If you have been investing in domain names for a decade or more, what is your opinion of the domain business now compared to when you were a year in?
Do you think the business is better or worse now?
Are you more excited about the future of domaining now then when you started out?
What was better back in the good old days?
What does the industry have to improve on to keep domain investing a viable option?
I’ve been in almost 8 years now so not quite a decade yet, but am looking forward to reading some responses from those who’ve been in a decade or more.
The market for super premium .com domain names is hotter than it has EVER been! Until some macro event (economic, policitical, etc) causes the overall markets to crash, I could not be more bullish.
Domaining since 2000.
Do you think the business is better or worse now?
Worse. In early days domainers were excited about the drops, keep changing their scripts and methods to grab as many good names as they can and all at just registration fee.
Are you more excited about the future of domaining now then when you started out?
Always hopeful, but the excitement level back in 2000 was more than now.
What was better back in the good old days?
Level playing field for all domainers. Now this is a game for those who have deep pockets.
What does the industry have to improve on to keep domain investing a viable option?
Monetization methods for unused domain names. Simple PPC is not going to work.
worse.
prices generally too high for buying
lots of scammers and shady practices all over the place
money draining from ngTLDs trap
on the other hand, good times to be a seller.
things however will not stay like they are for long. don’t see the world’s economy going up from this year on. expecting a huge contraction in the next 2 or 3 years. good for a market washout and cleanse.
way harder, more competition, more money needed to buy decent domains.
hugedomains has changed the entire landscape. no more hand regging drops. open pending delete auctions. none of this helps domainers. domainers are just emptying each others pockets at auctions daily but what is the strategy?
you’ve got people like mediaoptions who are capital backed and able to do things 99% of domainers never will. people on dropcatch with seemingly endless supply of money to keep on bidding four figures or more daily. its not easy out there. i’m glad i got what i did when i could because I’m priced out of a lot of it now.
one thing that hasn’t changed much is the end users are still resistant to paying good money for domains. oh sure, super premium domains, you can’t compare. i get so many $50-100 offers in a day it, its such a waste of time.
i’m still optimistic about the future of selling domains but until end users are more willing to pay, profits will continue to shrink as prices at auctions rise.
Shout out to cmac, totally on the money
i have been domaining as a hobby since 2007. a time when things like mixedspice.com was available at godaddy closeout. i didn’t buy that one. if i was to comment i would say what cmac just said
Worse.
I got in back around 2006. Averaged about 3 good sales a year for about 7 years thereafter. Not much since…just a lot of lo-ballers & tire kickers. I have trimmed my portfolio to “hobby level” in the last coupla years.Not giving up…but wake me when end users start offering real money.
Do you think the business is better or worse now?
Much better. Lot of reasons, among which are: cancellation of free 5 day grace period, usage of registration channels for aftermarket sales, introducing ngtlds etc.
Are you more excited about the future of domaining now then when you started out?
Now.
What was better back in the good old days?
PPC parking, less competition in general.
What does the industry have to improve on to keep domain investing a viable option?
More regulation of ngtld space to prevent what Uniregistry did with renewal rates.
9 years on and off. Small sales. But new gtlds has opened up new paths of opportunity for many. I think I’ve done a really good job hand registering non dot com domain names. I’ve gotten inquiries for a few of them only a months after buying them. Sometimes domain companies totally miss holding on to good names. A few years have gone by and they haven’t taken the names away from me. Safe to say they’re mine. I am excited for the future of the domain industry. Good Luck to you all.
Very fragmented. Easy money in domaining is long gone.
There is a big divide in what people consider a quality domain now.
Whois blocking is only going to make domaining harder too.
“easy money is long gone”
🙂
good. more for me.
The people who will make money are the ones who have invested in the strong .com portfolios, the guys who said .com was the AM dial, and continued buying millions of dollars of .com inventory.
The rest who are paying these stupid appraised prices, are just lemmings, feeding the fodder.
Word to your mother…..so true.
Would say more focused on the domains i look started 20 years ago and aimed at hyperlocal geo domains. Today still do that moved on to only .coms. Just focus on getting the correct domains that suit my business model.
Registered my first domain name in 2001, EmergencyPreparedness.ca, still own it, nobody wants it.
Started registering domains for resale in 2008, with DrugImpaired.com, still own it, nobody wants it.
I own now 800 ish, mostly .com, some good ones, none super premium, none very valuable, but I will not quit, still optimistic.
