Making Money From Domains

There are two main ways that you can make money from domain names - you can either use a domain name that means something (eg business.com) or you can use a domain that gets a lot of visitors. It may surprise you to learn that these domain names are not necessarily the same thing.

Most of the domains which are a word or phrase are already taken. To get a domain that means something you need to think latterly, think ahead and register a domain name before anyone else thinks of it. For example, in the boating world there were yachts, then super yachts, and perhaps now mega yachts - so if you can think of what the next term will be, then it may be worth your while registering the domain and waiting for a few years until the term becomes widely used. If you get it right then you may well be the owner of a domain name worth a lot of money.

The other way of making money with domains is to get a domain name that already has a lot of visitors, and then monetizing the domain - normally through advertising. This can be a lucrative business for those with the knowledge of how to find well visited domains and I will now try to explain how these domains come about, and how you can find them.

It is important to realize the distinction between a domain name, and a website. A good analogy is to think of the domain name like a telephone number, and the website as a company. When you call the telephone number you get to talk to someone at the company, which is similar to when you enter a domain in an internet browser you get to see the underlying website.

Imagine a sales company starts up, promotes its telephone number, and then at a later date the company ceases to trade. People will still be calling the telephone number even though there will be no one to answer it. If you were in competition with the original company, it could prove lucrative to have their old telephone number redirected to your company.

Domains and websites work in a similar way. A domain name gets registered, a website gets built, and then the domain/website is promoted all over the internet, sometimes with thousands of links pointing to it, which results in thousands of visitors. But a domain name can only be registered for a set period of time and at the end of this period the owner can chose to renew the registration. However, domains don't always get renewed, so the domain becomes available again to be registered by anyone else.

These domains are called expiring domains (or expired after they become available to register again). If you can find an expiring domain that has been well promoted then you will have the opportunity of registering that domain, and making money from it. So the trick is to find these valuable domains. You need to find domains which are about to become available again, and then figure out how many links are pointing at each domain - in general the more links pointing at a domain, the more visitors a domain, and hence website, is going to get. This can be a lot of work, but there are websites that can provide you with this information.

How To Earn Money With Domains

First, you need to buy a domain, preferably a .com and as short as possible. We recommend using GoDaddy for the registration because their prices are incredibly low.

Tips for choosing a domain :

- length : it must be as short as possible but it should mean something not like kjs.com

- extension : preferably a .com or .net because the other extensions are worth less

- traffic : it's good if it already has traffic and links to it

- keyword : some keywords are worth more than the others ex : casino

Then, you can either park your domain on a parking program like Sedo or develop a website on it. If you decide to develop your domain, make sure you have a good webhost, a good design and good content. If you have a cheap host, you may have a lot of downtime or a poor technical support. In the meantime, you can list your domain for sale on some websites. Sedo also offer that kind of service.

Finally, you sell your domain or website to end-user or to another domainer. The buyer will probably ask for an appraisal from an independent firm that make sure you sell it at the right price. End-user will often offer more than domainer but they are harder to find.

Making Money with Expired Domains

There are billions of websites and thousands more popping up each day and they all require a name. As competition on the Internet intensifies, more and more people are actively looking for a quality domain for their site. Unfortunately for them there are already over 30 million dotcoms taken, which often times leaves webmasters with two choices. Settle for a long unpleasant looking domain or spend thousands to purchase a quality one from a private owner. Examples of the few most valuable domains ever sold are:

* Business.com sold for $7,500,000

* Casino.com sold for $5,500,000

* AsSeenOnTV.com sold for $5,100,000

Exceptional domains are obviously worth a lot of money, but what good does that do anyone now? Here is where expired domains come into the picture. While there are over 20,000 domains being registered each day, most people don't realize that there are also just as many expiring. Many times their owners don't realize how valuable the domain is when they let it go. Because of this, it's not uncommon to hear about a user grabbing an expired domain for $20 and selling it for 100 times that.

How do users find these valuable expired domains? They use a special type of search engine known as an expired domain search engine. While most of the domains that expire are junk there are handful each day that are worth a fair amount of money. To find this needle in a haystack you need to use a powerful expired domain search engine. A comparison chart of the top 5 expired domain search engines can be found at http://www.droplistpro.com/comparison-chart.htm.

A demo of an expired domain name search engine can be found at ( http://www.droplistpro.com/domain-search-demo.htm ).

Making Money from Parked Domains

Let me tell you a true story. A friend of my who likes to collect domain names was describing a few that he had acquired. While he has a wide range of domains in various categories, these particular domains were all related to web hosting.

Some of the domain names were similar to existing web hosting company names (or derivatives of web hosting company names). Others simply had ‘hosting', ‘host', or a related term in the domain itself.

So my friend and I were talking and he said something like, “Yeah, it's a shame – if only I had the time to develop some content for some of these domains then I might make some money form them”. It turns out that he had no content on any of the domains – just parked pages, or no content at all. When I investigated the domains, it turned out that there was a small but steady traffic stream that visited these domains. Some simply typed in the domain, others apparently found the domain through a search engine that had categorized the parked page.

So I suggested the following to him – why not use a service that will take the domain as is – with no content whatsoever – and suggest search options that generate revenue for each click? He took my advice, grudgingly I might add, and guess what? He made $50 the first month from just a few of his domains.

He was so excited that he asked what he might do to further increase his revenues from his domain names. I suggested that he use his parking pages (these can be customized with some hosts) to test banners from affiliate programs with the highest paying hosting companies. He placed only three banners at the top of his pages – with a brief description of the company's product offerings taken straight from their web sites. This also proved to be a great success – and his revenue stream increased.

My friend has since invested some time and energy in monetizing his other domains. He has either pointed the domains to a pay per click search engine, or listed affiliate links on almost every domain. This has turned a lackluster domain speculation business into a profit generating pay per click and affiliate business that requires almost no effort to maintain. Needless to say, my friend has taken my out to lunch a couple of times since then.

If you have parked domains and what to try getting paid for search results on those pages, check out this service offered by Sedo (there are others out there as well):

http://www.sedo.com/services/parking.php3

Good luck in transforming your parked domains into cold, hard cash!