My First Domain Name Had a Hyphen

For the life of me, I couldn’t recall the first domain name I ever registered. A few people have asked me over the years, and I had a vague idea, but I couldn’t recall it and didn’t have a record of it. I knew it was registered at Network Solutions sometime around the beginning of 2003, but I didn’t know much else.

Thanks to Christie Chute,  Manager of Monetization and Aftermarket Sales at Web.com, I was able to find out the first domain name I ever registered.

The domain name I purchased on October 31, 2002 was Legal-Aids.com. It appears this name was dropped at some point, re-registered in 2005, and it seems to have expired within the last couple of days. It is not the type of domain name I would purchase today, but it was my starting point in the domain industry.

The next domain names I registered a few days later were SeekNewYorkCity.com, SeekBoston.com, SeekDC.com, and SeekPhilly.com.

I got a fairly late start compared to many of the people I admire who have successful businesses, but I spent a lot of time soaking in as much information as I could in order to learn what domain names sell for how much, and why. I think someone could start today and be very successful, but I don’t think this is a business in which someone can expect to become rich overnight.

I’ve registered some truly crappy domain names in my time, but I continued to learn from my mistakes and make better purchases.

What was the first domain name you purchased?

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

19 COMMENTS

  1. Great to look back and see how far one has come! My first domain was 1999 in college and surprisingly crappy one for something regged back then 30secondcreditapproval.com

    I built the ugliest CC affiliate website on it in frontpage and it made $700 within weeks but stopped bringing in $ soon after. Dropped it years ago.

  2. My first, besides my name one marneen.com , was onlinefleamarketstore.com and fantasypornshop.com Still own them…..I think I am just a collector now lol.

  3. 3ep.com sometime around 98.

    ePages and eProducts for ePeople was the objective.

    Me and some college chums planned on doing what turned out to be an early iteration of social networking hybridized with sales, but the .com bubble burst, we were all young, lost confidence and focus when the VC capital dried up overnight. Let it drop.

    In hindsight, it could’ve seriously changed the game. We had the right idea at the right time, but didn’t execute. Oh well. If I could go back to being that age again for a month, I’d probably spend more time partying and chasing tail rather than re-doing business mistakes, so no worries… but it is a nagging ‘coulda been’

  4. TheRightInvestment.com 1999 Did nothing with it and let it expire in 2005. The founder of MP3 used it at some point for some investment management software.

    It was ironic, if I only bought more than one domain in 1999…

  5. TireStores.mobi. Hahaha.

    I read the Business 2.0 article about Kevin Ham in 2007 and I’ve been addicted ever since. I was smart though and saw the future and bought about $2,000 worth of .mobis.

    I’m laughing at my stupidity as I type this.

  6. Joesoft.com (my name is Joe). Reg’d in 2000 as 21st birthday present from my dad. I had wanted it years earlier but it was always taken and luck would have it it had dropped and become available for reg that very day on my 21st Bday.

    I didn’t become a domainer until much later (2007) but I wish I hadn’t sold it to that Netsol anonymous offer I got even though it was probably pretty reasonable.

    I would have preferred to keep it and use it for myself. Worst part the company that ended up being the buyer ended up going with the exact same slogan I had in mind for myself.

  7. Thanks for admitting that even you have made mistakes! Makes me feel better! Most I’ve met in this industry act as if every decision they made was pure gold.

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