The headline here is the title of a thread on Namepros getting a lot of attention. There seems to be a bunch of these posts in 2018.
A lot of them seem to center around the frustrations of those who have invested in new gtlds. Another thread asks why it’s so hard to sell new gtlds?
When one looks at the industry, they might see themselves on the wrong side of the industry. I think the industry is the network of registrars, registries and aftermarket sites like Sedo, NameJet, Afternic, etc…
As a domain investor you are actually a customer, not the industry. The business is very competitive and you really have to be a self – starter today. Gone are the days of finding low hanging fruit. There are still deals out there but very rarely are they on the cheap that many new to the industry would like to invest at.
For example when I started the Dot Tv subforum on Namepros back in 2005, there were names you could get fairly cheap, along with that you could get lucky. Verisign had plenty of glitches, one such glitch was that some premium names dropped without a premium fee.
If someone had a deal with Verisign, meaning they could get a LL or LLL .tv without a premium renewal, when it expired someone could jump on it and get the name. It’s how I first came to communicate with John Berryhill, back in 2004 LCD.tv a monster name that truly fit the extension dropped. Now at this time Verisign had some names with outrageous registration fees and renewals. WOW.tv was $50,000 a year at one time.
I always checked www.tv to see what were the best names with the lowest premium, I put in LCD.tv and it’s not a premium, $35. I was like no way, so I go to GoDaddy and I check and it’s available at $29.99. I register the name and I knew at the time that a registrar or registry could take back a name. So I email John Berryhill as he didn’t live far from me and explained the situation. He said don’t mention anything for 30 days and then you will have the name with no problem. So that was me getting lucky, I don’t know that a new domainer today can get that kind of lucky.
There is so much choice, that even if you get a prospective buyer you have to really price your name right. It’s not like in .com where you have all the other things that surround .com. If someone is making an offer on a .photography name, how high can you go? There is .photo, .pics, .media, .video etc…
So I think people need to really assess why they are dabbling in domain investing? If you don’t understand branding, linguistics, have a great sales pitch? Owning stock in Verisign or GoDaddy might be a better way to participate in the upside of domain names.
Safe to say there’s a lot delusion… just look at the previous thread 90% of those prices are delusional. Better to bet the ponies.
Look at the reported sales of .com under $5k. Can anyone really believe they are real? Who would pay $4,999 for 87718.com? or $2,125 for action36.com? Maybe that is getting someone to pay for listings. The new TLDs are where it is at. There are good names and they will be used more in the future. The established investors would want to discourage new TLDS in hopes their dud investments pay off. They are clutching for straws. One good thing is that maybe end users will get a good domain at a reasonable price.
Kool story on lcd tv!
There is no money in new tlds, never was and never will be. Those people have been sucked in by registries. Time for them to move onto the next get rich quick idea, bitcoin, ar, or whatever is next.
Viva la Namepros!
That’s not true Chad Wright and Josh Metnick, Konstantinos from online domain have certainly sold new g’s. along with Michael Berkens and several others. It’s not for everyone but let’s not blatantly lie
Getting sales is completely different to making a profit. Most people selling New tld names are losing money.
Oh OK just like most people selling dotcom names because most people selling dotcom names you know aren’t making money… people celebrate mike man sales but id Mr. Mann turning a profit ?
No idea on his profitability, he sold his last domain business for $88 million.
Most people that are losing money in .com are selling .com trash domains that nobody wants.
If you have quality the buyers find you no matter what.
They were spending tens of thousands in eap,
Plus premium renewal, eventually the dead weight will eat the profits. Ask Phil Harris he is stuck with high premium dead weight domains.
For a domain investor looking to sell, you are better off leaving new TLDs to the end users and focusing on .com. Home.Loans certainly is worth $500k to an end user that can use it well, but that doesn’t mean you the domainer are going to have an easy time selling it for a good price the way you might with a .com that is worth far less than that to an end user.
John, lets not kid ourselves, home.loans was a huge overpayment if it really sold for that. It is an outlier like fund.com, I doubt is genuinely “worth” $500k to anyone.
