Buying Domain Names

Every morning, I spend around an hour going through lists of domain names that are coming up for auction. When I say every morning, I mean every morning. I do this on weekends, when we are traveling, when we have friends or family over (in non-Covid times), and all those times in between. I review lists from auction platforms, Dropping.pro, and I recently added ExpiredDomains.net to the list of tools I use daily. This is the hunt, and it is probably the most enjoyable part of domain investing.

As I and others have discussed many times, the prices achieved in expiry auctions have grown in recent years. It has become much more challenging to find what I would consider to be a deal, so the hunt has expanded. I never focused much on pending delete auctions, save for the occasional gem, but I have been focusing on that area a bit more.

When it comes to domain investing, people tend to focus on the domain name sales. Outbound sales is a hot topic, and it is an important topic for people who rely on it to sell their domain names. There are various threads covering everything related to outbound sales – from the sales pitch to the subject of the email to the number of times to contact someone about a particular domain name.

Sometimes a person wants to buy a domain name but they don’t have the budget or need at the time of contact. Touching base with a counterparty is a great way to keep the conversation going. People’s wants and needs change over time, and staying in communication is how to get deals done.

I inquire about a lot of domain names, and I bid on many domain name auctions. This may seem pretty obvious, but how the domain name looks and sounds is what catches my attention the most. Various stats and keyword information are important to note, but I try to buy domain names I can see people wanting to turn into brands, and it starts with the name itself.

Beyond this simple thought, there are a number of elements that make me want to buy some domain names more than others. In fact, I would pay a premium for a domain name – perhaps even overpaying for a domain name – when everything lines up perfectly for me. I want to share some of the appealing elements that make me more interested in certain domain names: