My Domain Flip turned $100 into $1250! How far could this initial $100 take me?

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


After my very first .com domain flip,  I now have some moolah to invest in more names!

I was planning to move a lump sum of savings over into my domain buying account, to start ramping up my .com purchases. However seeing that my first flip happened rather quickly, I have a CRAZY IDEA…

I just turned $100 into $1250. It could be kinda fun to see how far this initial $100 can take me. What if I invested no more money into my .com portfolio, and relied solely on reinvesting all profits?

Could I continually reinvest the profits off this initial $100, and turn it into big bucks? Or will it get locked up in a number of domains, waiting for end users to come along? I don’t know, but it could be fun giving it a try.

domain-portfolio-reinvestment.png

How Far Could I Get with $100 Seed Money?

There are three issues that may make my domain portfolio growth slower if I stick to this $100 route:

1. I prefer to sell to end users only, not wholesale to other domainers. So there is a risk I could get stuck with a limited number of domain names and not be able to turn my domain inventory very fast.
2. I would rather not outbound sell my domains. Limited time is a big factor for me.
3. I will need to get another sale before I run out of my $1250.

But, it could be a fun little experiment, to see how far this $100 will take me. I could buy say 5 – 10 names and see how I go, hoping I get some enquiries or even buy nows if I list them in marketplaces.

Of course there is always the chance I will burn through the $1250 quite quickly buying names. However I can always bring in my lump sum later. I am intrigued to see how far I can take this $100.

I will of course keep you all updated as I go!

Cool Idea? Dumb Idea? How far do you think I could get? Be honest! Let me know!

Comment below, or Follow/Tweet me @NZDomainer

My Domain Portfolio is Empty. Noughtfolio?

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


Thanks for all the support of my recent interview on DomainSherpa. It was a fun experience!

And if you read my previous post you’ll know that I already flipped my very first .com domain investment to an end user in my first 7 weeks. $100 > $1250 for a profit of $1150.

The domain has now been transferred to the new owner. However, this sale now leaves me in a funny position – I have NO .com domains in my portfolio. It is a Noughtfolio…

There are so many Domain Investing Strategies with .com!

I am currently researching all the different Domain Strategies and niches I can find. In my local domain market of New Zealand, there is basically only one strategy for domain investment.

Your only real option is to buy one word commercial terms (or the very best two words) and set up a landing page. There is no wholesale market, no aftermarket, renewals are high at $15, demand is low, and there is limited upside in sale prices in such a small market/country.

thinking-domains-guy.png

But with .com, I am spoiled for choice when it comes to strategies. There are so different ways to proposer as a domain investor. There are so many niches and you always have the wholesale market to sell domains into if you want to change strategies.

My Current Domain Investment Strategy

I will be publishing The ULTIMATE List of Domain Investing Strategies in an upcoming post. However for now I am going to keep doing what worked for the first domain.

1. Buy on GoDaddy Auctions

2. Pick Names that businesses would want to actually name their business or re-brand to.

No tempting domains that ‘sound good’ but are not actually desired by end user businesses.

3. Use Efty for the landing page

The only change I am going to make to what worked before, is I am going to list the domain on the major marketplaces GoDaddy/Afternic, and Sedo. I didn’t even get to this point with my first domain.

So this is all very simple I know! But this worked for my first sale, so I will stick with this strategy until I publish my big list of domain investment strategies list very soon.

I do need to start incorporating ExpiredDomains.net into my daily routine. However with hundreds of thousands of domains dropping each day, I am going to need to work out some filters to wade through all the noise.

This .com domain journey restarts again! I hope to have some new .com purchases to report soon…

What is your favourite niche, or current domain hunting routine? Feel free to leave a comment, or any suggestions below!

@NZDomainer

NZDomainer Interviewed on the Domain Sherpa Show!

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


NZ Domainer Face to Face Interview!

In case you haven’t seen it yet, I was recently interviewed on the Domain Sherpa Show!

As readers will know, I have been a fan of the show for many years. I have watched/listened to every single show (that’s over 400!). I have learned a great deal of my domaining knowledge from the show. To be invited and featured on the show to share my story was a great honor!

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WATCH: “Category Killer ccTLD Acquisition to 7 Figure Business in 2 1/2 Years”

In the interview I share a lot about my journey to date, as an entrepreneur. I also talk about how domain names have played a role in my ventures, how I started as a local ccTLD domainer, and my future plans with domains.

What is the Interview About?

The interview features the story of my business journey of buying a category-killer Exact Match Domain, and building a 7 Figure business on it with my fiancee.

I also discuss my domain investing journey so far. I haven’t had million dollar domain sales, but I have an unique story of how I first got into domains, and how I have invested in domains so far.

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The interview is also an introduction to the NZDomainer blog, and my passion for domaining. I am essentially at my halfway point in my domain journey. I’ve been successful in one domain niche (.co.nz domains).

However, with a population of only 4 million people, the opportunities for domain investing in New Zealand are limited. I feel I have gone as far as I can go with domain investing in this small market.

But now that I know how to build a valuable domain portfolio, I have big plans to transition my domaining skills to enter the .com market. However I am a complete newbie to .com investing, so watch this space/blog!

The point of this blog is to share my journey as a new .com domainer, as I build up my portfolio. I hope to share my successes and failures along the way.

I Hope You Like The Show!

I was super nervous to be interviewed, but it was actually really fun. I have been inspired by so many guests on the show over the year. So I hope my journey in business and domaining so far, might be inspiring to Domain Sherpa viewers.

In the interview we also discuss the Paper Trading Domains technique I have been using to start teaching myself about .com domain valuations. But before I give too much of the interview away, I will leave you to watch the show on the Domain Sherpa site!

Watch The Domain Sherpa Show Here

My thanks to the Domain Sherpa team and especially to Tess Diaz, the Domain Sherpa host. She did an amazing job interviewing someone who has never spoken on camera before! Thanks also to Michael Cyger, the original founder of the show. As a consequence of avoiding network television for years, Domain Sherpa has been my number one watched regular show!

I am honored to be featured, and hope you enjoy my interview.

Feel free to make any comments, or ask any questions below.

@NZDomainer

I Just Flipped My Very First .Com Domain Investment! #newbie

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


I’m as happy as a kid in a candy store right now! I just sold my very first .com domain investment! The name was HaloSolar.com.

To be honest I am surprised the name sold this quickly. Around 7 weeks ago I blogged about HaloSolar.com being my very first .com domain purchase for $100. Unfortunately this sale now brings me down to zero domains in my portfolio…

I have been away from .com domains in the past few weeks, tending to other business. I haven’t had much of a chance to buy more .com domains just yet. But let me tell you, this fast sale has stoked my .com fire even more!

How Did I Price My First .Com Domain Investment?

I set HaloSolar.com up on an Efty landing page, like I do with all my domains. While I owned the name for 7 weeks, the landing page was only live for around 4 weeks. I received the buyers initial offer 9 days after the landing page went live.

domain-landing-page

Note: I did no outreach on the HaloSolar.com. My strategy is to never reach out to buyers. I like the passivity of clear, for-sale landing pages, and the targeted visitors that type in your name. When a buyer approaches you, you have the upper hand in negotiation too.

The domain was listed with a Buy Now price of $2500, but also open to receive offers of any amount. I did not do too much research into this pricing to be honest. All I had was a hunch, which came from my initial Domain Paper Trading research.

I had seen that two word names such as HaloSolar were likely worth $1000 – $5000 to an end user. Solar names do sell, but surprisingly on NameBio there weren’t an amazing amount of them in the past 2 years.

I picked $2,500 as the Buy Now price, and I wanted to see what kind of enquiries might come through by having no minimum offer level.

My First .com Domain Offer

So nothing happened for about 1.5 weeks. I was busy with other things. I wasn’t hoping or praying for an offer to come in on my one domain. I actually forgot about it. But then an offer came through!

I feel a bit funny writing about receiving one offer, on one domain name. But when it’s your first offer, it’s special. I’m sure we can all remember the feeling of receiving our first real offer on a domain.

So the offer amount was $250. A decent offer, but 10% of where we needed to be.

I countered by saying that the Buy Now price was $2,500. And that I needed a reasonable offer to consider selling the domain.

About a week went by. No reply. So I followed up.

Again, no reply.

At this point I had been wondering for over a week if I had a genuine buyer or not. I Thought I had lost it. I was even emailing the person on their company email.

But I followed up 3 days later, asking if they still had any interest?

Negotiation

They came back the same day with $1000! We were finally getting somewhere!

So at this point I was at a crossroads. Do I try to get them up a little or up a lot?

With this being my first domain investment, I was quite eager to get a score on the board. I would usually negotiate a bit harder, but I was keen to get this sale in the bag.

I knew a $1000 counter would very easily go up a little bit more, so I countered at $1250 + 3% PayPal fee. (Yes I know Paypal is potentially risky for domain sales, but this is a lower level sale)

I knew I had it. Adding $250 to a $1000 offer is easy for the buyer. They accepted!

The Handover

So we had a deal! The buyer requested to pay by credit card, so I suggested PayPal as a fast and easy option.

Being an employee the buyer was worried about making a payment to persons unknown, but I explained how the transfer of the domain would work after payment. It was enough, and I received one of those beautiful PayPal emails: “New PayPal Transaction Initiated” – I had the money.

From there it was as simple as the buyer creating a GoDaddy Account, and pushing the domain over. It’s great when a transaction happens fast.

I thought It could be useful to include the “journey” of this domain flip in my inbox! You can see the purchase on Aug 25 at the bottom, and money come in on Oct 13 at the top. Beautiful!

domain-flip-life-cycle.png

Note: For privacy reasons I have covered the buyers name. The buyer was not the HaloSolar.net business discussed in a previous post.

Disclaimer: To potential buyers of one of my domains, who is reading this post….

Every domain negotiation and sale is different. While I was happy to reduce my expectations on this sale for certain reasons, it doesn’t mean I would be negotiable at another time, on a different domain.

There are a lot of factors that go into domain pricing and how movable a domain investor is on price. It may depend on the time of contact and whether the investor needs some cash, or conversely has no desire to liquidate in a hurry.

The domain itself may be a “hold till a big pay day” name that an investor may never move much on. Low ball offers are usually quickly left alone, if they show no sign of a decent follow up offer.

One simple fact to note as well, is that a domain may have actually cost the domainer very close to the listed price. They may have recently dropped the price, and not be likely to lower it further.

There is no way for a buyer to know the owners thoughts and rationale behind the price of a particular name. Now back to the sale….

What Did I Learn with this sale?

Could I have held out for more in the negotiation? Yes

Could I have priced this even higher to start with? Potentially Yes

Is a Confirmed Sale at 12X, better than a “Potential” One at 25X?  Yes

Whether this was a $1250 sale or a $2500 sale, it’s still a sale, and the money is in the bank.

It turns out the buyer is a multinational company, so I’m sure I could held firm and got more. But sometimes you never know. With two word domains there are plenty of alternatives, and your buyer may be making offers on several names at once to see their options.

I’m happy with a 12X return in 7 weeks. If my math is right that would be a 8,990% annualized return. Not bad for my first domain flip!

Getting some sales velocity means that what I am doing is working. (Or I just got lucky with this one). I’m sure if I hadn’t received a sale in my first 6 months with .com investing, I would not be as excited to continue buying more names.

This sale is a perfect example of why you should get your for-sale landing pages live the same day as you acquire a domain. I left the domain sitting with no landing page for 2 weeks after I purchased the name.

An offer can come through at any time, and often right after a domain moves to a new owner. If you have no landing page, you don’t know what offers you are missing out on. I mucked around with this domain by waiting, I am very lucky my buyer didn’t skip over the name!

My First .Com Domain Flip…It’s a Start!

Obviously this is just one sale, of one domain name. I have a long way to go.

But I am excited by this first flip, and with a fast turnaround of just 7 weeks.

I will of course keep you all updated as take my next steps to grow my .com portfolio!

QUESTION: What period of time was your fastest domain flip?

Comment below, or Follow/Tweet me @NZDomainer  – Adrian

Paper Trading Domain Names to Test Your Valuation Skills

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


How Good Are Your Domain Name Valuation Skills?

This is a new strategy I have started to do as of today (22 Sep). I want to “Paper Trade”  domain auctions that are ending soon, and follow up to see if my guesses on sale prices were correct.

Paper trading is a term from stock market trading where an investor will ‘pretend’ they hold some stocks. Instead of spending real money on them, they will write down their dummy stock purchase on paper. They record the number of stocks and the price they “bought’ them at. They then track how the stocks perform over time.

I have taken this concept and applied it to domain auctions due to close soon. It is super simple:

Step 1: Go to the GoDaddy Auctions Homepage

Today I am using GoDaddy Auctions to do this paper trading test. GoDaddy Auctions is one of the key places to buy expired domains. You can also use this strategy on any high volume domain aftermarket venue such as NameJet and DropCatch.

It is free to view Domain Auctions on GoDaddy, however if you do wish to bid, you need to become a member. Annual membership is less than $10, so if you are a Domain Investor you need to join!