You guys are wrong. It is worth that much to a real end user, not to a “domainer” looking for an easy big win. You still don’t really hear what I’ve been saying and only hear things in one dimensional “domainer” mono.
And using examples like flowers.mobi and beauty.cc for comparison as you already did shows just how much you don’t see the forest for the trees to put mildly.
Home.Loans Not even worth $10k…$5k max.
You don’t get it either, no surprise though sad. I wouldn’t even buy that one for $5k or $10k. And yet, it is still worth $500,000 or more to an end user who can use it. Get it? No, you and those who think this way probably still won’t get it. Your kind of narrow thinking is very bad for the industry, however, sadly enough.
The buyer badly overpaid, it is not “worth $500,000” just because someone paid it. It is another flowers.mobi.
You take out a full page ad in the NY Times to demonstrate how clueless you are about the matter when you even mention flowers.mobi as a comparison. I really have to doubt you could be the “Snoopy” I used to see associated with DomainState years ago, so I would guess you are not. That Snoopy seemed a lot more with it then.
And don’t put words in my mouth – because someone paid it has nothing to do with why it is worth that much to an end user. You guys who have your heads stuck so firmly in “domainer” thinking need a lot of work. It’s not only worth $500k but is even also worth $1m, and nobody paid that.
John, it’s all the same stuff,ntld domainers never want to be compared to the last batch of failed extensions. They all fail eventually, no new tld has ever succeeded. Home.lians isn’t worth what was paid because the same is heavily flawed.
If you mean any of that I just don’t know how you do not see how home.loans is categorically different and flowers.mobi is garbage.
Home.Loans was more than likely a sweetheart deal that was subsidized by Donuts with advertising outlays which justified the purchase price for the end user. That sale is more for the benefit of Donuts than it was for the end user.
Just think about it, nobody else is dropping even low six or even high five figures on .LOANS domains. Why would anyone believe it?
It’s not a real sale is what I’m saying.
Sadly I would also be the first to admit that’s possible, but it’s still worth it regardless.
And of course, if you can afford the gamble then certainly you can dabble in new TLDs regardless as some of the big cats have done.
Great post, when I post any domain for an auction and tweet about it, suddenly I see different extensions of that domain get registered. I just laugh at that time.As newbies don’t have any idea what they are doing.
Some are delusional right, we all are sometimes. Some of it is jealousy, jealousy of others who made it in this industry. Jealousy is not good folks, keep it positive.
May I add, I like this site, keep it going.
I think if you came within 5 years into domain business you came to late and you can not make money.
With .com you could have gotten some decent names 10 years ago reg. fee, now these days everything decent and non decent are catch by HugeDomains and NameJet.
With new G’s there is to much supply and the renewals on premium names are a killing.
The only way you can still make money in Domaining is if you have a lot of money to invest in buying aftermarket 1 word or LL&LLL .com
I really like your comment about investing in the registrars as an option, Raymod. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about that before. It could be a good way to go for new investors. At least with a portion of their money.
Domaining is hard.
What do you guys think of
Exclusive.Flights
Training.salon
Just terrible…..don’t renew. Sorry.
They are as bad as you already know they are.
“there’s no money in domain names.. this industry full of bullsh*t.”
I saw that thread at NamePros. I didn’t even comment. It is so much easier to whine than to put in hard work. That title is full of BS. Let the strong survive. Let the whiners go away. We don’t need them tarnishing such a great industry here.
Look at the brand new Sherpa video. Tess interviews a guy (Chris Reams) brand new to domaining. He is a hustler, sold stuff on ebay, made and sold tshirts and travelled to other countries antiquing, buying right and selling even better. He didn’t have any other objective other than to make money, find some upside and then find buyers for whatever deals he just found. He enters domaining a couple months ago. Buys 1 dot com 2-word domain for 1k, sells it for 9k, buys another single word/brandable dot com domain for 5k, hires a broker and sells it for 28k.
A guy who knows nothing about domaining at all comes in here, works his ass off studying drop lists, buying right, then sells however he could figure how to, by contacting many potential end users and hiring a broker and he makes 27k in a couple months. There is no money in domaining, yeah right!
There are so many niches here in domaining. I see people making money all over the place. I honestly believe anyone can make money if you study any niche in domaining and do it well.
Some sell numbers which I know nothing about and they are making money.
Some buy and sell dot com Geos only.
Some buy and sell dot com EMD’s only.
Some buy and sell dot nets and/or orgs
Some buy and sell ccTLD’s only
The list goes on and on of niches that you can study and make money here.
Talked to a domainer last night who specializes in dot com brandables only, studies drop lists, marketplaces and buys and sells right. He’s profitable. He doesnt want to do anything other than what he is doing because he is and has been profitable.
He was asking me about my recent sales and the best money I have made this past few months has been in my dot ws emoji domains. Had a very good couple of months. It didn’t just accidentally happen. I put in tons of time and work into studying price points, buys, drops, marketplaces, etc.
Raymond, great story on dot tv. I still cant get over the OLD craziness of those 25k and 50k renewal fees Verisign used to have on those. I still love the dot tv extension. I am so glad I only own dot tv’s with the standard renewal fees of $25-ish per year. I don’t think I would have ever made any money in dot tv if I had invested in any of those 1k+ per year renewal fees. So yes I could have lost my ass if I grabbed every great GEO dot tv that was priced at $1k+ per year. It was tempting but I never bit. I knew it would have been extremely risky so I moved on towards only standard renewals.
I might be getting off track here but back to that silly title up top of this post. It has been my experience, that every time I work harder and stay more focused, thats when I make more money in domaining. Pretty simple but true for me.
Well you have done really well with .tv, it was a different time back then too.
These times in domaining really are different now with the addition of 1000+ newG’s. I think when newcomers come into domaining they look at the price point of entry. So they see a decent brandable or generic 2-worder dot com at anywhere from 1k – to lets say 10k at average. Then they see some new dot wtf newG TLD and figure they can get their keyword for a fraction of that price. Then continue that same road until they have 100+ new dot wtf’s. THEN, they wait to sell, or try to sell and see that there are no takers because they didn’t do their homework like they should have in that new G.
I had this conversation with a newer domainer who I met thru emoji investing recently. This is a guy who entered domaining 2 years ago. He bought many newG domains. I looked at his portfolio and saw he had so many domains in newG’s only. I don’t remember seeing any dot coms in his portfolio at all, just tons of newG domains. He never sold anything but emojis since he has been domaining. Some TLD’s I didnt even know existed. He had an opportunity to grab a killer 2 word dot com that he knew everything about. This was his business. This was his passion. This was his life. He told me he wanted that dot com and could build it out but could never get it because he couldn’t afford it. I told him – Bullshit.
So, out of all of the money he invested in random newG’s he could have easily afforded that killer industry specific 2 word dot com. He actually had a look of surprise, like, Yeah, you’re right!
I think this is what happens to us as we enter domaining. We go for the low hanging fruit, not realizing that everyone else has the same access to that low hanging fruit.
Another thing about the learning curve here in domaining is, the information we have access to. There is so much info out there but you really have to look everywhere online to find it. Namebio.com, DNJournal.com, Estibot, Sold.domains, all of the different specific blogs, Forums, etc. It is work but well worth it for the end result of maximizing our ROI’s. Do you wanna put in the work or be lazy though? I don’t think many of us domainers can be lazy though and still be very profitable at the same time. I think the hustle is needed.
I remember entering NamePros and finding the Dot TV Forum you created Ray. That was awesome. All of the info in one concentrated place. All of the sales data, all of the Big Dog’s in there. All of the latest News stories of that one Dot TV tld right there in one place. I studied that Forum up and down, left to right. I wonder why that Forum is gone now? Wish they would bring it back one day.
I remember thinking the same thing my friend did. I cant hang with the Big Dog dot com guys. Too expensive for me. With the addition of newG’s I can see LOTS of newcomers thinking the exact same thing. Only until they learn actual current market price points, sales, and buys, and what their actual budget truly is, will they become profitable.
Yeah, times are different now and think about this. I heard this quote recently, there are another 1000+ new TLD’s coming out by 2020. So, if we think times are crazy now, we are only half way there!
