I want to share a relatively easy tip with you when it comes to buying domain name. This advice goes for both aftermarket acquisitions and hand registrations, and I think it can help you get an idea of the ease (or difficulty) you may have in selling a particular domain name.
Before buying a name, do a Whois search for similar domain names, and do a search of the same keywords in different extensions. If you see that others are unregistered or owned solely by domain investors, it might be challenging to sell it to an end user buyer for whatever reason. If other similar names are owned by end user companies, you will probably have a much easier time finding a buyer.
Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you have the opportunity to purchase a large city Plumber.com domain name (let’s say LosAngelesPlumber.com) either at auction or hand registration. Do some research to see if plumbers own other large city Plumber.com domain names. In addition, see if any smaller town Plumber.com domain names are registered to local plumbers in that area. You should also check out other extensions, and do a Google search of the keyword to see what domain names local plumbers are using for their websites.
If you see the vast majority of similar domain names owned by other domain investors or unregistered, you may want to rethink buying the name. Yes, there could be some commercial value (obviously there is in my simple example), but if no plumber has bought one of the names from a domain investor, you should realize you will probably end up in the same situation.
Keep in mind this tip is one that I use when I am buying domain names to re-sell. If you plan to build out a domain name or monetize it due to known type-in traffic, this tip probably matters much less.
Thanks, Elliot! Question: Do you ever have success in selling a .COM to the owner of the same domain in another TLD?
I don’t recall but I am pretty sure I have. I was negotiating on one recently but we couldn’t work out terms. The company owned the .org.
I know you are unlikely to give away your greatest domain strategies but tips like this are very welcome and appreciated. thank you. I suggest many more purchasing tips please ๐
I give quite a bit of info out but my greatest advantage is the gut feel I’ve gotten over the years. I can spend $50,000 on a domain name without blinking these days, knowing it’s worth at least that. Several years ago, spending $1,000 for a single domain name required some deliberation. I can’t stress enough that individual tips and advice can be helpful, but it’s a matter of getting a good gut feel based on making deals that is most helpful.
One of the best ways to research this type of name is to use zfbot.com, enter “plumber” in the ends with category or whatever you are researching, click NO idn, numbers, or hyphens because zfbot will only show up to 10,000 names and if you include numbers or hyphens its way to many. Then you just look through the list of all the different ways plumber is used. You will see many city plumber names starting with best, fast, cheap, etc…..such as
emergencylosangelesplumber.com
mylosangelesplumber.com
bestlosangelesplumber.com
etc……..If you see lots like this there is a great chance its a very good name. There are 7,534 dot com domains ending with plumber.
Nice suggestion ๐
Thanks Elliot for the tip. I can now saving my money on aftermarket ๐
Thanks for insight Elliot.
As a ccTLD investor, I’ve been doing this for years. I guess great minds think alike ๐
Thanks for the comment… As an aside, my brother was a big RVP fan until he left Arsenal. ๐
@Elliot Ty. Great tips…
@Todd Ty 4r gr8 tips
Thanks for sharing Your ideas Elliot!
Great tips indeed.
I bought a lot of similar names in the past without doing extensive research and as a result none of these sold.
Thanks for the very informative blog post. I’m just starting to get my feet wet with domains. I’ll definitely employ some of the methods to get me started. DomainKa.com also has lots of aged domains for sale. Great work!