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discuss Hand reg is your friend, no matter what others say

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Dear beginners,

Everyone here was a beginner when they started investing. Not everyone starts domain investing with $5,000. Especially for people who are from developing countries, $5,000 is like 2 years of groceries. In fact, that is one of the reasons why domain investing is one of the most attractive businesses. You can start off with literally $500 or maybe $100 even.


Especially for people starting off with less than $500
Trust me, no matter what people say, it makes sense that when you are starting off, you go for hand registration and control your sales rather than sit on a number of names in your first year, waiting for the buyer to come and press the BIN button. So, I would advise you to go for hand-registration names in the beginning and control your destiny by selling them via outbound, or active reach out.

As you start making some sales, and you have a spare $1,000 apart from some cash flow, you can start getting in more liquid names - 4L .COMs, experiment with .CO, .XYZ and so on. But start with something you can sell actively!

Do let me know if you have any questions about hand registration.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
This is very bad "advice" for beginners.

You are spamming the forum with non-sense questions about any topic possible because you don't know anything, and yet, you are giving beginners "advice" to hand-register names.

If you are a beginner and reading this DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS ADVICE.

There are a lot of really professional and kind domainers here sharing info daily on how to become a successful domainer. Show some respect and just read what the real PROs say.
 
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Me as a beginner hand regging names:
Low quality names, no sales, hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, negative ROI

Me as a pro 13 years later hand regging names:
High quality, many sales, hundreds of thousands of dollars made, positive ROI

The issue isn't hand registration. This issue is WHO is doing the hand registration.

If you are new to domain investing, you simply do not know enough about which domain names end users want to buy. You may egotistically think you do, but you do not. Stay humble.

If you have been investing in domains for at least three to five years, you likely know much more about which domain names end users want to buy. You have taken the time to observe and learn from the market and from other pros. Stay humble.

The difference in hand registration success is time, knowledge, insight and the application of the same.

Thus, it is generally a bad idea for newbies to start off handing registering domain names, especially newbies without money that they can afford to lose.
 
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He has a good point about the fact that not every new domainer can afford to invest a substantial sum of money which is needed to purchase very good names.

But the advice I'd have loved to see should be about beginners educating themselves thoroughly on what makes a good name before building a portfolio either through expired drops, handregs, or whatever. Acquiring the right knowledge (at least the most important basics) before any other thing cannot be over emphasized.
 
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Terrible advice. Beginners are the worst hand reggers known to man. If you can’t afford good names or a good upfront investment you are unfortunately in the wrong business. I only advise seasoned domainers to hand reg.
 
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I think that hand regging is almost an inevitable path every newbie will take. The thing is that you need to be able to understand (before renewal time) why your first regs were trash and learn from it.

I wouldn't recommend beginners to try to buy “good names“ at wholesale prices either as they usually don't know what a “good name“ is. They would be making the same mistakes as when hand-regging, but it would cost them a lot more money.

The reason why hand regs work for some people is that these people are experienced domainers who are able to spot the value in them. I think this is the exact same reason they are successful with non-handregged domains.

Bottom line: Read and Learn as much as you can before acquiring any new domains (regardless of their nature)
 
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What sales are you willing to share in order to back your claim that you are really good at it?
The only thing he is good at is bragging about how good he is at picking names. As for him selling them, or they being 'sellable'...HAA!!!
 
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How can a person who never sold anything and keep asking nonsense questions gave advises to other people?
He did more harm than good by creating these type of threads.
 
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How can a person who never sold anything and keep asking nonsense questions gave advises to other people?
He did more harm than good by creating these type of threads.
At least the guy is trying to engage in conversation. All you do is post nonsense about your wife and negativity
 
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How can a person who never sold anything and keep asking nonsense questions gave advises to other people?
He did more harm than good by creating these type of threads.
I think he is working on NamePros ('abstract' domainer not real). Such threads are bring related traffic to the forum. This is just seo and marketing tactics.
 
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I think the point here is NOT hand registering but how good you are at choosing the domains and usually Skills and expertise don't belong to the same sentence with beginner or newbie.

My advice, coming from someone who has sold many hand registered domains, is to learn A LOT before spending your money, whether you hand register or not.

Starting with $100 or with $100.000 is not what determines if your business will be profitable or not; a good eye, knowledge, data and intuition will.

PLUS the ability and the willingness to hold on to a domain for many years at times, because domaining, opposite to what sensationalistic headlined would want you to believe, is, more often than not, a long term game.

You want to flip? You have to buy liquid.

But liquid domains, like LLLLs, never drop. And there is a reason for that.

I have been absent from here for years ( and maybe will disappear soon again lol ) but I see the same things happening.

New domainers trying to unload their rubbish domains on even newer domainers to cover costs or cutting losses.

THAT is not a successful business model.

I understand that we all need to start somewhere but I understand even more that we also need to learn and perform better.

Not everyone starts domain investing with $5,000

And even those who do end up flushing that money down the toilet in more cases than not.
 
