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A few months ago I thought I wasn’t going to get involved in the new gTLDs, but then I remembered this is what I do, I gamble on domains, and like Frank said on this lively DomainInvesting post the other day, it wasn’t all cut and dry with .com’s 13 years ago, and it wasn’t, I remember, I was there, most everybody I knew at that time said I was nuts for gambling all my money away on .com’s, and gambling it was, I went 3 months down on my mortgage payment and spent all that money on domains with no guarantees. It turned out to be a great gamble, and now most of those people seriously wish they had invested, but it wasn’t as obvious then as it seems now.
Another phenomena is how many 40 to 60 year old domainers I know now that have been doing this for a few years and they all say “damn, if I was only ‘there then’ I would have banked” – I like to remind them that they were “there then”, I think what they really mean is if I knew then what I know now, big difference. I also like to remind them that they are “here now” – opportunity is all around us at every moment, figure out the big opportunities that are happening today, don’t tell me in 10 years if you were only “here now” you would have banked, you are “here now” – just like you were “there then”.
And many people that were investing in domains “there then” still didn’t get it, in 2000 lots of people were spending all their money on domains but they would get pure pigeon shit, they would get what they thought were “great” branding idea domains instead of generics, my favorite was HaHaJoe, look at this list of names HaHaJoe got in 2000-2001, ha ha, it still makes me laugh, this was 2000-2001, he could have bought one or two super great domains at the time for what he spent hand regging this list of hahadomains, he could have got names that would have easily been 5 and 6 figure domains today, but he didn’t, lots of people that were actually investing in domains “there then” just blew it, see my 8track.net parody post for an example.
And domainers were as opinionated 13 years ago as they are today, I have been laughed at and mocked and disliked and ridiculed and shamed and humiliated on plenty of forums and chatboards and blogs for plenty of names I later sold for $2k – $20K. I remember in 2001 posting a name on a domain board that I had just grabbed, I thought it was pretty good and I was all proud looking for some positive feedback and praise from my peers lol, but then most of the commentors said it was stupid, it would never sell, it was too long at 18 characters, they were brutal, but a few of the pros said it was a good domain and that I should keep it, no different than now, I kept it and I sold that domain today for $4500, today, that sale is what inspired this post.
A few years ago I started investing in .tv, I had people tell me I was crazy for doing this, and then others who said they were the best thing since sliced bread. I have since sold plenty for $500 – $5k and some for more than that, I have made money on them and expect to make more in the future. I also made some bad tv picks and have dropped plenty, they were $10 reg and when the $25 renewal came up I didn’t like them as much, obviously something to be careful with when domain investing, but I was selling some right off the bat so I got a little over enthusiastic, I am all better now, and I have sold over $20k in .tv domains so far this year.
Same thing with .me, I started getting them a few years back also, and have heard plenty of criticism for that too, but I have done really good on my .me’s, and again I dropped plenty of these also once I got a better feel for what sells, but overall I am making a really good ROI on them, that is my best criteria, and I have sold 3 in the last 2 days, dozens so far this year.
With all these there was a learning curve, in 1999 I was getting some not so good .com’s, by the time the first year of renewal came around I had a much better idea of a good name and had learned how to grab some of the good expiring domains so I dropped 100’s of names and started over. Same thing with the tv and me, I never did much non .com investing until these a few years ago, with .com lots of things work, with .tv not so much, and this is really true with new gTLDs imo.
I think one of the most important things in domain investing is picking the right domains, whether .tv, .com, .org, or .today, it’s not cut and dry and it’s not always as easy as it seems but I would rather have what I consider a decent .me or .tips or .biz than lots of the .com’s I see plenty of people investing in, just because it’s a .com doesn’t mean it’s good, just because it’s only 99 cents doesn’t make it a sound investment.
