debate Let's be real, most successful domainers are people who registered domains 15-30 years ago

[Siggy2500]

This is what nobody talks about.

Decades ago, lets say roughly 25 years ago, when the internet was in its golden age, domains were in abundance and many good names were available, the average person could usually register the domain he needed without it being taken.

Domaining is not futureproof, not sustainable, it's more of an early-internet thing, even now the internet is still very young if you think about it, BUT, as the internet gets older and more people are using it, computers are advancing, the demand increases and all the half-decent domains get sucked up, even with the new TLDs. The new TLDs are overpriced, and nothing will ever compare to when the internet was fairly new, when good domains were available & free and without having to pay thousands of dollars or even millions for them.

Now, today, more than 20 years after the dot-com bubble, realistically, no domains are available for registering, only the pickers are left and if you want to get a good domain in your collection, you have to buy it at a premium and pray someone is going to buy it, and I don't think people really profit much from that at all, because it's likely that the would-be buyer is another domainer or as the nerds call it, "domain investor" like you, and I guess if the domainer or would-be buyer is smart he wouldnt buy the domain at any higher price than you did yourself because then he would have to resell it even higher if he's trying to make a profit just like you did. Then the price continues to become so high that there isn't much room left to profit off the domain within the domaining industry, then again there are chances it gets purchased by a business or individual interested in it, and then that domain goes out of public circulation and gets used as a website, with only the trash pickers left within the domaining industry.

Nobody wants domains ending in, for example: .xyz and other ugly similarities, even if you get a good domain with such ugly endings it's still realistically worthless, be real. The only TLDs in which "good" domains are worth anything are .COM, .NET and .AI, etc and that only being said if your website has traffic, it's true if you are a logical person and not a trash hoarder. The only domains which have value are high traffic domains, and if you have an ugly TLD domain, for example .xyz with high traffic, good for you, your domain has physical people entering it, then I can make an exception and consider it "valuable".

And finally, domains are not property which means you do not own them, you only have the right to use them and that is only so if you pay the yearly fee. Domains aren't property, therefore they have no book value, no officially recognized value because as I said, it's not property. It's only speculation and it's up to the so called "domain investors" what the market value for it is.

Different can be said about high traffic domains, as I said above, they have physical backing behind them in the form of customers (humans), which are important for generating revenue for a website. The only way you can make a domain "valuable" nowadays is by developing it into a website with traffic.


Alright, that is enough. Now I will be stormed with shit, feel free to thumbs down this post and mass-report me, moderate me or or whatever. I don't care! Just stay mad. Stay edgy!


And feel free to correct any mistake I made in this post, I might take it as advice, it depends.

 

[eyedomainous]

Personally, I think the premise is wrong.
The availability of names did not drive domain sales 30 years ago.

There are many more domains not registered than registered because the simple fact that 'a name' is available is not worth reg fee.

A market's perceived need for domains drives sales.

 

[dnk]

Most young people are making a lot of money using social media, crypto and apps, they are not interested in legally purchasing domains, though some fake domain ownership and get great powers, monthly government salary at the expense of the real domain investor in some countries. Paying domain renewal fees can cause great losses.

 

[manuelbroker89]

Yes especially post .com bubble (1998- 2017),
the top notch sale domain basically , all are long term holder with well-oiled portofolio..

ext .com are basically the "trademark" of TLD industry..

I can understand the pesimissm , but there's new extension boom comming like .xyz, .ai, .io

but the renewal price are so coking unlike .com

so Flipping from bin or auction for .com asset are realistic way to gain profit , if you have well access as brokerage agency and platform not as solopreneur (especially the novice like me)


it's all about observant the situation of market.
and waiting is the name of the game.

The "Big Dog of TLD industry" always have advantage than the new comer.

as example maybe in 1998, .com are free-to-registered asset, nearly free of charge but now the inflation and oversaturated market , cut throat competition industry are so greed state.


I can understand the thread starter point of perspective.


it's all about early catcher game.

