poll I am at 27,000 now, how many domains in your "keeper" portfolio?

[Recons.Com]

I crossed 27000 domain milestone today. I meant to start the sequel of my "5000" thread when I was at 20k, then at 25k, but never got around.

I am curious how things have changed for all of us since mid 2020 when I had the first poll.

My portfolio is 5.4 times larger than 2.8 years ago, so growing probably around 80% a year. Not quite doubling, but still a decent rate.

Almost all my names are with Godaddy save for hundred or so with Dyna. This helps with reducing admin load.

 

[maya-zir]

Here we go I am from AZ originally too

Sizə uğurlar diləyirəm )

wow, my countryman!
I own AzerbaijanTravelGuide and BakuCityGuide, both in .com, and will develop both.
I must to create both sites, this is my homage to my Motherland I didn't see a lot of years

 

[Recons.Com]

wow, my countryman!
I own AzerbaijanTravelGuide and BakuCityGuide, both in .com and will develop both.

Awesome! Wishing you luck! For Azerbaijan, I mostly use .az names, but I assume those guides will be foreigners, so .com is great. Feel free to pm me, if you need any help with anything.

 

[maya-zir]

Awesome! Wishing you luck! For Azerbaijan, I mostly use .az names, but I assume those guides will be foreigners, so .com is great. Feel free to pm me, if you need any help with anything.

Yes, it will be in english, for foreign tourists.
it will be my homage to my Motherland

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

Hi, congratulations!!!

I'm astonished by your achievement!

This post is such a huge inspiration

I just started 1 year ago. Had 4 lowball sales in the first year. I guess it's not that bad for a beginner.

If you pay 9.5$ with GoDaddy, I think you have some kind of discount, since they are charging 19$/y for renewals, I'm transferring out everything before my domains expire.

I own now 250 domains, mostly .coms, this year I slowed down the acquisitions and trimmed my folio to dump the worst ones. I was looking to create a similar website for my collection, I will probably start with the SQ WL and if it goes well, I might develop my website.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1) Are you seeing a better STR with your own marketplace?

Where do most of your sales come from?

Does it benefit also your average profit with fewer commissions from the other marketplaces?

2) Can you please share your preferred method and the average cost of acquisition?

3) And why do you price most of your domains within a certain range?

Also about pricing which one do you think could be more effective? 2450, 2488, 2495, 2500?

I see most of your prices are straightforward but you still have some other prices like that.

4) I usually see very high prices for some domains, but yours are mostly ranging between 25k and 1.5k. Is avoiding pricing high on your domains a deliberate choice to sell them faster and reinvest in new domains? I mean instead of holding them for a long time hoping to sell them at the highest price possible.

Any general advice would you give to your younger self when you were just starting out?

Thanks!

Paolo

 

[kandyan]

WOW.. That's really impressive!

Congrats and wish you the very best.

 

[DrJacoby]

Congrats on your success! You, @bmugford , and @AbdulBasit.com are my top-three role models, and I'm always learning something from you guys. Thank you for that!

Now here's my question. What's your ratio between Afternic/Sedo sales? I have sold 60 domains on Afternic, but not a single one on Sedo. I've even stopped listing my domains there.

 

[DN_Hunter]

Congrats on your portfolio!

Do you actually use the GoDaddy "Beta" Domain Manager? I Only have around 1,500 domain names, and the "Beta" Domain Manager takes forever to load the 1,500. I've had to exit the "Beta" and use the original domain manager interface.

Is there a trick to make the "Beta" Domain Manager run/load faster?

 

[eternaldomains]

Hey just some quick feedback on this. I very much agree with your opinion on parking. But last year one of the domains in my portfolio went viral due to a tiktok influencer misstating the name of a web site. I pulled the domain from sales channels and enabled parking where it started generating 3-5k/MTH in revenue. It showed me the importance of monitoring traffic on domains. If I see a spike I always try out parking on those names.

