Interview With rjs_essex by DomainMagnate

DomainMagnate.com presents an interview with Rich from Quad Letter Domains

– Name, age, location?

Richard Shorten, 25, United Kingdom

– What are your top 3 domains?

I have lots of names spread across many different niches and lately have focussed heavily on quad letter domains so its difficult to single out specifics…

– Username on main domaining forums?

My username is rjs_essex and I frequently visit Namepros and am a moderator on AcornDomains.co.uk. Such a boring handle, my initials and county in the UK but I guess if I change it now no one would recognise me or know who I was!

– How long have you been into domaining and how did you get into it?

I’ve been in the domain business for about 4 years now. I started out buying a domain to host a website for a small business idea I had – starting up as an on call IT technician for the private sector. If I had had the time I would probably still be doing it but it never really took off. I started looking around the web for ideas and was also inspired by a family member who started out in domaining back in 2000.

– How many domains do you own, what category is your primary focus?

Does anyone know exact figures? I guess some of the die hard, obsessive domainers do but I really have no idea. I try to keep up to date spread sheets of all the domains I own but it gets tedious even for the minimal amount I have! It must be in the region of 800ish.

– What is your main domaining strategy: waiting for end users, fishing for bargains to resell to other domainers, investing long term, developing etc.?

All of the above plus more! I think it is important to be as diverse as possible. Waiting for end users is all well and good but if you have a relatively small portfolio it is also important to seek out end users. Fishing for bargains should be on everyone’s agenda. Finding bargains to quick flip can bring in the extra funds you may need to buy that elusive domain you want to invest in for the long term. I have a few developed sites. I try to update my blog as often as possible as this is the domain niche I am most interested in and want to promote. I see a good future for anyone investing in the quad letter domain marketplace this early after the buyout. One or two of my other projects have fallen by the wayside because only recently I had my Google Adsence account disabled… I have no idea why, it was a complete shock to me and up until now Google have not given me a single reason as to why they have disabled it despite me appealing the decision!

– What is your favourite registrar and parking company?

I’m not really a fan of any parking company, I haven’t yet found one that makes the payout worthwhile but seen as I don’t have the time to develop hundreds of domains there really isn’t much option other than to park or redirect traffic to other sites. I predominantly use Sedo because that’s who I started with although I have tested NameDrive. I don’t really have the time to shuffle domains from one parking company to another and I’d rather just leave them and concentrate on developing and stock pilling more!

As for registrars I use Heart Internet for .uk and mainly GoDaddy because there domain interface is very easy to use. I have accounts spread all over the net including eNom, Moniker, Dynadot, Snap, the list goes on. One of these days I’ll condense everything into one registrar… maybe…

– What are your 3 favourite domaining sites? E.g.: Blogs, forums, news,

auctions, tools?

I would have to say Acorn Domains, Namepros and 4 Letter Noob because Reece publishes an excellent four letter domain price guide every now and again which I find very useful. Of course I stop by Domain Magnate every so often too ;o)

– Do you have any domaining icons that inspire you and that you look up to?

Not really… I think the biggest names in the domain industry haven’t done anything particularly special, they just had the balls and foresight to invest in a market that few people knew little about. A lot of their success is based on luck. I feel more inspired by developers that have put years of their life into perfecting a niche site such as the success stories surrounding Ebay, Facebook, YouTube etc… They all started out in their bedrooms, no pre-installed scripts, twenty strong developer teams or billion pound marketing budgets, just a pure drive for success.

– If you had two million bucks to invest in domains, where would you put them?

I think it’s every domainers dream to own a true prime generic, a domain that holds its own such as america.com, england.com, cars.com, loans.com. A domain in a clear cut profitable market. It would be nice to have a trophy LL.com too!

– If a friend asked you to help him invest $10,000 in domains, what would you buy?

At present I think there is only two domain niches that are a sure thing. Dictionary generics and three letter .com’s. $10,000 would probably only stretch to a single LLL.com. Failing that a whole bunch of LLLL.com’s including at least one very nice pronouncable CVCV combination!

– What do you think will happen with the domaining industry in the years to come?

I truly believe that with the advent of the mobile internet and its use in the mobile world short domains will shine in the future. I also think that .com will always remain king, nothing will ever rival it. .mobi, .asia, .eu – all of these ‘pointless’ extensions will die off eventually and then DNS itself will be revised! Who knows what the future will hold then!

– What do you think are the current best opportunities in domaining?

I’d be a fool not to say quad letter domains! I think there is plenty of opportunity in this market providing domainers remain strong and hold stock. Aside from this there is always oppurtunities to be had with new, emerging markets and the domains associated with them.

– What would you recommend to newcomers?

Isn’t this the same question as the one above in a round about way? Hey, stop answering questions with questions!

– If you had to start it all over again what would you change in your current domain portfolio/strategy?

I would only change one thing and that is when I started. I would start out a few years earlier at the beginning of the millennium just after the .com bubble burst and pick off all the prime dictionary generics.

– If you were able to go 15 years back in time and register 5 .com domains when they were all available, what would be on your list?

This is an easy one: sex.com, porn.com, money.com, credit.com, property.com. I’d love to own quad.com too though!