Does Size Matter? Not in Domaining!

Okay – so we’ve all heard it before – “size matters” and when talking about certain things…this is true – but not when you’re talking about domain portfolios. Many people that start-out in Domaining go on the famous “domain name buying spree.” Most of us have been there before – you get excited and start hand-registering names every night. You stay-up until 4AM huddled in front of your computer thinking-up what you think are going to be the next million dollar domain names.

Then – the day of reckoning comes – a year passes, your domains come-up for renewal and you start to think…why hasn’t anyone bought these yet?

This is a rite of passage in the Domaining world and one that is absolutely important because as usual in life, hindsight is often 20-20. Yes – it would be great if you had saved the money and not registered a bunch of junk domains, but the learning experience is well worth the cost (as long as you didn’t go too overboard).

So what is the lesson here? In Domaining size doesn’t matter – quality does!

As a domain broker I see dozens of portfolios from new domainers that have many domains that don’t have any re-sale value whatesoever – many that are not even worth the reg fee that was paid. Oftentimes these will be accompanied by pricing is the $1,000 – $10,000 range.

First let me say this – beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if you have domains that you think have real value to an end-user then what may seem like junk could certainly be gold to someone else. That being said, let’s be honest, there is a lot of junk out there.

See the thing is, many people amass huge portfolios very quickly with the logic that “hey – at least one or two of these must be worth a fortune or could someday.” I am forever an optimist so am not going to burst anyone’s bubble – if you believe in it and take the time to show an end-user the value in any of your domains there is always hope. But, and this is a big “But” – you would be better off having a small portfolio of domains that we can all agree are good domains with strong re-sale value.

Rather than spending $2,000 on a portfolio of 200 hand-registered names why not buy 3-4 names in the $500-$750 range? Taking four domains in this price range (which are very undervalued in the current market) and developing them would definitely be a more stable path to revenue and a solid sale than trying to develop your 200 hand-registered domains.

To this point. Rather than developing 30-40 of your hand-registered domains into mini-sites – what if you developed 3-4 of your domains into full-scale websites? Catch my drift here? Let’s face it – in Domaining size does not matter, quality is king.

So next time you go to register a domain (or a few hundred) or pay a reg fee (or a few hundred) think of where else this money could go. In the long-run a few good investments will go much further than a few hundred guesses!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton