For part three of this installment let’s use a phrase that I hear so often in business circles. Does it have legs?

For those of you that have English as your second language, you probably haven’t heard this phrase very often. It means that when your site is up and running, it’ll keep on running further and further. It implies that it can continue to get bigger and more profitable as time goes on.

Recently I sold sanssouci.com for only $3900. I had originally thought it would do more. It’s a suburb of Sydney, French for “carefree” and the palace of Frederick the Great near Berlin. I’ve actually been there. Crazy dude wanted Roman ruins in his backyard so he went and built his own. Funny thing is that now those fake ruins are antiques because it was so long ago. Anyway, back on topic, the name doesn’t have any legs. I should have known better. That’s why I didn’t really make anything on it. How much can you make off such a name if you owned it? I ended up selling it for its true market value.

SkiResorts.com on the other hand I sold (via Moniker to give credit where credit is due) for $850,000. Just think. If you charged various resorts $10,000 a year to be listed on the site you would only need 100 customers to do $1,000,000 dollars in revenue per year! This goes back to my first post in this series which was about “the obvious use of the name“.

A friend of mine runs Divorce.com. Any rookie domainer would agree that is a great name but how great is it? Well, how many divorce lawyers are out there which might pay 1000 a year to be listed? My guess is greater than 3,000 could be talked into signing up. That would be 3 million a year in revenue! That my friend, is legs.

So now that we have looked at the obvious use of the name and its emotional curb appeal, make sure that you can accurately guage how big the oportunity could be. How long those legs really are. Don’t fool yourself either. I’m sure those 3,000 divorce lawyers are only a fraction of the 10,000 or more divorce lawyers out there practicing law. I’m equally sure that it would be hard to get more than 1000 dollars for them to list.

Be realistic.

It isn’t easy to appraise a domain. When someone asks me if I want to buy a name, I often reply simply with “I’ll pass”. Inevitably, they’ll send me back an email asking my why I’m passing. Well, that’s an impossible question to answer. Perhaps, in the future, I can point them to this series I’m writing on what makes a domain sellable.

It takes a holistic approach.

In my last entry on the subject of what makes a domain sellable I went on about the obvious use of the domain being the most important thing.  In this entry, I’m going to rant about something even less tangible. It’s whether or not the name is exciting. Boring names are not sellable.

How does one define what makes a name exciting? I’m not sure it is possible but I’ll try and give some examples that will help.

One thing that sure makes it easier to sell a name for good money is emotion. Most of the time when I sell a GEO name, for instance, I end up selling it to someone from the city, state or country or from a neighboring place. At a minimum they’ll usually have an intimate knowledge of the place. Heck, I even paid a fortune for Buckhead.com a while back because I live here. Fortunately I sold it for even more money because someone else had an even higher emotional attachment to it.

Clearly it is tough to anticipate if buyers will have that emotion but I think some names should have points taken away if they are simply boring. Let’s take my typical guinea pig name Aquaphobia.com. On hindsight, this is a pretty lame domain. Sure it has value and one day it’ll sell but it will sell in the low x,xxx range. It simply isn’t exciting enough for someone to step out and pay well for it.

Very often we see names sell for way more than they are worth because they have an exciting appeal to them. Guy.com for 1 million dollars? Sure there are a lot of guys out there and at a glance it looks like a super-premium but seriously folks, one million?

The bitch of it is that I keep reading over what I’ve typed here and I can’t think of good examples or a good way to say it. We really are talking about an impossible thing to define. I hate to say, “you’ll know it when you see it” but that’s just the way it is.

Perhaps you can compare it to “curb appeal” in the real estate world. Some houses just show better than others. How does your domain look from the curb?

I know I  haven’t put down enough to give you guys any real insight. Hopefully you’ll just think about it more often.

I’m a bad golfer. Ok, I’m a terrible golfer. What sucks is that I have tried so hard. I take the lessons, I get out and play, but I still suck.

So what’s a guy to do? Well, I suppose I’m the kind of guy that takes things to the extreme.

This past weekend I went looking for a golf cottage. My goal was nothing less than a house with a driving range in the backyard. Well, I found one. It’s a modest home with four master bedrooms, a game room, a movie theater, etc. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t committed to this house. The cost is enough to make a grown man cry. Damn, I sure want it though.