To start our Paper Trading test we need to visit the GoDaddy Auctions homepage.

domain-name-auction

Step 2: Sort ‘Most Active Auctions’ By Time Left (Max 24h)

Make sure the two default filters on the Auctions homepage are set to “Most Active” and “100 Results”. For the 3rd filter, we simply go to the ‘Time Left’ column on the far right and click on it. We want the auctions ending soon to show at the very top. That’s it!

The domains on the page are the Most Active auctions which means they have a lot of bids, or they have a lot of views or watchers. We look at Most Active for two reasons:

1. The Most Active auctions are ‘usually’ the highest quality domains. Here we let the crowd find the best domain names for us. (This technique is borrowed from Andrew Rosener’s tip on a recent Domain Sherpa show).

2. The Most Active auctions are very likely going to result in a sale, there is no point guessing the prices crappy domains might sell for, and then don’t even sell. We want to ‘paper trade’ with domain auctions most likely to sell.

Step 3: Copy 10 Domains You Like into a Spreadsheet

In my previous post I talked about a daily research process of picking your favourite domain name sales from the day before, using the NameBio Daily Market Report. We essentially do a similar process here with expiring auctions. Except this time we get to guess the prices BEFORE they sells This is a great exercise to start building your valuation muscle!

Scroll down the list on the GoDaddy Auctions homepage, and pick your favourite domains ending soon.

godaddy-auctions-paper-trading.png

When you find a domain you like:

1. Click the Watchlist Eye Button to save it
2. Copy the whole line into a spreadsheet.

As you scroll down the whole list, repeat these 2 steps for each domain you like. Keep going over to page 2 until you get to Time Left 1D (1 day).

On the day I am writing this post (Sep 22) there are about 150 domains ending in the next 24 hours. To keep this ‘paper trading’ process manageable, aim to collect a maximum of 10 domain names to your spreadsheet.

Today, these are my favourite domains:

mystemcell.com
fugq.com
ozido.com
hempshack.com
batteryzone.com
uniforex.com
shipmore.com
bluehue.com
thegroundwork.com
nodifference.com

Step 4: Enter the Price You Think Each Domain Will Sell For

Now for the fun part! In your spreadsheet you will enter a price you think each domain name will sell for. However, we need to understand that domains that sell on GoDaddy Auctions are ‘mostly’ bought by investors.

There are some exceptions, and sometimes an end user will end up buying a domain name on GoDaddy Auctions. But for the most part it is investors who are buying domains on this platform at wholesale prices.

Therefore, the price you think the domain will sell for shouldn’t be the highest end user price. A domain investor will pay much less for the domain than an end user would. A domainer would likely want to pay 5-20 times LESS than the end user price.

This does mean that if you want to actually buy a good domain name on GoDaddy Auctions, you will likely be bidding against other domain investors. But this is a good thing, as investors do not want to pay too high a price.

So when you are pricing each domain in your list, there is a bit of guess work needed. Think what a domainer might pay for the name in an auction, not an end user. We are guessing the highest price we think the name might go for in the auction to another domainer. What is the maximum price you, as a domain investor, would pay for this domain?

You could guess what an end user might pay, and work backwards, but this can get complicated. If the end user price is a guess, and then you work back 5 or 20 times less, this is quite a big range.

The point is that you won’t get any bids 100% correct, but you will start to learn the RANGES that certain domains you like, go for at auction. So go ahead, take a guess and enter in the prices you think each domain might end at.

There is 24 hours or less to run in each auction, you will likely also find the current bid of the auction helpful.

My list is here with my guesses in the far right column:

Sep-22 Bids Current Bid <24h Est Sell Price
mystemcell.com 29 $184 * 2000
fugq.com 8 $115 * 300
ozido.com 3 $22 * 400
hempshack.com 14 $305 * 1500
batteryzone.com 36 $519 * 2500
uniforex.com 15 $204 * 800
shipmore.com 29 $140 * 350
bluehue.com 5 $105 * 800
thegroundwork.com 27 $355 * 800
nodifference.com 7 $35 * 300

So that’s it. Let’s see how I fare tomorrow:

Step 5: Next Day: Enter Final Auction Price Into Your Spreadsheet (via NameBio)

UPDATE: It has been 24 hours and I have the auction results for each auction. How did I do?

NOTE: There is a roadblock here. As you put all of the auctions in your watchlist yesterday, you would think that you could go and look at what price the auctions ended at. But no, for some reason GoDaddy auctions removes auctions from your watchlist after they end. So there is no easy way to check how you did.

But luckily NameBio has a record of the daily domain sales, so we can go and check the auction results over there.

Please bear in mind that this is my first ever time paper trading .com domains. I am blogging this process, as I do it. Being a .com newbie, I actually have very little idea of .com valuations. So here goes my first attempt, and in public to add even more excitement (or potential for embarrassment).

Sep-22 Est Sell Price Final Auction Score
mystemcell.com 2000 261 WRONG
fugq.com 300
ozido.com 400
hempshack.com 1500 1226 CLOSE
batteryzone.com 2500 2577 SPOT ON
uniforex.com 800
shipmore.com 350 365 SPOT ON
bluehue.com 800 204 WRONG
thegroundwork.com 800 10,250 WRONG
nodifference.com 300

Step 6: Analyze How Good Your Guesses Were

So yeah I think I did pretty well for a first attempt! I could not find the results of 4 of the 10 auctions which was a shame. Reasons for this could be:

1. The auction did not surpass $100 therefore NameBio did not record it
2. The auction was removed
3. I’m not 100% sure of the .com expiring process but current owner may have renewed
4. Network or other retrieving error at GoDaddy or NameBio
5. I just plain missed finding it.

Of the 6 successful auctions I got 3 auction end prices completely wrong, and 3 good guesses.

My Best Guess:

ShipMore.com – I guessed sale price of $350. Sold for $365! Only $15 off the mark!

My Worst Guess:

TheGroundWork.com – I guessed sale price of $800. Sold for $10,250! $9,450 off the mark!

So I received a 50% mark on my first attempt. I’m happy with that. This is a very fun test of one’s valuation skills. I highly recommend you give this a go right now!

domain-valuation-test.png

Give it a Go (Can you beat 50%?)

Here are the steps:

1: Go to the  GoDaddy Auctions Homepage
2: Sort ‘Most Active Auctions’ By Time Left (Max 24h)
3: Copy 10 Domains You Like into a Spreadsheet
4: Enter the Price You Think Each Domain Will Sell For
5: Next Day: Enter Final Auction Price Into Your Spreadsheet (via NameBio Reports)
6: Analyze How Good Your Guesses Were

This entire paper trading process can be repeated on any high volume domain marketplace. I am especially keen to give it a go on NameJet!

