8 ms·

Ask HN: Buying domains for side projects

49 points by ramanujam 16y ago

I bet many on HN will have the domain buying fetish. i.e) You think of a side project and immediately buy the domain for it. There is also the practice of simply buying a domain just because you thought it was cool. I am one of those people and my reasoning is that if i spend some money and buy the domain, i will have the motivation to get started on the project and it has worked at times. On the other hand, i have accumulated many domains which seem pretty useless now! I do renew some domains hoping that i will work on it some day. How do you tackle this?

byoung2 16y ago
It's funny I had this exact conversation with a coworker just this morning. The company we work for has a portfolio of nearly 1 million domain names, and most of them point to simple placeholder pages with ads. I personally own about 50 domain names...most that I bought with the intention of using for a specific project that never materialized. With a handful of them I paid a writer in the Philippines to write a dozen articles for each, and I threw together simple wordpress sites with RSS autoposting and they make about $10/mo each, which pays for the renewal fees for all of the other domains. I suppose in theory I could register 1000 domain names and repeat the process of paying for content, setting up wordpress RSS autoposting, and possibly make $10,000 a month, but I never seem to get around to it, and there's the possibility that it won't be as profitable as I think.
- rgrieselhuber 16y ago
  Interesting - do you mind if I ask you some questions about this? I'm considering a similar project for slightly different purposes and would love to get some feedback on some things. My email is in my profile if you're willing to chat. Thanks!
- bond 16y ago
  > I suppose in theory I could register 1000 domain names and repeat the process of paying for content, setting up wordpress RSS autoposting, and possibly make $10,000 a month, but I never seem to get around to it, and there's the possibility that it won't be as profitable as I think. That's what this kid is doing with 500 domains. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dvkdc/i_pay_for_college_with_adsense_ama/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dvkdc/i_pay_for_colleg...
  - jlmendezbonini 16y ago
    Not exactly. He was a bit smarter. He is mainly using free blog services (blogger, etc) so he avoids the annual domain and hosting costs. He also notes that by using blogger he automatically gets more weight from Google searches (I'm not that sure of that though).
    - byoung2 16y ago
      There is a risk with free blog services like Blogger and Wordpress.com...if someone complains that you are stealing their content, your account can get shut down instantly. It is also harder to sell your site later (e.g. on Flippa) because you don't own the domain. There is also a better opportunity to pass pagerank around to your own sites using a real domain. You can get a domain for $8/year and considering the small amount of traffic from even a few hundred sites, you could host them all on a small hosting plan of $10/month. So the cost per site for domain and hosting would be pennies.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- duck 16y ago
  Do you mind sharing a link to one of these sites so we can "see" how it works?
  - byoung2 16y ago
    Here is the first one I made (I sold it back in May on Flippa.com for $350): http://www.techspyer.com/ http://www.techspyer.com/ I learned on this one that I needed to focus on content more than spammy affiliate links. Here is an example of the content I paid someone in the Philippines to write: http://www.techspyer.com/tag/digital-camera/ http://www.techspyer.com/tag/digital-camera/ (most of the tags have a "buying guide" at the top) All of the "posts" are just coupon feeds from Linkshare's RSS feed. This site made $10-15 per month for a solid year. The total cost is as follows: Domain: $7.49 (GoDaddy) Hosting: Free (Unlimited accounts on Rackspace) Content: $24 - $2/article x 12 articles SEO: $10 in backlinks from SubmitEdge The total income over 12 months was about $150. I assume the site would have continued to produce $10-15 per month indefinitely with no more effort on my part. I sold it for about 2x yearly earnings (I have no idea why the new owner hasn't activated his own Linkshare RSS feed). For the other sites, I prefer to keep those private because they are in untapped niches and I don't want to invite competition, but for those I focused on content RSS feeds and AdSense instead of affiliate links and they make about the same amount of money per month. I'm going to try to do some more of these sites...I keep telling myself that if I registered 1000 domains and put simple sites like these on them at $41 each, I could turn $41,000 into $10,000 - $15,000 per month. Of course the hard part is getting started.
    - vinhboy 16y ago
      damnit, this is never going to work if we all have the same ideas.. hahaha where are you buying content for $2 a piece?
      - byoung2 16y ago
        This particular writer came from an ad on www.sulit.com.ph
      - 16y ago
- jessejmc 16y ago
  How did you find your article writer?
  - byoung2 16y ago
    Answer is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831269
- albahk 16y ago
  Serious question: If you are registering and presumably renewing 1 million domains did the company consider becoming a registrar to save money and make it easier to own/manage that many domains?
irons 16y ago
I don't really consider it a negative for my years-old untapped ideas to cost me a token amount of money per annum. If my unused twitter accounts did the same, I'd probably have a few more active projects, or a few fewer dormant ones.
addoway 16y ago
My partner and I have bought quite a bit of domain names too and have actually sold some of them and from my experience many people decide to buy them up to do just that. They think someone is going to come around and pay them huge amounts of money. It usually doesn't happen at all, so if your motivation is to drive motivation then I think its just fine.
profquail 16y ago
I think the important thing is to have some measure of self-control; if you buy a domain for a project, promise yourself that you won't buy another until you've either: (a) built the project, or (b) sold/traded the domain or otherwise used it in some gainful way. Disclaimer: I've got a bunch of domains that I purchased for personal projects and never got around to. But at some point, I realized I was just wasting money and promised myself not to buy any more until I finished at least one of the projects.
bobbywilson0 16y ago
I only register the domain for a year, and if it expires in the year without me doing anything I let it go. I mean, it's been an entire year.
- ramanujam 16y ago
  Good thought! I did the same thing and let a few domains expire this year. If i have not worked on it for a year, there is a good chance that i will never do it in the future. Better ditch it and focus on other things!
- decadentcactus 16y ago
  Same. Except now I regret one of them that I need, and has since been taken up by a parker. My fault that I didn't get around to it, but it's annoying.
kilian 16y ago
I recently evaluated all the domains I had accrued, took a critical look at all the apps I wanted to built for them and at what state they were in (if at all) and decided to ditch 50% of them. It felt ...liberating. :)
wisty 16y ago
You can use a subdomain of your personal website for testing. There will still be a good domain name available when the project is ready to launch.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  Because your idea is good, but not seven dollar good? I mean really, if you're going to the trouble to fire up the IDE and actually write code for a new project, aren't you already a little bit committed? Like committed enough to spend four billable minutes worth of income on the domain name as insurance that it won't be gone in a few months' time?
bkorte 16y ago
I've stopped myself from buying domains for projects. I also force myself to let a domain expire if I don't use it within a year. It's extra motivation to shit or get off the pot.
- babeKnuth 16y ago
  hopefully the pot gets pretty dirty. :)
borismus 16y ago
I am totally guilty of buying domains for side projects and then not following through. I own 17 domains, 5 of which are currently actively hosting meaningful content or webapps. I went through a scrub of the ones that are unused, and realized that I need to let some go. Here's a list of ones I'm letting expire. If you have a meaningful project idea for one of them let me know. concoctail.com geogames.org gpsrpg.com istherewind.com jamhunt.com runubc.com
- babeKnuth 16y ago
  how in the world do you come up with those names? what was their appeal to you?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
I must say, when I was doing some domain research, I though to myself more than once : "this is, this is criminal". These were domains dealings with quite serious subjects and just seeing them sitting there full of ads, making it so very much difficult for me to acquire, absolute gorgeous domain names, just felt not only immoral but purely and simply criminal. Of course I got over it and moved onto domains which were available and suitable and just as good, but, and this is not to you personally but companies who buy such domains names en mass hopping to profit, simply, find a way to make money which allows you to get sleep at night.
- r0s 16y ago
  Squatters are pretty vile. I've never had the opportunity, but I've heard such domains can be obtained relatively easily if you have an existing legit company(doing actual business) and can threaten litigation. That seems extreme, but I think of it like real-estate: If your business buys a warehouse, you may have to hire an exterminator to clean out all the parasites that have set up their nests therein.
  - rlpb 16y ago
    > ...I think of it like real-estate: If your business buys a warehouse, you may have to hire an exterminator to clean out all the parasites that have set up their nests therein. With real-estate I'd think of it more like considering a property that has squatters in it already, together with the long and uncertain task of evicting them (or paying them to leave) if you decide you want to commit to buy.
sriramk 16y ago
I'm shaking my head right now. Literally 5 seconds before checking out the HN home page right now, I just finished the checkout process for yet another sideproject domain :)
iworkforthem 16y ago
I used to buy tons of domains for all the ideas I have or planned to do in the future. The problem is ... most of the time, I could never get around to work on it. Either because one idea took up more time then expected, etc. Now I will just register domain once I'm almost ready to launch. Looking at the rate startup fail, I guess it's quite alright to not get the domain I want. If things do work out, I can always rebrand it later.
patrickryan 16y ago
I've encountered this same problem multiple times. The fix: don't buy the domain until you are ready to launch the project. This allows you to build without having to adapt your project to a domain name. It's much easier to find a domain that describes your project after it has been completed. It also saves you money if you never carry out your grand ideas.
bryanh 16y ago
Hmmmm, I have 49 domains. That's costing me $400 a year. I'd say a good two dozen are active(ish). They just seem to accumulate...
- byoung2 16y ago
  for the 36 that are inactive, put up a quickie site like I did and in theory you could be making $360 a month (assuming $10/month per site). Even at $1/month per site you would make $432, or enough to pay for all of your domains.
sammcd 16y ago
I recently instituted a "no domains after midnight" rule. I've dodged a few bullets with that one.
- garrettgillas 16y ago
  Me too. I kind of went through a "buy domains like crazy" phase a couple years ago but have since kicked the habit. Now I won't let myself buy a domain unless I have some other work done for it first. Although it only costs me $7.50 a year, the cost adds up a lot after a while.
  - mdolon 16y ago
    Where do you get your domains for $7.50 a year? I remember GoDaddy used to have it that cheap but I think they've increased their prices recently, right?
    - asibehar 16y ago
      They always have rotating coupons for 30% off. You can find the most up-to-date ones here: http://www.techbargains.com/vendor_detail.cfm/393/GoDaddy-coupon-code http://www.techbargains.com/vendor_detail.cfm/393/GoDaddy-co...
- bwooceli 16y ago
  I'm sitting on a 3-month-old gem: theomnomnom.com Purchased time: 2am. Hilarious potential: check. Chance that I'll touch it before the renewal reminder email: 20%
  - calloc 16y ago
    Would you be willing to lease the domain to someone with a good idea?
    - bwooceli 16y ago
      email me andrew at aawsolutions.com
Isofarro 16y ago
I've managed to accumulate about 150 domains, almost all of them were bought with an idea in mind (quite a lot are duplicates/complements/variants to the main idea). This year I listed all of the ones that didn't have websites yet on sedo, and set all of them to a couple of hundred pounds each buy-it-now. The idea is that either I focus on building an idea quickly, or risk that someone who thinks he has a better idea than me snaps the domain name up in the meantime. Hasn't worked. But, so far three of those domains have been sold, so that essentially covers all my domain name renewal fees this year. Perhaps I should drop the prices to increase the pressure on myself.
johns 16y ago
Someone just released this last week: http://hntrades.com http://hntrades.com Post your domains there and get something for them.
thibaut_barrere 16y ago
I never start by buying the domain. Instead I spend a bit of time to write down the concept, see if it sticks. It's only later that I look for a name for the project itself, and I buy the domain at the same time (it's a kind of whois brainstorming).
curt 16y ago
Actually I have 5 domains left that are all 6-7 letters and make really sounding words. Bought them 6 years ago, holding on to them and use them whenever I start up a new company.
there 16y ago
i have a personal domain (jcs.org) and i just create a subdomain for a new project. it lets me put it online quickly and it also means i'm not tied to the name if i want to change it. sometimes i finish a project and it never moves (http://metra.jcs.org/ http://metra.jcs.org/) because i can't find an appropriate domain name. though as someone else suggested, try http://hntrades.com/ http://hntrades.com/ to buy/sell/trade unused domain names.
uptown 16y ago
I'm just like you. But I've started winding down my portfolio of ones I know I'll never get around to building. The interesting thing for me has been to see some businesses spring up with the same concepts for which my domain names were bought. That's happened with more than a few of my domain names. I've also been fortunate to have a couple of my domains result in unsolicited bids ... generating enough profit to cover the carrying costs for the 20 still in my portfolio. Just got a completely unexpected offer for one last night.
arn 16y ago
I'm going to be a little contrary and say you should register as many as you can when u can. I have over 300 domains, but the value in a good domain is well worth the cost over the years. TouchArcade.com is one I picked up before I had a solid plan for its use. Now it's annual revenue dwarfs the "wasted" money on domains.
jeffwidman 16y ago
For every three domains I buy, I probably keep one longer htan a year. And only half of those stay longer than two years (1/6). But those that last longer than two years are generally gonna stay around for a while--I bought them because I like the name, not because of a project sitting in my mind. Eg, AffinityScore.com just has a nice ring to it and would make a nice social ranking product or services business. (If you google "Affinity score" it's most often used by people describing EdgeRank...)
mrschwabe 16y ago
Someone just emailed me today about one of these 'side project' domain names. Back when I was a business noob I would register domains for just about any bright idea. It got expensive. What I do now for those, 'on the shelf domains', is simply a white page with an email and a brief message explaining the domain is for sale. A few inquiries so far, nothing much, we'll see how today's negotiation pans out.
- mrschwabe 16y ago
  Bah, it was only a $100 offer! I'm holding out on this one for $1k.
robwgibbons 16y ago
I consider the purchase price of a new domain to be the first, and one of the best, barriers when vetting new ideas. If I come up with a sweet idea, I sit on it. If after a few weeks the idea is still burning a hole in my pocket, I'll purchase the domain.
cliveholloway 16y ago
You post a large update in a place where you value your integrity stating that the goal you were going to achieve will be accomplished by a certain date (that appears reasonable). In my case, it was to tweet that we'd be selling our latest discs (http://twitter.com/Thisoneisonus/status/27176693962 http://twitter.com/Thisoneisonus/status/27176693962) on a certain date, and then coding through the night a couple of days before because I didn't want to look like an idiot to our 5,000 obsessive Twitter followers :D
ljf 16y ago
I'm the same, currently just have 3 though - om.gd - we.gd and whi.im - things planned for all of them, but am also interested in getting something going with them sooner than latter. Very interesting the money some people are making from links and basic content... hum... Tempted to work up some decent ideas into ebooks, and have sites specific to each - just making sure they don't look spammy/rubbish. No point if they do.
3dFlatLander 16y ago
I only buy .coms, which means I have to be very creative in thinking up names. This on its own is a good throttle on buying names. Lately, I've been toying with the idea of using subdomains from http://freedns.afraid.org/ http://freedns.afraid.org/ to host small projects that don't warrent a domain name. I do wonder what this would do to search rank though.

49 points by ramanujam 16y ago

byoung2 16y ago

It's funny I had this exact conversation with a coworker just this morning. The company we work for has a portfolio of nearly 1 million domain names, and most of them point to simple placeholder pages with ads. I personally own about 50 domain names...most that I bought with the intention of using for a specific project that never materialized. With a handful of them I paid a writer in the Philippines to write a dozen articles for each, and I threw together simple wordpress sites with RSS autoposting and they make about $10/mo each, which pays for the renewal fees for all of the other domains. I suppose in theory I could register 1000 domain names and repeat the process of paying for content, setting up wordpress RSS autoposting, and possibly make $10,000 a month, but I never seem to get around to it, and there's the possibility that it won't be as profitable as I think.

rgrieselhuber 16y ago
Interesting - do you mind if I ask you some questions about this? I'm considering a similar project for slightly different purposes and would love to get some feedback on some things. My email is in my profile if you're willing to chat. Thanks!
bond 16y ago
> I suppose in theory I could register 1000 domain names and repeat the process of paying for content, setting up wordpress RSS autoposting, and possibly make $10,000 a month, but I never seem to get around to it, and there's the possibility that it won't be as profitable as I think. That's what this kid is doing with 500 domains. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dvkdc/i_pay_for_college_with_adsense_ama/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dvkdc/i_pay_for_colleg...
- jlmendezbonini 16y ago
  Not exactly. He was a bit smarter. He is mainly using free blog services (blogger, etc) so he avoids the annual domain and hosting costs. He also notes that by using blogger he automatically gets more weight from Google searches (I'm not that sure of that though).
  - byoung2 16y ago
    There is a risk with free blog services like Blogger and Wordpress.com...if someone complains that you are stealing their content, your account can get shut down instantly. It is also harder to sell your site later (e.g. on Flippa) because you don't own the domain. There is also a better opportunity to pass pagerank around to your own sites using a real domain. You can get a domain for $8/year and considering the small amount of traffic from even a few hundred sites, you could host them all on a small hosting plan of $10/month. So the cost per site for domain and hosting would be pennies.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
duck 16y ago
Do you mind sharing a link to one of these sites so we can "see" how it works?
- byoung2 16y ago
  Here is the first one I made (I sold it back in May on Flippa.com for $350): http://www.techspyer.com/ http://www.techspyer.com/ I learned on this one that I needed to focus on content more than spammy affiliate links. Here is an example of the content I paid someone in the Philippines to write: http://www.techspyer.com/tag/digital-camera/ http://www.techspyer.com/tag/digital-camera/ (most of the tags have a "buying guide" at the top) All of the "posts" are just coupon feeds from Linkshare's RSS feed. This site made $10-15 per month for a solid year. The total cost is as follows: Domain: $7.49 (GoDaddy) Hosting: Free (Unlimited accounts on Rackspace) Content: $24 - $2/article x 12 articles SEO: $10 in backlinks from SubmitEdge The total income over 12 months was about $150. I assume the site would have continued to produce $10-15 per month indefinitely with no more effort on my part. I sold it for about 2x yearly earnings (I have no idea why the new owner hasn't activated his own Linkshare RSS feed). For the other sites, I prefer to keep those private because they are in untapped niches and I don't want to invite competition, but for those I focused on content RSS feeds and AdSense instead of affiliate links and they make about the same amount of money per month. I'm going to try to do some more of these sites...I keep telling myself that if I registered 1000 domains and put simple sites like these on them at $41 each, I could turn $41,000 into $10,000 - $15,000 per month. Of course the hard part is getting started.
  - vinhboy 16y ago
    damnit, this is never going to work if we all have the same ideas.. hahaha where are you buying content for $2 a piece?
    - byoung2 16y ago
      This particular writer came from an ad on www.sulit.com.ph
    - 16y ago
jessejmc 16y ago
How did you find your article writer?
- byoung2 16y ago
  Answer is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831269 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831269
albahk 16y ago
Serious question: If you are registering and presumably renewing 1 million domains did the company consider becoming a registrar to save money and make it easier to own/manage that many domains?

irons 16y ago

I don't really consider it a negative for my years-old untapped ideas to cost me a token amount of money per annum. If my unused twitter accounts did the same, I'd probably have a few more active projects, or a few fewer dormant ones.

addoway 16y ago

My partner and I have bought quite a bit of domain names too and have actually sold some of them and from my experience many people decide to buy them up to do just that. They think someone is going to come around and pay them huge amounts of money. It usually doesn't happen at all, so if your motivation is to drive motivation then I think its just fine.

profquail 16y ago

I think the important thing is to have some measure of self-control; if you buy a domain for a project, promise yourself that you won't buy another until you've either: (a) built the project, or (b) sold/traded the domain or otherwise used it in some gainful way. Disclaimer: I've got a bunch of domains that I purchased for personal projects and never got around to. But at some point, I realized I was just wasting money and promised myself not to buy any more until I finished at least one of the projects.

bobbywilson0 16y ago

I only register the domain for a year, and if it expires in the year without me doing anything I let it go. I mean, it's been an entire year.

ramanujam 16y ago
Good thought! I did the same thing and let a few domains expire this year. If i have not worked on it for a year, there is a good chance that i will never do it in the future. Better ditch it and focus on other things!
decadentcactus 16y ago
Same. Except now I regret one of them that I need, and has since been taken up by a parker. My fault that I didn't get around to it, but it's annoying.

kilian 16y ago

I recently evaluated all the domains I had accrued, took a critical look at all the apps I wanted to built for them and at what state they were in (if at all) and decided to ditch 50% of them. It felt ...liberating. :)

wisty 16y ago

You can use a subdomain of your personal website for testing. There will still be a good domain name available when the project is ready to launch.

jasonkester 16y ago
Because your idea is good, but not seven dollar good? I mean really, if you're going to the trouble to fire up the IDE and actually write code for a new project, aren't you already a little bit committed? Like committed enough to spend four billable minutes worth of income on the domain name as insurance that it won't be gone in a few months' time?

bkorte 16y ago

I've stopped myself from buying domains for projects. I also force myself to let a domain expire if I don't use it within a year. It's extra motivation to shit or get off the pot.

babeKnuth 16y ago
hopefully the pot gets pretty dirty. :)

borismus 16y ago

I am totally guilty of buying domains for side projects and then not following through. I own 17 domains, 5 of which are currently actively hosting meaningful content or webapps. I went through a scrub of the ones that are unused, and realized that I need to let some go. Here's a list of ones I'm letting expire. If you have a meaningful project idea for one of them let me know. concoctail.com geogames.org gpsrpg.com istherewind.com jamhunt.com runubc.com

babeKnuth 16y ago
how in the world do you come up with those names? what was their appeal to you?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Andrew_Quentin 16y ago

I must say, when I was doing some domain research, I though to myself more than once : "this is, this is criminal". These were domains dealings with quite serious subjects and just seeing them sitting there full of ads, making it so very much difficult for me to acquire, absolute gorgeous domain names, just felt not only immoral but purely and simply criminal. Of course I got over it and moved onto domains which were available and suitable and just as good, but, and this is not to you personally but companies who buy such domains names en mass hopping to profit, simply, find a way to make money which allows you to get sleep at night.

r0s 16y ago
Squatters are pretty vile. I've never had the opportunity, but I've heard such domains can be obtained relatively easily if you have an existing legit company(doing actual business) and can threaten litigation. That seems extreme, but I think of it like real-estate: If your business buys a warehouse, you may have to hire an exterminator to clean out all the parasites that have set up their nests therein.
- rlpb 16y ago
  > ...I think of it like real-estate: If your business buys a warehouse, you may have to hire an exterminator to clean out all the parasites that have set up their nests therein. With real-estate I'd think of it more like considering a property that has squatters in it already, together with the long and uncertain task of evicting them (or paying them to leave) if you decide you want to commit to buy.

sriramk 16y ago

I'm shaking my head right now. Literally 5 seconds before checking out the HN home page right now, I just finished the checkout process for yet another sideproject domain :)

iworkforthem 16y ago

I used to buy tons of domains for all the ideas I have or planned to do in the future. The problem is ... most of the time, I could never get around to work on it. Either because one idea took up more time then expected, etc. Now I will just register domain once I'm almost ready to launch. Looking at the rate startup fail, I guess it's quite alright to not get the domain I want. If things do work out, I can always rebrand it later.

patrickryan 16y ago

I've encountered this same problem multiple times. The fix: don't buy the domain until you are ready to launch the project. This allows you to build without having to adapt your project to a domain name. It's much easier to find a domain that describes your project after it has been completed. It also saves you money if you never carry out your grand ideas.

bryanh 16y ago

Hmmmm, I have 49 domains. That's costing me $400 a year. I'd say a good two dozen are active(ish). They just seem to accumulate...

byoung2 16y ago
for the 36 that are inactive, put up a quickie site like I did and in theory you could be making $360 a month (assuming $10/month per site). Even at $1/month per site you would make $432, or enough to pay for all of your domains.

sammcd 16y ago

I recently instituted a "no domains after midnight" rule. I've dodged a few bullets with that one.

garrettgillas 16y ago
Me too. I kind of went through a "buy domains like crazy" phase a couple years ago but have since kicked the habit. Now I won't let myself buy a domain unless I have some other work done for it first. Although it only costs me $7.50 a year, the cost adds up a lot after a while.
- mdolon 16y ago
  Where do you get your domains for $7.50 a year? I remember GoDaddy used to have it that cheap but I think they've increased their prices recently, right?
  - asibehar 16y ago
    They always have rotating coupons for 30% off. You can find the most up-to-date ones here: http://www.techbargains.com/vendor_detail.cfm/393/GoDaddy-coupon-code http://www.techbargains.com/vendor_detail.cfm/393/GoDaddy-co...
bwooceli 16y ago
I'm sitting on a 3-month-old gem: theomnomnom.com Purchased time: 2am. Hilarious potential: check. Chance that I'll touch it before the renewal reminder email: 20%
- calloc 16y ago
  Would you be willing to lease the domain to someone with a good idea?
  - bwooceli 16y ago
    email me andrew at aawsolutions.com