Did I mention it comes with memberships to 6 courses, a marina on a large lake, the clubhouse and it is only 90 minutes from my home in Buckhead?

Maybe if I do buy it my daughters will grow up to be billionaire lady golfers. That could justify the price!

Read the rest of this entry »

Many articles have been written about how to value a domain name. This is not one of those articles.

I sell domains so I’m much more concerned with what names people want to buy and what they’ll pay then I am about their true value. What I mean by that is, I’m not one of those guys that thinks that every domain is priceless or needs to have a huge price tag on it. I try very hard to be realistic when putting numbers on them.

I have one question that I ask myself that is more important to me than any other question. What sort of website would be put on the name? When buyers buy a name from me, more often than not they want the name because they have some sort of vision for it. What’s the obvious vision?

GEO names like SanJuan.com or SimiValley.com are easy to sell because that question is easy to answer. Other names that have obvious business models are directory names. What I refer to as directory names are the category killers like gastoenterologists.com or skiresorts.com. Those names are simple. Build a site and charge companies to be listed on the directory. In that way, I suppose most GEO names are directories themselves like what I”ve done with Baja.com.

Product names can be tricky. I generally look for things that are small enough to ship cheaply. There is a reason that cameras.com is worth so much money and furniture.com went bankrupt. It’s not easy to ship furniture. Pets.com went under back in the day because nobody would pay shipping on a 100 pound bag of dog food.

The whole LL.com and LLL.com market like AZ.com or PSJ.com doesn’t make any sense to me. That’s a straight up confession. I deal in them all the time because they have value and people buy them but I would never buy one myself to develop. They don’t answer my fundamental question. What would you do with it? Clearly AZ.com should be about Arizona but it makes no sense that it sold for that much money. Arizona isn’t a keyword in the name and Google rankings will be hard to obtain.

Speaking of Google rankings, get them. It’s worth the effort. Sites with great SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) make more money and sell for more money. If you think you are going to want to sell your name I highly suggest you develop it and go for those rankings. You’ll make less than you would parking it for a while but in time it’ll catch up and your name will have a greater resale value.

Revenue helps. Ok, that was an understatement. I find that it isn’t uncommon to get 20 times earnings on a name. The irony is that the higher the earnings, the lower the multiple. That’s mainly because there are fewer buyers at high price points. A name that earns 10,000 dollars or more per year is more likely to sell at a 10 times multiple. Sin names like adult and gaming domains are more likely to sell at a 7-8 times multiple. Sure, there are obvious exceptions like porn.com selling for over 9 million on 600,000 a year in earnings but I can only speak from my personal experiences. Don’t get me wrong, you often don’t need any revenue but it certainly helps.

The .com is still the undisputed king but great cctlds can sell well, especially .co.uk and .de names. In fact, I’m buying if you want to send me some. Just don’t send me .mobi names. They aren’t sellable dispite the sales reports. I firmly believe they are in a bubble and I’m not going to be stuck holding the bag.

I’m going to add to this post over the weekend because there is so much to say on the subject. For now I just wanted to get my initial thoughts out there.

This is just a quick post to help out my friend Sahar. He’s giving away a free entry to the TRAFFIC convention in Orlando.

http://www.dnzoom.com/blog/events/traffic-orlando-domain-conference-free-ticket-drawing/

I need about a dozen  Spanish writers for building out 1000 mini-sites on these .com.mx domains. Hit me up if you qualify and are looking for work.

I’ve done some bone-headed things in my time but this one might have taken the cake. Only time will tell.

Here’s the skinny. .Com.mx domains have never been popular, In fact, you could, even today, hand-register almost any name you wanted. Besides the fact that they are just cctld domains there is a risk that nic.mx will launch a pure mx extenion making the .com.mx extension worth even less. This happened with Japan when they launched .jp names on top of .co.jp names.

The thing is that I had inherited so to speek a couple of premium .com.mx names. When I bought Baja.com it came with Tijuana.com.mx and a bunch of other cities. Checking my AdSense account I noticed that these cities get pure type-in traffic and do 5-10 dollars a day. How bad could .com.mx names be?