Do you have any other ideas for testing one’s domain valuation skills? Feel free to comment them below!

Where Does a Newbie Domainer Start?

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


This Might Shock Domainers

I’m sure many domainers take the daily NameBio Domain sale lists for granted. We may glance at the top domain sales, then get on with our day. However, I am coming into the .com market with fresh eyes, and I can see so much value in all domain sales on these lists, it is unbelievable.

To date I have only invested in .co.nz New Zealand domain names. On NameBio there are 70 entries for .co.nz sales. That is 70 publicly recorded sales EVER. Not much data to start investing from! Imagine if NameBio only had 70 .com sales in its entire database, how would you invest?

Over the past 5+ years, I have had to blindly test, analyze and reverse engineer things for myself in the NZ market. It gives real meaning to the term “self-taught!”

Newbies: Put Your Wallet Away and Start Researching

The .com market is so large, there is so much data, it is almost overwhelming for a newbie domainer. What kind of domains do you look to buy? Brandable, Generic, Numeric? Two Word, CVCV, 4L? It can be quite a challenge to know where to start.

I am making a point to do a lot of research before I pull the trigger and start buying. Sure I could go out today and buy a bunch of domains, but without a strategy, without a plan, I would just be following one trend after another with no direction.

So as I learn more about .com strategies, I am starting to formulate my own research process. My very first process as a newbie .com domain investor is to see what names are selling each day. Thank god we have NameBio to help with that.

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For about a week now I have been reviewing the NameBio Daily Market Report each day. The report is a list of all the publicly reported domain name sales over $100.

I have had a cursory glance at the Expired Domains Lists too, and for a newbie the tens of thousands of new .coms expiring each day is a little overwhelming. At this early stage, I don’t have a defined buying strategy for .com. Therefore focusing on something small each day, like the NameBio domain sales lists, is helping me to learn about the market before jumping in.

There are usually about 200 publicly reported sales per day, and I find the process of studying this limited set of data is manageable for a “newbie”. The expired domain sites are great at filtering, but when you don’t have a clear strategy on what names you want to be buying, all the filters in the world won’t help.

My Method for Digesting the NameBio Daily Market Report

For those who would like a simple checklist to refer to, this is located at the bottom of this post. However I encourage you to read the reasoning behind each step, as you read this post – it might help you to look at your research in a different way.

So, I have signed up for the NameBio’s Daily Market Report emails (subscribe on the right side of this page). Receiving a daily email is a great reminder to complete this task each day. Sure you can go directly go to the site each day, but it takes 30 days to form a habit right? So I find the emails helpful for building this new research habit.

Below, I share my process for analyzing these domain sales lists, which is helping me to work out where I may be able to enter the market with my own approach to domaining.

Step 1: Open the Daily Market Report Email, and click through to the site

Step 2: Scroll down to the All Sales Results Table

Step 3: I look at each Domain Sale. I am not concerned with prices, I am trying to eyeball domain names that I like the sound of. Names that I would like to own right now, names that I would buy at an auction.

You may think “Oh, I like the domains that sold for the most”. But often times the top priced sales are for domains that are not the kind of domains you ‘like’.

name-bio-daily-market-report.png

View the full Sep 12 list here

For Sep 12, 2018 the number 1 sale is Gab.com. This is a great domain, and a great sale at $220,000. But let’s face it, as a newbie, 3 letter .com domains (aka 3L or LLL) are not the type of domains I am going to be buying just yet, due to the higher investment level needed. (Generally starting around $30,000 for a cheap one)

The number 2 sale is “DepotCheck.de which sold at $19,203. However, as I mentioned above, not all big sales are domains that one would like to own.

There seems to be a few high value sales of German domains today: festzinssparen.de and webthings.de also featuring high on the sales list. I only want to invest in .com domains so I always skip over any extension that isn’t .com.

The next highest .com sale was memed.com for $5,000. While a nice sale, I personally wouldn’t buy this kind of domain. I like terms that make sense, are commonly used, or contain two words that go together. From my “week” of doing this daily research, I am leaning towards investing in two word .coms.

The next domain is survivalworks.com. I don’t really like this name. What is it for? It doesn’t sound like a good brand that I would like to own. BaristaPro.com sounds nice. But it’s probably on the borderline of what I would choose to own. There are quite a few other words you could put in place of pro.

If I can, I would like to own domains for which there are very few alternative words that could replace one of the two words. The more alternative words that make sense in a domain name, the more chance a buyer could enquire then walk away if the price is too high.

BaristaPro actually is sounding better to me now, but I would rather have a word different from Barista. I will skip this one, there are plenty more I like better.

magnifying-glass

I keep going down the list. Some of my nos are:

NO

Jesuit.com – Religious? I want commercial terms.
ProfessionalBeauty.com – It would sell, but its a boring name. Less desire = lower price.
LandRollers.com – I see this being something, but I wouldn’t want to hold it for 5 years.
IconSource.com – I just don’t see what this would be used for. Celebrity site. No excite.
Marrick.com – Likely a Last Name which would function as a business name. Not for me.
LinkShack.com – Sounds like a link farm. Do these still exist?

You get my drift. From the entire list, these were my favourites:

YES

$ 3,326 KingsRoad.com – This could be a great brand for a Trucking Company, Tools etc.
$ 3,122 Glucosa.com – Great brand for a medical device or app.
$    630 PrecisionVision.com – I like the rhyming aspect of this brand. Medical perhaps.
$    565 Cavera.com – I like this Brand Bucket style “brandable” name. For Pharma or Tech
$    431 LivingTools.com – Brand for a camping/outdoor equipment company.
$    289 PropertyTrading.com – Exact match term for a Property Investment Strategy.
$    142 FireScanner.com – Someone would name a product or app this.

Important:  For each name I like in the list, I copy/paste the whole line from NameBio into my spreadsheet. When I copy a domain I like, I copy the whole line to include the Domain, Price Sold, and the Sales Venue. Be sure to write the date above the day’s entries.

Once I have been through the whole day’s list, I have a handful of nice domains in my spreadsheet. You could also look at this as pretending. Perhaps I look at my spreadsheet and pretend that I am looking at my portfolio ha ha.

When I have had my initial looks at some of the expired domain lists, I almost felt a bit repulsed because I see so few good names that I like. Having this “collection” of nice domain name brands, helps me to define the .com names I like. By collecting these names, I will have more of a nose for finding similar names.

Step 4: Once I have my personal collection of domains I like to separate them out into 2 columns, one for Wholesale Prices, and one for Retail Prices.

Domain names are either bought by investors, who want to buy cheaply so they can resell the domain again. Or purchased by end users who will build a website on the domain name.

