Anybody ever invest in web domains?

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

I've dabbled in it a bit over the past few years, but started getting a bit more serious this year. What I mean is registering the domain of a baseball prospect (ex. www.playerA.com), and hoping that playerA makes it, so you can resell the domain...

Curious about your experiences with doing this, if you've done it. I've recently registered 3 domains... 3 baseball prospects that quite frankly, I was shocked that the domains were still available. Just going to sit on them for now, and keep my fingers crossed that they make it.

boomo · Mar 23, 2011

even if they make it, what are the chances that someone even wants it?
do you have any statistics?

uniquebaseballcards · Mar 23, 2011

There are probably going to be TONS of top-level domains soon, IMO I don't see it as a good investment.

Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN, talks about new domain names
ON THE RECORD: Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN March 14, 2011
"The Internet could be on the verge of opening the doors to a deluge of proposals for new domain names, cyber suffixes that would compete with the likes of .com and .net.

The nonprofit agency that oversees the Internet naming system, ICANN, isn't making any promises or predictions. But its plan, which has been in the works since 2005, could reach a conclusive point this week at the organization's key meeting in San Francisco.

Currently, there are 21 generic top-level domains, such as .com (the most popular), .net and .org. But ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) wants to allow groups or companies to propose and operate new domains that are more specific - .nyc, .ebay or .gay, for example."
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-..._domain-names-top-level-domains-rod-beckstrom

DaleMurphyCollector · Mar 23, 2011

I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

boomo said:
even if they make it, what are the chances that someone even wants it?
do you have any statistics?

It doesn't necessarily have to be someone wanting it... think of it this way:

Derek Jeter owns derekjeter.com, and runs a website on it. There is a pretty good chance that he wasn't the first person to register that domain -- meaning, he would have purchased it from whomever originally registered it.

Even if he didn't have a site there, imagine how many people would still go to derekjeter.com, thinking it was a site. When dealing with internet domains, traffic = money... so it's entirely possible (and easy) to have advertisements on a "parked domain", where a company would pay you per visit to your own site, because after all, your domain name is helping make their ad visible to potential customers.

Some domains are worth thousands of dollars. Obviously, not all... but if you have a popular name, it is worth something. There are sites dedicated to selling Domain names -- the one I use most often is afternic.com

In fact, some people even try to sell domains on ebay, although you won't find near the success on ebay as you will on dedicated sites. Here are a couple of ebay examples...

harleymanuals.com -- sold for $250
http://cgi.ebay.com/HARLEYMANUALS-COM-P ... 4157f91f24

m.com -- sold for $700.. the funny thing about this one is that the guy is a sportscard seller... look at his ebay username.
http://cgi.ebay.com/M-com-Single-Letter ... 4cf5ed1b30

It isn't rare to see a domain sell through afternic for $200-2000, sometimes a lot more. Register.com sells premium domain names for anywhere between $200-4000 (I spent a couple of years working for register.com, and have seen many people pay upwards of 4 or 5 grand for a domain that I thought was garbage).

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

uniquebaseballcards said:
There are probably going to be TONS of top-level domains soon, IMO I don't see it as a good investment.

Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN, talks about new domain names
ON THE RECORD: Rod Beckstrom, CEO of ICANN March 14, 2011
"The Internet could be on the verge of opening the doors to a deluge of proposals for new domain names, cyber suffixes that would compete with the likes of .com and .net.

The nonprofit agency that oversees the Internet naming system, ICANN, isn't making any promises or predictions. But its plan, which has been in the works since 2005, could reach a conclusive point this week at the organization's key meeting in San Francisco.

Currently, there are 21 generic top-level domains, such as .com (the most popular), .net and .org. But ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) wants to allow groups or companies to propose and operate new domains that are more specific - .nyc, .ebay or .gay, for example."
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-..._domain-names-top-level-domains-rod-beckstrom

I do agree with you to an extent, however, .com will always be #1. I would never invest a penny in a .org, .net, .info, .ca, etc...

ljw29 · Mar 23, 2011

Paul said:
boomo said:

even if they make it, what are the chances that someone even wants it?
do you have any statistics?

Click to expand...

It doesn't necessarily have to be someone wanting it... think of it this way:

Derek Jeter owns derekjeter.com, and runs a website on it. There is a pretty good chance that he wasn't the first person to register that domain -- meaning, he would have purchased it from whomever originally registered it.

Even if he didn't have a site there, imagine how many people would still go to derekjeter.com, thinking it was a site. When dealing with internet domains, traffic = money... so it's entirely possible (and easy) to have advertisements on a "parked domain", where a company would pay you per visit to your own site, because after all, your domain name is helping make their ad visible to potential customers.

Some domains are worth thousands of dollars. Obviously, not all... but if you have a popular name, it is worth something. There are sites dedicated to selling Domain names -- the one I use most often is afternic.com

In fact, some people even try to sell domains on ebay, although you won't find near the success on ebay as you will on dedicated sites. Here are a couple of ebay examples...

harleymanuals.com -- sold for $250
http://cgi.ebay.com/HARLEYMANUALS-COM-P ... 4157f91f24

m.com -- sold for $700.. the funny thing about this one is that the guy is a sportscard seller... look at his ebay username.
http://cgi.ebay.com/M-com-Single-Letter ... 4cf5ed1b30

It isn't rare to see a domain sell through afternic for $200-2000, sometimes a lot more. Register.com sells premium domain names for anywhere between $200-4000 (I spent a couple of years working for register.com, and have seen many people pay upwards of 4 or 5 grand for a domain that I thought was garbage).

Problem though with ones like Derekjeter.com and someone else owning it, Shaq and other celebrities have gone to court to take over the website at cost of people that own the domain. Unfortunately local guy owned some NHL players name as a domain (mid level guy) and got sued by the player for it when the player wanted his own website.

DaleMurphyCollector · Mar 23, 2011

ljw29 said:
Paul said:

boomo said:

even if they make it, what are the chances that someone even wants it?
do you have any statistics?

Click to expand...

It doesn't necessarily have to be someone wanting it... think of it this way:

Derek Jeter owns derekjeter.com, and runs a website on it. There is a pretty good chance that he wasn't the first person to register that domain -- meaning, he would have purchased it from whomever originally registered it.

Even if he didn't have a site there, imagine how many people would still go to derekjeter.com, thinking it was a site. When dealing with internet domains, traffic = money... so it's entirely possible (and easy) to have advertisements on a "parked domain", where a company would pay you per visit to your own site, because after all, your domain name is helping make their ad visible to potential customers.

Some domains are worth thousands of dollars. Obviously, not all... but if you have a popular name, it is worth something. There are sites dedicated to selling Domain names -- the one I use most often is afternic.com

In fact, some people even try to sell domains on ebay, although you won't find near the success on ebay as you will on dedicated sites. Here are a couple of ebay examples...

harleymanuals.com -- sold for $250
http://cgi.ebay.com/HARLEYMANUALS-COM-P ... 4157f91f24

m.com -- sold for $700.. the funny thing about this one is that the guy is a sportscard seller... look at his ebay username.
http://cgi.ebay.com/M-com-Single-Letter ... 4cf5ed1b30

It isn't rare to see a domain sell through afternic for $200-2000, sometimes a lot more. Register.com sells premium domain names for anywhere between $200-4000 (I spent a couple of years working for register.com, and have seen many people pay upwards of 4 or 5 grand for a domain that I thought was garbage).

Click to expand...

Problem though with ones like Derekjeter.com and someone else owning it, Shaq and other celebrities have gone to court to take over the website at cost of people that own the domain. Unfortunately local guy owned some NHL players name as a domain (mid level guy) and got sued by the player for it when the player wanted his own website.

I already said this....

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

DaleMurphyCollector said:
I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

I've heard of these cases as well, and have certainly done my homework with regards to what can happen. Yes, people can be sued for it. What you are failing to mention is that the majority of the time the "celebrity" has made an attempt to purchase the domain from the owner, and either the owner flat out says 'no', or wants a price that is several times the appraised value of the domain.

Put it this way... if I owned derekjeter.com (I'm only using him as an example... I have never owned derekjeter.com), would it make more sense for you (lets assume you are Derek Jeter) to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, or spend $500 to buy the domain name from me?

Even if contacted by one of these "celebrities", and even if you chose to not sell, there are ways around the whole lawsuit thing. If you can show that you have reason to own that domain name, there isn't much anybody can do. I have a fishtank full of tropical fish... lets just say each one is named after a baseball player, and I own the domains in case one day I'd like to build each of my fish a webpage.

zach · Mar 23, 2011

At the height of the dot com I made some money selling these. I don't know if the hype is still there to make any decent money. You'd have to have a REALLY good name.

ljw29 · Mar 23, 2011

Paul said:
DaleMurphyCollector said:

I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

Click to expand...

I've heard of these cases as well, and have certainly done my homework with regards to what can happen. Yes, people can be sued for it. What you are failing to mention is that the majority of the time the "celebrity" has made an attempt to purchase the domain from the owner, and either the owner flat out says 'no', or wants a price that is several times the appraised value of the domain.

Put it this way... if I owned derekjeter.com (I'm only using him as an example... I have never owned derekjeter.com), would it make more sense for you (lets assume you are Derek Jeter) to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, or spend $500 to buy the domain name from me?