In 2009 parking domains held the promise, with good names, of a reasonable return, even recouping the cost of annual renewal. Now pennies… dismal. Google has all but put a stop to CPP.
In 2009 and as it applies to me, today, placing names on any and all aftermarket sites, Sedo, Godaddy Auctions/Afternic, Uniregistry…. Etc. an absolute waste of time. Domain brokers working therein, that have been burdened with having to suffer the sparse inquiries for my mediocre names have abused me to the point of distraction. Very much remains the same as when I first started, A WILD WILD WEST.
Excitement about domaining is now complacency colored by a realistic knowledge that certain principals apply. Pigeon shit is pigeon shit, to reference his highness. Choosing good names as per dictates set out by the Andrew Rosener’s and Rick Schwartz’s will always be in demand. Reinventing the wheel? A sure way to failure. .com is king
The industry has to create alternative options to Sedo, GodaddyAuctons/Afternic, Igloo..etc…for selling and providing a more liquid avenue.
Bottom line, success in domaining takes a great deal of STUDY!
STUDY IS HARD WORK!
THOSE THAT ARE SUCCESSFUL IN THE DOMAINING BUSINESS HAVE WORKED HARD
IMHO, TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE DOMAIN NAME BUYING AND SELLING BUSINESS, ONE MUST BE PREPARED TO WORK HARD, And with a little luck….
I’ve been in the domain business full time for 19 years, back when we caught premium domains for a mere $6.95. It was speed, not pocket depth that determined your success. However, despite the change in platform, I feel good domains are cheaper to acquire today than they were 10 years ago. Why? Less serious competition.
Since many domainers today are part-timers trying to flip hand reg or $79 domains for a few hundred dollars, it’s understandable that they may seem disappointed. I feel being able to pick up real good quality domains for only $500 – $1,000 and selling them for a four-figures to five-figures is ideal. Even developing some domains has been fruitful.
Patience is the best tool in this business.
I’ve been in it for 12 years and its far worse than when i started, more opportunity to make good money in 2006.
TBH i’ve stopped buying now and investing my cash in crypto currencies and options, far more money to be made.
Market has become very skewed to short, singular positive sounding brand style names whilst the majority of the market such plurals, keyword names, product names has tanked!
It is harder to sell domains now , I think the existence of spammers contacting biz owners selling domains contribute to this problem.
I do get sales, by for the past 6months, mostly were one word domains.
It’s much worse. Anybody telling you different is a domain broker. When you look at DNJournal and see 35 or 50 domains out of thousands the proof is there. It’s a joke now to think otherwise. Just look at Sedo sales. Let’s be honest here, it’s horrible. Please prove me wrong.
these posts.. lol if you’ve been in for 10+ years you should be making mid 6 figures, or you aren’t doing something right. I’m on year 3. its not hard.
Right everyone should be making 6 figures, willing to bet your not, easy to be anonymous and say It’s not hard I have been doing it for 3 years, put a name and sales to it, otherwise it’s trolling nothing else.
And a lot of the people here have had a lot of success and are saying it sucks.
Nobody ever entered this industry and figured it out in three years, not even the best of the best. You may have got lucky and made some big sales but you did not figure it out that quick, and even if you think you have, when you get more experience you’ll find out that your previous thinking was foolish.
I’ve been at it since 1995 and am still learning. I started regging domains when there were only about 8K registered in the world. They were free to register until Sept. 1995.
I think VR was replying to Jonas who is saying that it’s easy.
I’ve been buying and selling domain names since 2005. But mostly selling in the last 5 years. I think it is a lot harder to make money now if you don’t already have a portfolio because too many people are doing quick flips and sacrifice margins with volume. End users knows this and owners seems to be more patient than the domainers.
Many domainers seems to resorted to use questionable tactics such as selling domain names they don’t own, selling domain names being dropped, prey on domain owners who may not know the true value of their names (especially with the so called liquid domain names).
I wonder if some actually turned to the dark side: hack into people’s accounts to take over valuable domain names.
@Wiinst, you said, “Many domainers seems to resorted to use questionable tactics such as selling domain names they don’t own, selling domain names being dropped, prey on domain owners who may not know the true value of their names (especially with the so called liquid domain names).”
There is no such thing as “preying” on domain owners who do not know the true value. That’s called capitalism and it’s totally ethical and legal. It’s like this with cars, houses, gold coins, anything ; If the seller does not know the value the buyer has no moral obligation to educate him or her.
What you said sounds so nutty to me, no disrespect.
it sounds nutty from the perspective of an investor,but your must keep in mind that from the perspective of the one being screwed over it appears unethical. in the end there are far more non investors than investors and an apparent unethical approach harms the reputation of the whole domain investing world
Hello- My name is Alex Verdea and I have been a domain investor for a decade or so.
If you haven’t heard about me, I apologize it’s my fault! 😉
If you have been investing in domain names for a decade or more, what is your opinion of the domain business now compared to when you were a year in?
Domain investing now is more exciting! Why? Well a decade ago I didn’t know what I was doing, and my level of commitment was low. Today I don’t focus on “how much does it cost”, instead I am like “what do I have to do to dominate and expand”, what ever it takes!
Are you more excited about the future of domaining now then when you started out?
Yes! I am obsessed with success and committed 100% to domain investing. (I wish I could magically turn back time and tell my younger self GO ALL IN from the start!)
What was better back in the good old days?
The ability to invest in high quality .com names cheaper. It takes a lot more time and effort and $$$ to buy quality names in recent years. I think this is a good thing, I see it as an opportunity now because a lot of people will shy off and buy gTLDs, divert their money into cryptos etc or complain about the prices of quality .com and quit lol.
What does the industry have to improve on to keep domain investing a viable option?
Well 2018 and the future of domain investing will be tough and will hit hard a lot of investors. (just from reading the comments above). I saw this coming years ago! Domaining is “maturing” and will “weed out the weak” sort of speak. If you don’t scale and are not committed to domain investing, then you have zero chances to succeed. Complaining about prices, HugeDomains, MediaOptions etc is silly and driving you out of business faster then you think. Pointing fingers will not solve your problems, massive action and commitment will. 🙂
Stay obsessed, and unreasonable!
Alex Verdea
Yeah, unreasonable to what end? Owning tens of thousands of dollars in debt because you want to go bigger than you can afford to? I don’t know what you do or how you do it but its easy to talk like that, much harder to actually live it and be able to survive. I do domains full time and its my only income. If I don’t sell regularly, I am in trouble. I am committed as hell, i do this 12 or more hours per day 7 days a week for 10 years now. i deal with end users every day and what I hear time and time again is why should I pay for this when I can just make up something else. Many domains, despite quality will remain unsold likely forever because domainers either want to much or endusers won’t pay. that is reality. i am not talking about ‘super premium domains’ either because, lets face it. 90% of domains are not.
Hey cmac- I understand and I am with you and I know where you are coming from.
Here are some tips/questions that you can ponder.
“Yeah, unreasonable to what end?”
What ever it takes! Debt is not a bad thing, but the schools and peers told you it was bad. We all got brainwashed into owning a house, and saving our money! We don’t have a debt or savings problem, we have an income problem … 😉
Coca Cola DEBT! Caterpillar DEBT! Toyota DEBT! All these dominating companies use DEBT to expand and grow.
“i deal with end users every day and what I hear time and time again is why should I pay for this when I can just make up something else. ” Let me ask you this: If YOU the seller are not completely SOLD on your own product and your price, WHY would you expect ANYONE else to PAY for it???????
So if you are committed “as hell” then all you have to do is learn how to SELL like a pro, change your mentality a bit and the money will follow…
Getting a mentor would speed things up, it took me 10 years with no mentor and it was painful….
Reach out to Andrew @MediaOptions, Rick , Mike Mann, etc and ask for help say hey Andrew, I can’t negotiate this deal, can you give me some advice? REACH UP, not DOWN or sideways! 🙂
I am certain that you will succeed if you don’t give up.
Stay obsessed, and unreasonable! 😉
Alex Verdea
Hey Alex the problem with. Debt is that it has to be paid back, that is if your name isn’t Trump. In my experience obsessed is usually followed by compulsive and that’s a recipe for disaster, I have experience with that beast. Find it hard to argue with a word cmac says.
Most domain investors will drop some portion of their holdings annually. New acquisitions are with the idea of improving the quality of the overall portfolio – why acquire new domains inferior to what you already have? So over a period of years, one’s portfolio slowly improves. Over a decade one should see considerable progress. As I look back at some domains I SOLD for low to mid-$XXX seven to ten years ago, in most cases I would not even bother renewing that caliber of name today. Acquiring quality .COM inventory is increasingly competitive while inquiries for anything other than .COM are clearly on the decline. Even .COM inquiries tend to be end users with no appreciation for the costs involved in acquiring and maintaining a domain portfolio. No I am not going to sell an aged two-word .COM domain for $100.