 

[Damand]

Most young people are making a lot of money using social media, crypto and apps, they are not interested in legally purchasing domains, though some fake domain ownership and get great powers, monthly government salary at the expense of the real domain investor in some countries. Paying domain renewal fees can cause great losses.

Social media? If you talk about people who turned their Instagram and Facebook accounts into online stores, they make some money, but I'm sure it can work as a side hustle, not like a full-time job.
About those bloggers? Most of them must brag about having a careless life, but in reality, all they do is just lie. I have 3 so-called beauty bloggers in my neighborhood, and they just barely make the ends meet.

 

[Damand]

Some of what I was going to write has already been written by others, so I won’t repeat those aspects.

I could be regarded as one of those who bought domains 25-30 years ago (as I write this, just over 25 years have passed since I got onto the web proper) which was in the times of squawking modems, deep and heavy monitors (if you wanted a large colour one) and getting excited about seeing a photo of a nude woman on the screen, completed one swow line at a time, so it would take several minutes to appear in full.
If your baud rate was really slow, best to go have something to eat and come back later.

What the OP is saying is a person opinion/complaint. I don’t know if they are unhappy, or if they have lost money, or they “wish they were around when domain names were not seen as valuable”.
But this is true of all new things.

I remember my employer introducing email to us in 1997 and giving us training on how to use it and later, how to access the web generally (with all those horribly designed web pages in the 1990s and into the early 2000s). I didn’t give it all much notice or importance at the time because I didn’t know anyone with this new email thingy and everyone I needed to communicate with was on the same floor or below in the office, so I would just walk over to them or call them. Why sit there and type out all that I wanted to say, was my thought? Plus, phone shopping was working fine at the time, so using the web to buy something or to ask questions/get info wasn’t a thought either. The web and web pages were usually slow and clunky too, with tons of ads taking their sweet ass time to load.

Why tell you all this?

Because as some people reading this thread (and perhaps the OP too) were around in those times, but they may have forgotten how bad/slow/difficult/expensive the internet was like in those early years, and how some people thought it was a fad. For those reading this who are in their 20s to early 30s, you perhaps can’t understand this and so you probably can’t understand what making investment decisions on this new thing was actually like. I also remember how VR was going to change the world but it hasn’t and I don’t think it ever will, as it is currently offered (the general population are not going to strap some kind of glasses or screen over their eyes in order to try to experience something. Never going to happen (unless we start "living" like the people do in the film Virtual Revolution).

Does anyone remember all the mania, excitement and hype over any business that had a name starting with ‘e” or “e-“? Share prices for these businesses were going through the roof in the dotcom bubble. Those businesses are all dead now, with ebay and eharmony being the only ones I think are still going.

So early investors in anything face a huge risk, especially when investing in a whole new market/paradigm, with no real way of knowing what the future holds. Its mostly guesswork, gut feel and the like. Lots of people have lost money and some have lost their lives by gambling on the wrong area, business or invention. Yes, gambling, because that is almost entirely what investing in unknown ventures is.

The OP says that 25 years ago, domains were in abundance. Well, there were lots of names available when I started to get into this area (Feb 1998), but all the obvious ones were all taken by that point.
Real words were almost all taken, as were their plurals and so what you had to do is come up with names that were not brands which already existed nor real words, but names that could be made into a brand or business. Google is one such example, even though the real word is spelled differently. Twitter is another.There are many others of course.

At that time, I did not consider putting two words together to create a name, nor of inventing words that meant nothing but sounded good (those things came much later). Such domains would have ben available, but you had to think of that idea beforehand, which I did not until 1-2 years later.

One area I thought might take off is people using the web to post their career info on (resumes, samples of work, photos, video clips) as well as families who wanted to showcase their lives. So I registered many firstnamelastname names and some family names too. That hasn’t panned out as I thought it would although a few personal names I created did sell (in the $000’s) and which more than paid for all those that didn’t plus the annual renewal fees. I subsequently let 95% of personal names go.

If a person doesn’t have the creativity, or intelligence or the drive to pursue an opportunity, they won’t be able to take advantage of the opportunity, even if the opportunity is staring at them in the face. Plus, a person has to be able to recognise that an opportunity is an opportunity, first and foremost.

