Check The Other Extensions

Last week, I shared 5 factors I consider when buying a domain name, and I want to expound on two of the factors because I think they’re great indicators of value for the .com domain name you are thinking about buying.

When acquiring a domain name in the aftermarket (private purchase or auction), I always look to see how many other TLDs are registered. As I mentioned before, the more extensions that are registered, the more valuable the .com is because there are other prospects that would want to upgrade and/or it shows that the keyword is valuable to someone else.

If you have time, I recommend that you analyze who actually owns those TLDs, too. I used the word “analyze” here because it’s not always easy to see who actually owns the domain names just by the Whois information. What I mean is that if you are buying a RealEstate.com domain name and the .net is owned by Joe Smith, you should see who exactly Joe Smith is because that information is important. If Joe owns the largest real estate company in the city, he might have the money and interest in buying the .com should you want to sell it vs. Joe Smith who is buying cheap .net names at Go Daddy as investments.

I also think it’s important to note how long the other extensions have been registered. If a .net, .org, and other extensions have been registered for 12 years, it means someone has been paying $10+ a year for quite a long time. They may even be paying legacy pricing. There’s probably a reason they’ve sunk $100+ in renewal fees for these domain names.

The key takeaway aside from the insight is that there’s much more to do when buying domain names aside from entering your credit card information. If you treat domain names like lottery tickets, that’s cool, but it’s probably going to net the same result as going to the convenience store and buying lottery tickets. However, if you invest the time into researching good domain names and buy some good ones, that’s an investment you’ll probably find to be financially rewarding.