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My First Domain Flip

As I mentioned in my October earnings report I went through my first domain flip last month, but not with the great success I had hoped for! In fact I made a loss on that one, but did learn a little bit along the way.

This post I will go through what my experiences were with domain flipping and where I think I went wrong and could improve upon for the next effort. Hopefully this will also provide some good pointers to others who are new to this.

Picking a Good Domain Name

Firstly, looking at it now I don’t think the domain I bought was as good as I initially thought it was. I rushed a bit to buy one (excited to get started I guess), and I should have done a bit more research into what types of domains sell, the keywords used etc.

The domain I chose was to do with the new Google G1 phone. I saw domains selling for $100-$200 or even more and thought I could get in on that action , but my domain obviously didn’t carry as much weight as the others that were selling for high amounts. As I said, I rushed it, basically throwing words together with “G1″ or “Android” (the new phone operating system) that I thought sounded good. What I should have done was do some research and see what types of keywords people include in their domains that sell big, and tried to work around those.

I think that when picking the niche of the domain you want to flip, look at what else is selling well right now, and just generally keep an eye out for any big things that are going on, ie. in the news, on the internet, in the technology world etc.

Where to Sell

I chose to sell my domain on eBay.com. Although I know SitePoint and Digital Point Forums are both popular places to trade in domains, eBay was an easy choice for me to start off with as it’s familiar and I would think a little bit safer to start off with.

I’m not sure yet where the best place to sell domains is, I need to sit down and really look into this some more. Apart from the sites mentioned above there may well be much better places to sell, and if you find a place where there are lots of buyers then obviously you’ll have more chance of your domain appealing to somebody who’s willing to buy it.

How Much to Sell For

I actually started my auction at $0.99 with no reserve. There were a couple of reasons for this: 1) To keep the eBay fees to a minimum ($0.15); and 2) To encourage potential buyers to keep an eye on the auction in the hope of a great bargain. Of course doing it like this means you run the risk of making a loss (as I did). Other domains I’ve seen that have sold for hundreds of dollars have also started at just $0.99 so I have no doubt that this would work, but it definitely has to be a good domain, as I found out! If I had started my auction at $10 to cover my costs I have no idea if it would have sold or not. Maybe I will try this out next time, I’m not sure yet .

What I’ll Keep In Mind Next Time

1. Check anywhere that has an active domain marketplace and have a good look through to see if there are some particular niches that are really doing well.
2. Once I’ve got my domain niche in mind, start coming up with some domain names. Again, see if there is a trend in what keywords are selling and try and incorporate those into the name.
3. Again, look through any marketplaces I can find that are very active and see if any one of them tends to have higher sale prices than the others. Find out where the big buyers are hanging out!
4. Review the “start at $0.99″ strategy - see what others are doing, try to gauge the potential worth of the domain I get (if that’s possible!)

Hopefully with this experience under my belt I can have a bit more success with the next flip. I’ll keep you posted and no doubt next time will have some more tips for you!

Wish me good luck…

Domain Flipping Experiment

In case you don’t know, the term “domain flipping” means to buy a domain with the aim of selling it on again at a profit. This could either be a brand new domain, one that has expired or one you buy from someone else.

I’ve looked into this a little bit in the last month or two and I’ve no doubt that if it’s done right it can be a nice little extra income stream. I’ve read about people who are making a pretty good living just flipping domains.

While it’s something that will probably take practice to get really good at, from what I can see it’s a fairly easy way to make a bit of extra cash without being too time consuming. I might be wrong! It could be really difficult to get right and take many hours to flip just one domain!

The Experiment

As I mentioned in my last post, my first attempt to simply buy a domain then sell it straight on failed since I then decided to setup a site on the domain instead . Last night I bought another domain, this name is to do with something that could be very big in the technology world, but at the moment I’m not 100% on it. I would like to try and sell it on soon because I am eager to see how I can get on flipping domains and see if I can make a profit, but I think the best course of action would probably be to let the main keyword get some more exposure in the news and online world and maybe even wait to see whether others start selling domains with this name in it and see how much they go for.

Although I’m still very busy with the affiliate sites I have on the go, it can’t hurt to take half an hour here and there to try something different. In fact I have a couple of domains which I don’t think I am going to use so I may try and sell those, they are .co.uk names so not sure what the market is like for those at the moment. Both names are fairly short (7 and 8 letters). These domains don’t have sites, don’t get traffic, they are just domains sitting there doing sod all!

Once I’ve been through the process I’ll post back here with my experiences. Hopefully I’m successful and can look at this as another consistent income stream, and hopefully I can help you guys out with what I learn from it.

Have you flipped domains before or are you considering trying it out?

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Get a .info Domain Name for only 50p

This might be old news, but I only just stumbled across it. GoDaddy have a sale on .info domains at the moment, just 50p for a year registration (+ 10p ICANN fee)!

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to get in a load of domains. I’m going to have a think about some niches i’d like to set up a site in then try and get a decent keyword rich domain. I’ve registered 3 already, but to be honest those are in an extremely saturated market (video games), but I thought i’d give them a go anyway, not much to lose! My plan is to get an affiliate mashup site on those and see if I can drive some traffic to them. If i’m not getting any return after 6-9 months then maybe i’ll try and sell the domains/sites. The way I see it, they only have to make 60p each to break even, so anything after that is profit, however little that may be.