Bloggings of a Domain Flipper

Best place to pick-up expired domains

Lately I've been hearing a lot of people asking about the best service to use for buying expired domain names. The top services are NameJet.com, TDName.com (Domain Name Aftermarket run by GoDaddy), Pool.com, and Snapnames.com. I'd be interested to hear what people think is the best service for buying expired domains.

It seems that most people favor NameJet for getting the best premium names. The main downside to NameJet is that anyone can see your backorder so it's a lot more likely you'll have to fight for the name you want. Snapnames offers anonymous Backordering which gives it a bit of an edge here, but at the end of the day it's about getting the best domain.

I've used Pool.com only recently and haven't had much luck. I've found tons of names on Pool.com but those that look like they have any potential at all you usually have to fight to get.

TDName is nice as it's integrated into GoDaddy. I use both GoDaddy and 1&1 and like this service offering from GoDaddy. I still think that NameJet is the best place to buy *premium* expired names.

I'd be interested to hear some of your experiences? Hopefully this can help those new to domaining start-off with the best service from the beginning.

I hope that all of my readers have a safe and happy New Years!

URL Academy on Meta Tags

Lately I've been reading URL Academy quite frequently as they've had some great posts applicable to domain flippers. For new flippers you need to eat, sleep and breathe meta tags. URL Academy has a great quick tutorial that will get you up and running with everything you need to know about meta tags.

URL Academy on Meta Tags

For flipped domains you want to build-up targeted traffic coming to your site  Just listing your site with a search engine is not enough - you need meta tags to help improve your placement with the search engine.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to everyone! 2007 has been a great year and always nice to spend some time with family and friends. Reflecting on the past year I can only say I am very excited to see what 2008 will bring.

On my radar right now is the .me launch, .ASIA, Bido.com in the first quarter of the year, and of course new TLD's that might be announced...

I'll be taking a few days off in the wine country. This is my one time of the year to escape the intensity of everyday life and just enjoy great food, great wine, and the beautiful napa valley.

Have a merry xmas and a happy new year! May your next year be filled with great domains and incredible flips!

URL Academy on Optimizing Domains

URL Academy has a great post on how to optimize your domains. This post touches on a great issue which is the importance of optimizing parked pages.

A must-read for new domainers getting ready to park their first names.

Read it here

Domaining Legends Team Together With Bido.com

The heavy-hitters of the domaining world are coming together in Q1 2008 to build a domain company called Bido.com. Sahar Sarid, Darren Cleveland, and Jeff Bhavnanie from Recall Media Group are getting together with DNJournal founder Ron Jackson in what looks like it will be a groundbreaking new company.

Ron Jackson has a post on Sahar's blog (www.conceptualist.com) now discussing the new venture.

Should be exciting to see what these guys will come-up with given all of their expertise. This will certainly help make 2008 an exciting year in the domaining world.

.me Getting Closer to Primetime

DNXPERT posted today about picking the registrar to manage .me domains. Needless to say this ccTLD is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality and open the flood-gates for any word you can think of ending in "me".

See the post on DNXPERT Here.

I posted the question to DNXPERT of what his thoughts were for the potential of this TLD outside of the catchy words that end in .me. Would be interested to hear some opinions on this as it feels like a new ccTLD is coming-out every day. They can't all be the sleeper TLD of the century, so which one's do you think will be good investments?

I personally have my bets on the continued dominance of .com and the growing value of .mobi with some potential for good one-world ccTLD's where the TLD completes the word.

Google Adsense vs. Parking

As a Domain Flipper I spend a lot of time building custom websites on my domains. I've found that before making a full-blown website I can make custom Parking pages for my Domains to monetize them at a much higher rate than Parking services offer.

The basic concept here is that Parking services have a two-tier commission structure. When a link is clicked the advertiser now pays you *and* the parking service. This means for each click you are essentially splitting your commission. Parking service pages are also quite generic and identifiable: people know when they hit a Parked page vs. an developed website.

I first noticed the effects of this when I replaced a Parking page with a quick custom site I put together in about an hour. Immediately I was making about 10x what I was with the Parking service. This was a surprise so I started making more sites and found the same results.

I've found Google Adwords to be a very effective way to serve targeted ads to your website visitors and 100% of the commission goes to you. Website visitors are becoming more and more used to reaching Parked pages when there is no existing website on a domain. As Parking sites are pretty identifiable people will leave them pretty quickly realizing that it isn't a real webpage and instead just a collection of links.

By creating a website that connects with your visitors, offers relevant information and targeted Adwords you can greatly outshine the potential of a Parked page.

I thought this was important advice to share for those new to domaining and trying to find-out the best ways to monetize your domains.

