Domaining

While I would never have set my stall out as a domainer I do thoroughly enjoy the research, tracking down of owners, negotiating and buying domains at what I perceive as good value, it’s just good fun. After buying up my geo’s in June - Sept I pretty much kept myself busy and didn’t do anything on the domain front.

Enhancement.co.uk was bought late last year & will be a project for this year, it’s a cracking domain I paid £1350 for, I have a database of cosmetic surgery clinics in the UK so will be developing the site out, some days this earns £10 with just a few clicks but lead gen will probably be the future.

Bling.co.uk was a punt bought a couple of weeks ago, I thought it may get type in traffic and the previous owner didn’t have it resolved at all, on doing some research it’s clear that bling.com owned by an American domainer benefited greatly from the release of Bing.com Microsoft’s search engine

bling

People looking for bing.com often type bling.com instead as quantcast shows above. Unlike Google, Bing don’t promote or use bing.co.uk for the UK so there would be nothing like the same type of spike but I was still curious and on it’s own merit bling.co.uk would be a great name for a blog about expensive gadgets and products aimed at the UK, turns out it gets around 35 type in visitors per day and was bought for £2k so not massive traffic but could certainly help it get traction if developed out with type in visitors every day.

I went through all my old emails that I keep in a folder in relation to domains, looking to see if there was anything I should go back and re-visit, always a good exercise. Duel.co.uk was one I was offered for £2000 which I felt too expensive and passed on, I do like it but more brandable than product related so could own it for a long time with no clear use, I decided to put in a cheeky offer under £1k and they accepted which was nice!

On the sales front I have a few enquiries on the go and in deep discussion about one of my better names however the buyer wants a payment plan which is causing issues, if that deal was agreed I will have secured over £100,000 of domain sales in 2010 from around £10k invested, it just as easily may not though, I’ll be quite happy either way, great domains can’t be replaced easily so keeping ownership of my better names would not be a problem.

My most expensive domain purchase will be concluded at the end of this week.

About Scott Jones

Scott hails from the north east of Scotland and started earning online at the end of 2000 building websites for local businesses during which time he won an award from Lord Alan Sugar for Excellence in Enterprise. After having quite a bit of success with domaining Scott mainly runs educational evergreen websites which generate over 3 million visitors per month but is always on the lookout for a fresh thinking out of the box way to turn a buck. Follow on Twitter.

Comments

  1. Hi Scott, looking forward to hearing about your most expensive domain purchase - sounds like exciting (and scary) stuff!

    BTW - thats a very nice income from you’ve made from domaining, you certainly must be doing something right! Well done, I’m sure a lot of hard work went into it so the reward is certainly earned!

  2. That’s part of what I love about domaining, the wheeling and dealing!

    Your ROI for 2010 sounds spectacular already, that’s quite astounding.

  3. Wow thats some pretty impressive stats for a typo lol, nearly as gud as guwgle, bling is a well cool name..

  4. Always worth going back over old emails and trying again!

    Looking forward to hearing more about the new domain!

  5. Todo List says:

    Looking forward to hearing about your most expensive domain purchase. I am thinking about buying some domains, you gave me some ideas.

  6. Nice domain purchases Scott, especially bling.co.uk thats awesome!! You say you really enjoying research, negotiating and buying domains but where on earth do you start?

    Do you find the best domain names like this by hours of trawling sites like sedo.co.uk??

    Or are your methods top secret?

    Whatever you do, you certainly have a knack for finding the great domains!!

    • I never trawl Sedo and very rarely buy from there, I prefer to contact domain owners direct by email or post, no secrets really apart from plenty of emails/research, it’s a numbers game really - if you try hard enough and long enough good gems at good prices will show up.

  7. That’s pretty incredible. Who’d have thought a typo would generate that many hits? That said, bling is a popular word in itself so the results for other typos might not be quite as rewarding. 🙂 But definitely quite insightful all the same.

    Till then,

    Jean

  8. Thanks Scott, I spose I just will have to step up my game in the search for the great domains and put more hours in. Wishful thinking there was a secret list of great domains! 😀

    I’m also looking forward to finding out about your new domain!

  9. I bought a domain in august that I’ve just sold for 3 times what I paid for it. Not quite at your level but please with that.

    • Good work, profit is profit and those type of deals are the one’s that give you the opportunity to re-invest and up the stakes if you so wish.

  10. Pretty tremendous stats just on domain reselling alone! I looked at some statistics on domaining but was put off by the number of domains for sale vs domains sales actually made. plus I see so much junk (especially in the Tenerife niche) where people are asking ridiculous amount for keyword domains that have almost zero search!
    I have made offers on a couple of domains and picked up spanish mortgages dot org recently (perfect for me really - paid the asking…) and mortgages in spain . co.uk after I watched it drop. Both will be developed out into lead generators for my main business.
    besides those though - so many people I ave contacted are in fantasy land over prices. You have more patience than I have in this game!

    • Yup I agree got a domain listed for sale (only advertised on the site itself) and I often get offers to buy it ranging from just over what it costs to register to xx,xxx -serious money. But Its interesting how widley they vary.

      I think the problem is as well alot of domain owners are not aware of the value of what they have as they have a lack of understanding as to how best to monetise the domain.

  11. Scott, do you do any drop catching for domains. Seem to remember that you got a Nominet tag (maybe wrong on that) and was wondering if you ever try to get hold of the domains at source or do you prefer to acquire via the secondary market?

  12. I have a TAG but don’t catch myself, I feel there are more bargains to be had buying old domains from businesses who don’t use them anymore, seems to be giving me a better pay back for my time invested than trying to catch the odd good one.

  13. Great going Scott! Shows that there are still great domains at reasonable prices out there. How are your domain leases going?

  14. Well done Scott you are turned digital product in to profit - impressive. It was strange to me when I compared two my domains at dnscoop.com. And four months old domain was worth more than two year old. Is it possible. Do this websites like dnscoop are just a joke. From your experience is there any good website showing the close to real value of the domains.

  15. Writing Services says:

    I reckon buying domains is just like playing cards in the stock market with all the brouhaha involved in negotiating and ensuring that you’re the winner.

    No wonder Sedo still buys and squats useful domains. Domain-buying is indeed a lucrative business.

  16. It is a bit of a catch 22 situation. Having great domains, and being able to make a tidy profit of selling them, but having that feeling that they could be worth soooo much more in a couple of year’s time. Which ones to keep, and which ones to sell would be the conundrum here!

    • Indeed Goran, it’s as tricky as playing poker sometimes. And no matter how much research you do, there’ll always be something you missed.

      Till then,

      Jean

  17. I want to move away from Godaddy. I’ve used Network Solutions in the past, too.

    I’m looking for recommendations of companies you’ve used that have great customer service AND they must have a phone number on their website to call.

  18. Jeez how many domains do you own!!

    How’s enhancement going? making some good money?

  19. Nice domain name finds and impressive ROI. Thanks for sharing! What marketplaces do you use to search for domains or do you just dig around for sites online and make one off offers?

  20. Reads like a novel… exciting stuff to say the least

  21. How are the sites doing now? Did you sell the Enhancement site on?

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