May I know what's the ratio for traffic vs revenue? (how many visits = $1)

 

[Acion]

Wow. That is amazing. Trying to figure out how to manage my growing portfolio just shy of 1k. I can't imagine 27k! That is an art form. The focus on short, brandable names is similar to my approach so I'm stoked to see that. I put a good lot of thought into pretty much every one and it takes a lot of time. X27 seems unimaginable atm.

Very impressed with the website. Done a few as landers or blogs outside of any parking service or marketplaces as I'm not happy with any of them. I've been ramping that up. Shooting in the dark in a sense, testing variations and getting a reasonable amount of data but it's all still quite a mess. This gives inspiration it can be done at scale with a single human. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

[gtldomainer]

Congrats @Recons.Com , thats a big feat! cheers..

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

Congrats on your success! You, @bmugford , and @AbdulBasit.com are my top-three role models, and I'm always learning something from you guys. Thank you for that!

Now here's my question. What's your ratio between Afternic/Sedo sales? I have sold 60 domains on Afternic, but not a single one on Sedo. I've even stopped listing my domains there.

Do you use afternic landers?

 

[DrJacoby]

Do you use afternic landers?

I've used Efty landers for a few years, and Afternic landers the last two months.

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

I've used Efty landers for a few years, and Afternic landers the last two months.

Thanks! Did you see any changes in your STR?

 

[DrJacoby]

Thanks! Did you see any changes in your STR?

My portfolio is too small to tell after two months.

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

My portfolio is too small to tell after two months.

I see thank you anyway for the insight

 

[Recons.Com]

Hi, congratulations!!!

I'm astonished by your achievement!

This post is such a huge inspiration

I just started 1 year ago. Had 4 lowball sales in the first year. I guess it's not that bad for a beginner.

If you pay 9.5$ with GoDaddy, I think you have some kind of discount, since they are charging 19$/y for renewals, I'm transferring out everything before my domains expire.

I own now 250 domains, mostly .coms, this year I slowed down the acquisitions and trimmed my folio to dump the worst ones. I was looking to create a similar website for my collection, I will probably start with the SQ WL and if it goes well, I might develop my website.

I have a couple of questions for you:

1) Are you seeing a better STR with your own marketplace?

Where do most of your sales come from?

Does it benefit also your average profit with fewer commissions from the other marketplaces?

2) Can you please share your preferred method and the average cost of acquisition?

3) And why do you price most of your domains within a certain range?

Also about pricing which one do you think could be more effective? 2450, 2488, 2495, 2500?

I see most of your prices are straightforward but you still have some other prices like that.

4) I usually see very high prices for some domains, but yours are mostly ranging between 25k and 1.5k. Is avoiding pricing high on your domains a deliberate choice to sell them faster and reinvest in new domains? I mean instead of holding them for a long time hoping to sell them at the highest price possible.

Any general advice would you give to your younger self when you were just starting out?

Thanks!

Paolo

Hi, Paolo

I wish you success in your journey )

The number of offers, especially, low ball ones, doesn't mean much. Even accepted higher offers often don't close. What matters is the actual sales and the bottom line (if those sales pay for renewals and leave sufficient profit).

The problem with small portfolio is that having 0 or 4 sales with 250 names could just be the matter of luck, not skill or quality of names. Basically, if I were to randomly split my 27k+ names into the batches of 250 and track sales there, I'd have batches with zero to 4 or more sales. Just by pure randomness.

So you might want to have few "second opinions" on your portfolio and if overall you are on the right track and the names are investment grade with adequate pricing.

GD renewals: yes, I pay around $9.5 and that price is not exclusive. You need GD discount club membership that nowadays costs around $240/year, if I am not mistaken. With small portfolio, that could add $1/name for you, but with large portfolio it doesn't add much. You could also look for coupons or buy it for a month, renew and discontinue until next year, if you are not using GD auctions.

own marketplace: I am taking it slowly. I won't start testing the conversions and STR until I am fully satisfied with it. But, yes, when fully ready, it should provide STR of 1.5% to 3%.

Sales: since 99% of my names use Afternic landers and are listed at Afternic FT, of course, most of my sales come from there.

cost: I don't do handregs, so my names are either auctions and private buys at low, mid $xxx average or closeout at low $xx.