Even if contacted by one of these "celebrities", and even if you chose to not sell, there are ways around the whole lawsuit thing. If you can show that you have reason to own that domain name, there isn't much anybody can do. I have a fishtank full of tropical fish... lets just say each one is named after a baseball player, and I own the domains in case one day I'd like to build each of my fish a webpage.

Usually the courts rule for the person.

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

DaleMurphyCollector said:
ljw29 said:

Paul said:

boomo said:

even if they make it, what are the chances that someone even wants it?
do you have any statistics?

Click to expand...

It doesn't necessarily have to be someone wanting it... think of it this way:

Derek Jeter owns derekjeter.com, and runs a website on it. There is a pretty good chance that he wasn't the first person to register that domain -- meaning, he would have purchased it from whomever originally registered it.

Even if he didn't have a site there, imagine how many people would still go to derekjeter.com, thinking it was a site. When dealing with internet domains, traffic = money... so it's entirely possible (and easy) to have advertisements on a "parked domain", where a company would pay you per visit to your own site, because after all, your domain name is helping make their ad visible to potential customers.

Some domains are worth thousands of dollars. Obviously, not all... but if you have a popular name, it is worth something. There are sites dedicated to selling Domain names -- the one I use most often is afternic.com

In fact, some people even try to sell domains on ebay, although you won't find near the success on ebay as you will on dedicated sites. Here are a couple of ebay examples...

harleymanuals.com -- sold for $250
http://cgi.ebay.com/HARLEYMANUALS-COM-P ... 4157f91f24

m.com -- sold for $700.. the funny thing about this one is that the guy is a sportscard seller... look at his ebay username.
http://cgi.ebay.com/M-com-Single-Letter ... 4cf5ed1b30

It isn't rare to see a domain sell through afternic for $200-2000, sometimes a lot more. Register.com sells premium domain names for anywhere between $200-4000 (I spent a couple of years working for register.com, and have seen many people pay upwards of 4 or 5 grand for a domain that I thought was garbage).

Click to expand...

Problem though with ones like Derekjeter.com and someone else owning it, Shaq and other celebrities have gone to court to take over the website at cost of people that own the domain. Unfortunately local guy owned some NHL players name as a domain (mid level guy) and got sued by the player for it when the player wanted his own website.

Click to expand...

I already said this....

At the end of the day, it certainly isn't an activity for everybody. I chose to do it, as I have very little $$ invested in the names, and if the threat of a lawsuit were to ever surface, I would have no problem giving up the domain. I won't lose sleep over the $8 I paid godaddy.com to register it for me.

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

ljw29 said:
Paul said:

DaleMurphyCollector said:

I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

Click to expand...

I've heard of these cases as well, and have certainly done my homework with regards to what can happen. Yes, people can be sued for it. What you are failing to mention is that the majority of the time the "celebrity" has made an attempt to purchase the domain from the owner, and either the owner flat out says 'no', or wants a price that is several times the appraised value of the domain.

Put it this way... if I owned derekjeter.com (I'm only using him as an example... I have never owned derekjeter.com), would it make more sense for you (lets assume you are Derek Jeter) to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, or spend $500 to buy the domain name from me?

Even if contacted by one of these "celebrities", and even if you chose to not sell, there are ways around the whole lawsuit thing. If you can show that you have reason to own that domain name, there isn't much anybody can do. I have a fishtank full of tropical fish... lets just say each one is named after a baseball player, and I own the domains in case one day I'd like to build each of my fish a webpage.

Click to expand...

Usually the courts rule for the person.

Would love to see some stats to back up that statement. I assume you've seen stats to suggest that?

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

zach said:
At the height of the dot com I made some money selling these. I don't know if the hype is still there to make any decent money. You'd have to have a REALLY good name.

You're absolutely right. Most names are garbage. It isn't a business that will make anybody rich (used to be... not anymore), but if you can even quadruple your money, wouldn't you be happy?

ljw29 · Mar 23, 2011

Paul said:
ljw29 said:

Paul said:

DaleMurphyCollector said:

I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

Click to expand...

I've heard of these cases as well, and have certainly done my homework with regards to what can happen. Yes, people can be sued for it. What you are failing to mention is that the majority of the time the "celebrity" has made an attempt to purchase the domain from the owner, and either the owner flat out says 'no', or wants a price that is several times the appraised value of the domain.

Put it this way... if I owned derekjeter.com (I'm only using him as an example... I have never owned derekjeter.com), would it make more sense for you (lets assume you are Derek Jeter) to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, or spend $500 to buy the domain name from me?

Even if contacted by one of these "celebrities", and even if you chose to not sell, there are ways around the whole lawsuit thing. If you can show that you have reason to own that domain name, there isn't much anybody can do. I have a fishtank full of tropical fish... lets just say each one is named after a baseball player, and I own the domains in case one day I'd like to build each of my fish a webpage.