So once again I am gambling on domains that might or might not payoff, but I honestly feel I can sell some over time, I think they will be more like .tv sales than .com’s, meaning slow and the word will really have to go with the extension, comedy.tv not airfares.tv so much imo. Or like .biz and .info, even the most valuable words like gold.biz and mortgage.info only sell for about $20k, and those are the best, obviously not even comparable with .com, so I am not expecting anything more than what I might expect with one of these, and I expect it will take time, these others are known already the new gTLDs are not, and I calculate in the fact that there will be many more options available, all these are actors, but I do think the right combinations will start to sell, in time, the right combinations.
OK let the criticism begin…
Here are the domain picks dropping on March 5th 2014:
AFLE.com – A decent 4L here
BFresh.com – A few are using the term, beware of TM’s otherwise cute name
Bit-Exchange.com – Is it dead? The dash I mean lol
DontBuyIt.com – This one might describe itself, but I like it
CreditCardForTeenagers.com – I will take this opportunity to promote my KidsCredit.com
eEating.com – E plus a word that starts with e? You decide
LASM.com – I lived in LA for years and it felt like S & M sometimes
LiveGirlChat.com – You can’t chat with dead girls, psychics can I guess
ProspectorPlace.com – Prospecting is all the rage on discovery channel these days
VegasPro.com – Now this one I like alot, could be used for lots of Vegas related activities
WhoMail.com – Find out who those damn anonymous emails are coming from lol
Lowriders.net
PhotographyCamera.net
CommunityGroup.org
eDrop.org
Hypoglycemic.org
iApplication.org
InvestBusiness.org
iRates.org
Reenacting.org
Rockers.org
AcousticGuitar.me
BitCoinBank.me
Bloodtest.me
Explanation.me
Fir.me
Guantanamo.me
Reps.me
LoveLetter.tv
PartyGirl.tv
Splat.tv
SSM.tv
Browsing.info
Illustrating.info
Khaki.info
Known.info
Minting.info
924.us
Make sure you also check out Domain Shane’s Big List of names and Domaining.com for some other great domain blogs and domain name lists.
Domain of the day: Mojo.tv – Make me an Offer!
Thanks for stopping by…
Great writing Mark.
Just be careful with VegasPro.com. Sony Vegas Pro is a video editing suite. I know cause I own it…
Unfortunately I probably wont be scoring VegasPro.com but if I did I wouldn’t worry much, I guarantee you I wouldn’t make a video editing site, wouldn’t even think to do that, but I can think of lots of things I could do with it.
And thanks for the compliment, your blog has really been inspiring to me lately, keep up the GREAT work…
Thanks a lot.
I met with Manos the other day. We spoke for 3 hours. We are waiting for you here in Greece this summer…
You know what you’re doing so keep on doing. I don’t mind hearing from people that are selling a ton of domains like you. I always figured if you are writing about every domain sale you have then you don’t have very many.
I don’t write about every sale I make, some have non-disclosures, some are too nasty to mention, did you really think I told you everything?
Give me the nasty ones…
That wasn’t in reference to you. Just a general statement. You’ve done incredibly well and will only get better IMO
I took your comments as a compliment, I just always have to get the last smart ass comment in 😉
“The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”
― Norman Vincent Peale
The critic has a role. It is never easy to hear, however. Some say that Constructive Criticism is okay, but even that, H. Norman Wright rhetorically questioned “is constructive criticism really constructive? Not really. You can’t make a child better by pointing out what you think is wrong with him or her. Criticism either crushes spirit or elicits defensiveness. Constructive criticism is an interesting combination of words. “Construct” means “to build.” “Criticism” means “to tear down” It creates defiance and anger as well.”
The debates we have on logs are essential. It’s a good thing.
My question to you, Mark, if .tv, .info, and .me are doing so well, and they are appear to be, why not double-down on a good thing?