Pricing: most my names are priced around $2500. Anything above for good brandable names seem to affect STR negatively although I haven't done proper a/b testing on this yet. Just empirical observation. This seems to be even more the case since the start of 2022. $2500 also happens to be the "magical' pricing point where the math works fine. Meaning, STR is near 1% (if names are desirable for businesses), and after commission you have enough to pay renewals and make an adequate return for the level of risk involved. And, if I don't think a name is worth $2500, I normally just don't buy it.

I also haven't done proper testing for the ending digits (00, 99, 88, 50 etc.). I use 00 a lot, because I read that for the large impulse buys it might help, as anything "scientific" make buyer question the price and its fairness. Not sure if it really works that way for domains, but generally it works fine for me.

Pricing higher: yes, I do have some names priced higher, but that is not some random numbers. If I price the name high, it might mean that the name is expensive to buy, hard to replace, I might have an own potential use for it or all of those.

Advice to myself: hmm... buy bitcoins? ))))) For domains, I think I had good systemic approach from the beginning and there is not much I'd change. I have always been business-centric in my choice of names. I.e. a name should have utility for a business, should be able to contribute to its growth, be good "brand equity vessel" for it. So that criteria alone has helped me avoid costly mistakes.

 

[Recons.Com]

Congrats on your success! You, @bmugford , and @AbdulBasit.com are my top-three role models, and I'm always learning something from you guys. Thank you for that!

Now here's my question. What's your ratio between Afternic/Sedo sales? I have sold 60 domains on Afternic, but not a single one on Sedo. I've even stopped listing my domains there.

Thank you, dear DrJacoby. I appreciate your kind words.

Afternic/Sedo: I try to list all my names with Sedo, but 15% of the names I upload are already listed their and @Sedo doesn't care that they have so many fake listings. I opened few tickets and they did absolute ZILCH about it. Meaning they are fine that someone will buy a name and they cannot deliver it. Their verification method did not work for me with GD names and I did not bother enough about it. So just for me, Sedo has over 3000 fake listings.

Now about Sedo sales: their net pure own contribution is close to zero even with 20k+ names. In the past 12 months, I might have sold 1 or 2 names that did not come via NameCheap or similar and those sales would have happened anyway via Afternic. NameCheap and some others show Sedo first, if both Sedo and Afternic feed have the name.

Now, actually, Sedo has probably lost me 4 to 6 sales in the past 12 months, because those 3000+ names that are listed by someone else cause the true listing from Afternic not to show.

Overall, my Afternic to Sedo is roughly 9 to 1 (with names using Afternic lander) and that 1 is coming 90%+ from partners.

So if you can get your names that are listed by someone else delisted from Sedo, then you don't have to bother listing there as the chance of no-lander sale their is slim for small portfolios.

 

[Recons.Com]

Congrats on your portfolio!

Do you actually use the GoDaddy "Beta" Domain Manager? I Only have around 1,500 domain names, and the "Beta" Domain Manager takes forever to load the 1,500. I've had to exit the "Beta" and use the original domain manager interface.

Is there a trick to make the "Beta" Domain Manager run/load faster?

Thank you!

Ah, GD and their bugs. Those are like yin and yang, life and death, bees and honey. Always hand in hand.

Their Beta everything is painful except for 1 or 2 features and you always prey that they don't kill the old version, as you are absolutely certain that no bugs will ever get fixed even after years of reporting them via various venues.

So I still use non-beta almost for everything, except for sorting the names by the date added which helps with knowing which ones to list. The auction beta is even worse. Also, for Beta, don't choose more than 500 names at a time for anything. That is like a kiss of death and will make the circle spin for hours and any work you had done selecting anything will be gone if you refresh.

 

[kor]

Now about Sedo sales: their net pure own contribution is close to zero even with 20k+ names. In the past 12 months, I might have sold 1 or 2 names that did not come via NameCheap or similar and those sales would have happened anyway via Afternic. NameCheap and some others show Sedo first, if both Sedo and Afternic feed have the name.

