How to Make a Living in the Domain Business

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Currently, I am averaging about $70,000 per year in PPC, revenue sharing, and affiliate programs. And I would like to let some people in on a few secrets. I cannot promise you will do the same, but the following information I could easily write a book and sell (but you are gong to get the best info for FREE).

I currently own close to 1800 domains and close to 1000 of them are poker domains. Yes, I know what you are thinking (all the good poker domains are gone) and its not going to help you… well I have some very interesting news for you. I read an article last December on the internet, and purchased about 10 domains because of this article. 3 of these 10 domains I purchased make an average of $25 dollars per day in PPC. Together that is $75 per day and about 1/3 the revenue that I make on my PPC per day (from these 3 domains). But before I go into this, about getting the best name, I want to discuss how I got where I am today.

When I got into the domain business just more than 2 years ago, I fell flat on my face (just like I see many of the newbees today). But I learned from my mistakes and I learned from my profits. It’s just as important to learn from what you do right vs what you do wrong. If you do something right… can you do it better?

In the first 3 months of my venture in the Domain Business and maxing out one of my credit cards, I realized that about half the domains I purchased were going nowhere. I had them parked at Afternic and moved them to SEDO a few months later. However, there was just one domain that I picked up and it purchased it by accident. It was a typo from a non trade mark site. And I was actually getting traffic and PPC on SEDO with this domain. So I started buying more similar Typos, but I was not the only person buying typo domains and the really good typos domains for PPC were bought up quickly. So I had to came out with a method that really helped me find some great typos and I am going to share this with you…..


1) Use a spreadsheet or text document that you can SORT. I personally use excel

2) Type the name of the domain you want the typo for, over and over and hit the return key after each time you type it. This will have it appear each time on a new line.

3) After each time you type the name, you MUST pick your hands up off the keyboard because it prevents a repetitive pattern.

4) Sometimes I type it about 20 times and rest and save the document.

5) If you can, do not look at the screen when you type, or if you make a mistake do not correct it.

6) After you type the domain about 500 times, then sort out your column of text. Now you are going to be able to see the most common typos you make because the common mistakes will be grouped together.

7) Sometimes I have others (type) it out because I don’t always make the same typos. My cat makes the most typos now.

About the same time learned this method, I started getting more poker domains. And yes I was lucky to grab many nice typos of poker sites. However, I currently own over 400 poker site typos which makes up over 60 percent of my PPC.

After a while I did pick up some trade marked domain typos and even found a way to dodge them (I am not going to go into that now). But if I did pick up a very good trade mark domain typo that makes a large profit, I always do a private registration. It does not stop them from taking the domain; however it weeds out the attorneys that just send the normal certified letter to scare you.


The next bit of information is how to find and get the domains that have potential. This is how I found those 3 domains last December. And in a similar example….. a few days ago I saw this article on the GOOGLE news about how GoldenSpirit is going to get into the online poker business.
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=88803

Golden Spirit is a very rich mining company in Alaska and now they want to get into the online poker business. Well they did pick up GoldenSpiritPoker.com but guess who owns GoldenSpiritPoker.Net and GoldSpiritPoker.com. Of course it is just speculation, however, I like my chances with a company who has the money to advertise. Last December I did the same with FullTiltPoker.com and it is really paying off.

The bottom line is reading as much as you can about a domain you are interested in buying can be all the inside information to score big. It does not have to be a poker domain. Big companies make mistakes by only buying the .com and not any similar domains/variations, and that is were domain buyers like us have the edge.

I have said this in other post, and maybe I am shooting myself in the foot by saying it here, but everyday… I read the news on Google about poker. I also always monitor www.PokerPulse.com because I want to know how all the top poker sites are doing. If there is a new online poker site or event, I want to know. Sometimes I wonder if I should be reading about technology more than just poker.

