Highest Selling Domain Names of 2009

For a complete list, visit DNJournal.com

PubCon Recap: Domaining and Alternative Traffic

A couple weeks ago at PubCon I had the opportunity to sit in on the Domaining and Alternative Traffic panel discussion. I have always enjoyed the pursuit of the golden domain name – that one domain name that is going to make you millions (a few thousand would be nice to). While nearly all of the one word domain names were originally registered long ago, there is still a massive opportunity to purchase high value domains for $9.99 a year if you know where to look and rethink how you view “value.”

Panelist Jeffrey Libert, professional domainer and lawyer, registered a local law domain (think brooklyntriallawyer.com) for a small yearly fee and was able to generate $100,000 in revenue in the first year. While mainly domainers go after type-in traffic, people who type URLs directly into the web browser in hopes of immediately finding what they are looking for on the destination website, Jeffrey went after a small volume niche with potentially a much higher payout per lead. Granted he is a trial lawyer and was able to act on the $100,000 lead he received from the website, this is a strategy that could work for a wide range of verticals. Even if you aren’t the business owner or service provider yourself, selling ad space on the domains to related businesses is always an option. Then, there is always parking the page, running affiliate offers, or using AdSense or joining a similar ad network as a publisher.

Hint hint, look for keywordzipcode.com (movies11201.com) domains.

There are several tools freely available that can help you find high value domain names.

Domains By Volume – This is a GreaseMonkey plugin that shows if a domain is available for registration while using the Google Keyword Research tool. You can see how many times a keyword is searched each month and then turn around and register the domain immediately. I personally think this tool is a goldmine.

DN Sale Price – Prior to registering a new domain or buying a previously registered domain from someone else, you can visit DN Sale Price to view historical sale prices for similar domain names.

EstiBot – EstiBot is a free domain appraisal and domain valuation tool. Many websites like SEDO charge around $50 for domain appraisal; EstiBot is free!

Valuate – This is another domain valuation tool, but allows for a bulk check of a domain list. This tool is also free and very useful.

DailyChanges – Perhaps the most interesting tool of the bunch, DailyChanges shows domains transferred into, out of, and deleted from the most popular nameserves.  For example, if you wanted to see how many domain names were deleted from (no longer hosted) at hostgator.com, you could go to DailyChanges.com and see a list of all deleted domain names. This serves as a good indication of domain name registration trends in that you can see what new domain names are being put live. It’s also a good source of deleted domain names because if a domain name is deleted from a certain nameserver, there is a good chance its now a dead domain.

Perhaps I’ll do a follow-up post on how to identify high value expired domains based on domain age and old backlinks.

Happy Hunting!