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Let's be honest here. The vast majority of newcomers decide to jump into it because they think (and hope) it's a fast and easy way to pretty much turn a $10 investment (4 bus tickets) into a 4 figures (monthly rent) sale. Is it realistic?

The truth is...

Selling domains you just registered is easy. A sale is a sale, no matter if there's profit or not...

Selling domains you just registered on a consistent basis in order to make your practice profitable is hard.
 
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It would be nice to see a checklist to go through when buying a domain. Things like are backlinks important etc. AS someone who has only bought domains for sites I thought I could develop, I would love to see a post that discusses the criteria to search for a valuable domain.
First of all, I am not a pro so do not take my opinion seriously.

To your question, I don't have a checklist. If I think a name is good enough at face value, I register it. I believe most times, end users are only concerned about the name rather than underlying metrics. That is not to say that a name with good metrics isn't more desirable.

As a newbie, there are many things you will need to learn but it just doesn't happen in a day, a week, or even a month. I think the knowledge comes through experience. Experience comes through doing, avoiding past mistakes, and striving to be better everyday.

I will advise you digest the important threads in the beginners' section. Here is the link: https://www.namepros.com/threads/popular-domain-beginner-resources.844937/

Spotting a good name like I said comes with experience. What better way to learn than reading on names that sold in the past. The daily sales report on namebio is important for any serious beginner.

The reported sales thread on this forum is equally a goldmine. If you can, it is advised to read from the beginning or from wherever you want. You should however take not of timestamps when relating past sales to present day. https://www.namepros.com/threads/report-completed-domain-name-sales-here.83628/page-975#post-8606456

For the fact that a name sold doesn't mean it is the best. For the fact that a name dropped doesn't mean it is not sellable. With experience, you will come to understand this statement.
Good luck.
 
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You're right, especially the way we're led to believe how this industry is suppose to work. Having started and named dozens of businesses since 1970, i know for a fact I'm pretty good at it. Since discovering the domain industry over four years ago i've hand regged thousands of otherwise great names, some of which are .coms and others new gTLD's. All that's needed is to educate the "end user" world how utterly stupid this industry truly is:xf.wink:

To show you or anyone reading this, simply key into your address bar; PraiseGod.com and you'll see what I mean. btw, this is just one of thousands of examples i'm able to show a potential "end user".

Stupidity equates to OPPORTUNITY:xf.grin:
What sales are you willing to share in order to back your claim that you are really good at it?

That would be very educational for all the newbies that are starting now...
 
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I think it would be really difficult to sell hand regged domains via outbound or active reach out. Success rate would be one in thousand maybe?
 
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This is very bad "advice" for beginners.

You are spamming the forum with non-sense questions about any topic possible because you don't know anything, and yet, you are giving beginners "advice" to hand-register names.

If you are a beginner and reading this DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS ADVICE.

There are a lot of really professional and kind domainers here sharing info daily on how to become a successful domainer. Show some respect and just read what the real PROs say.
The blind (prob looking for validation) leading the blind.
The op should invest in the DN Academy course before posting.
 
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Listen to the wrong advice will make you lose money.
What's the reason to post these nonsense questions?
 
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Listen to the wrong advice will make you lose money.
What's the reason to post these nonsense questions?
There is loads of advice all over namepros. Everyone is entitled to their view on how they see or read things. It is then up to the reader to decide what they are going to do with the abundance of different information they have. It's not up to you to decide who can post what. If you don't agree with someone, you have the option to block or just scroll past.
 
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This is exactly what many newbies don't know in the domain industry. You don't just hand register names anyhow and expect them to sell, learning for few months isn't enough but at least, a year.
 
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First of all, what is the definition of hand reg?
This is a more complex question than might first seem.

I think the most accepted definition would be a domain name that you can obtain at registration cost. In some cases it will be a name that no one has previously registered, while other times it will be a name that has been allowed to expire so that its creation clock on Whois has been reset to the date you registered the name.

Is a name that carries a premium registration fee still a hand registration?

I check the expired list regular in a few specific categories. When I register one of those names, in most cases that expired that day or day before, is it a hand registration? Technically yes. But not in the sense I was the first to create it.

Even many names that we think we create, a check of HosterStats will show that they were thought of by others before.

So the various things asked in your later questions, yes they could be hand registrations or you could obtain a name of that type in an expiring or user auction, or by buying from another domainer, in which case they are not technically hand registration.

Bob
 
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Buying domains is easy. Selling domains is hard.

Brad
 
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This is very bad "advice" for beginners.

You are spamming the forum with non-sense questions about any topic possible because you don't know anything, and yet, you are giving beginners "advice" to hand-register names.

If you are a beginner and reading this DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS ADVICE.

There are a lot of really professional and kind domainers here sharing info daily on how to become a successful domainer. Show some respect and just read what the real PROs say.
This is very bad "advice" for beginners.

You are spamming the forum with non-sense questions about any topic possible because you don't know anything, and yet, you are giving beginners "advice" to hand-register names.

If you are a beginner and reading this DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS ADVICE.

