Domaining is an Internet Real Estate Business
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009Internet domain names can be considered real estate because they function the same way property does in the real estate market. Some names are used to promote personal businesses or thoughts about the issues that make everyday life interesting and other domain names are used for domaining, which is developing, buying and selling sites to make a profit. It involves establishing a collection of domain names, which can include a variety of topics and criteria. These domain names include marketable groups of words that express a purpose or a product. Most of the domain names end in .com, because most web browsers fill in .com as the default when no extension is specified.
Individuals or companies who accumulate a group of domain names for resale are called Domainers. There are over 10,000 Domainers selling domain names. Those names produced over a billion dollars worth of sales in 2008. That’s a lot of money by anyone’s standards, so more people are turning to Domaining as a source of steady income. In order to be a successful, a fundamental strategy should be established. There are several strategies already in place that include Keyword Typo domains which generate traffic and have been sold for big bucks and Automatic Volume Buying, which uses software to search for domains that fit into a certain niche.
Trendwatching is another strategy that can pay off in a big way. Two or three niches are identified as having the potential of being a new technology or product that caters to the masses. Domain names are created for those niches and are held until the market becomes aware of their value. Another strategy used to create a lucrative business is known as Brute Force, which is sifting through thousands of domains using different search engines like AjaxWhois, dnScoop, Domain Tools and DigitalPoint. They examine domains using history, pagerank check, popularity, traffic and inbound links to determine the potential value of each individual name in certain markets.
Financing is an important issue as well. The best way to start a domaining business is to buy what you can immediately pay for, don’t finance names. Another financing technique is to add partners to diversify. Partners can increase capital and lower risks, but partnerships can be difficult, everyone has their own ideas about how to make a profit. A better strategy may be a joint venture where everyone’s thoughts and obligations are examined and accepted at the inception of the agreement. (more…)
