What to do with this brandable names idea

I'm so out of this game that I've only sold one domain in the last 5 years, and that was because someone came calling -

I have a list of about 20 brandable names - they are all fictional place names/surnames which have not been registered, neither com or uk, and mostly they pass the radio test.

Where is the best place to sell this sort of domains? Is it worth the effort of registering a couple to try the water?

 

Maybe try https://www.brandbucket.com/

 

Are they that great that people would pay for them realistically ? If you have 20 that have both com and co.uk free to reg, I would have thought they've been skipped over for a reason. Given that every combo of letters would have been poured over at some point by someone the fact they've lasted un registered says something to me. Not trying to pee on your campfire..... just making a point.

 

I would not call any of them stunning - but they have their uses. They are "proper place names" for places that do not exist. Not skipped over -

If I give you a hint - there are several places around England called Seaton, but only one called Seaham - and if there was no Seaham, it would be on my list.

Any one of them will serve as the basis of a company name, or a brand name you could use for selling things on Amazon. All are short, easy to pronounce and spell, all tested by asking random strangers to write them down. And because they are non-existent names, if you use one it should be easy for the search engines to pick up on it.

 

Sounds like the coms especially then are worth getting. As @wonder_lander said, brand bucket markets exactly those sort of domains.

 

I have signed up to brand bucket, and submitted two domains for evaluation - poolbrook.com and ravenham.com - not the nicest on my list, but the easiest to submit singly. I have others that need to be registered in twos and threes to avoid people getting into my mindset.

I quite often find that someone has already registered the com when I think up a name - I'm not the only one doing this.

Let's see what happens -

Meanwhile, any other ideas are welcomed.

 

What has happened? Nothing to interest me, or inspire confidence. I've been sent a welcome email, a newsletter, and a list of names they published a fortnight back.

They say they will evaluate new names in 72 hours - I submitted mine a week ago and nothing has happened, beyond acknowledgement of submission. They do not specify which hours they include - if that is 72 WORKING hours we could be looking at 10-12days.wait.

 

From my experience, BrandBucket is useless in every respect. IMHO of course...

 

I'm wondering if it is because I haven't changed the nameservers to point at them. I sent an email to ask, but I'm waiting for a reply.

Sorting through the domains already on BrandBucket has led me to a new test - the telephone embarrassment test. Would you feel comfortable answering the telephone by saying the domain name?

Meanwhile, I'm also thinking about putting a site up with, say, a dozen names, ready to go, advertised on it, then trying to flog the whole shebang on Sedo at £100 per name.

Do you think that might be worth a try?

 

Just looking at their site again. Yes, you do have to change NS if they take your names on board. Look at the garbage here:

https://www.brandbucket.com/names/creative-business-names

They also charge like a wounded buffalo for everything. Those moody logos can easily be done online for free but they 'tack on' $150 for having them done in-house.

As far as your names as described go, I'd probably chuck them on Flippa where you know beforehand that you won't be disappointed/surprised if they don't sell

BTW, BrandBucket knocked me back in 2017 for vavoa.com - better than some of their garbage hand-regges, despite it being a dog

 

They say you can submit your own logos and become your own approved logo designer. Just more hoops to jump through.

Thanks for mentioning Flippa. I've changed from the email I used to sign up to them, and I don't get their spam to remind me any more.

I have to say that vavoa sounds like a fungal infection … my names are a bit better than most on BrandBucket, but they are just that - names, without any particular focus.

I got a reply -

"Due to a large number of submissions, there is a slight delay in the review process. Rest assured that our evaluation team will verify all the names you submitted in the shortest time possible."

Didn't tell me about redirecting, although I did ask.

I think I might register daftwazzocks .com and point it at BrandBucket!

 

And there's more -
"
Thank you again for submitting your domains for inclusion in the BrandBucket marketplace.

Unfortunately the following domains are not a good fit for our target audience:

• poolbrook.com"

Not a word about ravenham .com, although they say my domainS have been reviewed, and the rejected domain shows as such on my account.

WTH -
For sale - POOLBROOK .COM - a unique brandable name that passes the radio test and the telephone answering test, most of 2 years registration remaining. - £50 and a free push at GoDaddy.

 

Exactly the same responses that I received. Best of luck!

 

One week on - and ravenham .com has been accepted with a SRP of $1895 .

