I recently participated in a domain auction for the domain Penance.com. I actually have content that matches the domain perfectly. Previously I’ve hosted it on other URLs but I’ve been keeping my eye open for a better one. For my purposes you couldn’t have a better url than Penance.com, and with a ‘category killer’ domain like that it would be much easier to roll out more content in the event the idea started to get traction. But besides my (fun and basically no-profit) idea, Penance.com could make a great domain for all sorts of things (perfume, fashion, feature film title, etc. etc.) so, in my opinion, it would be a smart buy even as an investment- depending on the price.

I hopped in the auction, which was at Sedo. The domain was part of a collection being offered by a single domainer and all the domains were no or low reserve (meaning the owner was prepared to let them go for whatever the market priced them at).

Here’s what happened…

Penance.com went for $2075, in my opinion a great price. A little over my head but a great deal for the new owner.
If you’re a developer I’m sure you see some obvious and interesting potential for the HockeyScore.com names.
Doodling.com strikes me as a good (not great) branding opportunity for an art related site or blog.
The point is, there are great domains out there for reasonable prices. If you could use a little help finding them, drop me a line.

Interesting to see the domain market getting some mainstream exposure.

So you’re marketing a new major motion picture, but the problem is that the title, which the director insists upon, is absolutely impossible to remember. What to do? You’re in luck! For a few $k you can own FeelGoodMovieOfTheYear.com. Perfect, easy-to-remember URL for your heart-warming film. People will feel good just clicking on it! It does so well in the search engines you decide to recycle it next year, and the year after. In fact, you come to be counted on to provide every year with a Feel Good Movie of the Year.

Google search results.
127,000,000 for feel good movie of the year
62,200 for “feel good movie of the year”

Today marks the 4th year anniversary of My Trip To Domainland. 4 years ago I concluded a four figure deal on a domain name I’d owned for years. I bought it for a vanity video site where I planned to host my collection of off-beat backstage band banter and inanity. I’d invite other people to host their behind-the-scenes band craziness. It was named after a scene in Spinal Tap. It had absolutely NO generic value. In one of those Black Swan coincidences, a fellow had built a network of domains around one of the keywords and he needed my domain to flesh out his by now successful empire. Yesterday I did the math, and in dollars only, certainly not hours, it turns out I’m about $2k down from that initial domaining seed money. Apart from my domain flipping on Ebay experiment [Fail], I have not sold a single domain–the type of transaction that got me into domaining four years ago has never repeated itself. Certainly I’ve had a few offers, but they were LAME.

So am I getting out of domaining? Am I frustrated and miserable and full of loathing for Domain Kings, Magnates, Experts, Flippers, Whizzbangs and otherwise? Not at all! The fact is I still LOVE domaining! Really, don’t ask me why, I’m sure I don’t know. It’s got something to do with words. Something to do with collecting. Something to do with the potential for huge profits. Domaining gives my over-active imagination a productive place to play.

Which brings me to the question… Is Domaining (for me at least) a hobby? And am I okay with that?

Wikipedia: A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit.
“Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward. ” Certainly in my case. “Examples include collecting, 300+, I like them all creative and artistic pursuits, Photoshop chops! making, tinkering, mini-sites! RSS feeeds and adult education I don’t think they mean that kind of Adult. Engaging in a hobby can lead to acquiring substantial skill, knowledge and experience Yes, but try to keep quiet about it at parties. However, personal fulfillment is the aim of course,  oh, and boatloads of cash somewhere down the road.
What are hobbies for some people are professions for others You know who you are. Generally speaking, the person who does something for fun, not remuneration, is called an amateur (or hobbyist), as distinct from a professional Elliot is a professional I’m not.

It is easier to turn a Hobby Business into a money making opportunity because the driver is passion and to some degree obsession. Turning your passion into a business say for example in arts and crafts domaining, a home studio internet connection and a credit card is all you need; a space to be creative exactly! Gift shops blogs, specialty stores SnapNames, galleries and arts cafes Sedo are the best avenues to exhibit and sell artworks, pottery, woodcraft, sewing craft domain names, web and  mini sites .

So maybe you weren’t hanging out in the (mostly porn and gambling apparently) forums back in the 90s and so didn’t get hip and grab yourself  a passel of generic category domain names. Don’t beat yourself up about it, relax!– domaining is fun, enjoy it.

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PRICE FOR TWO DOMAINS $6000.
From Stars and Stripes:
Not playing around: Army to invest $50M in combat training games
November 23, 2008 …Game development has become a multibillion-dollar industry in recent years, with large game studios employing thousands of developers and sales that compete with Hollywood’s blockbusters.
…In addition to the $50 million, the Army gaming unit has an undisclosed additional budget to purchase a state-of-the-art commercial video game system that will be fielded for training in February.

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And if the military develops its own games, wouldn’t they be freely released and have little or no copyright restrictions as in (I’m not a lawyer!) public domain? I found free games to download from the Army, Navy and Air Force. One could easily have CombatTrainingGames.com up and running as a download hub or directory for these and future games coming from militaries all over the world.
Or maybe you have an inside connection with the military. It was difficult to find those free game downloads. Might not someone in a position of power see the wisdom of having a one-stop download site for all the US Military’s various combat training games?
Hell, this always happens. By the time I finish researching all the possibilities around a good name, I don’t want to sell it any more.
But with all that money floating around combat training games, doesn’t it seem like $1000 is a reasonable price to ask for the category-killer domain name? What do you think?

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Here’s a list of names I tried to sell on Ebay and the results.

