3 Mistakes New Domainers Make

One of the questions I’ve seen the most from new Domainers is – “what are the top mistakes I should avoid making?” While I’d love to say that buying and selling domain names is easy, the reality is that this is one of the most complex investment vehicles on the planet. Yes, the potential is huge, but most new Domainers never make it out of the gate because they make critical mistakes in the beginning that turn them away from the domain industry.

If you’re just getting started there’s a good chance that you’re making one (or three) of these mistakes.

  1. Buying nothing but hand reg domains –  sadly this is how most people get started in the industry. It goes something like this. You discover “Domaining” and see a list of domain sales. You get excited…really excited, and immediately head over to your favorite registrar and start registering domains like it’s going out of style. You list those domain names on every marketplace you can think of and none of them sell. The reality is, you haven’t done your homework, you don’t know what people are buying, and you think something you came up with out of thin air will suddenly sell for thousands of dollars. Yes – you can make money with hand registered domains, and I’ve sold some myself for thousands of dollars, but that’s not the norm.
  2. Setting unreasonable prices for your domains – so you’ve learned your lesson and dropped a lot of the junk you hand-registered. Now you have a handful of domains you paid $500 – $1,000 for in the aftermarket. They are much better names than you had before so you price them at $25,000 each. They get offers but none sell. The problem is you’re delusional. Seriously, you are. Yes – the big guys can ask for whatever price they want for their domains, but you can’t, you need to make a profit and re-invest.
  3. Taking advice from random people on domain forums – this one should be common sense but surprisingly it’s not. I love Domaining forums, don’t get me wrong. The problem is when you take advice from someone that you know nothing about. It’s easy to give advice, but the advice that really counts comes from people that have done it themselves. If you read advice on a Domaining forum, do your research and make sure the person giving the advice has the credibility to do it.

Have more to add to this list? Share your biggest Domaining mistakes below – comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton