Domain Name AMA

[blaksol]

Well the first thing I will tell you is to ignore PR. No one who knows anything cares about it. It's basically a useless metric these days.

As far as your own site...how were you monetizing the website? The best way to sell a website for a good amount of $ is for it to already generate traffic and revenue. I've done a lot of research on the sold listings on flippa and most of them have the same things in common, they are already profitable. For e.g., I sold legalhelp.org for $25,000 on flippa after I built it up so it was generating traffic and revenue.

Think about things in term of value. If you just build a site using one of your "creative" ideas, but it doesn't really appeal to consumers, or doesn't generate traffic/revenue, how much value are you trying to sell to someone? Probably not a lot which is why it doesn't sell for a lot.

I was only using adsense. I was considering selling ads to offices in big cities for terms like "best lasik surgeon San Francisco" for example, but right around that time Google started showing their own local directory listing and map and all pushing other listings down the page. I am pretty terrible at direct sales anyway.

Did you do any direct ad sales for the legalhelp site? Where did most of your traffic come from?

 

[blaksol]

My traffic was all organic as I specialize in SEO. I didn't do direct sales, I just had a lead gen form. If I did direct sales I could have made a lot more. How much traffic were you receiving?

Less than 50/day. Maybe I wasn't high enough on the first page of Google, or maybe their search numbers were way off for the main term I was targeting. Do you have a contract to sell the leads ahead of time or as you go?

 

[Y.B.]

I just sign up with an affiliate program that I can use who buy my leads. Directories are generally hard to make money with unless you get a ton of traffic. Maybe you should focus on building up your own site to make $ instead of trying to sell it to someone else.

 

[Chadi]

Hi Yury,

Thanks for doing this AMA.

Last year I set out to build a blog network for SEO purposes and I ended up buying more domains than I need. I currently have a few dozen built and hosted domains that have some good metrics such as domain and page authority, backlinks, referring domains, trust and citation flows.
I've listed them on GD auctions and only a few of them sold.

My questions:
Where do you recommend selling domains that are mostly good for SEO?
What platform do you recommend for buying domains with high DA and PA?
Do you use a domain management tool?

 

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[Y.B.]

My questions:
Where do you recommend selling domains that are mostly good for SEO?
What platform do you recommend for buying domains with high DA and PA?
Do you use a domain management tool?

Selling domains? You can try flippa or domain name forums. You can also try SEO forums. Google has been penalizing blog networks so unless yours are super tight and don't have any foot prints, it could be a tough sell based on the seo value alone.

i don't focus on buying domains with high DA and PA. I buy domains because of it's inherent value, or if I need it for development purposes. However, I have seen some good domains with good stats for sale on Flippa

I don't use any domain management tools.

 

[IAmTheJeff]

Yury - I was just thinking about this and haven't done any research yet, but is there such a thing as a "virtual estate" agent? Like real estate for the Internet?

 

[Y.B.]

Yury - I was just thinking about this and haven't done any research yet, but is there such a thing as a "virtual estate" agent? Like real estate for the Internet?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. There are domain name lawyers, domain name brokers, domain name consultants. They can each help you find a domain name, negotiate deals, etc...

 

[IAmTheJeff]

Ah, a broker. That's what I was thinking of.

 

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[Chadi]

Selling domains? You can try flippa or domain name forums. You can also try SEO forums. Google has been penalizing blog networks so unless yours are super tight and don't have any foot prints, it could be a tough sell based on the seo value alone.

i don't focus on buying domains with high DA and PA. I buy domains because of it's inherent value, or if I need it for development purposes. However, I have seen some good domains with good stats for sale on Flippa

I don't use any domain management tools.

I'm not selling networks, just individual domains that were built to be used in a blog network and ended up not using them.

Which SEO forum would you recommend?

Thanks

 

[Chadi]

How much should I spend to buy Google.com?

I have goog1e.net if you're interested

 

[Y.B.]

Which SEO forum would you recommend

You can try blackhatworld, warriorforum, dnforum, namepros, seoforums.org, seochat.com, Google SEO forum or domain name forum as well as domain name marketplace....the more places you list, the more eyes are on it and the better chance you have of selling it.

 

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[Chadi]

You can try blackhatworld, warriorforum, dnforum, namepros, seoforums.org, seochat.com, Google SEO forum or domain name forum as well as domain name marketplace....the more places you list, the more eyes are on it and the better chance you have of selling it.

BHW and Warrior forum require a seller account fee, did you sell domains there?. I don't mind paying the fee so long as I can get some sales.

Flippa hasn't worked so well for me given that my asking price is low $xx $xxx and I still have to pay the listing fee whether I sell or not. I don't mind paying a larger % with no listing fee and so far only GD auctions has worked (moderately) in that regard.

 

[Y.B.]

BHW and Warrior forum require a seller account fee, did you sell domains there?. I don't mind paying the fee so long as I can get some sales.
Flippa hasn't worked so well for me given that my asking price is low $xx $xxx and I still have to pay the listing fee whether I sell or not. I don't mind paying a larger % with no listing fee and so far only GD auctions has worked (moderately) in that regard.

I don't normally sell domains based on SEO value. I sell good high quality domains through various avenues, including contacting end users.

 

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[ari_ari]

BHW and Warrior forum require a seller account fee, did you sell domains there?. I don't mind paying the fee so long as I can get some sales.

Flippa hasn't worked so well for me given that my asking price is low $xx $xxx and I still have to pay the listing fee whether I sell or not. I don't mind paying a larger % with no listing fee and so far only GD auctions has worked (moderately) in that regard.

Chad - it depends on the quality of those domains but at those prices you're gonna have a hard time really moving them these days. have you tried SEDO? BuyDomains? DomainNameSales?

 

[Chadi]

Chad - it depends on the quality of those domains but at those prices you're gonna have a hard time really moving them these days. have you tried SEDO? BuyDomains? DomainNameSales?

Are you saying that the price is too low for them to move? I'm afraid I didn't get that.

I haven't tried Sedo yet although I'm going to try it next.

 

[Writer7]

Yury,

First of all, thank you on interesting AMA.

1. Bought an ebook about domain selling several months ago so I have a clue about the whole process. Is it true, from your experience, that if you register a new domain (GoDaddy, ...,etc. for $x) based on keyword search (which is, if you do not develop it, the main measurable value of the domain as I understand - not talking about perceived value which could be much higher), with 100-200 potential buyers (doctors, lawyers, etc) it could be sold in days for $xxx? If you register 10 such domains how many do you expect to sell in the next 3 moths (I understand there is not an absolute answer, just asking for your opinion)?

2. I am located outside US so sales phone calls are not an option for me. Do you contact potential buyers via phone or email? What is response rate from your experience?

3. Who do you target, for instance, in a small company - CEO or some other person? Are they usually aware of the value of the domain or you explain the potential value of the domain for their business in a sales letter - email message? I assume you make every email personalized to be sure not to end up in a spam mail box?

 

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[Paleo]

Can you give us a list of the best resources for learning about domaining- which websites, blogs, forums, and ebooks would you recommend for beginners?

 

[teabag]

I've got a name for a business I want to use. Im located in Australia, however, a large portion of my customers are in the US.

The .COM of this domain name is used by a Chinese website and currently parked. I emailed them 4 times over 3 months ago. No response.

Should I scrap my domain name and secure a .COM or would a .COM.AU still be viable for international sales?

 

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[Daniel A]

What would you say is better between these two options from a branding perspective?

ExampleExampleWoman.com

or

ExampleExampleWomen.com

Of course, the difference between the bolded words is one is singular and another is plural. Note: "ExampleExample" are just filler words. The focus is on the difference between the bolded words. Thank you!

 

[Daniel A]

Could you please help me out with this scenario? Because I've only bought domain names straight from registrars so far...

So I reached out to the owner of a domain name that I'm interested in purchasing with an offer, and he has accepted it.

What would be the best next steps in transferring ownership?