When domain investors look at buying investment-grade domains, most look at expired domain auctions. This is where I personally get a majority of my names and I think we all know there are a lot of diamonds in the rough that get overlooked and can make their way into your portfolio at a nice wholesale price.
Of course, the hottest names are getting more bids than ever and recently there has been a lot of discussion about people paying retail for domains on auction sites like Go Daddy auctions where an expired domain recently sold for over $100,000 😱
What a lot of domain investor often overlook is all the great investment-grade domain names that are out there, owned by people who know nothing about a “domain industry” the bought a name for a project, blog, or company, and now are no longer using it. While plenty of these expire all the time, a lot of great names don’t, and they aren’t listed for sale, but if you can get in touch with the owner, you can buy it, and often for a much lower price than it would sell for in an auction.
Rewind ten years ago and things were a bit easier for investors, for two reasons:
- WHOIS – a lot of contact info today means you have to put on your detective hat to find the owner, ten years ago you just did a WHOIS search and poof, contact info
- More competition – I’m sure a good number of you reading this are saying, “duh Morgan, this is how I’m buying names today,” and that’s no surprised. A lot more people are reaching out to domain owners now trying to buy their names so if it’s a great name, you’re probably not the first to the party
All this being said, there are extensions out there like .IO and .AI that have seen a fraction of the inquiries that .COM gets which means if you look beyond .COM, your domain gold mining prospects might be better than you think.
So yes, still go after expired domains, I know I am, but don’t forget that outside of .COM there are gems all over the place that are sitting there, just an email away.
