Domainers are the people, and Domaining is the business (obviously).
We’ve gone over the 4 types of domainers, but we’ve yet to dig into the world of domaining to apply some general classifications. As I sit here waiting for the 3:15pm Snapnames rush, I thought it’d be fun to group together, as I see it, the 3 different styles of the domaining.
Here’s how I see it.
Pretty much, all domainers utilize one (or all) of these styles, whether they know it or not. In my opinion, all domainers are either speculating, aggregating, or traffic taking. Let me break it down, along with what I feel are positives and negatives on each.
- Speculating - typically involves targeting brand new, unregistered domain names which might have future value (by sale or by traffic). In other words, when a domainer is speculating, they might attempt to register new hip phrases, domain name typos, multiple word combinations, etc., etc. For example, I recently registered the name domainercon.com - which is a mashup of the word domainer and conference. I basically grabbed that one with the hope of setting up some low-fee or no-fee domainer conference down the road (dropping $1K on those other conferences ain’t in my budget - as much as I’d like to go). Speculating is a great, cheap style of domaining, but since the barrier to entry is so low, it can be a crowded arena and upside revenue potential tends to be difficult.
- Traffic Taking - traffic taking is where I tend to spend a majority of my time. It’s an odd odd niche of domaining, where domainers target names simply for the existing, or future potential, traffic levels. The domains are typically acquired at online auction houses (like SnapNames or TDNAM), or directly from current domain holders who may have neglected or abandoned a domain and website. The domain name, in and of itself, is typically worthless based on name alone (which is different from Aggregating). Traffic monetization is the name of the game here. The identification of these sites is the most difficult aspect, and can be extremely risky. Anyone with an SEM background and Web Design experience would be well suited for this niche.
- Aggregating - a vacuum cleaner comes to mind when I think of aggregating. This style requires a fairly deep bank roll, cause the main objective is heavy acquisition, ie. buying as many generic term (non-trademarked) tld’s as possible and building a stocked domain portfolio. Acquisitions are generally made at online auction houses, direct between two domainers/domaining companies, or at the ever-growing (and popular) domain conference auctions. Aggregating is typically done by Almighty Domainers who aren’t as focused on domain traffic monetization as they are on future re-sale. Sample names recently sold or traded (thanks to DNJournal) have been Cardiology.com for $550K, Dollars.com for $650K, and Seniors.com for $1.8M. Competition in the domain aggregating business is pretty darn fierce, but the only limiting factor is investment capital. If you’ve got cash and time to spare (ie, buy a killer domain, let it sit for 2 years or so and re-sell), there ain’t nothing stopping you from entering this game.
ok… gotta run, the 3:15 rush at snapnames is about on..
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Domaining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great post Peter.
Where would you add the “developer” style? Would that be a separate style or mixed in with “traffic taking”?
/Frank
Ah!
I’m a newbie in this game and would currently place myself in category 1 …speculator. Certainly haven’t got deep enough pockets to be an aggregator.
As you say, speculating is cheap with a very low entry barrier. Anyone can do it and dream up some new domain name, but importantly only person can register a specific name. I’ve registered about 20 or so now but I’m not seeing much type-in traffic. But who knows, maybe in a couple of years some PC manufacturer will just have take organiclaptops.com off my hands. Well, I can dream!
John
Hi John,
Nice article and nice looking site. Do you have any recommendations on how and where to sell domain names. Most companies I have seen seem to provide minimal exposure, they put your name in a list of a few hundred thousand others and leave it at that and little assistance. Understandably they seem to want to concentrate on the $100K plus names and don’t offer much help when it comes to selling the more mundane stuff. Have you found any companies which have been particularly helpful in this srespect ?
thanks Frank..
yeah, I’d throw the developer into the ‘traffic takers’, cause when it’s all said and done, and their app is built out, their end goal would be to generate unique visits..
great point, though.. I’ll see if I can add that designation into the post somewhere..
-peter
thanks Vic..(or were you talking to John?)
either way..for domain sales, I’m afraid I’d just recommend the standards..
Sedo
BuyDomains
Afternic
TDNAM
another great way to advertise your domain for sale would be Google AdWords.. buy up any terms revolving around “buy a domain”, “domain auction”, or “domains for sale”..
-peter