I did double down on tv and me, I think that was implied in the post, I didn’t get many .info, I got a some a few years ago that I thought were decent but haven’t sold any so I haven’t got any more other than I did recently pick up ganja.info…
Would anyone like some pizza?….Can I get a selfie with y’all?……
If you like to go against the crowd, would you comment on the potential of .mobi? Most people say it’s dead, but it still has more than 1 million registrations. There’s hardly any sales of .mobi now. So, the question is: does the .mobi extension make no sense at all? What about something like Games.mobi (for games on mobile devices)? Or toilets.mobi (mobile toilets. How about that?) If new gTLDs are about name+extension that makes sense, will out-of-favor existing gTLDs such as .mobi have a second chance?
I’ve only ever owned one .mobi and that’s hoteldeals.mobi which I picked up on the drop in 2013 and for the same reason you like games.mobi. It makes sense to me and I am comfortable holding it because I love the keyword and that it goes with the extension. I think that’s about all you can say for any non .com/.net/.org domain really.
Hi Kassey,
I don’t know the answer to that. I never got any .mobi because I never liked them much, I thought .mobile would be better. If it’s not a .com I like names that sound like something and would make sense as a .com, .mobi didn’t sound like anything I heard before other than Moby Dick and Moby the musician, and I don’t remember seeing many wordmobi.com’s sell, whereas I see lots of sales and reg’s of wordtv.com and wordme.com.
Every new gTLD I have gotten so far is reg’d in other extensions and is a common term, like energy.today and fishing.tips. There are tons of wordtoday.com and wordtips.com reg’d so I liked these. Wordinfo.com get alot of reg’s so I look at .info also, I don’t have many .info though.
I like to search domaintools.com for past sales history, if you look here you will see almost no sales of wordmobi.com domains, wheares if you search me.com, tv.com, info.com, tips.com, today.com etc as suffixes you will see tons of wordtv.com wordinfo.com, wordtips.com, wordtoday.com etc domain sales.
It’s not a science but it is something I take into consideration, and I am mindful of TM issues.
Long post, but, very well articulated. Got your point. Thanks
With the right combination, it will be less of a gamble than say .com 15 years ago. One of the reasons being that most people are (far more) familiar with the internet these days. I can’t imagine some businesses wouldn’t want to have some descriptive domains but it may take some time before people get really used to it.
Looks like someone’s 1 word .info portfolio dropped today, there were dozen’s more than I’m used to seeing. most were crap tho lol…
bitcoinbank.me dropped in the .us too, that was one of my faves today.
Mark, I would like to say that I am very impressed with how you’ve evolved with the domain industry. Other early investors mostly got stuck in their ways because frankly they can afford to but you’ve adapted so well.
How many domains do you own?
You can check out domainshopper.com to get an idea.
No, the site crashed and I didn’t have a recent backup like an idiot so it is out of date and in a shambles and I have some other peoples domains listed also.
All that work to categorize them, i’d be pissed.
I am actually going to take the site down, I have only sold a few domains thru the site.
You think the majority of sales on that site were directed from sedo?
No, I forwarded some domains there for a while so they were typing in the domains, if I don’t do that it gets no traffic, I do better sending them to DNS and I get some parking income.
Go with a web host that does daily backups. This will SAVE you lots of headaches and hassles.
No EIG web hosts!
I have about 2500 com, net and org, 95% are .com. I have about 1000 others and about 1000 with partners…
I’d imagine you’ve pretty much done away with your less than desirable domains by now. So do the majority of your domains on park pretty much pay for themselves as far as renewal costs. Or do you bite the bullet come the many expiration periods you probably have lol.
My parking and affiliate income from some white label sites I have more than pay for all my renewals, but that is all from the .com’s, the non .com’s definitely do not pay for themselves, they are an expense, so I more motivated to sell them.
Unfortunately, getting rid of “everything else” is probably everyone’s sentiment 😉
I know a lot of people that were “there then” and actually let valuable COM, NET domains drop. These are high paying CPC keywords today or were great 1 word dictionary terms.
Well I am the owner of Mortgage.info and I guess any mention of my domain and website is good. Thanks Mark! I love the blog.