Getting Started With Domaining
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A domainer is much like the fabled gold-miner from 1849. He looks for those areas that are underdeveloped or untouched and then tries to find a way to make money or extract revenue from spots where some people couldn’t or wouldn’t.
A good domainer is able to look at domains and see dollar signs or fool’s gold, scams or opportunities, premium virtual estate or Internet swamp land. Some of those look the same to some people, but an experienced domainer with a trained eye can see past most of those things for what they truly are.
You will come across millions of names in your domaining career, but only a fraction will ever be worth anything. Just like stocks that tank, you, too, will have domains that tank. Some people lose their shirts in the domain game, while others make a fortune. You can be smart and make a fortune, or be not-so-smart and lose it in an instant.
In the Beginning
What can you expect from being a domainer? In the beginning you can expect to spend a good bit of your time just learning and reading. When I started domaining there were no books; the only guidelines I had were forum posts and articles I could read on the Internet about people who bought and sold this “online real estate.” Slowly the market is emerging more and more, and now people every day are beginning to see the huge amounts of money that can be made in the online-intangibles market. As I write this, I keep thinking of the sale of Sex.com, which fetched more than $12 million.
Just think, at one point in time, Sex.com was not even registered. A forward- thinking person came along and thought it may have some intrinsic value, and boom: you have a speculator, an investor of sorts — not in real estate, but in virtual real estate.
In 1994, when Sex.com was registered, there was not really such a thing as a “domainer.” Some people knew some domain names were better than others, but the whole idea of buying and selling domains was not a huge concept. Thirteen years have passed and some domain names are now worth more than anyone could have ever imagined. In hindsight you may think, “Oh, I wish I would have registered some names back then and now I would be rich.” Well, the domain name game is not over and it will not be for a while. It will be a continuing trend until humanity dies or the Internet evolves into a place where domains are replaced by another form of navigation to Internet sites.
Point blank: domains are not going away anytime soon, and when and if they do, there will be a whole new market that springs up around whatever replaces them.
The Market Today
It is true that most of the good domains are taken at this point. Many, many names are already owned by domainers or are being used for websites; therefore, there are less good domains in the “wild” (left unregistered). However, you notice that I said “most” are taken. You still have a good chance at landing some great domains. You will never register another Sex.com-like domain, but you still can make thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you play your cards right.
On the open market, you still have the ability to buy high-quality, premium domains. Domains like Sex.com are not unattainable, but it will take a lot of work if you want to start from nothing and build an empire. Rome was not built in a day, and your domain/web-property portfolio won’t be either.
A good domainer will take names that are left unregistered and have the ability to identify their worth. Are they worth the $8 or so (the ballpark registration cost) a year they cost to keep? Identifying a domain that is worth money is a tricky business, unless the name has obvious characteristics that normal, everyday people would want to buy. And since most names that have that kind of intrinsic value, such as ABC.com or Computer.com are long gone, we have to use our brains to stay ahead of the curve and find ways to identify which domains will have current or future intrinsic value.
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