My Domaining Strategy + A little Test

How do I make money domaining?

Well by most part it comes to:

  1. know the market well
  2. buy low
  3. sell high

Domaining is a strange market. There are the end user prices and the market/reseller prices for any domain – both can vary a lot and there is a lot of money to be made on these differences.

However the risks are high, so you have to know the market very well. Being able to appraise a domain as close as possible for any specific marketplace is among the most valuable skills for a domainer. I’m usually able to predict a price pretty close: you can see my appraisal in the vqu.com thread where I posted it’d sell for $6500 – it ended at $6551, however LLL.com’s aren’t that hard to appraise. I expected my dato.com auction to end at around $9k and the winning bid was $9,001. I even won an appraisal contest over at domainstate last year. The point is (besides the fact that I like to brag sometimes.. but who doesn’t 😉 ) that since profit margins can be pretty low, being able to determine the price you can get for a domain is a top skill for a successful domainer.

How to improve that skill? Follow the market, check sales, appraisals, auctions. Experience and information.

Supernatural.com – Before you read further, take a quick moment to research and appraise this name. (1)

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It was posted for appraisal on DNF, a year ago. This one is actually really hard to appraise, but here are the appraisals from that thread:

Now take another moment to change/adjust your final appraisal before reading further… (2)

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After this eventful appraisal thread the domain was sold twice. First sale was private and price is not known. However speculations were that it’s from $20-30k to above $50k (I assume the later is closer). Second sale was on sedo auction which ended at a whooping $125K 2 months later.

Please post your appraisals from (1) and (2) below, but no cheating 😉

Of course if you knew the price before it’s no fun.

Tagged

5 Responses

  1. I guessed it at $175,000! High, but I have always been very interested in the supernatural so I know that I was putting my own “wish I owned that(!)” on it!!

  2. LOL! That was fun. Do I really have to ‘fess up?

    OK, my appraisal 1 was about 5-10k. I didn’t do any proper research – just thought about it. It’s a generic on a popular subject where there’s money to be made.

    Appraisal 2 – When I saw the other high appraisals, I started to think this was a trick and I didn’t want to be caught out, so I lowered my price to 5k.

    Oh dear. LOL!

    It seems like reading you blog is a good way for me to spend my Sunday afternoon.

  3. How did you dig up that post haha this was 4 years ago! I’m preparing some new posts about buying/selling sites and similar topics, but can’t seem to finish it.

  4. Hi Michael

    I left no stone unturned! Actually I didn’t notice the date, but it was an interesting thing to do anyway. I wanted to do some research on domains and domaining and your blog seemed like a good place to start. I spent hours reading it.

    Thanks, Kay

    (PS: sorry for the typo in my earlier comment. I meant “your” not “you”.)

  5. I didn’t research it at all, but saw the name, and I estimated it was at mid 6 figures.

    I noticed just now, this was in 2012. I still think it’s worth more than 125k (Now, in 2014 anyway)…

    More and more people seem to be coming out of the woodwork, getting into different types of “Supernatural” things than ever before… (Plus the famous show “Supernatural” may have it TM’d, which I didn’t take into consideration on my appraisal.)

    I would say now, it’s probably worth upwards of around 3-500k, if not more, to the right end user. I think the end user got a good deal for that name, and wouldn’t be surprised if it sold for more now, or in the near future.

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