It is important to note that for large portfolios (hundreds or thousands of domains) you will most likely be Parking a lot of your domains as there's not enough time in life to build a thousand websites overnight! I use Parking services myself as I can't realistically build a custom website on each of my domains. I find that my Parking pages need to get thousands of hits a month for me to make any real money. For my Google Adword pages even a few hundred hits a month generates revenue.

In summary, you can get a lot more from your domain by building a custom website with Google Adwords powering your advertising. Parking is still a good way to monetize a site but don't expect to make a fortune unless your site really gets a lot of traffic. Anyone else that has experience with this feel free to chime in and add your opinion.

Inspired by .in

I was reacently inspired to register some .in domains. India is a huge place with a booming economy and a lot of growth in the technology sector. URL Academy recently had a post about some .in names that he registered.

Looking back at CC TLD's like .eu and .uk it is easy to see how these domains can become very very valuable. I still see a lot of potential with .in domains as it doesn't look like they've been frantically collected by domainers...yet.

As I said in a previous post - these domains are in the "speculative" section of my portfolio. 10% of my portfolio is domain's whose TLD may have not taken-off yet (or may never take-off). With .in I think we'll see some solid growth here and 1-2 years from now one (or more) of my .in purchases could hit the jackpot. For now I'm going to flip them just like any site, build-up the traffic and see how many monthly visitors I can have coming to the site by this time next year. See below for a list of my recent purchases:

unwinding.in
delhicallcenter.in
delhisupport.in
delhilimo.in
housecleaning.in
chimneycleaning.in
delhitaxi.in
humangenome.in

.Mobi - The next Big TLD?

DomainPulse.com has a great post today on an article from E-Commerce times about the .mobi TLD. Some great data here to back-up the claim that .mobi domains are indeed a good investment.

As a big .mobi fan this is just more confirmation that this TLD could be the next big thing in the Domaining world.

Here is the post from DomainPulse.com
http://www.domainpulse.com/2007/12/20/mobi-a-safe-real-estate-bet/

I would be interested to hear some comments on this. What do you think? Is .mobi the next big TLD? Could .mobi go head-to-head with .com in the near-future as more and more people access the Internet via mobile devices?

Afternic to Offer Domain Auctions

Afternic - one of my personal favorite domain listings services is gearing-up to add Auctions to their offerings. This will be a very welcome addition to Afternic's suite of services. Afternic will allow members to bid on pre-expiry domains (names that have not yet been renewed by their owners).

Afternic is hosting a presentation on the 21st of December to review their new Auction service, the following will be covered in the presentation:

• An overview of NameMedia's Domain Marketplace
• A discussion of Afternic Auctions as a part of the NameMedia offering
• A review of Afternic Auctions — core features and benefits

This should add a lot to Afternic and I'm excited about getting some of my domains into their first auction!

For more information about Afternic Auctions please visit their FAQ's at:

https://www.afternic.com/help/index.php?c=28

Below is the press release from this announcement:

NameMedia Launches Domain Auction Sales Platform

New Service Will Feature Exclusive Domain Inventory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 19, 2007 Waltham, MA—NameMedia today announced the launch of Afternic Auctions on the company’s award-winning AfternicDLS domain sales platform.  With this launch, NameMedia expands AfternicDLS’ suite of products to include exclusive pre-expiry domain auctions.  These daily auctions will allow buyers to purchase domain names from among thousands of names that have not been renewed by their owners prior to expiration.

“We are pleased to further enhance our marketplace by operating exclusive, daily domain name auctions,” said Pete Lamson, senior vice president and general manager of NameMedia’s marketplace. “The Afternic Auction platform, backed by Afternic’s personalized service and flexible bidding options, gives domain buyers another source of premium domain names.”

The Afternic Auction platform, launched after extensive customer usability testing, includes the following product benefits:

•    Simple search functionality and bidding interface
•    35 day “Preorder” period, followed by extended 5 day auction
•    Individually prepared Domain Appraisals available for every auctioned name
•    Personalized bid management system including:  Bid Increase Alerts, Domain Watch Lists, Closing Soon Reminders and more
•    Capability to download the inventory of upcoming auctions to facilitate analysis and bidding strategies
•    Secure domain escrow process

“Customer reaction during beta testing was very positive, particularly with respect to the platform’s search technology, bidding interface and bid management summary,” said Adam Gross, product director for NameMedia’s domain marketplace.  “We look forward to this launch of another new service for our customers.”

For more information, visit www.Afternic.com

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About NameMedia

NameMedia operates a leading targeted online media business and a leading online marketplace for domain names. Further information is available at www.namemedia.com.