Sunday Afternoon Domain Industry Updates and Thoughts

I started training for this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge last week. I ran 15 miles, and I plan to keep that up for the next month or so until I take my bicycle out for the Spring and Summer. I don’t love running or cycling in the cold, so I try and wait until the temperatures consistently reach the high 50s.

I am not sure what is going to be most difficult – riding 163 miles  on my bicycle or raising $10,000 for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  You can help me with one of those things!

In the meantime, here are some domain industry thoughts and updates. You are invited to share your own thoughts and updates in the comment section:

  • On Friday, I wrote about the .Cars, .Auto, and .Car registries exhibiting at the NADA conference. Yesterday, Automotive News published an article about the .Cars extension, Maybe it’s time to think about Vegas.cars. That seems like a pretty solid win for the registry operators.
  • I need to start buying more domain names that I can re-sell in the $3-5k range. I like to focus on the higher value names, but it’s much easier to move names that are less than $5,000. The high value names feel better to snag, but consistently selling names for $3-5k that cost just 2 or 3 figures can really move the needle. It’s difficult to find these names though, and they can sit forever without a single inquiry.
  • As Jamie Zoch noted this morning, it looks like the buyer of Lawn.com (who paid $240,000 for it at auction) has launched a new website.
  • I like what Igloo announced with its  “Brand Stories” pages. It is interesting to read, and I am sure it will be useful when pitching expensive domain names to clients.
  • Please don’t use the comment section to list domain names for sale. You can always email me if you have exceptional .COM domain names for sale that I might be interested in buying. Sale comments tend to break up the discussion and they get marked as spam.
  • It’s tax time… ugh. I guess it’s a positive thing that I am paying taxes, but it is always stressful waiting to hear back from my accountant.
  • Happy 9th birthday to Domain Boardroom! It’s amazing to think that DBR opened almost nearly 10 years ago!

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
  1. I definitely agree with your second point. The bulk of your sales should be those $3k-$5k names. The names you are buying to flip (travels.com, gladiators.com, etc) deserve to be locked away in a vault for the right offer. I came from the other side of the spectrum and now focus on the one-worders but it seems the dirt cheap window for them has closed a bit.

  2. With so much to accomplish, postpone upgrading to Windows10. The night before Namescon my 2012 PC bit the dust. I ordered a new Windows10 machine from Costco, taking 6 weeks to arrive then lasting only three weeks when I accidently unplugged the power cord while it was running. Windows 10 CANNOT handle forced shutdowns. Costco offers 90-day return policy on computers, which I took advantage of, before ordering another new machine with a Rollback operating system.

    Between January and April I didn’t log into GoDaddy for 7 consecutive weeks, then another 3 weeks. Thank goodness upon returning all was how I left it. After 2 weeks offline, remembering passwords and bookmarks got difficult! Write ’em down on paper.

  3. >”and they can sit forever without a single inquiry.”

    Which makes them very expensive “lottery tickets” for a small potential return.

    • “Which makes them very expensive “lottery tickets” for a small potential return.”

      Premium one-worders can sit forever too. Sure, they are more liquid but you take the risk of taking a loss if you must liquidate. The key is diversification.

    • Well, let’s say you bought Example.com for $25,000 and it’s realistically worth $250,000 in a good market, but there’s not much interest now. You are paying ~$8 a year to renew it. If you were willing to do it, you could very easily find a buyer at $150,000 now instead of waiting for better conditions. Or worse, you could find a buyer at $75,000 more quickly if you needed the cash. There is simply no comparison between a situation like that and paying ~$8 a year to keep a domain that might never even sell for low $x,xxx, unless and only unless the domain can make you some income in the meantime. Lottery tickets are only $1.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

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

7
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...

Price Testing

1
In 2022, my wife and I decided our kids were ready for some big mountain skiing and we planned a trip to the Rocky...

GoDaddy Making You Sign in to See What You Renewed (Updated)

3
This morning, I noticed something different in a domain name renewal email from GoDaddy. Instead of telling me exactly what domain names I renewed...