There are a lot of really professional and kind domainers here sharing info daily on how to become a successful domainer. Show some respect and just read what the real PROs say.
How is a beginner going to know that the buy it now your hoping he buys from you is worth 5k or 5 bucks, hand reg is great if you know what your doing , 5 years ago I sold a gambling domain to a guy in europe ,he never renewed it ,by the time i noticed this the domain was unregistered for 13 months ,yes I hand regged it AGAIN and sold it buy it now afternic for 8888 ,so your advice is poor ,to each his own ,there is too many good domains expiring and not enough people in the industry to buy them.
 
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After 5 months as newbie I would say this is not good advice at all. I have wasted a lot of money on Hand_reg, even after reading a lot, listening to every podcast (Kickstart Commerce, DomainSherpa, DigitalFortune (Josh), DNW) for hundreds of hours. I am an educated professional, English my first language. I lucked out and sold one hand_reg for just under $4k (via Brandpa) which netted me about $2.8k. My portfolio is not great from the hand_reg names and I wish I had not done it. Expired, SAV auctions, etc. significantly better. Best advice, buy nothing for 6 months!
 
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You're right, especially the way we're led to believe how this industry is suppose to work. Having started and named dozens of businesses since 1970, i know for a fact I'm pretty good at it. Since discovering the domain industry over four years ago i've hand regged thousands of otherwise great names, some of which are .coms and others new gTLD's. All that's needed is to educate the "end user" world how utterly stupid this industry truly is:xf.wink:

To show you or anyone reading this, simply key into your address bar; PraiseGod.com and you'll see what I mean. btw, this is just one of thousands of examples i'm able to show a potential "end user".

Stupidity equates to OPPORTUNITY:xf.grin:
Naming businesses since 1970 ? That puts you at probably 70+ right ? Maybe it's time for you to chill out with a pair of slippers and a mug of ovaltine
 
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I will make it simple:

The idea is to invest in a domain name and hold until it reaches a sufficient and necessary condition (GROWTH) for credibility (TRUST) so that it can be sold to a corp or VC backed company for $X0.000+

10s of 1000s of micro enterprises have started up across a number of sectors. VCs & Bankers invest directly into companies, large companies acquire small companies etc.

Monitor and Analyze Micro & Series A. But- Series B rounds are all about taking businesses to the next level; - Let's upgrade company marketing game & brand/domain name. Improve (& sell) or use something more memorable / imaginable (to create long-term value).

At its fundamental core, domain investing is really just about 2 things: Research & Timing.

Naming? Your job is to pinpoint a problem & sell solution - exact match, exact need.


Entrepreneur with an startup idea or a new tech-up often has no other choice (lack of cash) but confusing.com or .co, .io, .ai, nGTLD.

If the market needs are unknown, there's no cash. Any company moves on cash, not profits. No cash, no EMD.

VCs are in the business of putting money into Growing businesses. The critical factors are how much money has been raised (A-B-C ...rounds), what the board/partners/ceo structure is & Who's who (* mentality - overall track record, how they spend their time: extravert vs introvert, behavior, habit).

Gathering and analyzing multiple data points in order to find/acquire/register the best domain name that meets their needs -- is extremely important. (f.e. Crunchbase.com, Chamber of Commerce data etc. - Choose sources with a history).

Thus the critical challenge for the domain investor is to identify "competent" name that can execute: (future) Growth. You'll need to carefully examine competitors in the market and what they offer versus them, branding/motto. Competitor analysis can provide you with a insight: Who, What, Why, Where, When (+ when to sell DN).

By investing in sectors (= domain names) with high growth rates, investment are likely to have exit opportunities, because companies are continually looking for a highly memorable (most common words = performance) and functional name to bring to market.

Monitoring

Even with the best idea - solving problem/s, the odds of failure for any startup/entrepreneur who need funding are high. But, the odds of failure for any cash loaded company are low. The more money they manage, the less time they have to acquire the Exact Match/Need Growth-able domain name. Not surprisingly, in the beginning, the companies are usually far less knowledgeable about how much domain name is sensitive - more specifically, contributes to optimizing customers' behavior / buying process.

Many DIs make the mistake of thinking that companies are looking for something cheap when, in fact, they are looking for the best & expensive domains (dreaming 24/7). Often, they (sidekick, hired or brand agency) are also waiting (for years) for the price to drop to the right point before finally making a big decision. All trick shots/inquires/LB included, even hit & run UDRPs.


Plenty of research & monitoring.


Stop waisting money on DroneBee. Get HoneyBee


Regards
 
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He has a good point about the fact that not every new domainer can afford to invest a substantial sum of money which is needed to purchase very good names.

But the advice I'd have loved to see should be about beginners educating themselves thoroughly on what makes a good name before building a portfolio either through expired drops, handregs, or whatever. Acquiring the right knowledge (at least the most important basics) before any other thing cannot be over emphasized.
It would be nice to see a checklist to go through when buying a domain. Things like are backlinks important etc. AS someone who has only bought domains for sites I thought I could develop, I would love to see a post that discusses the criteria to search for a valuable domain.
 
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