So why is domaining in a downward spiral? I believe Google’s search engine algorithm changes have been a factor. Hundreds of new TLD options have also reduced domainer to domainer sales as hundreds of millions of dollars have been “invested” into the new extensions. Some end users are opting for $XX-priced new TLDs rather than more expensive aftermarket .COM domains. However, I believe the largest factor is the growth of social media networks and the willingness of content producers and businesses to be willing to rely on a Facebook or Youtube page to serve as their primary internet presence – no need for an expensive aftermarket domain plus website development costs. Will those social media profiles eventually migrate to an aftermarket .COM domain? Who knows.
Domaining is not in a downward spiral, I have never seen such compeition for domains, good, or bad ever before such as what it is today.
the venues where domainers buy is certainly not in a downward spiral and i don’t believe selling domains in general is either but the problem as i see it is, prices to acquire on expired auctions are increasing a lot while end user willingness to pay more is not. 10 years ago you could email people and have a decent chance of buying for a reasonable price. now that is virtually dead as they have been hit so many times they now know the asset they have. you also no longer have to do any real research into expiring domains as dropcatch and godaddy provide non stop flow of open auctions. who are these people and where does their money come is my question because it certainly doesn’t seem to rely on them selling the names they buy.
Rev, It is only certain types of domains that are fiercely competitive. Sales from 10 years ago like clothes.com for $4.9 million or Skiresorts.com for $850k would never be repeated in the current market because the majority of the market has seen falls in value. The usefulness of names like that has diminished greatly since 2012 Google changes.
People all want the same types of names and its a small subset of what had strong value 10 years ago.
There is very little demand for plurals for example,
https://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm
@Leonard…….
WPN Today: Websites Relying on Facebook Traffic Face Uncertain Future
“….If the story of Mic.com is any indication Facebook reliant websites face a bleak future if they don’t quickly adapt to the new reality of much lower Facebook referrals. This follows changes earlier this year by Facebook to emphasize posts from friends or family instead of news sites.
According to Digiday, Mic.com pageviews dropped 95 percent since they hit a high of 192 million in April 2017, receiving only 11 million in March 2018. The question is can Mic.com pivot from a large audience of millennials to a niche publication that charges a premium for advertising? Its financial backers certainly hope that their $52 million in funding doesn’t disappear with the pageviews……”
https://www.webpronews.com/wpn-today…ertain-future/
.
Oops…..
https://www.webpronews.com/wpn-today-websites-relying-on-facebook-traffic-face-uncertain-future/
Also with the economy in such great shape small business doesn’t need a great web presence to make money, so why pay for,a great domain that you feel you don’t need. The problem for the domain investor is carrying cost of a portifilo while waiting for the end user to feel a need for the domain you know they need
At it since mid 90’s…..
Right now :
-End user sales are better than they ever have been for .com domains.
-Buying inventory is more expensive than it has ever been. A lot of people just don’t know what they are doing when making purchases. Many greenhorns are going to eat dust.
-Parking is dead even compared to a year ago
Old days:
-End user sales were harder to turn because there was still a lot of resistance to paying for domains.
-You could live like a king just off of parking income without making any sales at all.
-All kinds of angles to acquire domains back then. Those opportunities have been exposed or figured out and taken advantage of.
Do you think the business is better or worse now? Worse
Are you more excited about the future of domaining now then when you started out? No
What was better back in the good old days? Lots
What does the industry have to improve on to keep domain investing a viable option? Tank in a major way followed by a steady years long bounce up.
Hope this helps
Thank you all for the comments. It was a nice read.
I think people are only saying the business is worse now because good inventory is hard to buy, or replace for reasonable amounts.
Agreed the use of bots, and certain players with endless bank accounts who will not stop bidding no matter what the price has to make some wonder.
If you own a good .com portfolio mixed with good brandables, industry keywords, and two word phrases you are doing well.
As is being said domainers are paying record amounts, and end users are still low balling, and using the gtld counter arguments to lowball even harder. Commissions are up, nearing 20% across the board.
If you own a good .com portfolio mixed with good brandables, industry keywords, and two word phrases you are doing well.
Actually Ralph many here and other places are saying they do have that mix and are not doing well. The biggest qualifier here, What is doing well? For some it’s making $500 a month others $10,000.
I look at Frank Schilling, Mike Berkens, and these are exactly what these guys have been doing for the past decade, and they seem to be doing ok, there is no secret sauce some are a miss, but the good ones that hit, can be pay for the lot.
