Thanks for the replies.
Some of you have said that it appeared I was already in the porn business and should know the value of the traffic and provide my own list of appraisals.
The honest truth is that I never envisioned myself in the porn biz -- I saw an awesome opportunity in July of 1999 when Network Solutions' exclusive contract to handle .com domains expired. Network Solutions did not allow any domains with the words tits, ****, or pussy in them. Given that porn is one of (if not THE) biggest money makers on the net, I figured it would be wise to try to register as many of these previously unavailable names and then try to sell or lease them.
What then happened was that when I started contacting some people about buying the names, everyone responded with disbelief, telling me, "It is not possible to register those domains -- we tried years ago."
SO, I put up a page on each domain basically saying, "If you are interested in buying this domain contact
[email protected]" and wrote back to the disbelievers and said, "They are valid domains -- just type them into your browser and go to the site."
Lo and behold, it turned out that the domains were getting over 3000 type-ins per day. So then I thought, well, hell, there must be some way to make money off them while I'm waiting for a buyer. Enter: adult affiliate programs.
So I plastered a bunch of banner ads on the sites, which, I might add, is pretty much the WORST way to promote porn. And guess what? Those sites bring in about $8000 per month. With absolutely NO work on my part beyond my intial effort of joining the affiliate programs and slapping the banners on the page. I have done no marketing. Am not listed in any of the link lists. Did not try to get search engine traffic. I did not put advertising on the sites that is specific to what the domain name would suggest it is promoting (e.g, I know I'd get more signups if sites like TitanicTits.com promoted all big tits sites, while sites like blackcunts.com promoted ebony sites..) And I know I'd get more signups if I used different methods besides a gigantic stream of banner ads -- more text links and full page ad stuff, etc.
So I pretty much know the minimum that these domains are capable of making. $8000 per month with no work just because of the type-in traffic. So then I figured, hell, I might be better off keeping them myself. Down the road, if I chose to, I could even put some effort into marketing them and increase my income.
The truth is that I actually wasn't even responding to requests for price quotes for quite some time - partly because they domains generated enough revenue on their own, and partly because I didn't know what prices to quote. First of all, I don't know what the monthly revenue is for any single domain. I have one affiliate account per sponsor (as is often their requirement), and use the same linking code on all of the sites. In fact, I have gone the super lazy way about it and used frames to display the same main page for each site. So while I know the total revenue for the month, and how much traffic each domain gets each month, I don't know which ones are generating clickthroughs to my sponsors and, more importantly, I don't know which of the domains are the ones generating the signups. Obviously, I could estimate individual monthly revenue per domain based on uniques, but the point is it would be just that -- an estimate -- because I don't know where the signups come from.
The other issue is that I know that far more money can be made from them than I am currently getting with even a moderate amount of effort. I haven't put that effort into it yet because I've been pretty focused on other, more mainstream, affiliate marketing. I own some 640 domains and only 250 of them are porn related. But so long as I hold onto those domains, I always have the option of putting the effort into them and raking in more dough.
So why am I looking for an appraisal right now? Well, I'm thinking of buying a house and would like to sell off a few of the domains to help get the down payment together (hey, real estate is pretty pricey in San Francisco
)
So, truly, any help that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Best Regards,
-ebess-
