Section III : Where to Buy Domain Names? Part 1 : Unclaimed/Dropped Names
Where to Buy Domain Names?
Sometimes the only way to learn how to swim is to jump into the water and have at it, right? The same is true with domain names. You can spend hours upon hours analyzing the different categories and trying to find an edge, but the truth is, you have to be willing to jump into the market and do some buying and selling for yourself to truly understand what works and what does not.
Don’t worry—before reading the beginning of this Ebook, it would be like jumping into the ocean wearing a snowsuit and knee-high books. Now that you’ve learned how to categorize domain names and spot good and bad buys, you’re in a wetsuit with a snorkel. The right information makes all of the difference.
The swimming, however, is still up to you. Domain name buying and selling isn’t something quick and easy that can make you millions without any effort. Oh, you can make millions all right with a little luck and (this is key) elbow grease—just don’t expect it to happen to you automatically. If you aren’t willing to spend some times getting your hands dirty, you won’t go very far with domain names.
So the question is: Are you ready to start? It’s a little scary at first, but you have all the tools you need to make good decisions for your domain name portfolio. Here are the best places to hunt for the domain names your want. Come on in; the water’s fine.
Unclaimed/Dropped Names
Have you ever noticed that you can buy an item, say a lamp, at a yard sale or at the Salvation Army for a few bucks, but if you get people bidding on it or buy it at an antique store, you’ll pay over a hundred? In a person’s mind, if that lamp is at a yard sale, it’s because nobody wants it. In fact, if you find it at the Salvation Army, they gave it away.
Dropped names and unclaimed names are just like that. Either the name has never been taken before or the previous owner just didn’t renew their registration of the name. In either case, an unclaimed or dropped name is a name that nobody wants. Well, in most cases. Sometimes when a very good name’s registration is set to expire, domain name entrepreneurs camp out and hope to refresh their web page at exactly the right moment to buy that name. This, however, is rare. In most cases, unclaimed or dropped names are domain manes that people don’t want.
Remember, cyber-squatting is an ugly practice. Occasionally, a large company will forget to re-register their name. This can happen if emails and address change or bills get lost in the mail. Trust me, it happens to the best of them—it even happened to Microsoft one year! Buying this name in order to sell it back for an outrageous price to the original owner is illegal and unethical in most cases.
In other words, if a name you really want expires and can be grabbed off the market, do so if this name can be used by any number of people. If a generic name falls into your lap, take it! On the other hand if www.Pepsi.com accidentally expires, let it pass you by. The only company really able to use that name is Pepsi, since it is so heavily trademarked, so you can get into all kinds of trouble camping out for that name to unintentionally fall onto the market.
The good thing about them is that they are free, minus registration of course. If you see potential in a name that has not been claimed, grab it and make it work! You can build up a site’s value—and I’ll teach you how in following chapters—so that your new site becomes hot on the market. If you’re smart, you can also use a domain name to make money for you while you wait to find a buyer.
So where do you buy unclaimed and dropped names? Basically, all you need to do to stake your claim is register it, which you can do on sites like www.godaddy.com. Nobody owns the Internet, so all you have to do is claim your piece. When you register your name, you’re really just paying for registration services to let other people know you’ve staked a claim. Registration is usually simple, but remember that you’re paying for the site by the month or year. If you hold onto it indefinitely without selling or developing it, you’re losing money, even if it is a generic name. It’s like stock—you have to sell it to make money, no matter how high its value.