My renewal fees on those names are 35 dollars per year. Registrations are 35 dollars per year. Well, in April, nic.mx had a special running. They were selling .com.mx names for only 6 dollars a year as long as you paid for at least 3 years in advance. I went a little loco. Here’s a sampling of what I registered during the sale which ended yesterday.

I focused initially on Spanish words but after looking at traffic reports I noticed that the English language names were getting typed in as well. I also went a little crazy with GEOs. After all, Mexicans travel as well and we certainly know they frequent U.S. localities.

sesenta.com.mx, setenta.com.mx, ochenta.com.mx, noventa.com.mx, cincomil.com.mx, jota.com.mx, copiar.com.mx, preguntasfrecuentes.com.mx, monitors.com.mx, harddrives.com.mx, pero.com.mx, anos.com.mx, fue.com.mx, esta.com.mx, tambien.com.mx, han.com.mx, ano.com.mx, tiene.com.mx, puede.com.mx, vez.com.mx, parte.com.mx, otros.com.mx, hacer.com.mx, hace.com.mx, estan.com.mx, les.com.mx, sido.com.mx, ademas.com.mx, chulos.com.mx, chorizo.com.mx, pigs.com.mx, tobasco.com.mx, elpollo.com.mx, mesothelioma.com.mx, creditreport.com.mx, creditreports.com.mx, dui.com.mx, chocha.com.mx, chora.com.mx, cutis.com.mx, booty.com.mx, ggw.com.mx, spicy.com.mx, exam.com.mx, exams.com.mx, lawns.com.mx, essay.com.mx, fuertedesandiego.com.mx, jenna.com.mx, billete.com.mx, cena.com.mx, desayuno.com.mx, elevador.com.mx, empleado.com.mx, enojarse.com.mx, fumar.com.mx, gamba.com.mx, gambas.com.mx, ganancia.com.mx, gerente.com.mx, inquilino.com.mx, juez.com.mx, legumbre.com.mx, litro.com.mx, mantequilla.com.mx, marido.com.mx, mejorar.com.mx, necesitar.com.mx, nervioso.com.mx, nieta.com.mx, nuera.com.mx, octobre.com.mx, parquear.com.mx, pasaje.com.mx, pavo.com.mx, peligroso.com.mx, pelota.com.mx, plato.com.mx, quedar.com.mx, servilleta.com.mx, sucio.com.mx, tapa.com.mx, traje.com.mx, verdura.com.mx, vinagre.com.mx, adelaida.com.mx, bagdad.com.mx, belgrado.com.mx, berne.com.mx, bucarest.com.mx, calcuta.com.mx, copenhague.com.mx, djakarta.com.mx, johanesburgo.com.mx, lisboa.com.mx, lexumburgo.com.mx, pittsburgo.com.mx, praga.com.mx, reikiavik.com.mx, roma.com.mx, estocolmo.com.mx, viena.com.mx, alonzo.com.mx, carmelo.com.mx, caralina.com.mx, cortez.com.mx, dario.com.mx, estevan.com.mx, gilberto.com.mx, graciela.com.mx, izabella.com.mx, jada.com.mx, jamie.com.mx, mateo.com.mx, girlskissing.com.mx, cameltoe.com.mx, clitoris.com.mx, hotgirls.com.mx, ravenriley.com.mx, cleavage.com.mx, blondes.com.mx, newsfilter.com.mx, beastiality.com.mx, belladonna.com.mx, grass.com.mx, npr.com.mx, contable.com.mx, actors.com.mx, trajedebano.com.mx, banador.com.mx, abrigo.com.mx, tacones.com.mx, tejanos.com.mx, chaqueta.com.mx, chaquetas.com.mx, gloves.com.mx, miniskirts.com.mx, minifalda.com.mx, pijama.com.mx, bragas.com.mx, poncho.com.mx, bolso.com.mx, pantalonescortos.com.mx, falso.com.mx, catorce.com.mx, treinta.com.mx, cuarenta.com.mx, cincuenta.com.mx, newyorkcity.com.mx, jacksonville.com.mx, indianapolis.com.mx, austin.com.mx, memphis.com.mx, fortworth.com.mx, seattle.com.mx, tucson.com.mx, longbeach.com.mx, omaha.com.mx, oakland.com.mx, honolulu.com.mx, arlington.com.mx, anaheim.com.mx, tampa.com.mx, bakersfield.com.mx, riverside.com.mx, stockton.com.mx, corpuschristi.com.mx, henderson.com.mx, scottsdale.com.mx, lubbock.com.mx, modesto.com.mx, montgomery.com.mx, fremont.com.mx, alabama.com.mx, illinois.com.mx, massachusetts.com.mx, missouri.com.mx, newhampshire.com.mx, northcarolina.com.mx, oregon.com.mx, southdakota.com.mx, wisconsin.com.mx, georgia.com.mx, louisiana.com.mx, michigan.com.mx, newjersey.com.mx, northdakota.com.mx, tennessee.com.mx, wyoming.com.mx, connecticut.com.mx, iowa.com.mx, maine.com.mx, minnesota.com.mx, ohio.com.mx, rhodeisland.com.mx, arkansas.com.mx, idaho.com.mx, maryland.com.mx, mississippi.com.mx, southcarolina.com.mx, utah.com.mx, westvirginia.com.mx, onlinecasinogambling.com.mx, pokerstar.com.mx, onlinegambling.com.mx, virtualcasino.com.mx, casinocraps.com.mx, buysoma.com.mx, blackjackonline.com.mx, gamblingsoftware.com.mx, casinogaming.com.mx, slotmachine.com.mx, onlineroulette.com.mx, onlineblackjack.com.mx, internetgambling.com.mx, playroulette.com.mx, americanroulette.com.mx, freeonlinecasino.com.mx, dirigir.com.mx, disponer.com.mx, distinto.com.mx, diverso.com.mx, durante.com.mx, echar.com.mx, elevar.com.mx, encender.com.mx, encima.com.mx, enfermo.com.mx, entender.com.mx, enterar.com.mx, error.com.mx, errores.com.mx, esfuerzo.com.mx, espalda.com.mx, especie.com.mx, establecer.com.mx, cuyo.com.mx, dato.com.mx, deber.com.mx, declarar.com.mx, dedicar.com.mx, dedo.com.mx, definir.com.mx, definitivo.com.mx, dejar.com.mx, demasiado.com.mx, depender.com.mx, derecha.com.mx, desaparecer.com.mx, desconocer.com.mx, desear.com.mx, despertar.com.mx, detener.com.mx, determinar.com.mx, comentar.com.mx, comenzar.com.mx, comprender.com.mx, comprobar.com.mx, conjunto.com.mx, conseguir.com.mx, conservar.com.mx, consistir.com.mx, constante.com.mx, constituir.com.mx, contemplar.com.mx, contener.com.mx, contestar.com.mx, continuar.com.mx, contrario.com.mx, controlar.com.mx, convencer.com.mx, convertir.com.mx, corresponder.com.mx, costumbre.com.mx, cruzar.com.mx, cualquier.com.mx, bastar.com.mx, buen.com.mx, caber.com.mx, cada.com.mx, caer.com.mx, cantidad.com.mx, capacidad.com.mx, casar.com.mx, casi.com.mx, cerrar.com.mx, circunstancia.com.mx, colocar.com.mx, abandonar.com.mx, absoluto.com.mx, abuelo.com.mx, acabar.com.mx, acaso.com.mx, aceptar.com.mx, acercar.com.mx, acordar.com.mx, actividad.com.mx, acto.com.mx, acudir.com.mx, adquirir.com.mx, advertir.com.mx, afectar.com.mx, afirmar.com.mx, alcanzar.com.mx, alejar.com.mx, alguno.com.mx, amplio.com.mx, antes.com.mx, anterior.com.mx, aparecer.com.mx, apenas.com.mx, aplicar.com.mx, apoyar.com.mx, aprovechar.com.mx, aquel.com.mx, aquello.com.mx, asegurare.com.mx, atreverse.com.mx, aun.com.mx, autoridad.com.mx, avanzar.com.mx, ayer.com.mx, horoscopes.com.mx, genealogy.com.mx, freebies.com.mx, females.com.mx, academyawards.com.mx, dirtyjokes.com.mx, jewerly.com.mx, lovepoems.com.mx, scholarships.com.mx, shakespeare.com.mx, skateboarding.com.mx, snowboarding.com.mx, stars.com.mx, stockquotes.com.mx, summerolympics.com.mx, jesuschristo.com.mx, thebible.com.mx, bancarrota.com.mx, financiar.com.mx, limpiar.com.mx, literally.com.mx, nacimiento.com.mx, tejano.com.mx, incluir.com.mx, justo.com.mx, lento.com.mx, libras.com.mx, llegar.com.mx, llenar.com.mx, llevar.com.mx, llorar.com.mx, longitud.com.mx, mal.com.mx, mantenerse.com.mx, matar.com.mx, mentira.com.mx, mento.com.mx, mezcla.com.mx, millones.com.mx, momento.com.mx, monte.com.mx, morir.com.mx, mouses.com.mx, multa.com.mx, multiplicar.com.mx, multitud.com.mx, nunca.com.mx, obien.com.mx, objeto.com.mx, palo.com.mx, panaderos.com.mx, parteinferior.com.mx, paso.com.mx, pesada.com.mx, pierna.com.mx, plantean.com.mx, portapapeles.com.mx, producir.com.mx, puestosdetrabajo.com.mx, pulgadas.com.mx, quemar.com.mx, raza.com.mx, recibir.com.mx, recoger.com.mx, recordar.com.mx, recto.com.mx, representan.com.mx, resolver.com.mx, resultado.com.mx, romper.com.mx, ruidosa.com.mx, saladechat.com.mx, salto.com.mx, segurodesalud.com.mx, sentar.com.mx, sentarse.com.mx, subir.com.mx, suceder.com.mx, suelo.com.mx, suficiente.com.mx, sugieren.com.mx, taberneros.com.mx, talvez.com.mx, teclado.com.mx, temprana.com.mx, tercero.com.mx, tire.com.mx, trajo.com.mx, tranquilo.com.mx, tratar.com.mx, unavez.com.mx, usodelapalabra.com.mx, variar.com.mx, veinte.com.mx, vela.com.mx, vestido.com.mx, vocal.com.mx