As internet use grew and grew, the value of domain names then began to rise but not before the number of people using it reached a certain point. The OP omits that aspect in his post, as indeed omits many other elements that are relevant and that played a role in how the domain name market/world exists as it does now.

The OP also claims that only domains with traffic are worth something and that the rest of worthless. I agree that there are a lot of names that are pure garbage and I see many such names put up for sale for $30-$100, etc, but I think he/she is being very simplistic as to the value of domain names. There are a great many names which have been registered but have yet to be developed. They will not have any/much traffic, but depending on the quality/usability of the name, some of those names could be worth a considerable sum. It only takes one person in the world to agree with the registrant that a name is good & valuable.

After failing to make much in the personal/family names area and also, losing a few thousand on registering generic .cn names (which were priced at $25-35 a pop for early buyers, once foreign people could register them), I stopped buying new names for several years and just held onto those I kept.

In recent years, I have begun to register names that would come into my mind, perhaps from something I would see or hear, sometimes omitting a letter or two, or switching letters around, or adding 1-2 letters, or some combo of these. I would add them to my list of name ideas, leave them for a couple of days and then go back and see if they still sounded good to me. If a name did, I would register the name after doing a few checks.

There are many examples of domain names that are in common use today that did not exist 10-15-20 years ago, or even 5 years ago, but which are not real words. Pinterest, Facebook, Bing, Sedo, GoDaddy, Groupon,, Spotify, Skype, Instacart, Door Dash, Air B n B, Zillow, and lots lots more. How did the people who came up with these names come up with them? They may have had a flash of inspiration, or they worked on names for weeks and weeks on end, or perhaps some combo of these. What they didn’t do is do nothing and then watched as others made businesses and money from their ideas, or sold their domains to those who wanted to,

The OP has made several black & white statements, but none of them are actually true. Where some people complain, or throw their hands up in frustration/despair and surrender, others ask “What can I do?”, “How can I make this work”? People with the idea, the energy and determination will be seen by others as having such and be drawn to them (like a moth to a flame). Such a person will thus often get support, tools and resources because other people want to be part of that person’s project/energy and be along for the ride. It’s much like why fans of pop stars want to touch the star, in order to somehow “get some of their magic” for themselves, that the star seems to possess.

Nobody alive now (and even babies if they could read), can tell you what will happen in the future.
For certain though, we will still be using letters and words, as we have done for thousands of years, so that aspect isn’t going to go away anytime soon. Therefore, whatever form the internet changes to, if indeed it does change, words will still be required. I suspect we may have a 2 or 3 tier internet within 10-15 years, with the top level commanding premium prices but which will be free of many of the downsides of the internet as it is now.

During the past 12-15 months, I have added over 250 names to my portfolio, which are mostly made up words that no-one has registered before and that do not have a trademark or any business connected to them. Since I started buying names in 1998, I have sold about 10 of them for a combined value of just over $70,000 (net of commissions). I had hoped for more sales but as I have said, things don't always work out the way a person imagines they will.

While the OP is spending time on forums writing frustration-based posts and arguing with people (the exact purpose of which eludes me), others are busy forming new domain names and business ideas and pursuing them. Others are buying domain names that they like and which are being offered for sale, price not being an obstacle.

I suggest to the OP to consider doing less of the former and more of the latter if he/she wants something better in this market and their life generally. The only person stopping them, is themselves, which is true of everyone.

In addition, I would like to refer to an old adage, which applies these days - The best time to invest is when there’s blood in the streets.

You have some good points, especially of how all this began.
Domains have changed a lot, and now the idea of the internet is different compared to what people had 30 years ago.

 

[Siggy2500]

I'm constantly surprised by the number of angry or even just frustrated people that enter domaining. This is a sh*t business, but I'm here, so I'm going to vent my anger that really, I don't have a clue what I'm doing or understand why domains sell. So instead of directing my frustration at myself (I can't accept that) I'll have a pop at all and everything else

Let me tell you despite your beliefs. Domaining in the late 90's wasn't easy, the best domains had been snapped-up years before that. $70 registration and $70 yearly renewals. Probably around the equivalent of $200 a pop today. Do you honestly think somebody like you would have been willing to throw thousands of dollars at what was no-more than a Punt. Nothing about the internet take-up and development was certain back then. Sorry OP but you definitely don't have the strength of character to make a success either today or back then.

