Profiting from domain names – the complete how-to guide

Profiting from domain names – the complete how-to guide – Part 4, Purchasing the domain

Tags: Business, Domaining, Features, Insights, acquire, aftermarket, afternic, auction, buy, domain, domain name, domain names, expired domains, godaddy, gpdaddy, money, pool, profit, sedo, snapnames

Making money from domains, what do I need to do?

Establish your budget
Search for domains within your budget
1. Expired domains
2. Registered domains
3. Typo domains
Researching the domain
Purchasing the domain
Monetise the domain
1. Parking
2. Selling Traffic
3. Affiliate Programs
Fast Start
Exit Strategy

Purchasing the domain

Purchasing a domain is usually a pretty easy practice, but buying an expired domain or an already registered domain proves to be much harder.

Buying expired domains can have a lot of risk associated with them, but with high risk comes high returns so it’s not all bad.

You tend to find already registered domains go for much higher amounts then domains that are expiring; this is mostly because the owner can show a proven track record of revenue and traffic, and the owner has already taken the risk on the domain if the domain was a domain that dropped (bought from an expired domain auction). Expired domains tend not go for as much, but, they can be pretty high risk, you can end up easily investing $2k on a single domain that’s dropping that has traffic and end up next month with no traffic.

One of the best ways I find to acquire domains is through snapnames.com, you can bid in all of the domains that are dropping today, and they have a great search facility for finding domains that have dropped or that are dropping soon, you can also search through their live auctions.

Another great way to acquire domains is via pool.com, they offer a backorder service to help you acquire domains that are dropping, it’s free to put a backorder on a domain and they even go one better with their service, if you deposit $250 with them as credit you can do the same that the big domain registrars do, you can kite / taste domain names for 4 and a half days for only $0.20c per domain.

When you taste the domain you pay the 20 cents plus the full registration fee of the domain which is only $8.20 for a .com, which is a bargain compared to afternic and clubdrop who charge like $30 for domain registration.

If you don’t like the domain and you can drop / release the domain before the 4 days is up, when you do, you get that registration fee refunded and the whole tasting of the domain only cost you $0.20 for those 4 days.

Moniker also does the same, they let you drop the domain within 4 days and charge $0.25. I’m sure other places are doing it, if not they will be soon but those are the two biggest I know of.

The final option I’d recommend is Godaddys domain name after market, they basically have one massive list of domains expiring for you to search through, and you can browse by the traffic each domain has received, bids on the domain, price, time left or by name.

All the domains on there are around 10 day auctions, it’s a simple drop list, buying is easy and you get to see the traffic that the domain has been getting. There is a small monthly membership fee however, if you’re a godaddy domain customer there’s ways of getting the aftermarket fee much cheaper.

If you’re buying an already registered domain from a company like sedo, moniker or afternic for example, it’s a simple secure process since they have control of the domains, where as if you’re buying a registered domain from an individual you need to be pretty careful you’re not giving your cash to someone who isn’t going to deliver the goods.

Here’s a list of places that sell domains that are either parked with them, or they are a broker:

Some helpful hints on internet trading, never buy anything from anyone ever using egold, moneybookers or western union, 90% of the time it’s a scam so don’t bother. Using Paypal is a risk, if the domain is only cheap I usually just paypal it, if we’re talking money over $400 or so then I’ll use an escrow service.

Sedo offer an escrow service for domains and there’s always escrow.com, I use them from time to time.

Another hint is if you’re buying from someone on a forum, check their itrader rating, most forums have this little itrader rating; it’s basically feedback people have left about that person when they’ve done some kind of trade / business with them. It’s a good indication if the person is legit or out to make money fast and leave town.

Here’s a list of forums that are popular for domain name sales: