Buying Domain Names

I’ve generally been an advocate of owning one name of significant value than ten domain names that cost the same as the single name. However, in thinking about my business model, I think I would rather own ten excellent domain names than one exceptional domain name that costs as much as the ten excellent names.

When selling exceptional (high value) domain names, there are often many interested parties. Companies usually want to own the exact match domain name for SEO purposes, vanity reasons, to make it easier for customers to find their website, and for defensive reasons in order to keep it away from a competitor. However, even though there have been hundreds of millions of dollars in domain name sales on the books, many companies are reluctant to spend six or seven figures on a domain name.

If you need a very high

No matter what the object or asset is, I think the old adage of “everyone has a price” is applicable to domain names. If you keep this in the back of your mind when you are trying to buy domain names, it will serve you well.

I think that everyone has a domain name they covet. For some, it is the exact match domain name for a topic they are passionate about, and for others, it is a domain name in a field they know they can make a lot of money with if they had the opportunity to develop the domain name. I would bet that most of us have at least tried to purchase our ideal domain name if it’s not actively used, and I would also bet that most of us have been turned down.

If there is a name that you really want, I don’t think you should take

I want to share some personal insight into my domain name acquisition process because I thought it would be interesting for you to see how I evaluate domain names and decide what to do with them. It might still be a bit opaque, but it is an off the cuff analysis.

For the most part, I buy domain names either in private or at NameJet. I don’t do much hand registering these days. In fact, I might hand register 50 names a year, and that is probably an aggressive number.

Typically, I will focus on specific verticals for my acquisitions. For instance, I was recently attempting to buy