Domaining - The Dark Arts

Posted on 18th June 2008

Ok so the title is a little misleading but the whole subject of expired domains, domain parking, domain tasting and everything else associated with being a domainer is a bit of a black box to me. I say this because in my experience it’s a niche which is not only exclusive to a select few thousand individuals (everyone else I would classify as casual domainers) but more so very little real information on how domaining is done is available.

That’s why I call it a dark art, it has a level of mysteriousness and unknowns not found in other webmaster specialisations. Time and time again I read articles about domaining and the domain name industry only to finish the article feeling empty because the author merely covered the observable surface facts making no real attempt to answer the why’s and how’s of what actually goes on.

If you compare this to other webmaster subjects like web design, programming and even seo, then simply heading over to Google, Wikipedia, a webmaster forum or even buying a book from the local store will answer a lot of your questions. Combine that reading with some hands on experience and within 6-7 months you’re pretty much ready to go.

Try that with domaining and you won’t even get to the lets start practicing for 6-7 months part. The best you will find in terms of information is a couple of explanations on what domaining is, how cyber squatters gave domaining a bad name, and that professional domainers are making a killing online. Honestly there’s a lot of talk on the web but very little substance and hardly any practical tips on how to get started.

The Webmaster Void

Ok so there isn’t much on the web so what do you do next ? For me it was simple, I started asking around and being a full time webmaster I had friends and contacts who I thought might be able to help. I had scratched their backs in the past so surely they would scratch mine in my time of need ? Under normal circumstances you would expect someone like me to come back with some insights into the subject but my friends actually knew less than I did, this was a serious knock back but simply reconfirmed my initial thoughts about the scarcity of good practical domaining knowledge.

With no answers available I got a little desperate and fired a question on the digitalpoint (DP) forums. Surely what I wanted to know wasn’t a big deal right ? I mean all I needed from someone was an explanation of a) where people buy expiring domains from ? and b) with over 100,000+ domains expiring everyday even if just half of these go to auction it’s quite obvious that tools are needed to filter out the good from the bad. Can you filter domains by pagerank, traffic, age, alexa rank etc ? All perfectly decent questions don’t you think ? Surely someone would respond ?

You guessed it, I got a big fat zero responses to my post and with no luck trying to find decent information on the web I was beginning to lose hope. However like most things you seem to find what you need when you least expect it. It was only a few days later that I randomly bumped into an old friend on MSN. We got chatting and he happened to mention that he had previously dabbled in domain auctions. He wasn’t exactly an expert but he did point me in the right direction, which ultimately meant a bunch of links that included auction sites and some research tools he had used in the past (none of them free or cheap for that matter).

The 4 Keys To Success

Anyway armed with my friends links I went about signing up to his recommendations as well as some other sites I found along the way. After blowing almost $400 on tools and spending another 3-4 days testing them, I quickly realised there are four things you absolutely need to get started as a domainer:

• A source that generates a daily list of domains that are expiring, dropping and/or in auction.
• A tool to help you analyse these domains and filter out the stuff you don’t want.
• Access to the domain auction sites where these domains are exchanging hands.
• Some spare cash because being a domainer isn’t cheap.

In short once you have the above you can at least start to trade and gain experience as a domainer. In total I spent $800 on this discovery experience (approx $400 on tools and another $400 on actual domain auctions). Despite this upfront cost I now have a half decent understanding of how domaining works and more importantly the tools to help me find the domains I so desperately want.

Show Me The Money !!!

By now I’m sure you’re all desperate to hear which tools and auction markets are the best to go for. In fact for many including myself the auction markets I disclose may not come as a surprise but what will be of interest are the tools that I’m about to recommend.

These tools will not only help you research large lists of domains but ultimately make the whole selection and isolation phase of domain purchase possible. Lets just say without these tools picking quality domains is exactly like finding a needle in a hay stack. So let’s take a look below.

Domain Lists

My recommendation for getting daily updated domain lists is premiumdomains (PD). It costs around $25 per month and in my eyes is easily one of the best sources for domain lists on the net.

Filtering The Domain Lists

There are 2 ways to do this and you should only do one or the other so read carefully.

• Option 1: Domain Research Tool (DRT)

Domain Research Tool (see below for a $100 discount) is a desktop based research application that you can use to filter and analyse your domain lists. It’s developed and owned by the same guys that own premiumdrops (PD) which means as a bonus you can import your domain lists from your PD account with the click of a button (a very handy featured indeed).

Not only is this tool powerful but absolutely amazing at generating some great analytics from your domain lists. There is no tool that matches this for detail but I must warn you it may seem a little complex to the newbie webmaster, so if you want something a little more basic then look at option 2 (listed below).

$100 Discount: This tool is normally priced at $249 but if you want to save $100 and get this for just $149 then click this special link.

• Option 2: Freshdrops (FD)

FreshDrops is great if you’re after something a little cheaper and of course straightforward. It’s $32.95 per month and unlike DRT is 100% online based. The site sources and manages its own domain lists meaning you don’t have to subscribe to a 3rd party provider like premiumdrops.

Freshdrops definitely consolidates things making your life as a newbie domainer much easier. It lets you search through a pretty decent list of domains and even lets you filter by pagerank, age and a couple of other criteria. However just remember that these online searches are no way as powerful as DRT. 

You get what you pay for but saying that if you’re new to domaining the options available to you aren’t half bad. FD is probably the most cost effective method of tasting the whole domaining experience and as such is my recommended site for most people. On the other hand if you’re a little more confident in your abilities try out DRT because in the long run it’s the tool to have.

Domain Markets

Although there are a whole range of domain markets ready for you to jump into, I strongly suggest you keep things simple and spend time on just 1-2 sites to begin with. For this purpose my recommendations are below:

• Domain Name Aftermarket (GoDaddys auction site, $5 signup fee, good variety & price)
• SnapNames (Very reliable, good variety of domains, a little more pricey)

For reference other domain sites include Pool, NameJet, Tucows, Sedo and a couple of others that escape me right now.

Final Words

Just remember domaining is not easy, you need a budget, some practice, some luck and a lot of late nights doing your research. Despite all of these things there is no reason why you can’t use the tools and recommendations I have made to good effect.

For me getting into the domaining scene has been a win win situation. Even if I never engage it on a full time basis (because my root skills still lie with web development) I now have the tools to pick up all sorts of expired domains whenever I want. 

Combining these high pagerank, highly aged domains with fresh content, a new design and some seo could produce some really smashing sites. These would no doubt monetise much quicker than a domain registered with no history thus making my life as website flipper much much easier.

Domaining also brings with it other opportunities like traffic redirection which could be beneficial to me further down the line. All these points just go to show how useful basic domaining skills are for modern day webmasters.

In closing I’m sure I’m heading down a path with many twists and turns, so expect more commentary from me on this absolutely massive subject area. I will also try my best to share any cool stories and experiences as I start purchasing more domains.