What's in a name?

[sunja]

Hi there,

My question is this: What's in a name? Is a great sounding domain worthless without PR and traffic, or will a high traffic site with a random domain outsell a "premium" domain with no PR/traffic/etc?

For example, I just registered 80scollectables.com because I think it's a good name. It's got all the traffic you'd expect from a newborn site (none), but I think it's got some good potential to the right buyer... But now I get here and people are talking about PR and traffic and OVT score. So where do I go from here?

Is a good sounding domain name (eg two words, popular keywords something like "yourpoker.com", "insurancequotes.com", "bettingforums.com" etc etc (all taken, not mine, examples only)) enough or should I develop the sites more before selling them?

At the moment, I'm thinking of pushing some traffic to it from my other sites, slapping adsense on it for 3 months then listing it on sedo. What are your thoughts? (my registrar says I can't transfer it before 60 days is up )

Thanks for reading, hoping to become a valuable member of your community
-s.

 

[draggar]

A good domain name isn't worth much unless it is developed properly into a good site (SEO, usability, ect..) and gets in traffic. A good domain may bring in a few bucks a month (if you're lucky) though parking.

 

[Peachesbackwards]

Now I'm confused How do you develop getting rankings in Google if all you have is parking I didn't think Google has parked sites. Or is this one of the typical in "In order to get a job you need experience and in order to get experience you need a job" type answers. In others, your pissing in the wind and no one who is successful is going to help you with useful advice because they want to keep you just where you are so you'll just get double talk BS.

 

[toria]

A good domain name isn't worth much unless it is developed properly into a good site (SEO, usability, ect..) and gets in traffic. A good domain may bring in a few bucks a month (if you're lucky) though parking.

I have only sold a few domains so I may not have enough experience to speak from. However, every domain I sold was because of the name itself and not because of the traffic or income it generated. In fact, they were not generating any income, as I did not know about that at the time. The least amount I received was $600 for a group of three related names and the most I have received was $50,000 for a .com name.

I was planning to market many of the domains I have acquired to relevant businesses as a tool to help them drive more customers to their business.

In the meantime, I have a bunch of domains parked (earning very little) and I am planning on developing a few of them (such as basicpolitics.com, fitnessrocks.com, goodroommates.com, websiteflipping.com, postandprint.com, widgetmasters.com or connectville.com, ) in hopes of selling them.

I am new to DNForum. It seems like everything I have read so far emphasizes generating income from the sites to build their value.

I hope that my intended plan of marketing good domain names to potential buyers will work. Almost all of the domains I have acquired have been because of the name and what I perceived as resale value in the name itself.

Does anybody out there agree with my strategy or is everyone on the "drive lots of traffic and earn money with ads" side. If that is truly the way to go, then I have a lot to learn.

Best,

Toria

 

[thevirtual]

The value depends mostly on the buyer. Most sales are based on the domain only and not traffic or revenue.

I think generic domains all have some value. If you look at a bad non-keyword domain it is easy to see the negative results ie. lower SE ranking, weak branding, not memorable... Most domains are sold quite cheap if you consider the budget most companies spend on branding, SEO, marketing etc...

I have only sold a few domains so I may not have enough experience to speak from. However, every domain I sold was because of the name itself and not because of the traffic or income it generated. In fact, they were not generating any income, as I did not know about that at the time. The least amount I received was $600 for a group of three related names and the most I have received was $50,000 for a .com name.

I was planning to market many of the domains I have acquired to relevant businesses as a tool to help them drive more customers to their business.

In the meantime, I have a bunch of domains parked (earning very little) and I am planning on developing a few of them (such as basicpolitics.com, fitnessrocks.com, goodroommates.com, websiteflipping.com, postandprint.com, widgetmasters.com or connectville.com, ) in hopes of selling them.

I am new to DNForum. It seems like everything I have read so far emphasizes generating income from the sites to build their value.

I hope that my intended plan of marketing good domain names to potential buyers will work. Almost all of the domains I have acquired have been because of the name and what I perceived as resale value in the name itself.

Does anybody out there agree with my strategy or is everyone on the "drive lots of traffic and earn money with ads" side. If that is truly the way to go, then I have a lot to learn.

Best,

Toria

$50,000 dollar sale? You must be doing something right.

 

[toria]

All of the domains I own are what you call "keyword" domains. They are all what I call "complete concepts" and 99% are .com domains.

I only started parking domains about 2 months ago. Revenue is slowly building.

The $50,000 sale was because they were starting up a business with the same name as the keywords. They approached me. I was not in the domain marketing business then. It was a domain name I had for my personal use because I thought the name was clever.

Thanks again.

I am beginning to think I need to do a combo of driving traffic and marketing to businesses.

Best,

Toria

 

[dcristo]

It really depends. Some domains are valuable because of traffic/revenue, others are valuable because they are very brandable. For example, the recent sale naturalbeauty.com sold for XX,XXX because it's extremely brandable in a number of industries.

 

[sunja]

thanks for all your answers, and a good discussion, it is interesting to see other people's approaches, and I'm sure other people have their own opinions too - please share.

every domain I sold was because of the name itself and not because of the traffic or income it generated

The value depends mostly on the buyer. Most sales are based on the domain only and not traffic or revenue.

that's what I was hoping to hear!

Of course I understand that you *can* make good money from parking/advertising, and probably more money than a domain sale would make, but I'm really trying to expend as little effort as possible - I'd rather spend three hours whois-ing to find two great keyword rich domains to sell straight away for $500 a piece than spend that time developing content for one site, which will be at the whim of google, and will take time to get traffic coming to it. I know that when I first launched my personal site, it took from July 2005 to Dec 2005 to earn me $150. (now I'm making $100/month, but it's still nowhere near enough to support me -which is the goal of this, really).