Isofarro 16y ago

I've managed to accumulate about 150 domains, almost all of them were bought with an idea in mind (quite a lot are duplicates/complements/variants to the main idea). This year I listed all of the ones that didn't have websites yet on sedo, and set all of them to a couple of hundred pounds each buy-it-now. The idea is that either I focus on building an idea quickly, or risk that someone who thinks he has a better idea than me snaps the domain name up in the meantime. Hasn't worked. But, so far three of those domains have been sold, so that essentially covers all my domain name renewal fees this year. Perhaps I should drop the prices to increase the pressure on myself.

johns 16y ago

Someone just released this last week: http://hntrades.com http://hntrades.com Post your domains there and get something for them.

thibaut_barrere 16y ago

I never start by buying the domain. Instead I spend a bit of time to write down the concept, see if it sticks. It's only later that I look for a name for the project itself, and I buy the domain at the same time (it's a kind of whois brainstorming).

curt 16y ago

Actually I have 5 domains left that are all 6-7 letters and make really sounding words. Bought them 6 years ago, holding on to them and use them whenever I start up a new company.

there 16y ago

i have a personal domain (jcs.org) and i just create a subdomain for a new project. it lets me put it online quickly and it also means i'm not tied to the name if i want to change it. sometimes i finish a project and it never moves (http://metra.jcs.org/ http://metra.jcs.org/) because i can't find an appropriate domain name. though as someone else suggested, try http://hntrades.com/ http://hntrades.com/ to buy/sell/trade unused domain names.

uptown 16y ago

I'm just like you. But I've started winding down my portfolio of ones I know I'll never get around to building. The interesting thing for me has been to see some businesses spring up with the same concepts for which my domain names were bought. That's happened with more than a few of my domain names. I've also been fortunate to have a couple of my domains result in unsolicited bids ... generating enough profit to cover the carrying costs for the 20 still in my portfolio. Just got a completely unexpected offer for one last night.

arn 16y ago

I'm going to be a little contrary and say you should register as many as you can when u can. I have over 300 domains, but the value in a good domain is well worth the cost over the years. TouchArcade.com is one I picked up before I had a solid plan for its use. Now it's annual revenue dwarfs the "wasted" money on domains.

jeffwidman 16y ago

For every three domains I buy, I probably keep one longer htan a year. And only half of those stay longer than two years (1/6). But those that last longer than two years are generally gonna stay around for a while--I bought them because I like the name, not because of a project sitting in my mind. Eg, AffinityScore.com just has a nice ring to it and would make a nice social ranking product or services business. (If you google "Affinity score" it's most often used by people describing EdgeRank...)

mrschwabe 16y ago

Someone just emailed me today about one of these 'side project' domain names. Back when I was a business noob I would register domains for just about any bright idea. It got expensive. What I do now for those, 'on the shelf domains', is simply a white page with an email and a brief message explaining the domain is for sale. A few inquiries so far, nothing much, we'll see how today's negotiation pans out.

mrschwabe 16y ago
Bah, it was only a $100 offer! I'm holding out on this one for $1k.

robwgibbons 16y ago

I consider the purchase price of a new domain to be the first, and one of the best, barriers when vetting new ideas. If I come up with a sweet idea, I sit on it. If after a few weeks the idea is still burning a hole in my pocket, I'll purchase the domain.

cliveholloway 16y ago

You post a large update in a place where you value your integrity stating that the goal you were going to achieve will be accomplished by a certain date (that appears reasonable). In my case, it was to tweet that we'd be selling our latest discs (http://twitter.com/Thisoneisonus/status/27176693962 http://twitter.com/Thisoneisonus/status/27176693962) on a certain date, and then coding through the night a couple of days before because I didn't want to look like an idiot to our 5,000 obsessive Twitter followers :D

ljf 16y ago

I'm the same, currently just have 3 though - om.gd - we.gd and whi.im - things planned for all of them, but am also interested in getting something going with them sooner than latter. Very interesting the money some people are making from links and basic content... hum... Tempted to work up some decent ideas into ebooks, and have sites specific to each - just making sure they don't look spammy/rubbish. No point if they do.

3dFlatLander 16y ago

I only buy .coms, which means I have to be very creative in thinking up names. This on its own is a good throttle on buying names. Lately, I've been toying with the idea of using subdomains from http://freedns.afraid.org/ http://freedns.afraid.org/ to host small projects that don't warrent a domain name. I do wonder what this would do to search rank though.