My aim for this year is to end up with less domains than at the start of the year. I am looking very carefully at the real long-term value of the domains, and getting rid of bad ones with no sentimentality!
I will let go anything which fits in these categories:
- "branding" domains - like the "Flickr" and similar, they have no intrinsic value and they are not saleable - anyone will pick up a different unregistered domain instead. Unless I have a concrete plan for building a site, I will let them all expire
- anything not .com where the .com is a genuine website not owned by me - if I develop, I get legal action at worst or at best I lose too much traffic to the .com
- the .net and .org of any marginal-value .com that I already own. There is a limit to defensive registration.
- .ws, .cc - and all of their ilk. Enough already, these are all total worthless failures. Nuke them all! Must have been drunk when I bought those!
- low-value domains that are not paying their keep via type-ins. Less than $15 annual revenue and no long-term potential, I'll let some other sucker pay for the domain renewal thanks!
- domain typos of other known sites - I really do not want to be in that business.
- sentimental value. Yes, those that you thought were special, but they are not. Clever names that are useless, cute stuff that is not paying its way. Bye bye, it's recession time, they are not worth the management time.
So is anyone else clearing out the junk, or do you always hang on to everything you buy?
What junk? I don't see any junk in my portfolio. NOoooooo. :-P
Ya, a bit of pruning is a good idea. I just set about 50 to "not renew" this past week.
What's interesting is that one man's / woman's junk is often another's eager/easy pickins. Every time I check a domain that I've dropped I discover that someone has registered it, picked it up at auction, etc.
I don't drop domains because they're palpably bad. I'll let a dozen drop so I have room for 1 or 2 replacements. ;)
[edited by: Webwork at 1:25 pm (utc) on June 1, 2008]
What I am about to do is learn more about selling them. I have no idea about online auctions etc so I plan to start reading up on that.
a bit of pruning is a good idea
I'd be interested in hearing your criteria for pruning. I know the .com will all be taken by the tasters, but so be it. I don't think they touch the .net or .org so much.
It's all real-estate, but sometimes we can fall for our own hype - and keep hold of marginal domains that simply don't pay their way. But the writing's on the wall when you stick them on sedo and your earnings struggle to hit a dollar. These are the bulk of what I'm dropping.
One domain like that will pay for a lot of dogs.
There's one auction site with a 4 letter .com name, (begins with the letter "s", and ends in a vowel ;-) that doesn't charge a minimum commission if the domain is parked with them -- you only pay a flat 10% commission (sell for ten bucks, pay one buck).
So a couple/few months before expiration, you could park those domains there ... and maybe recoup a few bucks. ($29.95 "sale" price x 25 domains = almost $750 ... less 10% = $675 ... or enough to buy a Starbucks-a-day for 135 days -- OR it would pay the one-year renewal fees for nearly 70 of your active domains ;-)
Your low price will (could) be less than what anyone can purchase them for on the secondary market when they become available ... and this way, those dollars are going in your pocket!
And, if no one buys, let them expire (but do delete them from your listings) ...
[edited by: Laker at 5:58 am (utc) on June 1, 2008]
I'm not too hasty to get rid of names just because they're not earning their keep while parked, mostly because I've had "surprise" offers and sales of a number of those. If I think it has commercial interest or I have plans for it, it stays. I'm quicker to drop names that are not .com's.
A few times I've tried listing names I plan to drop for low sale prices in domain forums. Sometimes I sell a few, but most go untouched ...only to be picked up later from an online auction or backorder service for MORE than I was asking for them! Now I mostly just let them drop.
BTW, if you're testing the waters on a domain's earning power, I recommend trying various parking services before giving up on it.
[edited by: MamaDawg at 10:45 am (utc) on June 1, 2008]
When the 1999-2000 "dot com bubble" burst, and the loss of faith set in rather deeply in late 2002 and 2003, I went on a bit of a buying frenzy which has worked out rather nicely.
Truly, in down economies, one man's / woman's yardsale is another's opportunity to pick up some bargains. I suspect I won't be buying (much) in the low fruit aftermarket but that doesn't mean I won't "take a peek" every now and then.
In my book the best approach is to bulk list all your toss-offs at the various places that allow this (not here) and to set a very low sale price and a bulk price for the whole lot. Make the sale conditional: The whole lot - or a "better subset" - will be available for 48 hours, for a bulk purchase price, and if the whole lot doesn't sell during that time then the folks who offered to pay for individual domains (1 set price for all/each, with a few variations) will get the domains based upon a time stamp of their offers on individual domains.
[edited by: Webwork at 4:31 pm (utc) on June 1, 2008]
I realize my time is only getting more limited, and I cannot make 100 sites successful. I need to focus my energy on making 3-5 sites successful. And even that is extremely difficult.
Not as good as .com but maybe it will be worth something...actually I wonder what it's worth right now...hmmm..
I'm thinking of doing that now, but have no ideas what to ask or accept as a reasonable offer. In my mind some of them could/should be worth much more then they earn because they can be developed into good sites. Any ideas?
Other factors are too numerous to mention and that's really not what this thread is about. (Start a new thread if you wish to delve further into how to price a domain and look at the Domain Forum Library and back threads for more tips.)
Interesting question: IF you are seeing depressed PPC revenue for your domains is it an indication of "the future" or is it just a bump in the economic highway? In other words, do you sell based upon the depressed revenue numbers or do you hold out for a recovery and then sell?
For domains that "have a future" and whose revenue is covering current renewal costs I would sell based upon depressed numbers.
I think with the tasters there's no point trying to compete on sheer volume, so hand-picking is vital. I can do much better dumping the chaff and concentrating on where the quality is.
One strategy could be to park your domains with an auction house, then list them for sale for $10 each or $25 or $50
Everything is currently parked at an auction site and marked for sale with no reserve price. I've got one or two visitors checking them out, but no offers or sales. I'm not surprised, really.
Don't be too hasty. I was ready to let a six letter nonsense domain expire when someone offered me $4,000 for it.
This is "lottery ticket" thinking, what you say may be true in a few circumstances, but I have lower expectations!
Everything is currently parked at an auction site and marked for sale with no reserve price. I've got one or two visitors checking them out, but no offers or sales. I'm not surprised, really.
Ahhh, but what I'm suggesting is that you set a (low) price on those domains you are going to let expire.
The auction house I have in mind lets me search for domains from USD $1.00 - $300 (and further sort that result list "by price").
That is where those looking for "low hanging fruit" are going to look. I don't think having a "no reserve" is enough to be a successful strategy to try to "blow out" domains you are going to let expire.
Why don't you have an auction and get rid of them for ANYTHING. star the bidding at $1 and sell them all. Cut your losses but don't just throw them away.
You can even sell the domains in bundles! Sell 10 at a time starting at $1 per bundle. Have fun with it.
Ps. Charge extra for transfer fees of course.
Dave
Everything is currently parked at an auction site and marked for sale with no reserve price. I've got one or two visitors checking them out, but no offers or sales.
See what Laker says.
I don't even bother making offers for these anymore, unless I REALLY think I could use it. Seriously, folks, if you want to get rid of domains for low price, for god's sake, set a selling price!
I'd rather pay $25 then spend hours making offers and in mostly pointless negotiations.
if you want to get rid of domains for low price, for god's sake, set a selling price!
I just wanted to say thank you for this, I clearly had not thought this through well. You suggestions makes perfect sense now you mention it - I have this implemented as of now!
Every time I check a domain that I've dropped I discover that someone has registered it, picked it up at auction, etc.
Same here. I actually renew many domains which don't come anywhere close to paying their keep (even ones with almost zero income or traffic) only because I hate to see them picked up on the drop, or worry about missing the value in the name (rarely valid) which someone else could then take advanage of.
Almost every name I let expure gets grabbed by someone, often a big player like NameAdmin or BuyDomains, etc. Odd thing is they are almost impossible to sell no matter how low they are priced yet someone will often buy it at auction for $60 or hundreds of $.
It is surprising why so many players mysteriously see value in our bad domains, which I do not understand. Anyone know why this happens so much?
The problem in this area is there should just be an option in every registrars admin panel that would allow you to check off that you are willing to sell the domain, at a certain price, for a flat commission to the registrar that sells it... then the registrars that want to offer 'resales' could opt-in and offer your names, using their API to do the lookups.... or however it works. Not only would the registrars get the new transfer fee, but they could take a cut of the action as well, which in most cases would be worth more than their profit on the registration.
...or something like that:) I just think it should be built into the system, not at the control of individual companies, because the information is fragmented. imo, names that are offered for resale should be tagged and tossed back in the pool of 'available' names, because they are just that: available. They just have a surcharge.
Odd thing is they are almost impossible to sell no matter how low they are priced yet someone will often buy it at auction for $60 or hundreds of $.