Trying to sell and free up cash now. It doesn’t matter what you think of the domain world now. The DOW is due for a good crash which will pull everything down also. If you are sitting on a large portfolio during the next recession, you won’t have money to buy up the deals. Those with a portfolio of mediocre domains will crash and burn. The guys in Fort Lauderdale can tell you every 3rd house was for sale during the 2009 recession.
Nothing like stock market advice from anonymous posters on a domain forum. Think we will all pass.
Ronald no one is taking stock advice from a domainer, they come hear and talk because in real life no one pays attention to them. #21stcenturysociety
would agree with VR not sure anyone taking advice on stocks from domainers. Some guys have been calling for a certain action in the market for 8 years, some up and some down, eventually they might be right under, even a broken clock is right twice a day, if you listened to them 8 years ago, you are now broke.
If you no have a big budget, domaining is a hobby and a joke. People get offered $1000 for something they just paid $69 for and say not enough! F U
Q, because someone paid $69 doesn’t mean there price has to be $1,000. What if they have plans for it, I have won domains at GoDaddy for less than $69, I have a plan for them but if someone offered $10,000 ok, $1,000 not so much.
It’s all greed.
What you are not considering is all the domains they bought at $69 or whatever price that will never sell…..so their spread is not from $69 to $1000 as you seem to think.
Everything is greed. Greed is good……it’s what put bread and milk on your table. Without greed this country would be in shambles. I love greed, as should everyone — otherwise we might as well give in and join the ranks of all the poor socialist countries.
America has the largest percentage of poor in the developed world, that is where greed gets you and in the end inequality brings the house down. Why can’t capitalism be more of a win win thing, why do you feel you need to eat the whole pizza
Since someone mentioned the stock market and time for a crash…. that is a valid case point.
How quickly we forget that some of the biggest domainers who said domains were recession proof were 100% wrong, never forget 10 years ago, never forget. A crashing stock market DOES greatly impact our industry. When people panic, need cash, are losing money or investment vehicles suffer and the flow into domains from most all of them dry up…. welcome to 10 years ago.
I’m not a 10 year domainer yet but I’ll chime in anyway. Of course it’s worse now. Every single posible niche has been mined. The option for buyers to have cheaper gtld alternatives isn’t helping. The expansion of social media is making domains less relevant. Sellers have dramatically lowered prices over the last few years which has made competition greater. Getting inventory for decent prices is all but gone thanks to “The Brothers”. I could go on and on.
You already know the answer or you wouldn’t be asking the question.
No the question is asked for the purpose of a discussion post, to start a discussion. Clearly not everyone agrees things are worse now. Andrew Rosener, Panama Wilson, Sergey and a few other commenters here seem to have different opinions.
@Raymond…..
What I am noticing, and this started about three years ago, is that buyers are not pushing back on prices like they used to. They accept that it will cost them some real money these days for a quality .com domain.
I see some others here saying they are getting low-balled, but that has me scratching my head……I’m not seeing any significant amount of that. What I do see is people just up and disappearing after agreeing to a price……but that’s always been going on….just part of this biz.
The key these days is to buy trend based names (no need for premium) at a price under $500. It’s important to have a strategy. If possible, partner with a developer to start a path towards developing the brand. Package this brand and do some marketing. AdWords with YouTube has some incredibly low cost PPC. The point is that these days it’s not about how many domains you have in the portfolio… It’s about how you brand.
Domains business is good for me…. easy peasy hobby.
More offers rolling in everyday and higher offers too.
I have been a Domainer for a long time now, and my opinion is that the domain business is way better nowadays for many reasons. The business is better than ever, in fact since last year 2017 and so far 2018, I have acquire and hand reg one of the Best Domains I own, and that thanks to Crypto, Bitcoin and Coins keywords!! This keywords are a Game Changer in the Domain Business for everybody, endusers, domainers, and the general public too. Iam so excited for the next years BIG Domain SALES!!
Also the ngtlds are increasing the opportunities to everybody too, better domain marketplaces and payment options just to mention a few.
The parking service has improved too in the last few years, but not the clicks to ads. The registry companies are offering better services to all of us. In general, the domain business is better now, but the competition has increased exponentially, its hard for the newbies, sorry for them! 😀
Cheers!!
almost 25 years of parking and NO One has figured out the holy grail.
monetizing domains on a mass scale, you’d think parking technology over 25 years would , that’s the only hope.
upstream providers keeping upwards of 90 percent and giving us schleps pennies.
sigh
There’s little reason to park when you can monetise on easily deployable content…