EggZap

This post inspired by the following article!

Domaining.com

I have two anecdotes that have relevance to it.

Around last Halloween I decided to sell one of my developed Halloween costume sites/domains on Ebay. Why ebay? You ask! I know it’s not the best place for a domain, where the average price for a domain sale is probably 3$. Here is my thinking, there are about 100 different stores and individuals selling costumes on eBay at that time, and since I listed the domain in the Halloween costume category I knew a lot of end users (costume sellers checking competition) would become aware of this opportunity. I also contacted any website I could find selling costumes and everyone who was bidding on those keywords. I put up the domain/website for a 1$ with no reserve, and much to my chagrin bidding was very heavy by about 7 different bidders all of which had a history of selling costumes. The price rapidly rose to about 20% estibot value, then stopped. In the last hour/minutes of the auction, bidding picked up again, but this time it was domainers. It sold for about 50% Estibot value to a Domainer in asia.

I was surprised that people who sell Costumes on Ebay and online costume selling websites would let this opportunity go by, but to the outside world, they do not understand how a keyword domain would sell for so much when they can simply hand register a domain and start selling their wares.

I have a client starting an online business based on the European spelling of word that 80% of the world spells differently. In his mind he paid a hefty price for this domain (mine too), and he asked me what the common American spelling of this domain would go for. He thought I was crazy / incompetent when I replied its a 6 figure domain. He would not pay more then 5K for it.

Ok, So most of the world thinks domainers are crazy, when I see discussion groups where people buy and sell four letter domains like
zxth.com zqqg.com, ppqz.com for 20$/50$, when I see every and any 4 letter domain that drops is picked up by someones algorithm and bought immediately, I am inclined to think most of the world may be right.

As the above article underlines, domainers are Nerds, who talk in terms of key words searchs/month PPC, type-ins, parking. I think every big company will have one of these nerds of staff eventually in their growing web marketing department. The little companies and the average joe will continue to undervalue domains and their relevance to their business model.

Their are garages out there, where one smart guy sells a heck of lot of unavailable.com because he was smart and was at the right place at the right time to buy the domain. Eventually, there will be a knock on the door by a bricks and mortar who sell the same product, hopefully the bricks and mortar will have a domainer nerd on staff to advice the exec on what to offer!

IMHO, I think the domain market value is 95% domainer set and 5 % end user set, maybe 99%/1%, and due to that fact, values will fluctuate wildly based on hobby domainers disposable income.

Price / Earnings Ratios for dnjournal‘s top domains reminds me of the stockmarket in 1999/2000.

But with that being said, you can still go to GoDrops.com buy a domain for 7$ that brings in 5$/month parking, shows there are still great opportunities*.

*(getting a domain that brings in 5$/month requires they eyes of a hawk and rubanesque physique)

I am just an Egg.

Great article for the expired domain market

Ok, so I put up my 1st domain for auction on Ebay in 8 years.

http://www.eburl.net/bc9771

I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably not get much for it. I have contacted anyone and everyone who bid on the keywords in google and yahoo, and all the tweets selling costumes. I can tell some of the bidders are domainers by their handles, but I am hoping that some of the 6 watchers are end-users. With Halloween coming and the global interest in Costumes, I thought this would be a good domain to start with. Anyone who is reading this blog knows It is less then a week old, and I am not new to this, but not exactly fresh either. I am impressed with how much this industry has changed while I have been traveling with my family, and the new crop of domains are sharp and social marketing savvy. I have spent the week catching up with a facebook, twitter, digg, reddit, and the associated pluggins and feeds associated with them. Wait a sec this is supposed to be about sniping! I digress!

I have been aware of sniping for a long time, but back in the day there were no apps for it, and now it seems much more common, then it was when I set up my ebay account in 1998.

So I decided to read up on it now as I know I have 6 watchers on my domain and was wondering how the final 3 seconds are going to play out.

I found this article from 1996, but it is very well written

http://ideas.4brad.com/ebay-sniping-good-or-bad-or-just-change-balance

I guess I am going to have to get one of those sniping programs, if anyone can leave a comment with a recommendation I would be grateful.

Thanks again to all who are reading this blog, fresh out of the box. and also those who are following me on twitter or facebook. I will definitely return the favor and remember the help I received as I reentered this domain. (pun intended)

Parking.

So far I have found that Parked.com is best for Adult domains and Sedo is the best for domains in other languages. I like how Sedo has integrated the parked traffic into the domain stats. I am also impressed with parked.com’s ability to really specialize the parked page for a particular niche market.

Anyone else have an opinion on parking, comments would certainly inspire me to keep plugging away it this.

Excerpt from a presentation by Rob Hall on domains

“Typically about 30% of domains do not renew.”

“Over 50% of domains in existence are for sale”

“Secondary market is now the primary market”

“Domain Portfolio worth 8-10 times annual revenue of PPC on portfolio”

Rob Hall – momentous.ca