Who here remembers the Domain Gold Rush? Hoo boy! Those were some crazy times. Our wee industry helped figured prominently in the legend of domain name boom.
The mythology was easy to fabricate. The WWW = Wild Wild West. Domain Names = Mineral Rich Land. Webmasters = Gold Miners. Perhaps you remember the story of how righteous pioneer, Gary Kremen, licensed the domain, sex.com, only to have the name stolen by villainous claim jumper, Stephen Cohen? In the end, Cowboy Kremen beat Cohen in a legal duel that cost Cohen 65 million dollars.
Drugs.com. Wine.com. Autos.com. These were domains that were sold for over a million dollars, sometimes well over a million dollars.
|
"You're going to collect more money when you sell a whole site as opposed to a lonely domain name. You set a higher asking price with a full site. The content and traffic of your website/domain determine the price." |
Webmasters went nuts, believing they could buy the domains of celebrities and brand-name entities and charge big, fat bounty fees. The rightful claimants to brand names and personal names charged extortion and the governing body, ICANN, agreed. Eventually, domain name fever subsided but did not die completely. Every once in a while, a domain sale or brilliant URL is featured in the media and the domain geeks go wild. I myself, am guilty of buying domains simply because I think they might be worth something. And there's the problem:
A domain name, by itself, is rarely worth more than the ten bucks it cost to register.
Of course domain naming will evolve. There's always the chance to make some green off registering a common word with some future new TLD extension. Popular technology like blogs have allowed an opportunity for webmasters to cash in on domains with names like goodblog, badblog and whateverblog. Just the same, you're probably not going to make $7.5 million from having the foresight to register awesome-new-fad.com. Not to mention that selling domains isn't easy. There's a lot of hustle and little profit. I see no crime in trying to make any legal dollar you can. Just be realistic. If you think your domain name, by itself is worth something, go for it.
If you'd like a superior chance at making some profit, there's a better way to sell a domain - BUILD A WEBSITE.
If you're trying to unload an existing website, you're three steps ahead of the game! In short: 1 Domain = Ten Bucks. 1 Domain w/a Website = Profit! You're going to collect more money when you sell a whole site as opposed to a lonely domain name. You set a higher asking price with a full site. The content and traffic of your website/domain determine the price.
Untitled Page
We all get overextended. You've got old websites that you haven't opened in ages. You've got too many projects or too few hours to devote to everything. You want to downsize. You need the money. It doesn't matter why you want to get rid of one of your sites, what matters is that you do it wisely. If you've got a couple of years experience as an adult webmaster, that old upskirt site of yours could be worth five hundred bucks or maybe a thousand. That's a good bit of green and you don't want to go making shaky deals.
How do you go about selling your domain/website? As an adult webmaster, you have more options than the average site owner. We have a wonderful self-policing industry, where cheaters and scammers are outed on message boards among peers. You can announce your domain for sale on a message board or look to an adult resource with a relative business model. For example, The Adult Broker handles all sorts of asset sales and acquisitions for professionals in our business. There are other domain/site brokers and auction sites which you should explore. Again, post your site for sale on adult webmaster message boards, ask the industry peers that you trust.
In addition you can turn to a service that specializes in domain/site buying and selling. For instance, Sedo.com offers a sales platform, requiring escrow for transactions. Be warned, Sedo won't accept sellers that have sites with traffic averaging less than 2500 visits a month and they expect proof. Brokers charge a fee and different brokers have different rates.
You can make money selling your registered domain name but unless you're prepared to purchase hundreds of them and work your ass off to sell them, you're not going to find riches as a URL mogul. The domain gold rush is long gone but in its place webmasters buy and sell ready-built sites that just need an intuitive, enthusiastic hand. Be wise. Don't sell to any old fool. Use some sort of broker or middleman to insure the deal goes down properly. Take a full inventory of your site and assess its value honestly. Ask questions. Ask for opinions. Protect your claim and get the best value for your hard-earned gold!