENCY domains.
5N.com
1word.com
not buying any more..my last purchase is in october 2016…holding close to 500 domain names and selling them passively.
buying :
technology domains
beautiful and trendy gtld’s
avoiding:
tm domains , variable renewal gtld’s
Buying: Solely .COMs
Avoiding: All .CRAPs
These days, I just focus on investing in domains that I need for future projects (for clients or myself). Every once in a while I may stumble onto something after researching a vertical market and grab it to see how it pans out.
Iam very happy with my portfolio, its very diversified from a wide range of hot niches and trends.
Investing on:
Bitcoin
Crypto
VR
AR
Selfdriving
Adult
Frauds/scam
GEOs
1 word .COMs
2 word .COMs
ccTLDs
ngTLDs
Brandables
Double letter
Trump domains! LOL
Avoiding:
Misspellings
Chinese crap
Emoji domains
4 word .COMs
IDN domains
Dashes
Word plus number
Non English words
Non English words?
Your wrong my friend.
Hand Reg marijuana domains and dot com and selling like hot cakes
all other dot are BS
Dot com is king
Am getting Crypto and tech names
A 7 year-old girl with a 3D Printed prosthetic hand, threw out the first pitch for game 4 of the 2017 world series.
Metal 3D Printing is exploding to where, some of the largest, fattest corporations in the world are investing heavily.
Medical 3D Printing is developing in ways that are revolutionizing medical science, as we speak.
Yet, the best that the domaining community can muster is, ‘tech names are the exception’
3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing will, in the next decade, change the face of manufacturing on earth.
I am not surprised, know the domaining community as I do, that 3D Printing is shunned, however, I will not quit.
and you can not kill me, but for a gun!
Robert McLean
Not buying to many domains lately. When I buy its –
IOT domains
Technology domains
Avoiding –
Non Dot Coms
Sorry for stating the obvious, but the only extension that will be relevant going forward is .Com
All of the others are a waste of money. If you buy them, you will probably get stuck since there is no market and never will be.
Some of the scammers out there will try to convince you that their .SH!T extensions doesn’t stink, but oh yes they do!
The best domains to buy are those going back 3-4 years that were hot as hell ,the first year or two the original guy holds on ,the second register usually keeps the domain only for one year. By this time that trend has been forgotten ,but you can still find great keywords that no one else is looking for ,,,,an example would be a wind farming domain ,I purchased on a total drop for 8.53 at godaddy ,that I resold for $7899 within 5 months.
I’m avoiding buying domains in general, there are many other investment classes that are more attractive today and alt cryptos are NOT one of them.
Given the upcoming UDRP review and the GDPR laws, this is suddenly become a big boy business and there is no place for the individual investor unless they’re well heeled and have ample legal advice / protection.
Just my 0.02
Buying good old fashioned .com hotel, carhire and carsales domains. picking them up as drops or auction.
Buying 4-Letter .com’s, one or two word (generic) .com’s, 3-Letter .co’s(depending on letters) and a few brandable domains .com’s. I invested in these domains:
GameRentals.com
FurnitureMovers.com
DiscountHealthcare.com
ADNY.com
YIGG.com
Paenula.com
Hueste.com (Host in Spanish)
.AI [equations]
It’s worth to research new markets 1) which have opportunities 2) which are wealthy 3) where domains are still cheap. Examples: in Qatar there is an entirely ew city under construction, names Lusail. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, actually many sectors in these locations but especially real estate, tourism which are a priority for diversification of these countries from oil revenues.
Buying good old fashioned .com and buying new gTLD .top.