I have submitted a couple more domains - firthwater .com and hartbeck . com. I think they want things that are "easy to logo". If my theory is correct, they will reject firthwater and accept hartbeck, although firthwater would be easy enough (Forth bridge logo!). Strange to say, Hartbeck is a real name, although I didn't check that before submission.
Hang on, the rejected Poolbrook is a real name, too - it is a village near Malvern. So if they don't like real names, they will reject hartbeck and accept firthwater. Whatwhatwhatwhat?


I'm sticking with BrandBucket for now because they are not asking for any money up front, and my circumstances are boracic. New members are allowed 10 free evaluations, and the $10 submission fee is currently waived - perhaps because they are not selling much at the moment.

Does anyone know where to look for BrandBucket sales figures? Has anyone here actually sold anything through them?

 

After 9 days they finally decided they don't like either hartbeck or firthwater.
Ravenham has yet to be published - no logo yet. WTH I could draw a crow perched on a pig's leg ...

I'm trying another tactic - let's see how they like lemlas .com, which I found in the Bargain Bucket yesterday! Means something if you're a Chinese Tao-ist, and lemla is Arabic for why not?
And - prentan .com (creole patois for springtime), oyonsou. com (patois for we're listening)

 

Are made up names like ravenham or poolbrook ever going to be of interest to anyone? seems extremely speculative

 

I thought I'd made up poolbrook , but it actually exists as a suburb of Malvern.
I thought I'd made up hartbeck - but there are people named Hartbeck.
I thought I'd made up firthwater, but someone else made it up before - I found it in a 2007 droplist


Yright, it is speculative - but there is a market, particularly for online traders.

Own Branding your goods on Amazon, for example, makes it hard for people to compare goods for quality and price - and also makes it harder for Amazon to lay down the pricing law when a trader is selling something similar to someone else's goods for a bit more money. If it is your brand you can set your price in defiance of other traders and Amazon.

Now listen carefully - in the US a trade mark can be generated from customary use, and a .com is an easy path to getting a trade mark, if the name is sufficiently distinctive. A sufficiently unique and made-up name is a distinct advantage in this process.

After a year or 18 months of trading under the name poolbrook the owner can write Poolbrook (TM) on his paperwork and legally defend that mark in a law court, without actually registering the mark. Buying the domain can be a lot cheaper than registering a mark, and as long as the site is in use you have clear evidence of your TM usage.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the reason BrandBucket is so picky is to reject any domain with the slightest chance of later TM contention, and they don't like anything which search produces results for. If I'm right, oyonsou is a good one, lemlas and prentan get rejected. But at the BB speed of movement, we won't know until next year.

And that can't be the full story because they accepted ravenham .com - there was a ravenham plc registered in 2011 and dissolved in 2014, I only noticed that today (23/12). And I thought I'd made up Ravenham - not much new, is there?

Until they accept some more domains I remain clueless.

 

Today (24/12) I got an email to say ravenham .com has finally reached their list, with a stylised R logo reminiscent of half the RS logo or Ramsden's brewery - just after the email detailing their recent additions arrived, which did not include it. So 25 days from submission to full acceptance, and another week(?) before it hits the customer publicity.

I didn't like their description, so I amended it - resulting in the publication of the name being withdrawn, presumably pending a check on my changes. No email or communication, but on 29/12 it is listed again with the original description.

I also appealed the rejection of Firthwater.com - WTH it is pronounceable, passes the radio test, has no significant search results or wayback pages from when it was used in 2007. That was unsuccessful - email response in <12h, same message as the original rejection (we don't like it).

Whatever their shortcomings, BrandBucket control the vertical and the horizontal ...

 

So today (30/12) I'm trying BrandBucket with a keyword domain - StoreCellar .com and its plural, StoreCellars .com . Let's see what they make of those ...

 

Brandpa get it mostly right with brandable domains in .com.

https://www.brandpa.com/

I've sold a couple in the past on Brandpa.

If you take a look at their recently sold names (near the bottom of the homepage), you'll see the types of names that do well.

Unfortunately completely made up words > 6 characters rarely sell. Above 6 characters you need either a recognisable niche (weed, health, care, crypto, fin, drone etc), two words that go well together to make up a memorable brand (flowfox, jellypepper, dronedriver), or one letter replacement for a popular word (konversion for conversion).

For me names like ravenham or poolbrook are extremely speculative, and have a very very low chance of ever selling.