It’s Hard to Argue With the Sales Results for Domain Name Sales: Taking A Look at the Last 30 Days

15 Replies to “It’s Hard to Argue With the Sales Results for Domain Name Sales: Taking A Look at the Last 30 Days”

1. If esavings.com did actually sell for b/w $0-$3k then the buyer got a major deal!

2. It’s worth checking in from time to time to see what names they are selling and for what prices. The domain inquiries and quotes are also interesting. I thought these were all Name Administration sales, didn’t realize they might also be domains on Frank’s parking platform. I think the site is one more gauge to see how the domain market is doing, and right now it looks fairly healthy! The only things I don’t like with the site, and they are small, are the scrollers at the top page go too fast, there is a lot of domain sales spam happening in the comments, and it would be nice to see the actual prices the domains are selling for, instead of a range. But you can’t have everything!

3. Brutal honesty- this whole list of names sucks royally except for Esavings.com.

   Figures like this and the ones found on DNJournal really surprise me all the time and give false hope to new domainers. One must be careful looking at these lists…. A list like this will cost a new domainer a few grand in hand regs that he now thinks are going to sell for $20-$50k.

   As you said Shane, good for the sellers (and whomever raked the 15-30% commission on these, I may be on the wrong side of this biz completely) I honestly wouldnt pay over $20 for any one of them except Esavings. Just my humble opinion.

   1. Michael,

      And that’s why Schilling is worth $500 million and we’re not.

4. “besthorrormovies.com $20 to $50K doesn’t matter because that’s what it sold for and now that’s what it’s worth.”

   Not really. The price reflects the seller capturing some of the work that best-horror-movies.com has done in building its brand. Same game with mastercleanse, bkav etc. Other times it is just ideas that are being exploited.

   To not own a .com you feel by rights you should own – as you’re willing to pay more for it than anyone else – and instead see a crumby parking page, can be an irritating and demotivating. So people pay up.

   Might have been a good idea if putting millions of potential ransom strips in the hands of speculators to regulate their activity. Require that speculatively held domains be sold at a maximum of their Estibot appraisal!

5. Actually, it seems to me that leads come in less frequently on Frank’s platform, but it seems sometimes that the offers that come in are more serious and with generally higher offers.

   Using Parked, Bodis, and even GoDaddy CashParking parking has demonstrated to me that many more leads come in on those platforms, but you get more tire-kickers and less PPC earnings.

6. Flyingcar.com ? These prices are just like flying cars . . .From another planet !!!

7. (In response to the title of this post…. Its not hard to Argue, Shane)

   Totally agree with Michael’s comment…

   “Figures like this and the ones found on DNJournal really surprise me all the time and give false hope to new domainers. One must be careful looking at these lists…. A list like this will cost a new domainer a few grand in hand regs that he now thinks are going to sell for $20-$50k.”

   Shane with due respect, your statement is equally misleading esp. for new domainers…those sales are from millions of inventory (even at a mere 2,000 domains, your’e bound to pay $16,000 per year in renewal fees)…

   Yes you’re bound to sell, but according to industry experts do not expect to sell north of 1% of your inventory per year (as *Rick Latona shares about his and friend’s conversion rates.)

   *http://www.ricklatona.com/2011/11/30/why-im-raising-my-prices-on-all-my-domains/

   Frank was worth $500 million before Microsoft acquired Y! and SIGNIFICANTLY changed the commissions on parking page referrals.

   Although he’s still worth a lot, I don’t think he’s worth that anymore RIGHT NOW. Im not saying it could never come back to that level, who knows what his portfolio will be worth after you develop even a quarter of it…but nevertheless it is misleading…for the FAR majority of people making domains.

   I understand your eagerness to blog every day…but this is an oversimplification of a increasingly complicated business model (when parking won’t just cut it anymore.)

   (May I suggest giving people or pointing them to the basics of developing domains and building links…alternative cash flows, having advertisers in your blog, PPC, etc.,)

   You can make money in domains…and if you work hard enough for a few years, can earn a more than decent living in the high five figures and low six. But the creme off the top has been taken away..(when yahoo/bing squashed parking rates)

   And the really richy rich is few and are far in between (that almost every blogger in the industry seems to love to brag about) — as compared to the number of players. You can argue that this is the same for every industry, like a 80/20 rule…but the problem with domaining is the barrier is low and you do not have to have real skills or education to do it (or so many think), hence more willing victims — misled well-meaning people…who usually end up flat on their faces because of wrong expectations and inadequate preparations.

   I have to put some of the blame for industry bloggers who seems to me are still flat out refusing to COMPLETELY face the brutal truth, and as recent as last week…our major journal puts a “lead messiah” as their cover story…which tells me everything I know on how where are on your business strategy.

   It can be done, work thrice as hard as the next guy even if you come to the party late…but you have to tell the whole story…or….

   “A list like this will cost a new domainer a few grand in hand regs that he now thinks are going to sell for $20-$50k.”

   1. Ethan,

      I won’t argue with your statement. It’s all true. The reality is that most domain investors will lose money. I am not misleading anyone. I have written just as many posts about how you will most likely never make money. Most won’t admit it, not account for real costs, and say they do. Fortunately most domain investors have other jobs. Very very few make a living doing this. I am not the messiah, the piper, nor have I ever claimed to be. I point things out and let others decide. I clearly stated these were only 100 sales out of millions of domains. If you want to teach people to build out, build links ,do it. It’s not what I enjoy talking about. You guys act lime I have a responsibility to keep people from dreaming to much and then there is the other side that bitches because I say alt tlds are throwing your money away. Thank you for coming by, I hope you come again but I’ll keep up what I do. It’s worked for me so far.

8. You lot must be on crack if you believe (some) of the fictitious sales or inquiries

   Do you think naming high amounts or low amounts is more conducive to creating the impression that everything that Schillling (and others) holds is gold?
   (the marketing tactic of letting idiots propagate the message over the interwebs is certainly working thus far)

   And if you think Schilling is more $500M (LOL) – only if he actually crystallizes sales at the same rate for the next 15 yrs.

   I would wager Schilling – he of the mid-life crisis blonde highlights – would end up with cancer before he’s gets $500M in the bank

   LOL

9. Shane,

   Last post was a bit harsh.

   I’m sure you’ve had posts in the past with stern warnings. I am a blogger too and it’s almost repetitive to always have a *BUT, don’t forget to do your homework..etc etc.

   I don’t have enough data to say that you are misleading (I don’t think you are of that type)…what I meant to say is the above post COULD mislead other people new in the business.

   As a domain blog reader (yours and half a dozen others), I just feel the downside/warnings of pitfalls of the domain business is not getting enough front page.

   Rick Schwartz would mention it once in a while (“pigeon shi@t”) — but it’s mostly not explained thoroughly (something I’d like to read from you veterans like “21 Symptoms of a Bad Domain”…) but in the aftermath of the domain parking cliff dive, most seem to be content on the cheer leader stance.

   I think the industry could do a better job educating domainers about other means to make money and what the heck really makes a solid name. And how to avoid bottomless portfolio pits.

   “I am not the messiah, the piper, nor have I ever claimed to be.”

   I wasn’t referring to you Shane, about the messiah. I was referring to *DN Journal’s Cover Story this month.(http://dnjournal.com/cover/2011/november-december.htm)

   As a domain developer for years (real estate, primarily) I can tell you that the so called “messiah” Mr. Pollock (based largely from what was mentioned in the article) is at best above average SEO with a knack for going after bold ideas and some cash flow to show for it.

   It’s not his fault, and as much as I respect Rob Jackson (publisher DN journal), he’s looking at the wrong place. When you use dramatic embelishements like “Whiz, Messiah, Lead Gen Master”, it shows that you are still looking at the wrong side of the lens — YOU ARE STILL LOOKING FOR AN EASY AND QUICK WAY. No good. This I can tell from experience as I am a novice domainer (at best) but an experienced developer. Get your hands dirty instead of waiting to be saved…

   The most successful SEO’s Developers — And I’ve talked and shared ideas with them at our seobookcommunity — are not the types who will make cover stories. They’re usually chubby, cynical and rarely have killer smiles. They don’t canoodle at playboy mansions and are focused on ROI and Bottom line of their sites.