DIDN”T SELL

1yj.net One Yankee Juliet NLL 3 Character Domain Name $9.99
5jd.net Five Juliet Delta NLL 3 Character Domain Name $9.99
These aren’t something I’d normally be attracted to, but when I found a handful of these in The Drop one day I decided to try to flip them. A couple did, these didn’t. Typically, I did more research later on and found that these NLL.nets are considered worth Reg fee only.
From 3character.com
LLN com $220 net $10
LNL com $220 net $reg fee
NLL com $220 net $reg fee
NNL com $220 net $reg fee
NLN com $220 net $10

ENGILBERT.COM First Name Domain Name Baby Boy? $24.99
I see these name domains available in The Drop and I think End User! I’m sure there’s an Engilbert out there somewhere who would love to have his first name domain name. I didn’t find him on Ebay though.
LUBARS.COM Domain Name $9.99
NEVESS.COM Domain Name $9.99
A couple of surname domain names. “nevess” scores 175,000 in a Google search and is also Hungarian for ‘renowned’. “lubars” scores 434,000 in a Google search. I’d have to assume there weren’t any Lubars or Nevess family members in the market for domains on Ebay that week.

[Updated 030809]
RFUK.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
BMBY.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
COKX.NET Pronouncable Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
GUCS.NET Pronouncable Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
GEWL.NET Pronouncable Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $1.25
JLOC.NET Pronouncable Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
JROE.NET Common Initial/Last Name Combo LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
EXLA.NET Pronouncable LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $1.25
TKUN.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
OMBJ.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
RIUV.NET Pronouncable LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
BFWM.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
UTTP.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $.99
MOAU.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $1.29
ROWG.NET Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99 sold $1.25
Oh boy. This was clearly a mistake. Inspired by what I’d been reading on DropDude.com, I picked these up in The Drop thinking they’d filp for at least a few dollars profit. Kind of silly to discover, after the fact, they weren’t the sort of .nets domainers are buying, i.e. Premium.
From 4letternoob (soon to be LLLL.com)
In general, the best performing letters are: A, S, E, M, D, I, T, O. Other strong letters include F, G, H.
The letters J,K,Q,U,V,W,X,Y,Z are referred as non-premium letters. The presence of one of these letters considerably devalues a 4 letter .com under most circumstances. Of these, Q, X, Z are the weakest.
premium letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T
medium: J, K, U, V, W
most hated: QXYZ

ShaggyDogBlog.com Domain Name – Great For Joke Site $24.99
This was one of mine that was up for renewal. Probably I’ve had it long enough that I’ve just become attached to it but I could say that for a lot of domains and so I decided to let it go. But not for less than $24.95. Like I said, I like this one anyway.

AmateurPom.com Click-Alike Domain Name $24.99
AutolnsuranceOnline.com Click-Alike Domain Name $24.99
AffordableHealthlnsurance.com Click-Alike Domain Name $24.99
Part of my Click-Alike collection. I fell for these types of names about a year ago after reading a blog post on DomainTools I imagined a network of Click-Alike sites full of high dollar Affiliate products. When the renewals came up recently I decided I’d see if anyone else thought they were valuable. Hmm.

DID SELL

StormTrooperEffect.com $.99
StormTrooperSyndrome.com $.99
Before I was even a Noob I was getting excited about names like these. Rather than let them expire I put them on Ebay. The other thing about a sale, even a $.99 sale, is that you end up with positive feedback. You need 20 sales to open an Ebay store, which was something I was considering.

BUNX.NET Pronouncable LLLL.Net $9.99
GOYZ.NET Pronouncable LLLL.Net $9.99
PULV.NET Pronouncable Semi-Premium LLLL.Net $9.99
A couple of the ‘Semi-Premiums’ sold!
4cq.net Four Charlie Quebec NLL 3 Character Domain Name $9.99
4ql.net Four Quebec Lima NLL 3 Character Domain Name $9.99

OddioBook.com Brandable Domain Name – Odd Audio Books! $0.99
RikiTikiWiki..com Domain Name Att. Mongoose Lovers $0.99
A couple more of my pre-Noob acquisitions. Sold them rather than let them expire.

Dalores.com First Name Domain Name Baby Girl? $24.99
This was a name I found in The Drop. Buyer got a great deal IMO.

Looking at only the domains I purchased off The Drop for the purpose of flipping…
Acquired for Ebay flipping: 25 @ $7.69 = $192.25
Ebay selling costs: $27.34
Total cost: $219.59
Total sales: $80.93
Cost of experiment: $138.66

I suppose that could change. I still have the domains for sale.
Another thing I should mention was that in the process of looking for flipable domains I found a couple I think were keepers that are now parked and for sale at Sedo. I could be wrong, but they seem to me worth at least a couple of hundred each, and I wouldn’t have found them if I hadn’t been in Drop-Flip acquisition mode. (But what do you think?)
Pussied.com
and
Hobbying.com

What’s my take-away?
I think people shopping for domains on Ebay are looking for steals.
I think that at these prices, the Ebay charges really do impact your profits.
I think that unless you just love to do it, (or get really lucky) the number of hours spent scanning the drop lists, acquiring names, listing names for sale, and following up on the sale (getting the domain transferred) makes the whole process a big time-waster! Even if you got good at it, it’s not going to scale. It’s got ‘Don’t quit your day job’ written all over it.
Sour grapes?

P.S. Great post from Joshua Hunt-Smith on the How-To nitty gritty details of  putting a domain up for sale on Ebay at LLLL.com.

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