Vito,
The .tv discussions are located here now: https://www.namepros.com/s/forums/cctld-discussion.143/?prefix_id=334
I hope that helps,
Thank you Eric.
Finally was able to buy Gifts.TV, on the drop, for standard renewal fee ? thanks to a .TV friend !
Well said Vito! There is so much opportunity here! Just need a positive attitude & good work ethic!
Here’s my recent new gtld sales:
BUY.LOANS
ONLINE.RUN
Neither of which make any sense whatsoever.
I would like to know how to price domains to go, below are my domains, please be honest on what you think of them:
cryptobitcoinworld.com
newbitcoinexchange.com
imagingscans.com
farmhempshop.com
Investing in new gTLD’s can be lucrative. Look at many of the sales that have happened. Especially recently. What is more frustrating about this whole scenario is that I believe there are too many people who’ve jumped into the domain investing industry expecting to become overnight millionaires and when it doesn’t happen in a day, week, month, year etc. they all of the sudden begin spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Many times it would be beneficial to actually analyze the names some of these complainers are trying to sell and realize they just are not great names. These investors need to understand there is a difference in trying to sell the new gTLD JumpinaRiver.xyz vs. names like Home.loans or Power.company. It’s no different than those who’ve jumped in the market and registered names like ImaNewbieDomainInvestor.com and expect it to sell within a week for the same price as Candy.com. Then you have the reality that even great names like Candy.com were held for long amounts of time while the names appreciated before they sold for the large amounts they did. I believe the problem here isn’t that new gTLD’s aren’t worth anything or that the domain industry is $h#t as the post claims, it’s that the industry is filled with so many people jumping in and not taking the time to learn what good names are and just expecting to get rich overnight. I’ve been investing since 2011 and in the beginning I bought even .com names that I thought were good only to realize after holding them for 2 years that some of them just weren’t worth holding and dropped them. After some time I did start selling some names which some were .com, .org and some new gTLD’s and have continued to do so. I had to reanalyze my portfolio and drop names that weren’t good and started registering names I was glad to have in my portfolio. This was a process though and 7 years later I’m still constantly deciding what to buy, register, drop and what to hold.
id rather buy 20,000 used ENRON koozies than buy 1 GTLD. stupid new domainers!
.Com domains sell themselves, new gTLD’s do not. End of story.
Good .coms, and issue is everyone is chasing the same domain, a few extra people to this industry cab add $$$’s to the price of a new domain, adding risk, and taking profit out.
People who started 5-8 years ago, had a running start, today inventory is to expensive.
So people like sherpas one off sales give people false hope, most people lose money.
5-8 years ago just as many lost money, in the year 2000 most lost money. There was never a point of easy to find money.
You have to buy the future, not the past. AI, Crypto, VR etc.
I find domains cheap all the time, hand registered Included. You just have to think outside of the box and not follow the herd.
By the time domainers are talking about a certain sector (vertical), it is already too late. Time to move on.
I started buying crypto names in 2014 didn’t get any traffic or offers till 2017.
Meanwhile I keep getting people trying to buy my GTLDs but as an end user I am not willing to part with them.
Please hand reg more dot whatever and leave the dot com to me.
Yes, dot whateverS have lots of “values” in your fantasy world.
When I see a business using a dot whatever and I have the dot com, I send them a nice thank you card.
So please go reg more dot Whatever Gtlds domains…
Most domain investors have no idea what they’re doing. They buy names with keyword combos that don’t even make sense and they think they’ve hit the jackpot.
Certain gTLD extensions have potential. The majority do not have good marketability.
Set your resell prices realistically and money can be made in this business.
Don’t go crazy buying hundreds of names most of which you’ll soon realize are worthless. Buy 1 good name and see how long it takes to resell and how much profit you can make. Grow your portfolio slowly.
If you have a good name but you aren’t skilled in marketing and negotiating deals, hookup with a good broker and pay them well.
My experience so far is that most people who complain about new gTLDs simply do not have any of them, or have BAD names.
If you happen to have GOOD names, you will not complain. End of story.
Well it wouldn’t make sense if the people who said not to buy ntlds were the ones who owned them would it?