   They’re usually geeks with zero patience for sensationalism. They may not be the smartest but they start early, acquire data, improve conversion rates, re-invest, re-invest…They’re the types who rejects $200K offers for their sites, builds their income up to $4,500 A MONTH and sells at $450,000. BUT….

   It Requires a lot of work..esp. at the beginning..we’d be lucky to make $50,000 in our first 3 years…drive klunks, live like priests, minimise expense and re-invest.

   It’s a marathon….it’s 100 tweaks road to reaching a profitable site.

10. So as not to end in a negative tone, stating problems but no solution…

    …If I can give people an unsolicited advice on what you can do off your domain portfolio. Here’s an idea to start you with:

    1. If you already have experience on an industry (and/or sites that are already aged in the vertical), start there. Be it DUI lawyer lead gen, real estate site, insurance, affiliates, etc

    (*Get an Exact Match Name. Even if it’s not a dot com as long as its a really good name.)

    2. FOCUS on one industry. See if there’s economic incentive on the idea… And double down if you find that you are in the right track.

    3. Focus on one site even though you have hundreds of domains…(build mini wordpress sites on the other 10 promising sites)

    4. Even if you spend 100 hours getting to know the industry..that’s time well spent.

    * Off the start avoid delagating. Learn it yourself so cash allocation is more precise.

    5. Hire early. Or work doubly hard. Invest in SEO education.

    6. Re-invest profits.

11. The problem with these huge “sold” price ranges are that, well, they are simply HUGE and become essentially meaningless because there is no concrete data about the actual sales price. Anyone reading about the sale is free to choose any point on that price scale to match their optimism or pessimism.

    Was reading a similar post on Frager’s blog (about the DNS sales platform kicking butt) where he cited 2 sales from DNS and wrote:

    “This throws most everything we know and have come to value about domain names, out the window. For example, the College of Phlebology shelled out near six figures to DNS for two names, a .com and a .net, that wouldn’t have enough “domainer-minded” value to make it Tuesday’s CAX event (try entering them).”

    Mark Whiteley, presumably the buyer of the two domains, was the first to comment on the article. He wrote:

    “As the owner of College of Phlebology, your information isn’t quite right!!! Our purchases only become “near 6 figures” if you ignore the decimal point and include the figures after it!!!!”

    So, if you are actually giving any credibility to the high-end of those price ranges I would think twice. Search Frager’s blog for “varicoseveinsurgery.com” and you’ll find the article.

12. Ethan
    I agree with you 100%. This is absolutely a marathon. Anyone that thinks success will come overnight or that today’s hand-reg will sell for a $1mil tomorrow is deluding themselves.

    When I started my first lead-gen site (1800DUILAWS.com), frankly, I didn’t know it was lead-gen. I saw it as a co-operative ad network for DUI lawyers. I had no staff back then (about 8 years ago) and no database to route the leads. I had to manually route leads. I set my alarm to wake up at 3AM (I’m in Los Angeles) so I could get the early morning East Coast leads out to lawyers. I’d nap for a couple hours and get back up to do it again. I traveled all over the country going to lawyer seminars to signup clients. I constantly wrote articles and chased after quality links. It was one site back then and just me – 1000 hours a week. And that’s what it takes to build a business. If all go wells – in time – you staff up, which is what I did. Then I branched out into other areas. But it was a steep climb for a long time.

    As for “messiah”, “whiz” and “lead gen master” I can assure you that I have never referred to myself as such – Nor would I in the future. Ron is simply being provocative to drive traffic to the site. He’s been a journalist for many, many years and knows how to title his articles for the biggest impact. He seems to know what he’s doing.

    I appreciate your well thought commentary on the topic. Unlike many, you seem to have your head in the right place – with your nose to the grindstone.

13. Mr. Pollock,

    I don’t want to say, man. Not only do you have a killer smile but you bust your a$% too.

    If you’re ever up here in Northern NV, I think I owe you a cold beer…