A few days ago I wrote the first piece of my journey into domaining – I will now conclude my discussion today by focusing on some mistakes I have made, some key learnings and what I am going to do to move ahead in the world of domaining.

Mistakes

Worthless domains. It is shocking to read how many domaining beginners go out, buy a few hundred domains, then ask for appraisals hoping their portfolio is worth millions. Sadly, most of these newbies are frightened/shocked when senior community members point out one or two domains that may sell for $50 on a good day – the rest being worthless. With my small portfolio, I would say that I have about 8 domain names that would be difficult to sell for even $5 – a couple of these have been in my possession for years, while others were purchased before I understood the basics of what does sell and what does not. As long as you accept and understand the worthlessness of some of your domains you can treat it as a learning experience and move forward.

Scams. Early on I received a rather professional looking email expressing interest in one of my domains and asking if I had any others that were similar that I would be willing to sell. At this point no dollar figures were thrown around so I responded with a short list to which I received another response with an offer of $15 000 – pending an appraisal. Little did I know that this was the classic domain appraisal scam. Luckily my business-sense kicked in causing me to think that if this guy were really interested in paying that amount, he would surely pay the $15-$20 for an appraisal. I quickly sought advice in a community forum and was advised to not even call out the scammer as it was a waste of my time. Live and learn!

Instant sales. With domains, there is a huge global marketplace of other domainers and the glorious end-user – sales should come easy as pie once you get your domain on an auction site, right? WRONG! Patience is by far the most useful trait for any domainer. Most experienced domainers have massive portfolios and, as such, can unload domains only when the market and end-user offers dictate. As a beginner with virtually no capital, I rely on domain sales to buy more domains – something that is difficult to do. Luckily, this difficulty gives me the time to learn, develop and learn some more rather than spending my time and money foolishly. All you can do is be patient and grow the number of impressions on your sites. Patience, patience, patience.

I will undoubtedly make more mistakes, many with financial recourse, but my goal is to educate fellow beginners with regards to the mistakes I have made in hopes that they do not follow or are at least smart enough to accept the mistakes they have made.

Major Learnings

Terminology. The domaining world is full of industry jargon that is largely symbolic – be it LLL, ccTLD, CVCV, 5L, CCC, BIN, $xxx, $Xxx,xxx – there are a great number of terms that are used all of the time. Below are just a few of the major acronyms/symbols used. There are plenty of resources where you can learn the rest of the terminology.

LLL = LetterLetterLetter (ie. TBB)
ccTLD = Country Code Top Level Domain (ie. .ca, .us, .co.uk)
CVCV = ConsonantVowelConsonantVowel (ie. BATI)
5L = 5 Letter domain (ie. BOALO, ABCDE)
CCC = CharacterCharacterCharacter (ie. 9-B)
BIN = Buy It Now price
$xxx = Price in the hundreds (ie. $249)
$Xxx,xxx = Price in the UPPER hundreds of thousands (ie. $749,000)
*some users do not bother using lower/uppercase x’s and use the words low, mid and high instead

Records, records, records. I cannot stress that good record keeping is extremely important. I have yet to run into any problems that require the quick retrieval of information, but it is far easier to develop a system at the beginning – just be sure to keep it updated! Sure it might not be a big deal with 40 domains at a single registrar, but many domainers have many thousands of domains at dozens of different registrars. Organized records will make it easy to respond to offers, renew domains and recall useful information such as links and previous sales. Keep your records organized and be sure to have them backed up!

Value. The first part of the article discussed the importance of evaluation to a reasonable extent, I just want to point out a few of the basics here. When buying and selling it is important to understand the differences between .COM, .NET, .ORG, .INFO, the various ccTLD’s and more. You may think that .US is just a good for firms in the USA as .CO.UK is for British firms – WRONG! The .US extension is not used nearly as much due to .COM and .NET have such a stranglehold in the minds of North American Web surfers. This doesn’t mean that .US is worthless at all, it just requires more knowledge to understand what sells and what doesn’t – for the beginner .COM and some .NET’s are the safest bets.

Additionally, in which market(s) do you wish to sell? Know where your potential end-users exist and market domains based on their industry. You are not going to get a ton of money from local not-for-profits if that’s your goal. Would the domain be more popular in Spain than in the USA or Canada? How much would these firms be willing to spend? These are all questions you need to ask and one of the best ways to evaluate the current value is to look at recent sales of similar domains. Again, keep records of recent sales with dates and location of sales so that you may reference these in communications with end-users.

Development. Most, but not all, of the time a domain that comes with a website and traffic is worth far more than just the name, however, if you are marketing an acronym to large organizations they probably don’t care about any mini-site traffic or content you have – don’t waste your time with long and expensive development in these cases unless you wish to hold onto the domain for a long time. On the other hand, by developing you domains into mini-sites, or full-blown websites, you will be generate revenue without parting with the asset – this is particularly useful if your names contain search engine keywords. Mini-sites that makes $1 a day are contributing to your profits and will command a much larger price in auction than the domain alone – be sure to back your traffic and revenue claims with stats when selling. This is a great way to put your stagnant domains to work!

Conclusion

Over the past month I have absorbed a great deal of information and insight into an exciting industry. I am proud of the small portfolio I have built, but have come to the realization that in order to make it big in domaining, these days at least, you need luck and/or deep pockets. I feel that I truly have a few lucrative names and as long as I put the time into development and promotion they will sell – allow me to expand my operations.

My goal is to establish myself within the industry and to do so I will remain a regular contributor in forums – as both a knowledge seeker and educating fellow newbies that are interested in learning from my mistakes. In the near future Rural Technocrat will be getting a domains section that will act as an avenue of generating business and establishing my credibility.

You may be thinking that this sounds like a no-lose situation with huge margins – don’t be fooled! Learning the ins-and-outs of domaining is not an easy task and requires a very large amount of work with no guarantees.