There Is Money To Be Made From Dead Domain Names
March 29, 2008
Each day website owners are allowing domain names they have purchased to expire completely by accident. Yet a well informed investor who is aggressive enough can snap up these domain names and capture a large amount of existing website traffic for what is a brand new site. Unfortunately, there are many website owners today who have lost out because of this whilst there are just as many perceptive investors who have been made richer because of it.
All websites thrive or die because of the number of visitors that they receive to them on a daily basis. Therefore, when one of these sites becomes available which has a memorable domain name and plenty of traffic going to it a person with the nuances to purchase it can make a small tidy fortune from it.
Say for example you find a site that was selling bridal goods (gowns and tuxedos) and yet it wasn’t doing as well as the website owner had expected so they have forgotten about it and their ownership has expired.
Once the domain name on this site has expired then a person will have the chance to actually purchase it for themselves. Normally those involved in investing domain names will use the services of a domain watchdog company who will immediately inform them of any names which become available that they may be interested in. Upon hearing about the site say the bridal gown one the investor has the choice whether to purchase it or not. Sometimes they can pick up domain names for as little at $6.95 using a domain watchdog service.
Then in just a matter of minutes, the domain investor will have been able to get hold of a good domain name that seems to have plenty of good quality traffic. All they then need to do is build a very simple website page with a number of related ad links. This will then allow the site to begin to better monetize any existing website traffic it has as well as generate a much more constant flow of cash for the new owner.
As time passes the investor then has the choice of either building up the site further in order to monetize the traffic that is visiting, or they can simply resell (flip) it to another site owner or domain name investor or broker.
Therefore if you have an old domain name which you are considering either retiring or flipping then the first place you should consider putting it up for sale is on eBay or a popular domain name auction service. Many people are actually pleasantly surprised at how much they have made by selling off a domain name using these particular services. On eBay alone there have been some very unusual domain names go up for sale and which have been sold for more than $500.
However, for the more serious minded domain name investors out there they utilise a number of free and paid domain name valuation tools and services online, which can help them to make a more informed decision. Although the actual valuation prices tend to vary vastly because it depends on whether they have been either automated or manually generated by someone, it is not unusual for a domain to sell for more than its owner would have originally thought.