I certainly considered myself sweeping up the poor relations in domains even in 1999. but in time they rose up into desirables, trouble being that took a lot of years. I don't think you would have the patience to study the market and then apply a 'Marketers' mindset to your purchases

 

[DmytroK.]

I don't think newgTLDs are overprised(little remark). Everyone decides for himself what to love. NewgTLDs are important. They are wide field for modern branding. Lot's of modern businesses choose to create their brand like newgTLD (with dot in the middle between two words). Such situation is in my country. I don't know what is in yours.

Just register good newgTLD for regular price, wait for 10 years, and you will be successful, maybe. Like them all. By the end there are a lot of good startups in the internet, like domaining meeting their dawn.

 

[JB Lions]

I don't think newgTLDs are overprised(little remark). Everyone decides for himself what to love. NewgTLDs are important. They are wide field for modern branding. Lot's of modern businesses choose to create their brand like newgTLD (with dot in the middle between two words). Such situation is in my country. I don't know what is in yours.

Just register good newgTLD for regular price, wait for 10 years, and you will be successful, maybe. Like them all. By the end there are a lot of good startups in the internet, like domaining meeting their dawn.

If you want to sell domains, this is bad advice. You can just look at any sales thread, like the one from today: https://www.namepros.com/threads/cradle-xyz-sold-for-49-988-youtibe-com-for-18-556.1319781/

gTLDs - 399
New gTLDs - 3 ------------where are the sales?
ccTLDs - 18

Some of the biggest new gtld fans are no longer around. I take a look at all the money they wasted on new gtlds and think what if they simply hopped on Namejet, GD, other places and bought decent .coms. They would be better off today, easily.

 

[Siggy2500]

It's not a first post type of post. It's a post of somebody who is frustrated with lack of sales. And you've posted nothing about your background with domaining. How about some basic stuff to get started:

How long have you been domaining?

How many domains do you own?

How many have you sold?

What is the breakdown of your extensions you own?

How long have you been on/reading NP?

It's not a first post type of post. It's a post of somebody who is frustrated with lack of sales. And you've posted nothing about your background with domaining. How about some basic stuff to get started:

How long have you been domaining?

How many domains do you own?

How many have you sold?

What is the breakdown of your extensions you own?

How long have you been on/reading NP?

"It's not a first post type of post. It's a post of somebody who is frustrated with lack of sales."

Why are you saying I should be like the rest of the sheep herd and be afraid to say what I genuinely think, just because my account is new?

This forum isn't necessarily experts-only as you guys are making it look like. I always see the same heads popping up to the right hand of my screen in Blog favorites, it's funny lol fr.

My post does not have anything to do with me and my experience with domains, it's just someones debate, quit going off-topic.

And my post is closing in on 1k views, that's higher than the average one.

 

[Siggy2500]

You dodged all the questions I asked.

"My post does not have anything to do with me and my experience with domains, it's just someones debate, quit going off-topic."

 

[Siggy2500]

Another dodge. Of course it does. If somebody is failing at domaining, they're going to have a negative view. People that are making money, do this for a living, love domaining etc, are going to have a positive view.

Another dodge. Of course it does. If somebody is failing at domaining, they're going to have a negative view. People that are making money, do this for a living, love domaining etc, are going to have a positive view.

That's delusional, when you are in an industry you must try to forecast and account for the occasional recessions, large-scale or small-scale, that happen in every industry, big and small, to minimize the losses and uphold the profit.

 

[Siggy2500]

You literally didn't answer any of them.

I provided one answer to all of your questions.

 

[Siggy2500]

Lying about that isn't helping you. 5 basic questions, some require actual numbers. I think we both get that answering them will give some insight into why you're failing at domaining and needed to get a new account to make this post. If you posted under you regular name, people could check what you've been doing. Try to find something you're good at, it's not domaining.

