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Names2Buy.COM |
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So, you'd like to find a good domain name on your own? Well, you've come to the right place for at least a few good hints! I will warn you that the business of looking for domains has gotten pretty frustrating over the past year and a half or so. First, ICANN, the people who manage domain names and the people who sell them have made a number of decisions primarily designed for those with big money. Registrars may now auction off domain names that expire at their registries. Registrars may also register expired .com and .net domains for up to five days and drop them without any monetary penalty before that time. That means that many .COM and .NET domains expire multiple times. Most of these domains that expire a second (or third) time have little 'traffic'. (We'll talk about 'traffic' later.) As you might guess, those with lots of money are setting up lots of registrars that pretty much register domain names for the themselves and, perhaps, a few very select clients. Most of these new companies could care less about selling new domain names to the public. Domain names, even some truly crummy ones (on the surface, at least), may have previously been used by an active site. If this is the case, there may be people who still call up the page with that domain name. This is in the domain world called 'traffic'. What the registrar will do is put up a page of links and see if people click on those sponsored advertising links. If they do and the domain makes money, they do buy and keep it. If little or no money is made, they cancel the registration and it becomes available for registration again. The good news is that you have some chance of getting a lightly 'traffic-ed' but good sounding name at this point although this register and drop cycle can continue for several rounds. About the only good news is that these guys are mostly looking for high PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising traffic. Each link that you click on Google or and search page generally nets the owner anywhere from 2-12 cents (typical) on up to about $2.00 for some finance, real estate, casino, and sex related links. These bulk buyers will sometimes miss a decent money making name by not researching the name and instead of finding that it was, say, an antiques related site they will post the usual litany of finance and porn links which may be of little interest to the audience. You will need to use a 'drop-catcher' to grab most even vaguely decent domain names. Drop Catchers are gathered groups of registrars with high speed direct access to the internet domain registries. Pool.com, SnapNames.com, Enom.com, and NameWinner.com, are some of the largest and most successful catchers of .COM and .NET names. All except for Enom also catch .INFO and .ORG names. Pool catches all common extensions including even .CA (Canada) and .CO.UK (United Kingdom). SnapNames catches .CO.UK too. All of these catchers operate on an auction basis. Any and everyone may express interest in a name for no initial cost. If you are the only one to express interest, the name will be yours for about $60. If more than one person expresses an interest, there will be a short (generally 3 days) auction that works much as ebay does. Just as with ebay, most of the bidding happens at the very end of the auction. Good names can go for several hundred to several thousand dollars! Two smaller catchers are GoDaddy.com and BlueHill.com. Go Daddy catches all extensions for a very low fixed price while Blue Hill only catches the 'new extensions' including .info, .biz, and .us. Go Daddy rarely catches a .COM or a .NET on the first try but they are a good place to catch the 'reject' names some of which aren't actually that bad. Go Daddy can catch a decent .ORG domain too, occasionally. With regard to new extension names (.INFO, .BIZ, and .US (United States)) both Go Daddy and 4Domains can catch some excellent names. Both often (and maybe even usually) beat the larger 'drop catchers' listed above. A 'spot' at Go Daddy will cost you $18.95 but you can subscribe to a monthly 'Investor's Edge' service and buy these spots for as little as $11.99 each. Blue Hill works a little differently. You buy credits for $6.95 (or less) each (two are required per dropped domain they get for you). At Blue Hill, you can enter multiple names and pay for the ones that you get. You don't have to 'pre-buy' 'spots' per se but you do have to pre-pay for at least some domains ahead of time. Now you have some idea as to what to do once you've found some names that you'd like to catch so now, you'll need to know where to find lists of expiring domains! That used to be easy but it's getting sort of complicated with different registrars being solely in charge of their expired domain lists. A good paid ($15/month or $100 per year) service is DeletedDomains.com. You will find that their list is long and pretty dreary these days though as many of the 'exclusive' names at the registrars don't show up in their lists. Other names do show up but you probably can't get them unless you apply in certain places. A list of some of the main registrar auction pages is on the Links page here at Names2Buy. I've found that some of the best (and free) lists are at Pool.com, and NameWinner.com. You can also subscribe (also for free) to lists of expiring related to your keywords at Pool.com. I, for instance, monitor my last name 'Hall' and the major town that I'm near 'Charlottesville', for example. The only problem with these lists is that they are published. To get a try at the best names, you need to be proactive and look at names that may be expiring soon before they actually do expire. To do this, you'll need to come up with a list of names that are of interest to you an then check them regularly. If your list is short, FreeWho.com is a good tool. You can check up to 50 names at a time at Free Who. DomainTools.com's bulk search allows for checking up to 100 names in six major extensions simultaneously. If you' to check a lot of names, a program called 'Available Domains' will be an excellent investment. It cost just $19.95 and is available from AlphaComSoft. One more note: If you're searching for expiring domains as an investment, you will find that there are a lot of them to pick from! You might ask, 'How do I pick the good ones'? Good question and it will save you a lot of money to think about this some. First, generic names related to businesses and organizations are best. The fewer words the better. Numbers, abbreviations, and dashes '-' are generally negative but not necessarily a deal breaker and once in awhile they may even be good. In picking names, I generally use Overture's search popularity tool. Overture is a pay per click (PPC) advertising system for several smaller and medium size search engines. If few searches are made for a term, you may want to think twice about going after it. The next good question to ask is 'Is this name owned or used in other domain extensions (ie - .com and .net)?' If it isn't, only the .com extension should likely be considered. .COM is the king of domains, of course and that is the one that will be wanted even if other extensions are available! I would generally not register an available .info, .biz, or .us domain unless you plan to use it yourself especially if more than one of these extensions is open for registration. For instance, if both the .biz and .us extensions are available for registration there probably isn't an investment to be made as the term is likely too weak for someone to want one of these lesser extensions very badly. On the other hand, you should seriously consider trying to catch 'new' extensions (.info, .biz and .us) names if they are taken in everything else, are used extensively in other extensions, and have good to excellent Overture search numbers. There is certainly more to know about dropping domains but this article should get you started. I also recommend DNforum.com as a place to glean information from the experience of other experienced 'domainers' (as we call ourselves). Do keep in mind that no one is going to reveal all of their secrets but we do share hints and a lot of general advice with each other. Members do sometimes sell names at bargain prices to one another at DN Forum too on there sales pages. A DN Forum membership will be a very good investment for you. If you're looking for a specific domain, you may also want the check the major domain name 'pre-owned' clearinghouses. These include SEDO.com, AfterNIC.com, FaboulousDomains.com, and TDNAM.com. If you are to the point that you need a web host, I strongly recommend HostGator.com. They are inexpensive, reliable, and respond to your questions within minutes at most. This site is hosted at Host Gator. For domain monetization (parking), I recommend and use Sedo.com Many links to the services noted above and others are on our links page here at Names2Buy!
Good Luck!! Jon Hall
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