Click to expand...

Usually the courts rule for the person.

Click to expand...

Would love to see some stats to back up that statement. I assume you've seen stats to suggest that?

Class that specialized in Business and the Surge in Online Business Law since 2000 at a Top 25 school, somewhere in my notebooks I have the numbers and it was about 78%. One example was someone registered Woofy Dogs.com (along those lines) and posted about dogs they liked, guy opens a business for dog daycare called same thing and was given the name and cost.

uniquebaseballcards · Mar 23, 2011

Paul said:
I do agree with you to an extent, however, .com will always be #1. I would never invest a penny in a .org, .net, .info, .ca, etc...

Its interesting when investors say "will always be". I'd just consider that the new suffixes will be much more descriptive and meaningful - a ".baseball" or ".cards" suffix might be be more interesting than an old-fashioned dot com to some people and still show up on google searches.

zach · Mar 23, 2011

Paul said:
zach said:

At the height of the dot com I made some money selling these. I don't know if the hype is still there to make any decent money. You'd have to have a REALLY good name.

Click to expand...

You're absolutely right. Most names are garbage. It isn't a business that will make anybody rich (used to be... not anymore), but if you can even quadruple your money, wouldn't you be happy?

Paul said:
At the end of the day, it certainly isn't an activity for everybody. I chose to do it, as I have very little $$ invested in the names, and if the threat of a lawsuit were to ever surface, I would have no problem giving up the domain. I won't lose sleep over the $8 I paid godaddy.com to register it for me.

No doubt. The two I sold made me $5,000 each. But if you're talking about quadrupling your money, are you suggesting making $32.00?

cgilmo · Mar 23, 2011

I offered 20k for sportscards.com

he told me to shove it

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

ljw29 said:
Paul said:

ljw29 said:

Paul said:

DaleMurphyCollector said:

I've bought and sold domains for quite awhile. It's tough to make money on domains that are someone's name, however. A "celebrity" can sue for the domain and win in most cases. There are a couple of famous cases of that very thing happening.

Click to expand...

I've heard of these cases as well, and have certainly done my homework with regards to what can happen. Yes, people can be sued for it. What you are failing to mention is that the majority of the time the "celebrity" has made an attempt to purchase the domain from the owner, and either the owner flat out says 'no', or wants a price that is several times the appraised value of the domain.

Put it this way... if I owned derekjeter.com (I'm only using him as an example... I have never owned derekjeter.com), would it make more sense for you (lets assume you are Derek Jeter) to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, or spend $500 to buy the domain name from me?

Even if contacted by one of these "celebrities", and even if you chose to not sell, there are ways around the whole lawsuit thing. If you can show that you have reason to own that domain name, there isn't much anybody can do. I have a fishtank full of tropical fish... lets just say each one is named after a baseball player, and I own the domains in case one day I'd like to build each of my fish a webpage.

Click to expand...

Usually the courts rule for the person.

Click to expand...

Would love to see some stats to back up that statement. I assume you've seen stats to suggest that?

Click to expand...

Class that specialized in Business and the Surge in Online Business Law since 2000 at a Top 25 school, somewhere in my notebooks I have the numbers and it was about 78%. One example was someone registered Woofy Dogs.com (along those lines) and posted about dogs they liked, guy opens a business for dog daycare called same thing and was given the name and cost.

I like the way you pulled that 78% out of your butt. Very nicely done. I would be absolutely shocked if those stats have ever even been compiled.

At any rate, if somebody is threatened with a lawsuit and chooses to let it go to court instead of giving up their domain name that they paid $8 for, they deserve to lose.

Also, don't forget about the PR nightmare that could cause for the "celebrity". Lets say I wanted to start a Derek Jeter fanpage, and he took me to court to take control of the name. That's exactly the type of situation most "celebrities" would want to avoid.

At the end of the day, I didn't post on here to talk anybody into trying it. I simply asked if anybody had. Didn't expect to be jumped on so much, but so be it. It is something I choose to do, and as I mentioned, the investment I have into it is minimal. Domain re-selling has been good to me in the past (even moreso for my wife, who has hooked on to a couple of really good ones).

Paul · Mar 23, 2011

uniquebaseballcards said:
Paul said:

I do agree with you to an extent, however, .com will always be #1. I would never invest a penny in a .org, .net, .info, .ca, etc...

Click to expand...

Its interesting when investors say "will always be". I'd just consider that the new suffixes will be much more descriptive and meaningful - a ".baseball" or ".cards" suffix might be be more interesting than an old-fashioned dot com to some people and still show up on google searches.

My bad. What I should have said was 'in my opinion, the .com will always be...'.

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