Lots of (Good) Hand Registrations Still Available

With domain tasting nearly dead, there seems to be a lot of opportunities today to register some decent new domain names as the tasters aren’t keeping everything. In the past several months, this hasn’t really been the case. I’d find decent names, but not really at the volume as I am now. Perhaps this has to do with people trimming down their portfolios and not renewing domain names, but whatever the case is, there seems to be more good unregistered names than before.

When you search for domain names to register by hand, always keep in mind two questions:

How can this be used commercially?
Would a person or a company legitimately spend hundreds or thousands of dollars building a website on this domain name?

If the answer to either one of these questions is “no” I recommend not registering it. I will use two recent registrations I made as examples:

1) Fireproofers.com – Although this isn’t a commonly used term, there are a considerable number of companies in the fireproofing business. They are paid to make sure newly constructed buildings are built with fireproof materials. It’s not a huge industry, but it is lucrative. Individually, each company/person is a fireproofers, and collectively they are fireproofers. This could be used as an industry site.

CigarEnthusiasts.com. I could easily see a cigar lover buying this name and building a cigar directory site. I wouldn’t sell it for thousands of dollars because nobody would pay that, but for a few hundred dollars, a person could buy a meaning full name that has cache.

There are tons of names like these out there available to register for under $10/each that can be flipped for a tidy profit. In a difficult market, it’s tough to acquire $5,000 domain names and hope to flip them. It’s much easier to buy a $7 name and sell it for $30 – $500 though.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

16 COMMENTS

  1. Great post. Most people forget that hand registrations can still be promising. We hand register dozens a month and have been able to flip several each year for a good profit. Two of our recent registrations were TopazDiamonds.com and BlueTopazDiamondRings.com. We even hand registered Untoons.com after reading an article Scott (of Trend Domaining) wrote about untooning. Then we even created a site for artists to showcase their untooned art. Hand registering still holds a lot of possibilities

  2. Buying domains in the aftermarket is still NOT natural. Out of the domaining sphere the percentage of people that do that is insignificant.
    If there is not a HUGE need, most will not even think about this possible option when the name they want is not available.

    Also, when a domain does not have any metric. There are hundreds domains ideas (most available) that can replace a concept with a solution as best or better.

    Caution registering names, you may end with few hundred names that don’t generate passive income and that have extremelly low chances of sales.

  3. I agree about the quality of hand reg’s available now.

    The hard part is where do you resell/flip them?

    Ebay is junk.

    It is too hit or miss to sit back and wait for offers.

    • @Tony
      One thing I am doing is buying targeted domain names with potential buyers in mind. After securing the names, I have been emailing them. I’ve had 2 buyers commit in the last week @ $400/each, but neither have completed the deals yet.

  4. Money move on fireproofers.com..Two questions for anyone:

    1. Do you think it is smart when flipping to put a fixed price on a domain landing page? I often buy a name with a fixed price if it makes sense and pass up “negotiating” on a name your price..at least for under 5k tye names

    2. Does it make sense to put up even a cool logo vs. the yucky sedo page to make a name more enticing for an impulse buy or to show the potential more?

    thx..

  5. Figure out the -kind- of thing you’re good at monetizing and then hunt down domains that fit the pattern… Instead of chasing down end-users, I let them come to me while get better at development and earning that passive income… But you gotta focus on hand-reg’ing catchy/targeted names that end-users want along the way…

  6. Funny, I was reading this thread about 15 minutes ago, when someone says,
    “Let’s take in a show today.” That domain devil in me checked it out, so I just registered TakeInaShow.com” and – don’t laugh, “LongtailDomainNames.com”
    Google results with””
    “longtail domain names” 3 (three,) (Can anyone do lower than that) 🙂
    “long tail domain names” 116

    Thanks Elliot.
    More good stuff here than on all the forums combined.

  7. “My biggest problem is quickly building nice looking mini sites on my own. There are great mini site options out there, but I am reluctant to spend $$$ on an $8 registration.”

    ^— if one can’t commit at least a few hundred bucks to a domain name build out over time that has all this potential (obviously, it should, since you register the domain and want to keep it) then it is probably not worth it in the first place.

    Build a site…..make it successful and you can sell it for 100x of your upfront investment few month’s down the road to 100x more buyers who will be interested and all over your ass — a website with traffic and revenue VS. just a plain ol’ domain name >>> big difference.

    Best,
    Mike

  8. Hi Elliot,

    Great post!

    This what I have been trying to tell people for ages, there are great names still out there to register. I agree you can register hundreds of crap domains that dont generate revenue.

    Thats why I created my site to help others register domains for reg fee, last year I made five figures in hand registered domains.

    Regards,

    Robbie

  9. I always have success hand registered domains and building sites with them plus selling t-shirt/products.

    All it takes is creativity.

    Domain registration is only $7.16 and I always make 100Xtimes over.

  10. I have to agree. I was soooo excited a few days ago to register ReligiousHistory.org. It has recently dropped and completes my current collection: WorldHistory.org, AmericanHistory.org, and MilitaryHistory.org.

    All three of these domains get plenty traffic, and that was even before I developed them to the blogs they are today. Of course the development has increased the traffic futher, but I digress.

    Anyway I just wanted to re-enforce what Elliot said, there are some good hand-regs out there still.

    BTW: If you check out my blogs, I’m not the writer so what you read isn’t neccessarily my opinion.

  11. availabledomains4u.blogspot.com !
    posted a thread about the existance of the blog in a forum , a number of comments in fellow blogs and a post a day . After a month abandoned the blog due to lack of dainty visitors . My point is that, who is willing to take the risk to flush a buck to develop a site around a stupid name an alien coin ? not only they are selling even nobody is caring when they are freely available !
    I think it will be exciting if those dudes reveal sold hand reg domains .

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Squadhelp Adds Escrow.com as a Payment Option

1
Squadhelp has added Escrow.com as a payment option for buyers. The addition of the Escrow.com option was shared by ARIYAS on X this morning: 👍...

Some Thoughts on .AI Domain Names

19
There is no question that .AI domain names have become a hot topic of late. With considerable amounts of venture funding flowing into AI...

Handoff to Dan on Imported Leads Can be Confusing

0
I've been using the lead import option at Dan.com more regularly. Although the 5% commission is not ideal, transactions tend to move more quickly...

ArtificialIntelligence.com Goes Up for Sale

11
I tried to buy the ArtificialIntelligence.com domain name multiple times over the last 10 years. The emails I sent to the registrant went unanswered,...

EU Gives More IP Protection to Food & Drink Producers

0
Did you know that some well-known food and drink varieties are protected intellectual property regulations? Popular types of drinks and foods that are protected...