I have never been a proponent of “brandable” domain names. I never really liked the idea of them and didn’t think investing in “brandables” was a great idea for my domain portfolio. After having a couple of discussions with people I respect, it seems that my personal definition of “brandable” was wrong.

Whenever I have thought about the term “brandable domain names,” I always thought of them as made up brands. Let’s say Justin and Jennifer wanted to create a brand using their two names, they might call themselves Jennustin. If they wanted to use Jennustin.com as the domain name for their business, I would consider than “brandable.” They literally created a brand from different words or even made up terms like Jeeniuszes.com or something unique like that.

It seems that my definition of “brandable domain names” was much

I received an email from someone who told me that a domain name he owned for a long time is now owned by someone else. This was confusing for him because it seems to have come as a complete surprise and he doesn’t understand what happened to their domain name.

I can think of two scenarios for this to happen.

First is a domain theft or hijacking, which is not very common at all. For people who have lost a domain name to theft, I think Stevan Lieberman’s article about recovering a stolen domain name is a good resource. This includes people and businesses who may have hired a web designer who had possession of the domain name and did not return it for whatever reason.

The second scenario, which is far more

Now that 2015 has ended, I can share that it  was one of my company’s best years. Had I done a few other deals that I felt were less than optimal, I would have topped my previous best year, although I probably could have said that then as well. With the year ending, I thought I would share a bit of a high level overview of my year. If you want a recap of the year in the domain investment space, Ray Hackney did a pretty solid job of that yesterday on his blog.

In 2015, I only sold .com domain names. I sold quite a few domain names via NameJet auction, and I sold many privately to companies and individuals. Many  of my private deals were closed after outreach to end user and domain investor buyers, and quite a few deals  were closed by agreeing on a price after an inbound inquiry. The vast majority of inbound inquiries did not lead to a sale yet.

Nearly all of my non-auction domain name sales  were closed by

Without using a handful of domain industry tools, I don’t think I would be able to make a living from domain investments. Some of these tools are used to gain knowledge and others are used to do domain name research and due diligence on domain names I want to buy.

There are several tools I use daily, and I thought I would share 5 of them with you. Three of these tools require a paid membership, and two of them are free.

If I missed an essential tool, I invite you to share it with me.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there are companies and people who are happy to accommodate their customers when it is needed. I understand there are companies in the domain space who are willing to make special payment accommodations to customers in order to win or keep their business.

If you are doing a large deal with a company or if you are buying or transferring an extraordinary amount of domain names to a different registrar, some companies are willing to give special payment terms so the customer doesn’t have to deal with such a massive payment at one time. It makes sense to do this because many banks or other lenders won’t offer to help a domain owner finance domain names, and industry companies may be able to do their own due diligence first.

I would imagine most