NameTrader.com

Most of what I’ve learned in the world of domain names has come through my own experiences – and I mean mostly by trial-and-error.  New extension domain hype is certainly something I have not only witnessed time and time again, but have personally wasted a lot of money on in one particular occasion.  If you’re new to domain names, there’s one easy bit of advice you should know with buying or registering domain names: Stick with .com until you’ve got a better understanding of domain values.

Some of the advice I give is directly related to pitfalls I’ve experienced early on in my domaining career without having someone like my present self giving level-headed advice.  In the case of an overhyped new extension that lured ME in, it was .in.  Now, to my defense I WAS late with getting .in domains – a whopping 3 days late but that was enough to miss out on just about every .in domain of immediate value.  Keep in mind domain hacks weren’t all that uncommon back in early 2005, and that was one of my major focuses with getting .in domains at that point.  I could have easily dumped well over $2,000 on .in domains if I wasn’t careful – between the hype, the actual amount of domain registrations occurring (I think by the time I got to the extension, already over 100,000 domains had been registered) and the initial reaction I had to many names that were still available, the temptations were immense.

In the end, the damage done was about $800.  Only about 8 of the 40 or so domains I registered I still have to this day, and I haven’t sold a single one of them.  They ARE good domains worth keeping – MyName.in for domain hack opportunities (I liked it for name translations like MyName.In/Chinese), DownloadMusic.in (a very well searched term, but also domain hack friendly), Ninja.in (great 1-word domain that’s social media friendly in my opinion), but I just haven’t agreed in price with anyone on any of them as of yet.  Keep in mind – I still have what is by far the highest public sale of a .in domain, Poker.in for $60,000.  THAT domain I bought on the secondary market a few months after the .in extension release, and THAT of course ended up being a very smart play.  So it takes a lot for me to say my initial speculations in .in domains were off and that the extension was overhyped.

The extension I am most worried about newbies getting carried away with is .me.  Don’t get me wrong, it is cuter than the average extension by far and the domain hack possibilities are endless.  STILL, look at the lengths .tv has had to go through to get more widely accepted and see large sales, and that extension serves a viable purpose (TV related sites, advertisers on TV commercials, video related sites, etc.).  .me is primarily domain hack friendly and mildly social media friendly and that’s it.  Like .tv, it has very little behind it with the nation the extension represents.  .in on the other hand is similarly domain hack friendly and also represents the nation of a billion people which contains the largest English-speaking population in the world believe it or not.  .me was very smartly marketed by the registry and sites like GoDaddy, and it is mostly that marketing that resulted in the mass of .me domains that were registered and bought.  The prices some people are paying for .me domains that would under normal circumstances be questional domain registrations at best are obscene.  It’s as if their vision is back and is inserting a decimal in the price so they think $2000 is $20.00 – I have no idea how to explain it.

The POSITIVES I will say about the extension is that again it IS a pretty one, and also I have seen a lot of .me domains being DEVELOPED instead of parked – a lot more than I was expecting this soon after its release.  That coupled with the massive amount of registrations and a fair amount of nice sales of .me domains leads me to say there is still probably a good amount of .me names that are worth getting if the price is right.  However, I am seeing way too many people registering garbage .me domains or buying mediocre to at best decent .me domains for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.  I have a LOT of experience with country code extensions and I can tell you that they are MUCH harder to sell than extensions like .com and .org.  I once somewhat monopolized getting high quality single-word exotic country-code domains off of expiration – I would do hours of searching a day on the top keywords in various extensions and now and then hit paydirt.  However once even a couple others like me entered into the mix, it was no longer worth the time and effort – even with getting names that were undeniably worth thousands of dollars, the MARKET for them is considerably smaller – the extensions confuse Average Joe and despite the name being very short and nice looking, Average Joe loves his .com.

Bottom line, you should always heavily scrutinize any domain you may introduce into your portfolio.  In the case of new extensions, add an additional layer of scrutiny and especially limit how much you spend on such names.  Your wallet will thank you later.

Steve Domain Names, Tips and Tricks .in, .me, buying domains, ccTLDs, country code extensions, domain hype, Domain Names, new extensions, registering domains, Tips and Tricks