If we can work out whether the domain name sold for a retail price or a wholesale price, we can start to learn how much the kind of names we like end up selling for to end users. Conversely, we can learn how cheaply we may be able to buy domain names we like.

The difference or ‘spread’ between wholesale and retail is where a domainer makes their money. If you don’t know the prices a particular domain name should be bought and sold for, you will struggle to make a profit as a domainer.

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Retail Prices for Domain Names  (The Buyer is an End User)

The retail price of a domain name, mean the price an “end user” pays for the name. An end user is a business or person who will actually use the domain name and build a website on it. An end user is the “final” person who will own the domain name, i.e. the domain isn’t purchased by another domainer who will resell it again.

The end user pays an “end user price” which is the generally the highest price that the domain will command at that point in time. Generally, end user prices are in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When it comes the the NameBio lists, the retail prices are always the domains at the very top of the list. If a domain name has sold for over $100,000 it has almost always sold to an end user.

Wholesale Prices for Domain Names (The Buyer is a Domainer)

Wholesale Prices are lower prices, that domainers sell to other domainer for. Sometimes a domainer no longer wants to own a particular name, or they need some money fast. So instead of wait potentially years for an end user to pay top dollar, the domainer will price their domain lower, so that another domainer will buy it.

The domainer who buys it believes that they can sell the domain name for a higher price eventually so they are happy to pay the wholesale price. The domainer selling it is happy because they have sold the name and hopefully have a small amount of profit to use for something else.

In terms of the NameBio Domain sales lists, they are not categorised by whether a domain name sold for a retail price (to an end user) or a wholesale price (to a domainer), but we can generally work it out easily.

How Do You Know if a Domain Sold for a Retail Price or a Wholesale Price?

There are two ways to determine if the domain sale sold at a retail price or a wholesale price. Any domain that sold for over $5,000 is generally purchased by an end user, which means it was a retail price.

Most average domain investors like to keep their investment in each domain name low. So they tend not to spend over $5,000 per name, unless the domain name is amazing, and they can afford it.

Some of the more experienced .com domainers will happily buy a domain name for $5,000 to sell it for much higher later on. But for the most part, on the NameBio lists, domains over $5,000 have sold to end users, which means they sold for Retail Price.

The second way to work out if a domain name sold for a retail price is to look at the Venue the domain name sold at. Generally domain names sold on Sedo are purchased by end users, who paid a retail price.

So take all the domain names you picked that are over $5,000, and put them in your Retail Prices column. I have my Retail Prices column on the right. I then leave all other domains on the left which is the wholesale prices column.

If a name sold at NameJet, Godaddy or Flippa this is generally a sign that these were wholesale sales. These venues are for the most part wholesale marketplaces where domainers sell domains to other domainers.

Categorising like this is not perfect, but the more you do this kind of exercise, the more you will be able to work out whether a domainer bought the name or an end user.

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Step 5: Study and Analyze

You now have domains you personally like the sound of, listed in two columns:

Wholesale Prices: Rough prices you could potentially buy a similar domain for.

Retail Prices: Rough prices you could potentially sell a similar domain for.

Look at each name  in your list. Look at the words in the domain, look at the placement. Say the domain name out loud. What made it stand out to you? Is it perfectly descriptive? Is it catchy? Is it short and to the point?

Now look over at the price the domain sold for. Did an end user buy it? What do you think made them pay that much for this exact domain name? Can you think of a variation of this domain name that would have been better? Can you find a better name and buy it at a wholesale price?

Or did a domainer buy this domain? Wish you had bought it for that price? Did the domainer pay too much to make a profit?What do you think an end user might pay for this domain? Maybe it is time to start filtering the expired lists for similar names?

These are great questions to ask of each domain in your list. It is only by asking questions like this that you will start to understand what makes a domain name valuable.

But please note that all domain names are unique, and just because a domain name sold for X, does not mean a similar domain name will sell for the same price. There are many factors which make each unique domain name valuable, or not.

But by starting to study names in this way, you start to form anchors in your mind of values. And domain name investing is all about knowing your values. As a domainer you are always trying to buy below value, and sell for market value or higher.

I know the values of the .co.nz domain name market inside out, but when it comes to .com I know very little. But even just a week of doing this process of analysing sales of domain names I like, I am starting to learn the kinds of names I like in .com,

Remember I am completely new to .com, and I am just starting to form my strategy. I look at these daily sales lists as a way to get a pulse on what kind of domains are selling. I am less concerned with exact prices at this point. I am looking for domains that make me say “Yeah that is a great domain, a great domain I would like to own”.

We all have names in our portfolios that we just shake our head at and say “What was I thinking”. Sometimes two words put together just don’t sound right. And we realise no one is going to come knocking for this name.

I am trying to avoid buyer’s remorse at this early point, by keeping my eyes open to what is out there. What I am trying to do is make a big list of domains that make me go “WOW, nice name”. Then when I begin to start combing the lists of tens of thousands of expiring domains, I will know a name I like when I see it.

The benefit of “collecting” these sales is that when I come across a name I like, it may remind me of a similar kind of name that I saw in the past. I can then go to my spreadsheet and see what that kind of name sold for. Even if the keywords are completely different, sometimes the sentiment of a name can be similar to another one.

By this process, I am trying to hone my skills BEFORE buying. I want to avoid the typical newbie scattergun “buy and drop” approach. I have probably dropped 400 .co.nz names in my time, while learning that market. I am not about to repeat that with .com!


Summary: My Process for Analyzing NameBio Daily Market Reports

Step 1: Open the Daily Market Report Email, and click through to the site

Step 2: Scroll down to the “All Sales Results Table”

Step 3: Copy Domain Names that you like the sound of, and paste into your spreadsheet.

Step 4: Separate them out into 2 columns: Wholesale Prices, and Retail Prices.

Step 5: Ask Questions about why each domain sold for the price it did:

Questions To Ask About the End User Sales (Retail)
– What do you think made them pay that much for this exact domain name?
– Can you think of a variation of this domain name that would have been better?
– Can you find a better name and buy it at a wholesale price?

Questions To Ask About the Domainer Sales (Wholesale)
– Wish you had bought the domain for that price?
– What do you think an end user might pay for this domain?
– Did the domainer pay too much to make a profit?
– Maybe it is time to start filtering the expired lists for similar names?


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NameBio Rocks

Shout out to Michael Sumner and Adam Strong at NameBio for publishing these reports each day. This is such a great service for the domain community. Where would we be without NameBio!

You can view NameBio’s daily market reports here. I highly recommend subscribing to the daily emails on the same page.

Let me know if you like this research strategy idea? Do you have similar tastes in domains as I do?

