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by on January 29, 2014 Leave a Comment

Domain-Pocalypse

Snowpocalypse

Riding home on a gator after the snowpocalypse.

Survived the Snowpocalypse here in the South… Got home late, but safe and sound.  Can’t sleep so I thought I would get a few random domain name thoughts out of my head to see if that helps…

  1. Domain Shane isn’t human.  He says he has a full time “real business”, a kid/family, runs ridiculous distances, scans/invests in the stock market, etc.  AND he has a great domain business that he works on only 2 hours a day including blogging, scanning lists of domains like the “secrets” one on this list that is still pissing me off that I missed…  I don’t buy it.  I have to get to Namescon next year and get his secrets after the tables and drinks kick in… Oh yeah.
  2. Secrets on Flippa.  That portfolio of names Shane mentioned that was on Flippa.com closed at $1150.  $1150 for 50 names is what, $23 each and even if they are renewing soon that puts your average price around [Read more…]
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by on April 26, 2012 Leave a Comment

Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III? Which is more valuable?

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.

Andrew Luck and Robert GriffinIf 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!

Filed Under: Domain Names, Make Money Online Tagged With: , ,
by on February 10, 2012 Leave a Comment

Domain Name Trend”ing”

Domain Names are like most any other business area – trends occur and many downright explode. Most blow over quickly, but a few will make it for the long haul.

Domain Name Trending

Tebowing is a good example of this from the NFL quarterback, Tim Tebow. From a simple gesture to a craze where people are posting pictures of themselves from around the world “Tebowing” on a domain started by a Denver fan. I don’t know how much money he makes off the site, but in a second you’ll see why some small portion of trends succeed and some don’t. A great example of this from recent domains is 3D domains – it would be interesting to see how many 3D domains were registered over the last year or two…

So basically for this word trend”ing” they just took a name, added “ing”, associated it to an action by the person and turned the word into a verb. Simple enough, but it has developed into a highly visible mainstream trend of sorts.

After the superbowl, I heard someone on ESPN or the radio say something about Brady choking and then just sitting on the field just “Bradying”. They mentioned you could see a picture at Bradying.com.

Bradying.com

Bradying.com

Someone had already bought Bradying.com and put a site up… I assumed it would be a Pats hater site and maybe that would be how they made money… But it is just a simple site with some ads and not much else. Personally I think they could make more money on the domain if they’d put up some slam articles on Brady or anti-fan site or whatever with ads for stuff like those fathead wall posters of Eli, Brady, Tebow, Brees or Cam Newton. Anyway, at least they did something.

Tebowing.com

Tebowing.com

If you take a look at the two sites you’ll see they were both based off Tumblr, but a lot more work went into Tebowing and since that is a trend that has taken on a persona of its own I think it will continue and at the very least they guy will make some money on it. Bradying not so much. I actually like the Bradying logo and slogan – clever and decent graphics, but unless they do something more with it that will be a low income site. I highlighted some of the better parts of the sites and you can see there was much more thought and time put into developing and maintaining Tebowing.com.

The most interesting part was a Whois lookup… they actually bought the Bradying domain only 3 days after the Tebowing.com domain was registered. I looked at several other domain names with NFL Quarterback + “ing” and they were all taken Flaccoing, Breesing, Newtoning, Manning(I didn’t look for this for obvious reasons or Manninging because one guy’s site had Eliing and Peytoning) – not interested in buying them, just got my curiosity up. All were registered, some by the same person and of course some of the common names or names that made sense with an ing were registered long ago. One person had registered several and had even gone as far as putting simple wordpress sites on there letting people know they were for sale. I doubt they’ll sell, but maybe some end user who loves an NFL team quarterback might want them. Who knows, but it is interesting that almost all of them were registered within a day of one another.

Domain Name Trending

Domain Name Trending

Another example of this is a recent article about Jeremy Lin – the NBA guard making a big splash in his first few games.

Jeremy Lin Linning

Jeremy Lin Linning

The article references Tebowing and that they are just waiting for Jeremy to come up with a signature move or pose to call Linning. Getting that domain may be harder for someone since BuyDomains.com owns it and it has been registered since 2004. The alternate spelling to that is Lining which has been registered and used forever – why? Because there are more than a couple Li Ning’s in the world…

As far as trends go, usually only the first one in who starts the trend and a few who work hard at establishing a brand will ever see any benefit. A few 3d domains will survive, Tebowing will survive, but that is all. If you can get in early and recognize trends before they go mainstream you have a chance to make money on the domains related to them especially for product domains directly related to the trend (3dtv, 3dglasses, 3dcamera…), but don’t waste your money if you are in even a day or two late… too bad I didn’t think about Domain”ing” before Francois… wonder if Domaining”ing” is available? (it is… don’t buy it…)

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