Anyone make a living from domains?

[ian-d]

Ignoring those that purchased domains in the days where single word .com and .co.uk's were available and made a killing, do any of you do this for a living now, essentially beginning with no special domains, buying high and selling higher?

I've always had an interest in domains, and like many, kick myself for not buying that 'special' domain when it was available etc. I was just interested to see whether ppl still think there's money in it for those that want to start out?

I have a few domains now, but certainly nothing i'd class as valuable, other than a 4 letter .co.uk which i felt lucky to get.

What suggestions would ppl have for starting out? Presume having some high funds available is more a requirement now than ever, which is fine, but scares me to think you are placing so much money on effectively a name :yikes:

What are your thoughts?

(go back 10 years, buy property, land and domains, you'd not be working anymore )

[deconstruction]

with a small financial investment you can make very good money from domains. Even starting today.

there are still lots of good enough names free to reg (despite what some will say)

also buying good domains from sedo or domainers is still possible, i have bought a few very good generics this year for very good prices (not cheap, but very good).

before you spend a single penny you should spend weeks min reading this forum, domainers blogs, etc. as with all business and investments education is key

however domains are a very simple business once you get down to it.

good luck

[GreyWing]

Yep Deconstruction is spot on,

Domains are always something you look at and wished you had started to 2 years ago, and if you don't, you'll look back in 2 years time and see some of the domains that you could have reg'd now.

I think I have picked up 6-7 good domains this month that were completly free to reg, most have already made the reg fee back.

It's worth a punt buddy, and you will make mistakes and buy junk, everyone does.

Plus be careful, it isn't something you always set out to do, but you wake up one day and you have a shed load of names.

[julian]

so, what was that 4 letter .co.uk which you felt lucky to get...?

[ian-d]

I'd prefer to avoid self-promotion of of my business by giving the name away, but its related to digital tv

[golddiggerguy]

I haven't sold 1 domain yet, made money (mostly at xmas) on adsense £30 a month on average.

The odd £30 a month on affiliates nothing fantastic (prob spent more on domains and hosting than i've made)

The odd few quid a month at pagerank me uk (very surprised it hasn't done better)

So nope i'm not one of the few/many making money with domains or website ideas.

Maybe not tried hard enough

[rjs_essex]

The thing with domains is that there is always an emmerging niche which if you get your timming right you can succeed in. One of these niches is the current gold rush for quad letter .com domains. They were available to reg in November last year for a few $'s each, now you cant pay less than $40 for any LLLL.com name.

Ive been following the market very closely and so far it is following the same market trend as LLL.com's did.

Time will tell if the market stabalises but many people estimate that LLLL.com's will have a minimum resale value of £50-£100 each within the next 6-8 months... this is just for the really really bad quality ones.

Anyway, my point is, although the true keyword dictionary generics have all been taken, three letter doamin have all been taken years ago etc etc if analysed correctly there are always emerging niches that can be taken advantage of!

Rich

[bensd]

Originally Posted by ian-d

(go back 10 years, buy property, land and domains, you'd not be working anymore )

You think that now, but people will be saying the same thing in 10 years time

[WaftyCrank]

Hi Ian,

I'm not really making a living from domaining, in fact I found this site by accident as they (i.e. the Acorn Regulars) had been discussing the purchase I made of a very good domain. A lot of the more experienced people on here I would imagine use domaining as their sole income.

I'm still very new to the world but see the massive potential it still holds.
I'll give you an example, I purchased a domain last week and sold it this week at a good profit (several hundred pounds). The domain I sold was still under its true value but to be honest since the buyer was willing to do the deal quickly I was more than happy it go ahead with it.

I didn't need to develop the domain as the name spoke for itself.

I have bought junk (in fact I would say a good portion of my current portfolio is junk in most people's eyes) and probably will still buy junk, but hopefully this will become less and less over time.

As others have said, their are still many good domains free to reg. You just need to research the industry and take a punt. The well informed users on here are very friendly and are willing to help out newbies provided that you are also willing to go out and find out infiormation for yourself too (i.e. how to transfer a domain etc).

Good luck with it.

[denchomsky]

If you think about it as per domain name it's minimal outlay for potentially good returns.

Spotting the niche is the key, I think I have developed a little domain radar, whenever i am listening to the news or reading the newspaper keywords seem to pop out, ( I doubt this is unique to me ), only this morning there was an article on the news about jumpsuits coming back into fashion, I immediately checked whether jumpsuits or jumpsuit was available, it was unlikely but you never know.

I recently reg'd waterfrontdevelopment & (s) after reading in the newspaper that London has a bout 20 such major developments being built between now and 2012, I would be surprised if I don't make at least 10x reg fee for these names, though others may disagree.

D