If you made it this far, congratulations! That’s 3060 words read! My poor hands… Comment below to say you MADE IT!

@NZDomainer

Inspiring Domain Name Flips List

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


$1.3 Million Dollars for Men.com!

In 2008, one of the first things that attracted me to the possibilities of Domain Investing, were the amazing sales of domain names for over $1 million dollars. Usually these sales were for the very best keywords out there, names like Men.com and Loans.com.

These stories of million dollar domain sales are pretty exciting. But they are like lottery wins – rare.

I remember around this time reading an article, which is about the infamous Kevin Ham with his amazing story and domain successes. I believe I also read this article around the same time about Frank Schilling.

The industry titans who sell domains for millions have usually been working in the domain industry for many years. As with any success, it takes a lot of perseverance, sweat and tears.

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When you hear that a domain name sold for $1 million, for some reason the mind starts to think that any domain name must have a high value. So you go out and register anything you can, thinking that you will get a nice pay day. But of course that just isn’t the case.

Domain names don’t work on a sliding scale where you get to cash any domain name in for money – you need a buyer who really wants it.

Rick Schwartz, the Domain King talks about Need, Want and Desire. The reason he was able to sell Men.com for $1.3 million is because that domain name was the best in that category. There was no better alternative domain name, which increased need, want and desire to the million dollar level.

A domain name only has value because somebody desires it. If the domain is not desirable, no sale. The key is to learn what makes a domain name desirable.

These million dollar sales were for domain names that the buyers, usually businesses, thought were desirable, and would make them their money back. The fact that people do pay into the millions for domain names, shows their value.

My First .com Domain Purchases Were Worthless

As I talked about in My Domain Investing Journey, I bought a few .com domains about 10 years ago. I think I registered HotWaterHeatPumps.com. A stunning 4 word domain – not!

After no one bought my few domains, I gave up. I thought “Oh this doesn’t work”. It took me many, many years to come back to the possibility of reselling domains. It was really the Domain Sherpa show that did this in 2011.

In Domain Sherpa’s earliest interviews, they interviewed the Domainers with the big stories, the million dollar sales and purchases. Even if those are hard to repeat for newer investors, they are still great stories.

But what Domain Sherpa did after interviewing all whole bunch of people with the big domain successes, was interview domain investors with smaller successes. Stories of ‘average’ people, with full time jobs who made good money buying and selling domains, just on a smaller scale.

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Domain Sherpa launched a new segment for these smaller sales which were called Profitable Flips. These shows really got me inspired! Here were everyday people who were having success with domains. By publishing these ‘average’ stories, Domain Sherpa opened up the possibility in my mind of actually being able to make money buying and selling ‘lesser’ domains.

So I started opening my mind back up to the possibility of Domain Investing. I was always good at spelling, and for some reason I was drawn to the concept of hunting to find a bargain, to later sell it at a profit.

You Can Buy and Sell Domains Profitably

The reason for this article is to encourage new domainers. Million dollar domain name sales are generally made by those who bought domains 5 – 10 years ago or longer. That is just not achievable for a new domainer. If something looks too hard, people give up.

But every day hundreds of domain names sell for “reasonable prices”, by average investors. The profits can be quite large if you buy a domain right. But you need to learn, research, test, test again, and get some sales under your belt.

Becoming a profitable domain name investor on a small scale is definitely achievable if you have the patience to study and learn.

I wanted to write this post to document the smaller domain sales, so that new domain investors can be inspired. I want to show that everyday people can have success with domains. You don’t need to sell a domain name for a million dollars to be successful.

Inspiring Profitable Flips – Ranked By Lowest Buy Price

These inspiring domain name sales are pulled from the Profitable Flips segment of Domain Sherpa Shows. You can actually watch a video interview with the person who sold each domain name. There you can learn all about how they bought, and how they sold the domain.

I have ranked them by the lowest buy price. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to find a good domain name to invest in, you just need to hunt hard!

DOMAIN BUY SELL PROFIT SELLER SHOW
MaxHolmes.com NEW 12 1,900 1,888 Matt Holmes Private
CBDRemedy.com 27 10,000 9,973 Marty Pelletier Watch
SmartMonday.com 69 14,488 14,419 Logan Flatt Watch
Prop.bet 111 6,500 6,389 Jon Arsenault Watch
In-Sight.com 217 15,500 15,283 George Adu Watch
TopOffers.com 550 10,000 9,450 David Kelly Watch
Karpool.com NEW 627 6,500 5,873 Mike Cyger Source
Strahovka.com 711 62,000 61,289 Rod Atkinson Watch
Give.io 800 15,800 15,000 Joshua Schoen Watch
ItalianWeddings.com 1,000 9,000 8,000 Chris Reams Watch
PirateShip.com 1,500 20,000 18,500 Daniel Levi Watch
BreakBread.com 2,033 22,000 19,967 Drew Rosener Watch
BuyShares.com 2,244 15,900 13,656 Kevin Macphers Watch
eSoft.com 3,000 30,000 27,000 Joshua Reason Watch
Hatred.com 4,000 150,000 146,000 Richard Dynas Watch
Tigra.com 5,500 28,500 23,000 Chris Reams Watch
Statement.com 9,000 140,000 131,000 Braden Pollock Watch

I keep going back to these domain flips for inspiration, as I start my .com investing journey. I hope you find inspiration in these flips too! Thanks to Domain Sherpa for conducting all these inspiring interviews!

Add Your Own Profitable Flip Here!

If you know of any other publicly listed domain name flips, with an initial purchase under $1,000? Please let me know and I will add them to this list.

If you have any personal domain flips (and you have screenshots or other verification) please let me know and I can add your flip to the table, and link to you.

Criteria: Flips with a profit of at least $1000, and an initial purchase price less than $1,000.

The lower the price point, the better, to help inspire others with a small amount of capital to invest!

Comment below or tweet me @NZDomainer

My Domain Portfolio…REVEALED

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


Thankyou!

I’d like to thank everyone for their support of the NZDomainer blog so far. It is always nice to receive email feedback, blog comments, shares, and interaction on Twitter. It has been super encouraging as a new website, to see new people discover and read the posts. It is fuel to continue on this journey of documenting my entry to the .com market.

I am still currently in the research phase, as I study the market and the different strategies out there. I am not rushing out trying to fill my .com portfolio with junk – there will be no 2am hand registering sprees here! I am researching .com niches to see what fits my experience, budget and ROI time line.

I do enjoy the NZ domain market but there is a lot of waiting involved. There is no wholesale market whatsoever. No domain brokers. No one bothers with numerics, except for single numbers, which are obviously super rare.

But with .com there are dozens of ways to attack the domain industry: Brandables, Generics, Numerics and every niche off of those. Wholesaling, Brokering etc. I see so much opportunity!