Obviously those who are stuck in 1995 – mid 2000’s and who do not want to see the internet evolve and want to hold it back to the time of only one domain extension acceptance are out marching in full force trying to convince the world that Ford was the first automobile, so anything that came after it is just unacceptable and cannot be used as a means of transportation (analogy of course). Similar to how .com owners are trying to force feed the agenda that .com is the only way to get found on the internet. If we want to move forward as the internet, world and domain community we shouldn’t keep allowing the limited dogmatic views of an only .com internet to keep being regurgitated.
Agreed – I would not be able to say it better 🙂
I love Hotels.club
Any decent g name was withheld by the registry or given to early investors in lieu of stock. When an end user who doesn’t care about or can’t afford DotCom goes shopping they have plenty of cheap options. But if they want a dot com most are taken so those that are available become more valuable over time. That’s why GoDaddy paid Mike what they did because they can afford to wait, and they have a win win by suggesting g alternatives once the prospect is captive. They also have shareholders who finance their acquisitions and renewals, and a revenue stream from existing customers. A small domain investor just has their life savings tied up
In names that are like having a kid you have to support every year paying renewals while you wait for the right customer to show up. $10k in 2000 invested in a Vanguard product would be worth $100k now and instead of you paying for 18 years of renewals they’d be paying you from $1k to $10k a year in interest- probably an additional $100k over 18 years.
My short opinion it is long term game for .com , hold your average type of name couple years and you will see results. If you own category killer one word no need to wait you can see result instantly but buying one word will cost you more unless you bought few year ago.
For new gtlds some keyword combination has big potential but again with next generation buyer not current market which is brand new and not matured enough to accept 1000s of diff new gtlds let it mature , I am only investing in .com but will not downgrade any new tlds investor if they see future in any good keyword combination, I think they should go for it. Use this example you had big old computer then got notebook then got ipads then got smart phone now got voice over device and you wait for new iot device so change is in human nature same apply with dns systeam too..
I entered in domaining in last 2 to 3 year and have found good result on overall sale, it seem to me now a days it is volume game and volume speak result, I have drop many name in .com which get picked up by hugedomains and get listed for sale under $1500 , what does that teach me it is volume game now dont think yourself smart and don’t tell me hugedomains will loose money catching my drop names at reg price.
Best of luck to all and work hard to find cheap deal.
It all comes down to length of the sales cycle. New gTLDs are not expected to sell fast, so don’t count on flipping them (even though it might happen). A good portfolio likely contains a mix of selling speed and market value.
I am curious…
If there were a contest related to sales and profit on NON .COM
and you had to acquire three domains (each in a differnet extension)
and the domain had to be a newly hand reg ONLY
and it could not be in .COM
which three extensions would you try for with the newly hand regged domain as
an entry to the contest… a money prize contest of verifiable sales results…
highest profit as the winner and there being three winning domains…
might be one person that had all three of the highest profit sales … might be three people…
question is — which three NON .COM would you try for
if it was a contest you wanted to participate in… which three extensions…
My short opinion it is long term game for .com , hold your average type of name couple years and you will see results. If you own category killer one word no need to wait you can see result instantly but buying one word will cost you more unless you bought few year ago.
For new gtlds some keyword combination has big potential but again with next generation buyer not current market which is brand new and not matured enough to accept 1000s of diff new gtlds let it mature , I am only investing in .com but will not downgrade any new tlds investor if they see future in any good keyword combination, I think they should go for it. Use this example you had big old computer then got notebook then got ipads then got smart phone now got voice over device and you wait for new iot device so change is in human nature same apply with dns systeam too..
I entered in domaining in last 2 to 3 year and have found good result on overall sale, it seem to me now a days it is volume game and volume speak result, I have drop many name in .com which get picked up by hugedomains and get listed for sale under $1500 , what does that teach me it is volume game now dont think yourself smart and don’t tell me hugedomains will loose money catching my drop names at reg price.
Best of luck to all and work hard to find cheap deal.
Namepros domain value opinions given by dudes and dudets that have gained some goodo points by speaking threw their crystal balls what a wank.