I am not saying everyone had to buy poker domains to be successful, however, the domain industry and technology is NOT stagnated. 2 years ago “POD” was unheard of. What is going to be the next new key words? Well it’s not going to just fall in your lap, but one of the first to know really helps. There is tons of articles just waiting to be searched and read by speculators like me and you, and it’s all FREE.

I believe that….. To be successful in the domain business you have to learn from your mistakes, your profits, and with the information I have just provided you it only takes the initiative. I can just see it, I made everyone on NamePros a millionaire.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
What a great thread. Thank you for taking your time to share such valuable information. :wave:
 
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Aren't pretty much all domains these days, trademarked?

Surely there aren't many left that aren't.
 
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sooty said:
Aren't pretty much all domains these days, trademarked?

Surely there aren't many left that aren't.

There is a big differnce between a Trade Mark name and a Trade Mark Logo.

PartyPoker.com (the largest online pokersite) tried to get a Trade Mark on the name PartyPoker and the name TM was never issued, Infact it was abondoned. However they do have a Logo trademark and they have quite a few logo trademarks. These logos are specific picture that if you try using on your website (for you own benifit) would cause problems.
You CAN NOT trade mark such a generic term. PacificPoker.com, PokerRoom.com and ParadisePoker.com (both in the top 5 online pokersites) did not ever bother getting a trademark. PokerStars.com is in the process of applying for a Name TM but they are dreaming.

Nobody has an never will be able to get a trademark on such generic terms as UsedAutomobile, or Automobile. But terms like Realtor, Expedia, SEDO, Afternic are trademarkable.
 
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Thanks

Thank you for being willing to help everyone out here on Namepros.

Frank
 
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Thanks a ton, Daniel. While my small efforts in the poker websire realm will surely not infringe on any of the territory of any of your "buddies", your advice has been invaluable.


I hope I'm not the only one that contributes to your "rep points" for this. ;)
 
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great thread guys :) Keep the comments coming..
 
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Ok, as Daniel knows (and others i guess) I too am a poker affiliate revenue earner.. Wont say how much (although i have before) but lets just say i ve earnt substantially in the last 3 years and so more importantly the extra revenue is gonna be hard to live without when its gone... Which it will in the not too distant future.....imho. The bubble is only so big. My only mistake was to take the $200 sign up bounty rather than the 25% lifetime commission payment.

I dont park like Daniel, i kinda semi develop... www.playtexasholdem.co.uk and www.liveplaypoker.com if you see what i mean.

Now i have about 40 or 50 poker domains, some typos but mostly poker domains that make sense. I also regged ccTLD poker domains.. And in my opinion, dont bother with these mega long .com poker domains searching for english language traffic, cos you aint gonna get none.

But if you do want the tip of the century, go register some .se or .dk domains and develop these as poker sites. Guaranteed winner. So if you know your poker traffic you'll already understand what im saying... ;)

Anyway, good discussion people..... And nice 888.com banners Ron ;)
 
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mole said:
Typos for a living, and chicks for free...
Banging on the {bongos} like a chimpanzee...
 
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thanks for the advice, danielr.

I have a list of a few typo domains that I made up.

My problem is, how to identify the relative value of each typo.

I didn't use your method because I am a damn good typer and hardly make any typos, the ones that I do are the most common ones. It would take me forever to find my typos, so I have constructed some typos instead.

My dilemma though, is how to measure the value of the typo. Overture is not that useful because only the top typos feature in Overture, what with typos (apart from some exceptions) not being all that common compared to the correct spellings.

Any advice for me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
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Thanks for the read! I thought it was great...(ALL of the posts!) I'm looking for some typo's for my industry to drive some traffic, I need to read up on ppc's....any suggestions?
Thanks,
 
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mycomputerstore said:
I'm looking for some typo's for my industry to drive some traffic, I need to read up on ppc's....any suggestions?
Thanks,

I would like to say something about using Overture key words as typos. One of the most searched terms on overture for "POKER" is "online poker". I have some typos for "onlinepoker.com" and the traffic is not as high as traffic for the typos for the major online pokersites (partypoker.com/net, pokerstars.com/net, pacificpoker.com...etc).