Now, actually, Sedo has probably lost me 4 to 6 sales in the past 12 months, because those 3000+ names that are listed by someone else cause the true listing from Afternic not to show.

I've never thought of it this way. It's a critical issue.

The carelessness and arrogance of Sedo's support team is truly infuriating.

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

Hi, Paolo

I wish you success in your journey )

The number of offers, especially, low ball ones, doesn't mean much. Even accepted higher offers often don't close. What matters is the actual sales and the bottom line (if those sales pay for renewals and leave sufficient profit).

The problem with small portfolio is that having 0 or 4 sales with 250 names could just be the matter of luck, not skill or quality of names. Basically, if I were to randomly split my 27k+ names into the batches of 250 and track sales there, I'd have batches with zero to 4 or more sales. Just by pure randomness.

So you might want to have few "second opinions" on your portfolio and if overall you are on the right track and the names are investment grade with adequate pricing.

GD renewals: yes, I pay around $9.5 and that price is not exclusive. You need GD discount club membership that nowadays costs around $240/year, if I am not mistaken. With small portfolio, that could add $1/name for you, but with large portfolio it doesn't add much. You could also look for coupons or buy it for a month, renew and discontinue until next year, if you are not using GD auctions.

own marketplace: I am taking it slowly. I won't start testing the conversions and STR until I am fully satisfied with it. But, yes, when fully ready, it should provide STR of 1.5% to 3%.

Sales: since 99% of my names use Afternic landers and are listed at Afternic FT, of course, most of my sales come from there.

cost: I don't do handregs, so my names are either auctions and private buys at low, mid $xxx average or closeout at low $xx.

Pricing: most my names are priced around $2500. Anything above for good brandable names seem to affect STR negatively although I haven't done proper a/b testing on this yet. Just empirical observation. This seems to be even more the case since the start of 2022. $2500 also happens to be the "magical' pricing point where the math works fine. Meaning, STR is near 1% (if names are desirable for businesses), and after commission you have enough to pay renewals and make an adequate return for the level of risk involved. And, if I don't think a name is worth $2500, I normally just don't buy it.

I also haven't done proper testing for the ending digits (00, 99, 88, 50 etc.). I use 00 a lot, because I read that for the large impulse buys it might help, as anything "scientific" make buyer question the price and its fairness. Not sure if it really works that way for domains, but generally it works fine for me.

Pricing higher: yes, I do have some names priced higher, but that is not some random numbers. If I price the name high, it might mean that the name is expensive to buy, hard to replace, I might have an own potential use for it or all of those.

Advice to myself: hmm... buy bitcoins? ))))) For domains, I think I had good systemic approach from the beginning and there is not much I'd change. I have always been business-centric in my choice of names. I.e. a name should have utility for a business, should be able to contribute to its growth, be good "brand equity vessel" for it. So that criteria alone has helped me avoid costly mistakes.

Thank you very much for your advice!

I really appreciate it

 

[Alop]

Thank you very much for your advice!

I really appreciate it

Pls hit a like&thanks next time


I personally am holding 2 domains right now ….

 

[Recons.Com]

Pls hit a like&thanks next time


I personally am holding 2 domains right now ….

I personally like and appreciate a text more than a button click.

 

[Alop]

27k!!!!!!!!

 

[laur77]

Thank you! Still a lot of work to be done. Once that is complete and the site converts better than third party landers, I will start redirecting more and more domains there.

The current set up is using woocommerce and own payment gateway for bin and dan for installment. But I'll need to change that as well, since it was making sense with 9%, but not with 25% fee. Not sure I want to even keep installment option, as haven't seen any particular boost with it and any benefit is cancelled out via interrupted deals.

"Not sure I want to even keep installment option, as haven't seen any particular boost with it"

The big benefit of installments are not the sales made by installments but the fact that the presence of installments is increasing the number of potential buyers.
Without installments, a buyer knows that there are not many people who can put down a large amount at once, so he could act from a position of power, while the presence of installments allows many to purchase the same domain.
IMO the presence of the installments can make a potential buyer decide to act faster and pay more.

 

[Mytz.com]

many good name ..i like ..