I provided one answer to your questions, whether it was a straight one or not.

You are making false claims.

 

[Yanosh]

I provided one answer to your questions, whether it was a straight one or not.

You are making false claims.

There is an easy way to prove him wrong
Answer his questions
But you will not , right ?

 

[Siggy2500]

There is an easy way to prove him wrong
Answer his questions
But you will not , right ?

 

[Krum]

If anyone writing on these forums was successful, he wouldn't be writing on these forums.
This is the salty truth.
You might think, hey I'm doing good I'm on these places doing my business.
That's not successful, that's hard working for some minor profit :\
Never quit tho.

 

[Damand]

In my opinion, .COM, .NET, and a few other traditional domain extensions hold high value due to their familiarity and trustworthiness. You are absolutely right about that. However, domain extensions like .xyz, .app, and others can still be valuable when used strategically. Basically, the perceived value of a domain extension often depends on its relevance to the content or business it represents.

 

[scithe]

It is possible in 20 years that domaining will be dead because it is possible in 20 years the web as we know it will be obsolete and we will all be migrating onto something else.

It's also possible that although technology seems to be accelerating at a great rate in the last 40 years, that we're about to hit a stagnation period and in 50 years we'll still be using the web much like we are now

 

[Matty W.]

That cake has flown. AI pie, anyone?

Haha I guess you are right.

 

[Alop]

Anyone can price a domain name very few price it right.

Price is wright

 

[Constantin S]

This doesn't apply only to domains, it applies to any type of investing. Of course, the earlier you invest, the higher the returns are. However, the risks are also higher. I've never understood the hate on .xyz, I personally sold SME.xyz ($1988) and SkyBank.xyz ($488) and I only had like 50 .xyz domains since I started domaining.

 

[Jannes]

This doesn't apply only to domains, it applies to any type of investing. Of course, the earlier you invest, the higher the returns are. However, the risks are also higher. I've never understood the hate on .xyz, I personally sold SME.xyz ($1988) and SkyBank.xyz ($488) and I only had like 50 .xyz domains since I started domaining.

And more generally it's about timing. A friend of mine was early on Bitcoin, but unfortunately he also sold (most of) his bag way too early.

 

[branding]

Like wtf, we didn't have iPhones and 5G before but everyone that is born now sees it as absolutely normal, how on? earth can you think that's not the same with domain names?

Yeah but it's like... You have android (.com), apple (.net/.org)... Maybe the other way around...

Good luck challenging them with whateverbrand (.whatever).

I share the sentiment though.

 

[Damand]

Let me present a 'different view', not necessarily contrary, but different.

I have domain'd more than 20 years.
And I think what the forum starter is missing, is all of the history along the way.

While that is more than I am even willing to type out here, let me give you some highlights.

In the late 90's as not many realized the potential value and future need of domains, even fewer understood how to leverage the system itself as it was. And not all of that was without some underhanded activity.

For at a a time when search worked a bit different than you all are use to today, we all seek knowledge as to what the user was typing in the URL. Some used a partnership with cute toys folks would install to their browser to monitor that URL and compile the data back to a common place where it was weighed for potential. Call it insider info.

By just good guessing or using this insider info, you would know what domains were commonly misspelled.
That would lead the more devious ones to put up fake websites or just using the name for purposes of traffic to some other site. But you would know what folks were "looking for". A lot of money was made from this.
Many rules were created from the problems the bad actors made. But it was not immediate.

So, whether or not you could get a name in exact form, you could also determine how large some sectors were.
Buying names in the same class or might have similar demand in need.
Do keep in mind at this time a .com would cost you $100-150 to hand reg, so you were not buying in bulk.
There were no coupons or discounts.There was great value in names that had 'natural traffic'.

So, that is just some understanding of how this stuff started. It's not all pretty. Not everyone was underhanded.
Don't tell me that some of you would not jump at such an opportunity if it was looking right at you.
Or that you would not pay for some of that info.
Unfortunately, google rendered much of that useless anymore and browser security stepped up because of all the malware that was in those toys. Because that in itself became big biz spying on habits of users.
It is true that few understood the significance of domains. But that is the trick right down to the name isn't it.
This is a predictive sport.But you can't make a good future judgement unless you understand the now.

