The Hunt is Fun, but Validation is Critical

Every morning, I spend around an hour going through lists of domain names that are coming up for auction. When I say every morning, I mean every morning. I do this on weekends, when we are traveling, when we have friends or family over (in non-Covid times), and all those times in between. I review lists from auction platforms, Dropping.pro, and I recently added ExpiredDomains.net to the list of tools I use daily. This is the hunt, and it is probably the most enjoyable part of domain investing.

As I and others have discussed many times, the prices achieved in expiry auctions have grown in recent years. It has become much more challenging to find what I would consider to be a deal, so the hunt has expanded. I never focused much on pending delete auctions, save for the occasional gem, but I have been focusing on that area a bit more.

In 2020, I acquired more than 300 domain names, which is quite a lot for me considering my portfolio has always hovered in the ballpark of 500 domain names. Most of these 300+ acquisitions were pending delete domain names that I would consider bargains. Hunting for these deals is fun for me.

The critical element of this hunt is the validation that comes in the form of sales. None of the pending delete auction acquisitions I can think of off the top of my head would be considered blue chip names. All of them are replaceable inventory. As such, it is critical that I validate the time and money spent on this area by selling these domain names. My experience may tell me names I buy are good inventory, but only sales will validate this.

Other investors I speak with who are also at the stage of growing their portfolio also enjoy reviewing lists. Everyone has a different way of cultivating lists and has a different way of reviewing lists. I believe all of these people who spend the time doing this really enjoy this aspect of domain investing. Validating the effort and spend by selling these domain names is most critical.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

2 COMMENTS

  1. I guess many others are doing the same thing as what you are doing….all chasin the same tail.
    And worst of all, some of them are posting the domains so they can get paid.

    I bet the domains you are looking for are almost the same domains being posted daily by other greedy bloggers who wants to get paid… and they even post their own domains.

    Are you planning on posting the domains on your blog so you can get paid?

  2. Pending delete has some awesome blue chip domains from time to time. AAF.com just dropped the other day. Bargain or not is a completely different story. Talking mainly about PD as source.

    There are a lot of smaller registrars out there with no existing deals signed with NJ or GD that don’t have means to monetize their expiring inventory and these domains end up in the pending delete.

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