Daily Poll

I don’t hand register all that many domain names each year. I would say the number is somewhere around 50 +/- and that figure varies each year. When it comes time to renew my hand registered domain names, I sometimes struggle to decide what gets renewed and what gets dropped.

I look at various factors including traffic and inquiries, with the inquiries and offers being more important than the (generally) negligible traffic figures. When I have owned a hand registered name for a couple of years and there are no signs of life, I start to wonder whether it is worth renewing. Yes, it is short money, but paying even $1k/year can add up after several years. If I renew 100 hand registered names for around $1,000/year, that $5,000 after 5 years could have been better spent if none of the names are sold. If that holds true, perhaps I should re-evaluate my hand registration skills, too!

It would be interesting to know how much time readers give their hand registered domain names before opting to drop them. You are invited to share additional thoughts in the comment section.

Yesterday’s poll question: How much is Mouth.com worth?

Peter Askew made me aware of a tweet from Jason Calacanis that discussed the shut down of Mouth.com and its potential availability:

Bummed about https://t.co/ROztjwurDO shutting down — bidding for the assets, but need an Ecommerce/food founder who wants to take on the challenge with me.

Is that you?

Do you know anyone? @mouthfoods

— jason 🦄 🇦🇺 ❤️ (@Jason) June 18, 2018

Without considering the goodwill or associated intellectual property beyond the domain name, I am curious about what you think the Mouth.com domain name is worth should it be sold at auction. It could be used as a brand related to eating, food, dental care, plastic surgery, or even a new brand totally unrelated to any of those associated meanings.

From my perspective, one word .com domain names like Mouth.com are in high demand right now. In what range would you say the Mouth.com domain name is worth?

Do a search on LinkedIn for “domain broker” or “domain name,” and you will see a lot of results for people who list domain name broker in their LinkedIn profile. There are way more people who consider themselves to be brokers or who offer private brokerage services than I thought possible.

One reason for this is that there are likely brand protection companies whose employees work on domain name acquisitions on behalf of clients. Another reason is the relative ease in setting up shop and calling oneself a domain broker.

I am not a domain broker. I acted as a broker for a few names probably over 10 years ago, and I didn’t like that business model. I prefer to sell my own domain names. I am curious what percentage of readers broker domain names owned by other people. Please vote in the poll below to share:

Yesterday’s poll question: Will you watch the World Cup?

I grew up playing soccer. I didn’t watch much on tv (not surprising being in the USA), but I loved playing the sport. During the past few years, my brother has gotten me into following the EPL, cheering on Arsenal. I watch when I can, although it can be tough to do in the morning with other family priorities.

The 2018 World Cup in Russia kicks off today. One of the benefits of working from home on my own schedule is that I have the ability to tune into matches during the day. It’s unfortunate the US won’t be playing in the World Cup this time around, so I will probably gently root for a few countries I loved visiting and hope the matches are great.

Will you be watching the World Cup?

It is no secret that the vast majority of my domain names are .com domain names. I own and have owned some non .com domain names, but my focus is .com. That said, I have sold a handful of non .com domain names. I would estimate that the figure is probably about 3 but it could be a few more from a long time ago. One off the top of my head is a .net that matched a .com I sold and I also sold a package of 5 names in the same extension.

Have you sold a non .com domain name before? My guess is that somewhere north of 75% will say yes given the number of people who I know buy ccTLD domain names and there are also quite a few people who have had varying levels of success with the new extensions.

I regularly read about people complaining that the business of domain investing is a bit shady / sketchy or something along those lines. There are a multitude of things people comment about involving all sorts of things that may not be on the up and up. Sometimes the issues I read about are fairly harmless or unfamiliarity with how something works, but there definitely have been issues that were rightfully highlighted and discussed.

If I were involved in other investment verticals (crypto, stocks, forex, startups…etc), I would imagine there are also people who would say the same thing about those other businesses. Some industries are more regulated than others, but there is probably some level of shadiness in every type of investment.

I am curious to know how readers of this blog feel about the domain investment business. Do you think the business is shady? Vote in the poll below: