The reselling of domain names has become big business, akin to real estate in New York City for the wacky prices paid for seemingly benign addresses. While it’s not surprising that domain names including sex.com ($14 million), business.com ($7.5 million), icloud.com ($4.5 million) and beer.com ($7 million) have sold for premiums, 2013 has already been a banner year for domain name resells including mojo.com ($300,000) and partners.com ($125,000) to name a few of the better ones, or ulive.com ($75,000) or struts.com ($70,000) to name two head-scratching ones.
But don’t be discouraged that you’ve already missed the boat and are priced out of your perfect domain name (get a free appraisal in seconds at valuate.com and estibot.com). New businesses are proving they can make millions for their business by acquiring an unregistered, completely unique one for less than $10. Creative domain generators like dombuddy.com will help you find unregistered domain names so you can avoid paying ridiculous reseller prices. Also, this can be a fun process with the victory of a great domain name at the end of the hunt. Here’s a simple anagram to remember how to get your next D-O-M-A-I-N:
- D – Don’t pay more than $10 to register your domain name, and don’t pay more than $200/year to host your website, including email. Godaddy and other registrars will try to add-on the kitchen sink when you go to buy your domain name. Don’t fall for it.
- O – Owning multiple domain names is a waste of money. Buy a good domain name and you won’t need additional ones.
- M – Make it either as short as possible, or make it as catchy as possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s long when it’s catchy and memorable. StopTheCar.com is a better domain name than csan.com. Don’t use special characters hyphens, numbers or double letters (i.e., playyard.com). Don’t use “the” or “my” articles as a way to substitute an already registered name.
- A – Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act discourages using domain names similar to existing trademarks. But it is largely unenforceable except for bigger companies with lawyers to fight the squatters. Therefore, don’t get clever with riding on the coattails of bigger company naming; and do expect squatters to register names similar to yours as a matter of their basic business models.
- I – Impress your audience with poetry, alliteration and the use of cliches in your domain name. Rhyming is a great way to do it, so start with the subject of your business (e.g., beach vacations): BeachPeach.com, BeachFeet.com, CompleteBeach.com, OffBeatBeach.com, etc.
- N – Nasty domain names are memorable domain names, but be sure you’re prepared for the consequences: Who Represents – www.whorepresents.com; Experts Exchange – www.expertsexchange.com; Pen Island – www.penisland.net; Therapist Finder – www.therapistfinder.com; Power Generator – www.powergenitalia.com; Mole Station Native Nursery – www.molestationnursery.com; IP computer software – www.ipanywhere.com; The First Cumming Methodist Church – www.cummingfirst.com; Speed of Art – www.speedofart.com