Knowing what I know now about the Internet, I would love to go back to 1994 and register every single .com domain I could think of.
Back then, the cost of a domain was more expensive, but the ROI eventually became explosive.
Nowadays in 2017 many people feel like the “best days” of buying premium domains are behind us. I disagree.
The Internet has been around long enough now for some very good premium domains to begin to expire. Meaning at one time someone registered it but failed to renew it for whatever reason.
I know from my own experience owning multiple Internet companies, it’s not that hard to let a domain slip through your fingers. I almost lost one I paid $2500 from a broker earlier this year. Thankfully I caught it before it was too late.
Register at ExpiredDomains.net
My favorite tool (and yes it’s free) for discovering these domains is expireddomains.net.
They publish these lists daily and give you all the information you need. While some of the data is available without registering, I recommend signing up (again it’s free), as they do limit some of the features until you do.
Look for high CPC keywords
If you’re just sitting around on your own, sometimes it can be challenging to come up with good names out of thin air.
One of my former business partners was really good at this, but it was always something I struggled with.
I find a better approach is to look through Google’s most expensive keywords on their paid search platform and look accordingly. For example, WordStream published an infographic with the top 20 most expensive:
Insurance
Loans
Mortgage
Attorney
Credit
Lawyer
Donate
Degree
Hosting
Claim
Conference Call
Trading
Software
Recovery
Transfer
Gas/Electricity
Classes
Rehab
Treatment
Cord Blood
While this list is a bit dated, one can assume the price has only increased overtime as will the value of these names.
You can then enter these into the ExpiredDomain’s filter, to return a list of potentially good domains to invest in.
Personally, I like to search by ABY as well as Date Expired to find the good ones:
Use our Instant Domain Search
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Coupon code: summerdotcom
To better illustrate the above process, I went ahead and filmed how I go about it. As a warning, this can chew a lot of your time throughout the day, so plan accordingly 🙂
List them on Sedo.com
I like to park my “domain investments” at Sedo.com. All you have to do is set the name servers to ns1.sedoparking.com and ns2.sedoparking.com and add them in your interface (free to setup the account) and then you can list them for sale and earn a CPC for visitors that arrive at the domain and click on the ads.
By no means are you going to get “rich” domain parking, but it at least generates some passive income to help bring down your renewal fees. You also may find a buyer through their market place as they do help you market the name somewhat.
I’m by no means a “domainer” I just do this in my free time and have sold a couple premium domains for very nice ROI! Let me know if you have any questions!
Ryan Gray is the founder and CEO of NameHero, one of the fastest growing independent web hosts in the United States. Ryan has been working online since 1998 and has over two-decades experience in Internet Entrepreneurship.
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