With domain tasting nearly dead, there seems to be a lot of opportunities today to register some decent new domain names as the tasters aren’t keeping everything. In the past several months, this hasn’t really been the case. I’d find decent names, but not really at the volume as I am now. Perhaps this has to do with people trimming down their portfolios and not renewing domain names, but whatever the case is, there seems to be more good unregistered names than before.

When you search for domain names to register by hand, always keep in mind two questions:

How can this be used commercially?
Would a person or a company legitimately spend hundreds or thousands of dollars building a website on this domain name?

If the answer to either one of these questions is “no” I recommend not registering it. I will use two recent registrations I made as examples:

1) Fireproofers.com – Although this isn’t a commonly used term, there are a considerable number of companies in the fireproofing business. They are paid to make sure newly constructed buildings are built with fireproof materials. It’s not a huge industry, but it is lucrative. Individually, each company/person is a fireproofers, and collectively they are fireproofers. This could be used as an industry site.

CigarEnthusiasts.com. I could easily see a cigar lover buying this name and building a cigar directory site. I wouldn’t sell it for thousands of dollars because nobody would pay that, but for a few hundred dollars, a person could buy a meaning full name that has cache.

There are tons of names like these out there available to register for under $10/each that can be flipped for a tidy profit. In a difficult market, it’s tough to acquire $5,000 domain names and hope to flip them. It’s much easier to buy a $7 name and sell it for $30 – $500 though.

My plans have been firmed up, and I will be in LA for DomainFest Global.   I am spending a few days in Burbank prior to the show, but I will be checking in to the Renaissance hotel on Tuesday night.

Flights are pretty cheap (especially to Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport), the hotel rate isn’t   bad, and the conference pass rate is great.   It’s a good opportunity to hear some of the industry’s leaders speak, meet new companies that can help you make the most of your domain names, and connect with other domain investors from around the world. Also, if you need a rental car in Burbank, Midway is the way to go.

If you are planning to attend the show, drop me a note.

I just saw Rick’s post about financing domain names purchased through his newsletter and think its a pretty good deal. If you are able to develop one of the domain names he is offering, you can probably be cash flow positive on it in short order.

To put this deal into perspective, I want to create an example.   In the past, I’ve seen Rick offer names for 10x annual revenue.   Say you buy a $10,000 name from his newsletter.   Assuming a 10 year multiple, the name is making about $2.75/day.   If you put $1,000 down, the monthly cost (at 1.25% monthly) is around $112.50.   On PPC revenue alone, the domain would make around $85/month.

If you develop the domain name minimally, add a few extra pages of additional content, find paying advertisers, find a good affiliate relationship, or do more link building to grow traffic, I would think you will see the revenue grow fairly quickly.   It wouldn’t take a whole lot of work to be cash flow positive on a deal like this.

BuyDomains.com is running another small business webinar, “”Analytics for Your Small Business Website.” This will be helpful to people who run websites and want to learn more about Google Analytics, which allows website owners to analyze how visitors are finding your site and what they are doing once on your site. While the webinar is geared towards small businesses, domain owners/developers can gain insight into web analytics.

This 30 minute presentation covers the following topics:

– Why the Right Domain Name is Critical for Your Small Business Website
– How to Read Reports, Compare to Regular Stats and use the Data
– Overview of Organic and Paid Search
– Q&A Session

Details:
Date: January 29, 2009
Time: 2-3pm
Registration: Register online

I’ve come to notice that many domain companies are run by professional business people rather than domainers. This isn’t really a bad thing, as I sometimes wish I had a CEO to guide me, but it seems that many of these companies want to distance themselves as far from domainers as possible.   Some of these large domain companies don’t even consider themselves domain investors – be it that they are above the term or just think they are more than simply domainers. Whatever the case may be, many have made it clear that they aren’t domainers.

Be that as it may, 2009 is going to be difficult for many of these companies. People who identify themselves as domainers or domain investors tend to be entrepreneurial and are flexible when it comes to their business. They see all of the minor details going on with their domain investments and can make changes rapidly. Minor adjustments can make major revenue differences, and flexible companies can easily adapt. Companies with considerable upper management take forever to adapt, and they are expensive to run.

In the corporate world, I attended many meetings. Sometimes we joked about just how “expensive the meetings were” when there were layers of senior management in attendance. Large companies in the domain space should begin to look deep within themselves and see what everyone else sees on the outside. They should embrace the domainer culture, and become more efficient and better companies. Domainers will make it through this difficult economy by using their creativity and ingenuity.   Will they make it?