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What Kind of Local Domains do I own as a New Zealand Domainer?

I have had a couple of people curious as to my domain experience in the New Zealand market. So I thought I would list a few domains that I own, which may speak a little to my domain tastes.

Some favourites from my portfolio are:

Florist.co.nz
SolarPower.co.nz
Beauty.co.nz
4.co.nz
Boom.co.nz
Stream.co.nz
Fun.co.nz
Gourmet.co.nz
Reviews.co.nz

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I wanted to showcase a little of my domain journey to date. These domains have been acquired over many years and YES, I wish I all of these were in .com! Anyone keen on exact .com swaps let me know!

I have also had some readers reach out to me about the possibilities of selling .coms into the New Zealand market. Unfortunately New Zealand businesses are not big on .com. NZ businesses only use .co.nz.

New Zealand Businesses Don’t Use .Com

As we are so far away from most major trading markets, NZ businesses tend to only sell within New Zealand, so we have no use for .com. A .com implies a business would sell globally, and very few NZ businesses sell globally.

The one exception would be in the accommodation industry. As these kind of businesses are trying to attract foreign visitors, some do use .com. But outside of the accommodation sector, 99.9% of NZ businesses use .co.nz.

So apologies, there isn’t some big untapped market down here for .com domains. I can’t tell you the last time I saw a .com in the wild here, on a billboard, vehicle or sign. I literally cannot remember one. But .co.nz all day.

There is a good reason I am setting my domaining sights outside of New Zealand. The domain market here is tiny, and not enough to make a full time living on. We only have 4 million people here, which is the population of Los Angeles as one country.

But I am really enjoying focussing more on .com and all discovering all the resale opportunities that just don’t exist in my market! I will be starting to share my research process in .com as a newbie / old hand, here in future posts. Watch this space!

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Between posts, I am active on Twitter! Please tweet or follow @NZDomainer

Do you own any localized domain names other than com, net or org?

How do you find sales in local or Country Code domain extensions?

 

Why I Joined DNAcademy

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


What is DNAcademy?

DNAcademy is a online course where people can learn how to become successful domain name investors. The course is also billed as a way for corporate executives to learn about premium domain names, and how they can use them to benefit their organizations.

Michael Cyger who founded the informational site DomainSherpa.com (now sold) is the creator of the DNAcademy course. Through conducting hundreds of interviews with all the movers and shakers in the domain name industry, Michael has built up a vast knowledge in all facets of the Domain Name industry.

dn academy

DomainSherpa started because Michael was trying to learn about the world of domain name investing. He started as a complete newbie to the industry, but over the years of producing the show, he became a trusted industry figure in his own right. His work with Domain Sherpa has helped thousands of people learn more about Domain names.

Anyone who has watched Michael conduct a Domain Sherpa interview will know that he has a very thorough approach and leaves no viewer behind. If a concept starts to get complex, he stops and asks the expert to break it down, so even the layperson can understand it.

Michael goes very deep into the details, and gets the expert to share crucial information that I’m sure not many of them had planned on sharing. So many times I have been listening to a show and while a topic was being discussed, I thought to myself “but why did they do it that way” and Michael somehow chimes in with the exact same question of to the expert.

So Michael Cyger is the perfect person to create the ultimate domain name course. He has a skill of breaking down complicated concepts to easy to understand pieces. The DN Academy course is the culmination of his acquired knowledge, research and his personal experience growing from scratch to become a successful domain name investor.

So Why Take a Course if You Are Already Experienced?

As I have covered in previous posts, I am a successful domain name investor already, however my experience has been solely in the ccTLD domain extension of “.co.nz” in New Zealand.

The Domain Sherpa show primarily discusses the largest domain market: .com. I have been a Domain Sherpa viewer since 2011, and I have been absorbing knowledge about the domain industry in general ever since then.

The general concepts around domain names are universal: They are essential for branding, they have a value, and good ones are becoming harder to obtain. However each niche in the domain name industry requires a new skill set. I have mastered the .co.nz niche, but I have no experience in .com investing.

While I understand the general concepts around what makes a domain valuable, and how to sell a domain name – I don’t know the specifics of .com valuations. There are a lot of ways to approach .com investing, a lot of marketplaces, and a lot of pitfalls to watch out for including US trademarks.

When I will be investing thousands of dollars into acquiring .com domain names each year, any extra insight I can get will save me thousands.

save thousands of dollars

I have known about the course for a couple of years. When I finally decided to start investing in .com domains in August 2018, I joined the course within a few days.

With so many new areas to learn about I thought, why not go straight to the source, and learn from the teacher I have already been learning from for so many years. I am already very glad I did.

How is the Course Going?

I paid for it, so why not take the thing from the very beginning! So I have gone back to school as it were, and it has been great. In the first beginner quiz, I only ended up getting 86% the first time round. Proof that everyone, no matter what level you are at, can benefit from a refresher.

I am currently part way through the course, and it is so well done. Everything is broken down step by step in super logical order. My Mother could go through this course and become a domain name investor – that’s how thorough the course has been so far!

I have also skipped ahead to check out some sections towards the end of the course. I’ve already learned a negotiation technique I know will save me thousands over the next few years! My investment in the course has already paid for itself.

The Course is a Great Way to Fast Track Your Learning About Domain Names

The Domain Sherpa shows are a very useful resource in the domain name industry. However the knowledge is spread out across hundreds of interviews. I love the interview format, however for a beginner there hasn’t been a structured way to learn everything you need to be a successful domain name investor.

There are hundreds of courses around real estate investing, and stock market investing – but none about domain name investing. This course is designed to take a complete newbie to an educated domain name investor, without the years of trial and error.

Sure you can do your own research, read articles, and make your own costly mistakes –  but when there is a complete course available you would be silly not to utilise it.

When you start out in domaining, you buy a whole bunch of domain names you *think* are valuable. This course explains exactly why some domains are valuable, and some are never going to make you anything. I’m cringing at the hundreds of domains I’ve purchased (and dropped) that I thought were great at the time. If I had this course, I would have saved all that time and money.

For anyone new to the potential of investing in Domain names, this course should be at the top of your list. Perhaps I will sign my mother up, so she can understand what the hell I am talking about when I talk to her about what I do with domain names!

ticking-off-the-course

I will keep you posted with my progress through the course…

(As a student, I’m happy to answer any questions about the course too. Comment below, tweet me, or send me an email via the contact form.)

You can learn more about the course at DNAcademy.com

I Just Hand-Registered the Perfect .com!

New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.


I registered my FIRST CHOICE Domain Name. How rare is that?

I recently made my second .com investment! Like my first .com purchase, I again had some trouble with the purchase – but luckily not a potential trademark issue this time.

The domain is I bought was: NZDomainer.com. Obviously nzdomainer.wordpress.com just wasn’t going to cut it for a domain blog!

So I went to the world’s number 1 domain registrar……… Read on to hear about the trouble I experienced…

Distraction has been a big challenge for me the past few weeks. We are almost ready to put our house on the market. We have never done this before, and it is a big, stressful jump into the unknown.

Anything to take my mind away from all the work still to be done, and the people I need to wrangle to make this all happen, is welcome.

Twitter, Google, Food, My phone – anything seems more exciting than slaving away out doors, getting the house ready for sale.

One of the best ways to procrastinate getting your house ready to sell, is to start a domain blog. I will tell you, blogging is a very effective way to avoid physical labour!

I have been trying my best to avoid time-wasting ‘crutches’ like Google. The internet is a distraction machine, full of blue links which promise more enlightenment – if you will just click one more time.

In my efforts to stay away from Google for a few weeks, I got thinking. Why even use Google? 90% of the time we are going to the same websites day after day – why do we have Google search so readily available on all our devices?

When we know what website we want to visit, why do we search on Google for it anyway? Searching means another step, and more distraction on the way there.

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But Google or Apple were conspiring against me when I typed ‘Godaddy’ into my Safari App. There is only one Godaddy, take me to the site please. But alas, I am greeted by a page of search results.

Is anyone like me, and NEVER click on Google Ads? I spent many years publishing websites where Google Adsense was the main revenue source. Google’s number one rule when you are an Adsense publisher is to never click your own ads.

So for fear of getting my Google Adsense account shutdown (it provided a full time income) I somehow trained myself to never click on any Google Ad – my own, or anyone elses for that matter!

To this very day, whenever I do a Google search, I always scroll down past the ads ,to click on the organic results. Even if the Google ad is for the website I want!

Is this just me?

I guess there is also a part of me that sees through marketing. I like to be a conscious consumer. I don’t just go clicking any link, it better be giving me the exact thing I am after.

To me, the first organic result is what I want, and I ALWAYS scroll past the ads. Anyone else the same?

I remember watching a friend do a Google search once. They searched, and instantly clicked on the very first link on the page – which of course was an ad. I was taken aback! “You know that’s an ad right? That is not necessarily the best website, it’s just an ad at the very top of the page!” But I was greeted with a “Meh, I dunno.”

Do most average consumers always click the first result whatever it is? Is the trust in Google that automatic? Probably. 20 years of search training.

godaddy-logo.png

Anyway, back to GoDaddy…. you can see how easy it is for me to get distracted. The house will never be ready at this rate!

But after avoiding Google lately, it was actually my friend this time. I scrolled down to click on the first organic GoDaddy result, but something caught my eye. GoDaddy was offering $1.25 .coms!

Could this be one of the few times in my life where I actually click on a Google Ad? For a $1.25 .com, that I am about to buy anyway – hell yes. So I went against my nature and actually clicked on a Google Ad. I’m so dramatic.

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I then took the scary step that all new business owners take. That all new bloggers take, that any one who wants to put an idea on the internet takes. I searched for the domain name I wanted. NZDomainer.com.

godaddy-domains-nz-2.png

And success! NZDomainer.com was available! I mean, no one else would ever register a domain like this. There are like 10 actual NZ domainers, and they are a very secretive bunch. Not the types to go around talking about domaining. Especially not on a website.

New Zealand suffers from ‘tall poppy syndrome’ where if one person stands out a little, they get chopped down. It’s cultural thing, and I think this phenomenon is quite common in smaller countries.

In a country where everyone is your neighbour, everyone is your equal. When somebody works on something that may set them a little ahead than everyone else, they need to be pulled back down. Otherwise everyone has to do more work to keep up! What a terrible way to live.

It’s not really this bad, but there are certainly instances where people get jealous of anyone getting ahead. I’m sure it is common everywhere, but especially in smaller countries.

So my point is, that my FIRST CHOICE .com domain name was available! Who else can say that? Who says hand-regging is dead!

Jokes. Hand-registering domains IS dead… for domains that more than one person might want anyway. (Except for new, cutting edge terms obviously).

So NZDomainer.com was available, and at a nice price of $1.25! I added it to my cart.

godaddy-domains-nz-3

Whenever I have purchased a brand new domain from a registrar, I always get a little worried that by the time I check out it will be gone. Rick Schwartz has told many stories on his blog of the exciting mid 90s dotcom gold rush. One of my favourite was where he would look up the Whois of domain he wanted to register, and someone had just registered it minutes before he got there! What a thing to witness.

I actually did personally witness something kind of similar to this, but 1000 times less lucrative, in the .CO gold rush of 2010. But I will save that blog post for another day. Ha ha!

So after telling GoDaddy that I didn’t want Privacy, I didn’t want hosting, and I didn’t want a foot rub, I made my way to the check out. Can you guess what happened next?

godaddy-domains-nz-4.png

My $1.25 .com was now $27.92! Hmm.

So I tried again. And again. And again. I emptied my cart. I logged in, I  logged out. I went back to Google. I clicked on the ad (again – very hard). My precious domain was $1.25 in my cart each time, but $23.99 at the checkout. ($27.92 New Zealand Dollars = $18.61 USD).

So I cried a little, cursed a little. I swore that I would not pay a standard renewal when it said $1.25 on the previous page. I did what anyone would do and I went to a different registrar.

To be honest, because the domain was for a project, I didn’t really want it in my GoDaddy account anyway. I like to keep all my domains for actual websites in separate registrar accounts from any investment domains.

So I went to my favourite NZ registrar 1stDomains and registered it there. It turned out to be lower than the GoDaddy price. Go figure. But GoDaddy push makes things super simple, so I will of course be back to the big G, to hold my domain investments.

Now, I have a ‘slightly’ more official sounding blog. NZDomainer.com. Welcome!

I do have to give a little plug for WordPress here. The WordPress.com system is super easy to use. I was able to transition over to the new domain very easily. The domain was live on the internet about 3 hours after purchase.

When you are starting a new project (like a blog), the thing is to keep momentum. I personally don’t want to be mucking around with hosting my own WordPress somewhere. The point is to focus on writing, and not get stuck in the details of plugin this, theme that.

So I hope you will excuse the rough edges of the blog for now. There aren’t many bells and whistles, special features or pictures of my cat. Yet.

The race is on, to keep writing and writing and writing. Before I get pulled to the dark side, which is the physical labour hell of finishing this house!

I just want to start researching and buying names! Maybe when we sell the house I should use all the money to buy some killer one worders?

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