P.S. I love the country of Mexico and the people there so layoff flaming me for making a joke here or there.

The cat below was on Germany.com for years. The owner refused to talk to domainers. Anyway, I’ve secured a management agreement with the owner so it is now my responsibility. The site you see live on www.germany.com now is a site that my team built.

I’m looking for a sales person in Germany to help me sign on hotels and tour operators. If you think you might be that person, fill out my contact form.

This cat has been on the web for 12 years now but for the last 6 months or so I can’t find him. Have any of you seen him?

Anyone who answers the question correctly gets 2 points that are worth absolutely nothing.

A year or so ago I picked up the domain Iran.com. The name gets 2000-5000 unique visitors a day. Revenue can be as low as 50 dollars but often spikes above 250 dollars a day, depending on how much the country is in the news. It’s in the news a lot.

That however, wasn’t my only logic employed. The ancient empire of Persia is a fascanating place. One of the oldest civilizations on earth, it has a tremendous amount of culture.

Three coastlines and two mountain ranges are in this largest of the middle eastern countries. The more than 70 million people there aren’t Arabic at all. They speak Farsi and have a Persian decent. They are an unique and intelligent people.

Let’s not forget the oil! There’s gold in them ‘dar hills.

 (image pulled from Wikipedia)

Sure the government is completely wacked. They want to instal a caliph and kill all the evil-doers, but who doesn’t? I’m joking there so hold back your flaming. If I didn’t love my life so much I’d fly a plane right into a meeting of the Mullahs but that’s not an option.

To the point, I’ve tried many different things with this name. At one point it was a collection of RSS feeds from various news sources but that didn’t work out so well. It’s currently parked. My new thinking is that I’m going to develop it as a full-blown tourist and business destination site like I’d do with any other GEO domain. My thinking is that I’m going to give the country the respect that it deserves. I’m not sure how many advertisers I’ll get but we’ll find out.

I’m soliciting ideas though. I’m willing to try just about anything to make this a big site. I still believe in the name.