Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III?

That is the multi-million dollar question many will be asking today as the NFL draft conducts the first round of minting new millionaires.  As with many things when you buy and sell domain names, you start looking for related domains as the high dollar question!  So a better question would be:

Which Domain Name is worth more?

AndrewLuck.com, RobertGriffin3.com, Luck.com, Draft.com…

Since I’m not a big fan of the NFL, you wouldn’t think I’d even bother to look, but I am a big Alabama football fan.  Even though I hate to see them leave, I really hope for the best for all the young men coming out of college and making their initial fortunes in one fell swoop!

Most of us aren’t that lucky genetically or have any expectations of getting a ton of cash from any other source such as inheritance or lottery winnings.  We can however, look at buying domain names for a way to make some money!

Trends and hot topics in the news are often the most lucrative quick flips in domains, but you have to act fast if your dreams of hand registering  a great domain associated to a fairly viral social event are to come true.  The general process is to:

1. Look for overall trend/product name in the .com first and then other extensions
2. Look for specific products/examples/subtrends preferably in the .com so it is easier to flip
3. Check out related names or slight variations.  If it is a product, try adding buy to the front or review/s at the end

People involved in the trending event often register the primary domain, but leave many available.  That is what I want to look at today to let you know how my mind works on topics like this.  Way late to the NFL draft game so I expect to find poor or no domains available, but you can apply this process to any upcoming trend you see.

If you didn’t know or weren’t aware of how big an event this has become, do a quick google search for “NFL draft” or “mock draft” and you will see some amazing content:  contests for picking the draft order,  entire sites dedicated to  top recruits, pre-draft analysis of what position each team needs to draft, post-draft analysis of previous years, etc.

So here are my thoughts – Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III will be the highest profile draft picks as they are both quarterbacks with incredible talent.  Very different in skills and abilities, but each has the potential to make a great name for themselves… which of these can you say would have the same effect for domain names?

Note that I do NOT recommend you ever buy trademarked domain names or high profile people names as you are just asking for trouble.   For this hypothetical discussion though, I’d put AndrewLuck.com ahead of RobertGriffinIII.com or even RobertGriffin.com.  Both names are fairly common so I would expect someone registered these a long time ago.

A quick whois search and I see Andrew’s name was registered in 2005 to a guy in Seattle with the same name (who also needs a new profile pic by the way…sheesh).  My guess is he has received several offers to buy the domain especially since he only has it redirected to his LinkedIn account.

Another quick search and I see Robert’s shorter url was registered way back in 1999 and has an old website on it.  RobertGriffiniii.com was just registered this year to someone NOT name Robert Griffin so my guess is that is a domainer.  RobertGriffin3.com is a little older with a November 2010 born on date and a quick look at the domain shows it is parked at godaddy.com so I’m sure that is a domainer as well.  A quick look at valuate.com shows RobertGriffin has the edge in domain value but neither are super valuable to anyone other than the guys who wear the same name on their jerseys on Sundays next Fall.

If you happen to like some of the other extensions, a quick bulk domain search reveals there are only a handful still available for either name.  Other people are looking at the same idea I see!

Now for some real fun!  What would be even better names related to these two names and the draft in general.  Well, if you listen to what the broadcasters call them I’d say Luck and RG3  are good words to start with.  No way any of those are available.  I’d also do a little brainstorming and come up with names like draft, nfldraft, mockdraft, recruit, recruits…you get the idea.

Still don’t expect any of those to be available, but it will be interesting to see if any of the newer extensions are available since these words were probably registered a long time ago and sometimes you’ll see new extensions still available…

Well, not much luck there either if you’ll pardon the pun  Only MOCKDRAFT.CO, MOCKDRAFT.INFO and MOCKDRAFT.ME.  Have at ‘em.

In this case valuate offers what I would expect – a huge price tag on luck.com, a medium price on draft.com all the way down to a reasonable price for rg3.com.  No big surprises there.

You can apply this 3 step process to most any trend… speaking of 3, what about 3d – more specifically 3d printers?  That model ship has sailed, but it is going to be a huge market and you see new breakthroughs and lower costs every day which will bring 3d printers to the mainstream markets and raise the domain values in the process.  I’ll take 3 minutes here and see if anything jumps out at me…

Nothing much still available and valuate hates the names that are available giving most of them zero value.  I would agree for the most part, but a couple could be of some value in a few months/years… if you grab one let me know how you do.  I bolded a couple that at least have some obvious potential.  Available domain names:

• 3DPRINTERINK.CO
• 3DPRINTERINK.INFO
• 3DPRINTERINK.ORG
• 3DPRINTERINK.ME
• 3DPRINTERINK.US
• 3DPRINTERSINK.COM
• 3DPRINTERSINK.CO
• 3DPRINTERSINK.INFO
• 3DPRINTERSINK.NET
• 3DPRINTERSINK.ORG
• 3DPRINTERSINK.ME
• 3DPRINTERSINK.US
• BUY3DPRINTER.CO
• BUY3DPRINTER.US
• BUY3DPRINTERS.CO
• BUY3DPRINTERS.INFO
• BUY3DPRINTERS.US
• 3DPRINTERREVIEW.CO
• 3DPRINTERREVIEW.US
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEW.CO
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEW.INFO
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEW.NET
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEW.ORG
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEW.US
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEWS.CO
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEWS.INFO
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEWS.NET
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEWS.ORG
• 3DPRINTERSREVIEWS.US
• 3DPRINTERSUPPLIES.US
• 3DPRINTERREPAIR.CO
• 3DPRINTERREPAIR.INFO
• 3DPRINTERREPAIR.ORG
• 3DPRINTERREPAIR.US

I hope you catch a trend or create a trend and cash in on some domains – good luck!