It could be that I dont have that good of typos for onlinepoker.com but I dont think there is that many people typing in the URL www.onlinepoker.com comparied to searching the term "online poker" ( in the search engine bar).

In all my poker domains, I have only developed a few sites, I used domain forwarding to redirect traffic to these site vs try to compete on the search engines. I also redirected many of my typos to direct affiliates site such as www.tiltem.com (tilt is a very popular world in texas holdem and means when a player looses his composition and plays irratic - happens to many good players when they are running bad).


But from my expreince in PPC from PPC providers the highest revenue is (in order)
Poker
Casino
Real Estate
Banking

I have found this to be true when PPC providers offer revenue sharing (SEDO does not offer this).
 
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Thanks foir the interesting read Daniel. I hope this can help me out in the future.
 
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eyeopening. Kinda like one of those 20/20 or dateline reports where you keep changing your mind every 5 minutes depending what is presented. Fantastic read - well worth some reputation...
 
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RogueWriter said:
Great article. Hmmm. I wonder if nameprso.com is taken.... ( RW slaps own hand. Bad Rogue! Bad Rogue! )
nameprso.com AVAILABLE
nameprso.net AVAILABLE
nameprso.org AVAILABLE
:lala: :kickass:
 
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vimkar said:
nameprso.com AVAILABLE
nameprso.net AVAILABLE
nameprso.org AVAILABLE
nameprso.info AVAILABLE
nameprso.biz AVAILABLE
nameprso.us AVAILABLE
nameprso.name AVAILABLE
nameprso.ca AVAILABLE
nameprso.bz AVAILABLE
nameprso.ws AVAILABLE
nameprso.cc AVAILABLE
nameprso.tv AVAILABLE
nameprso.de AVAILABLE
nameprso.it AVAILABLE
:notme:

Ohhhh! God, no! My hand accidently slipped and reged them all! ;)

( I didnt really, i dont like Ron biting my ankles! :'( )
 
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$70,000 in PPC, maynn you can buy yourself a FERRARI on your cash
 
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Min Traffic

What's the min traffic that can be so called "Decent" typo site? have anyone make any great income from ppc? just wondering.. im currenty doing a research..
 
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you could write an ebook and sell it on ebay for £24.99 a piece
 
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tandiono said:
have anyone make any great income from ppc? just wondering.. im currenty doing a research..

The first message in this string will answer that question.
 
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Great Article :tu: , it was worth reading
 
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DJ_Guvana said:
$70,000 in PPC, maynn you can buy yourself a FERRARI on your cash

Maybe a used one, But your forgetting about the domain renewal fees that eat a portion of my profits. l have many (non typo) domains not related to poker that I don't want to just drop like:

YourPaid.com
PrePaidLoans.com
PreApproved.cc
PrePaidRent.com
SelfSee.com
BonusRewards.com
IRArates.com
TrillionDollars.com
Etc.

I dont make the PPC on thse domain but I keep renewing them in hopes the value will go up sell one day at a decent price. I think most who owned domains like these would do the same.

_____________________________________________

I just found out that "Poker" is now the most searched word on Lycos. I am impressed by the following article.

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2005/06/poker-becomes-most-searched-word-web.htm
 
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thanks for the infomation, i will try that excel thing
 
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good lord, I never realized you can make that kinda money from domains
 
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RogueWriter said:
Great article. Hmmm. I wonder if nameprso.com is taken.... ( RW slaps own hand. Bad Rogue! Bad Rogue! )


3 pages of domainers posting and 2 posts about nameprso.com and no one regged it...lol

well I couldn't resist for $7 why not

:)

-RJ- if you want to C&D me lmk by PM :)
 
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