So, it can be said that those in this at that stage who made some very nice sums already had an advantage of funds to buy even more valuable names with a target in mind of a future 'high need with deep pockets'.
If you didn't have the funding, you are not going to compete at that level. You needed big sales to be able to corner the next sector.

...moving onward...

The market will continue to change...
15+ years or more ago, I would say that we hit saturation point.
That I define as the point where most everyone who existed that was going to have a presence on the inet was there with their own identity.
No more volume of people in need. Just new startups and perhaps some product expansion. No steep competition for the same name like 'insurance.com'. The best names were 'in use'.
It did not hit all at once, it creeped in from about 2007 - 2012. Most had a hard time explaining the poor sales numbers.

At about this same time, along came a new challenge.... Facebook.
Why would mid scale biz spend 100k on a name when 99% of their users were on facebook and not only could they get some very personal data about users habits and tendency's, they could specifically target them by the same. Much harder to do with a name on the web and google, but google had similar services, but Facebook analytics were indeed better because they had more intimate detail that google could not obtain.
Now the valuable info was a complete user profile complete with people you associate with who likely think the same..
Not good for names.

So the new game if you didn't have the funds to play the big game, was no longer buying and holding in bulk of just slightly better than average odds. Now you have to be decisive and well targeted about future markets. The easy game was over.

I will say, it took me a few years to adjust to this reality, but to react to it properly, you did have to understand what the market was in the past or you could never make adjustments to that going forward.

Which brings us to the present (after skipping over a lot)

The market will continue to change (said that before didn't I)

So when you think it is all over for domains, you have given up on your own ability to see future need.
That is OK if that is where you are. The successes of the past have not hindered anyone from making money in the present. It's just not as easy now. You really gotta work for it.
Find the need, then seek the opportunity of the name to fit it.

Let me say just a few things I seen over the years that even I myself have been guilty of that still happen in this marketplace.There is probably nothing any of you newer to this are going through or even about to, that are not mistakes I have made as well. The only difference with me is I have the long history.

We all feel we do our homework well. But often, you are not looking at the right things to do your homework on.
It's not that you are not putting in the effort, it's just in the wrong things.

I am not trying to make anyone think they way I do for there is plenty I am not saying. Some of it may be offensive because you may be guilty of it yourself and not yet willing to admit you need to look at your actions a bit closer.
.
If you don't see opportunity, then it is time to get out. We all watch sales reports of 6f sales. Do you take any time to see why those names brought so much. Try it. It's a good first step to judging the future.

I might add that it's important for any of you to watch your news with skepticism. Or you may be missleading yourself.

Let's take market sales reports...
If you don't look at the buyer and the buyers use of a name to see that indeed it was a end user sale, you are letting yourself get hyped up over perhaps a category of names that are only selling because of investor over speculation that never fruits or very little. Investor buys fluctuate with the stock market. Not an issue if you intend to sell into investor hype.
But if you want to stay more on solid ground, be aware.

Better homework as to what the market is now will help you to better decide what will be.

So, do you throw in the towel or will you do your homework better for a ever changing marketplace.
Roll with the changes. There have been and will be a lot of them.

Be it known that I do not 'target' 6 figure+ sales. It is a rich man's sport but perhaps you can get lucky.
Your mileage may vary.
I find more enjoyment and success targeting low 5 figures down to 2500 to start-ups.
Better cash flow and keeps me on my game.
Know that it is more of a level playing field than it ever has been. Except for this thing we call EXPERIENCE.
Which is that little voice in your head telling you that you are doing it wrong... again !
Willing to give up what you earned and quit now ?

I agree with the rest that you've provided a lot of valid points, but the main point is that everything is constantly changing. And even Google search is way different now from what we see compared to what it used to be like 15-20 years ago.

 

[QDomains]

I don't think, i have seen many 3 to 4 years old seller also making 5fig...

But if you still not found this forum then you missing something very precious.