I'm no domain expert so it would be great to hear from those of you who are. What is the future of domains? Will they continue to be sold or will they be leased?
Do most domains garner much more than registration fees in revenues? I'd imagine most profit is made at the time of sale - and profit margins on parking are thin and thus potential lease rates are low.
Most leases would be for parking (or similar) - I can't see many situations where somebody would lease a domain name for a legitimate, ongoing business.
It doesn't make much sense to lease a domain out for $9.90 a year when it costs $10/year to register and brings in $10.10 a year in advertising revenues.
When you place your domain at a parking company, you are effectively leasing it to them - so, there's your lease.
It's not like the offline world where Joe's Meats can move down the street at the end of a lease and hang a "We've moved to a new location" sign at the old building. Even in that case, as soon as a new company moves in, it's not going to want the "We've moved" banner cluttering up their frontage.
A leasing model might work ina very few extreme situations. Maybe someone has a great domain name, but doesn't have the resources to develop a proper site. Someone comes to the owner with an idea to develop the site, but the owner doesn't want to sell the domain (or the other person doesn't want to pay the sale price). It could be a win-win situation where the owners lets the other person use the domain on a long-term basis, perhaps with some revenue sharing involved.
But like I said, I think it would only work in a few cases.
Both the domain owner and website owner win if the terms fall between the PPC cost and revenue generated by a parking page. What your really selling/leasing here is traffic.
While I sit here reviewing offers for $100 here, $250 there, I'm thinking, there has to be a better way to generate revenue from my domain portfolio, there just has to be!
What about leasing my domain names? I know there are more than a handful that would be prime properties for particular promotions.
I know, I know, what happens after the promotional period? I don't know, a redirect maybe?
No, I don't have the time to develop anymore of my domains, there are more important things in life.
What about a lease with an option to buy at the end of the initial period?
I'm just thinking out loud here...
I'm just thinking out loud here...
You might wanna look at the thoughts in this thread, Domain Leasing [webmasterworld.com], from January 9th.
<Mod Note: The 2 threads are now spliced into 1, so don't click the link or total protonic investion may happen. >
[edited by: Webwork at 9:00 pm (utc) on Jan. 15, 2008]
are you making stuff up?
heheh.. jk.
