What's In A Name

One of the ‘ventures’ I’ve been working on is to create and sell domain names. Last fall I saw a local news story about a woman who had no job and was trying to bring in additional income while still being able to stay home and raise her small children. She did some research and started to create domain names for resale. Within a year she was making decent money. I believe it was about $25000/year for her part time efforts. One of the domain names she created was Jacksonville.com and she sold it for about a $700 profit. I decided it was definitely worth looking into.

Before I give anyone the idea that I’m making beaucoup bucks from this, I’m not yet. I’m still learning the ropes and have only sold a couple domain names but like my blog about trading foreign currency, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share what I know and let whomever dare carry forth as they see fit.

So what is it to create a domain name? Basically it is creating a name for an internet site. It doesn’t require building content in the site but just the formulation of the name for someone else to build upon for whatever their intent. The name has to be registered with a company, I use GoDaddy, who will confirm the name doesn’t already exist and prohibit anyone else from taking it after you buy it. The purchase price depends if you create a .com, .net, .mobi, etc… but is generally less than $10. What you sell it for depends on who wants it, like anything else. Finding the right name that is hot is a matter of opinion. I’ve created some dogs that we’re more for fun and I knew I’d be lucky to break even (sold creditiswhack.com for a couple bucks profit) and some I thought were sure hits that I’m still waiting for a buyer. Example: dog= Celticsdynasty.com which I registered and then realized “Celtics” is a copyright so stay away from team nanes, just saying. I’ve contacted the Boston Celtics front office and offered the domain name and I’m waiting for a reply. One I thought was a hit- Obamahealthbenefits.org . I still think it will be profitable after President Obama unveils his intentions regarding healthcare policies. Time will tell.

GoDaddy also offers a service called cash parking. What that means is that after you create a domain name, they will place advertisements on the page for you relative to the name and when anyone clicks on the advertisements, you get paid. Similar to the advertisements on my blog page, pay per click. While that amount of money certainly doesn’t pay the mortgage it certainly does help offset the expense of creating the names. The domans I created related to movies (twilightmoviesequel.com and monstersvsaliens3d.com) and mobile (kidapps.mobi, puzzleapps.mobi, iwantanapp.mobi, ineedanapp.mobi, dollarapps.mobi) have had the most traffic and ad revenue so far. Feel free to check them out if you’re interested. I offer discounts on sale price to readers of my blog. :-)

As I said, I’m still trying to figure out how to make this as profitable as possible but I know it can be done. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for an inexpensive, creative way to make money off of the growing world wide web. Doubt it can be profitable? Here is an example from the current GoDaddy auction site of a name someone created. The domain name is “nique.com”. Don’t ask me what it stands for I don’t know, but apparently it has meaning to the 25 bidders who have raised the price to $3,755. Now THAT would help pay the mortgage! Go figure… but if THAT name can bring money, don’t you have a great name for a domain rattling around?

Good luck!
Steve