Domaining for a Down Economy

Domains for Development and Income Production in Difficult Economic Times

[Webwork]

GasPrices.com, as a topical domain, is a no-brainer today. Kudos to the person who first registered this domain when we weren't all talking about "gas prices". The price paid - $225K - reflects the level of interest and likely traffic. The domain GasPrices.com is a classic example of "economy driving traffic". Economic concerns, economic interests, economic needs reshaping where folks "go on the Web".

Eight or nine years ago I registered a number of "rental", "for rent by owner" and "for sale by owner" domains. These are picking up a bit of traffic lately. At the time I registered them I did so because I foresaw rentals and listings moving online. What I didn't foresee was that in a down economy - with housing prices falling, people unable to secure loans and sellers looking to not sell at a losss - people would be more likely to rent than own or more likely to attempt to sell their homes without a realtor - because the realtor fee would take away any possible profit or put them at a loss in a down market for real estate.

So, seeing this trend in my rentals and FSBO traffic stats I chose in the past year or two to register a few more rental domains and a few more FSBO domains and, to a degree, I was surprised to see what was still unregistered. I was also pleased to see that the newly registered domains benefited from type-in traffic, which to me is the very best type of traffic since "it's built in".

This past week, given food prices are rising and my wife is a constant gardener, I choose to buy an aftermarket domain relating to people growing their own food and was willing to spend $5,000 to fulfill that decision. Not cheap by most people's measures, including my own, but it is a very "robust domain", i.e., the domain name IS the topic name, it's a vast topic, it's timely and it's a domain likely to hold its value.

So, do you think it might be a good time to consider hunting for and registering or buying "economic impact domains"? That is, domains that relate to how people will behave in an economy that looks like this one?

Have you engaged in "predictive economic domaining" for 2008?

Have your domains or type-in domains benefitted from the down economy?

FSBO, rentals, growing one's own food . . . these are what came to mind for me. Care to share where you have been "mining for domains" in the past year? Any success?

[edited by: Webwork at 7:11 pm (utc) on May 26, 2008]

[MamaDawg]

I began picking these up here and there about a year ago. Been developing not buying lately, but I bet there are far fewer of these names to be found now than there were back then!

[edited by: MamaDawg at 10:42 am (utc) on May 25, 2008]