Domainer?

My blog seems to have turned into one about domaining since I have removed the posts about my websites and other ventures. So I thought I should set the record straight about my collection of domains and how I got started in domaining. It was not my original intention to buy domains to monetize. I never had a goal of becoming a domainer. I started looking for ways to monetize my domains due to the sheer number of domains I was buying. I am a collector by nature and did not want to stop collecting domains. If I thought of a good domain for a website, I would buy the domain and related domains. If I thought of a domain that I liked, but it was taken, I would add it to my list of back-ordered domains. If the current owner was not using the domain, I would email the owner and offer to buy it. After a while, the cost of my habit was starting to pile up, and I needed a way to pay for the new registrations not to mention the yearly renewals for the domains that were coming due.

When you are registering between five and twenty domains a month, developing them all is not an option, at least not in the short term, especially if you have a full-time day job. Hence the reason I started using my undeveloped domains for PPC is to try to recoup some of the costs.

The bad news was that while my domains were brandable they were not great for PPC. I had bought the domains with the thought of building a site, not the amount of traffic it was getting. Worst yet, most of my domains are related to my hobbies or pets which are not high-paying keywords to start with. A couple of the domains I owned did produce some PPC revenue, which was a big help at the start. Reading thru the numerous forums I started to understand what to look for when buying a domain for PPC revenue. The more links to the site in search engines or from other sites the better. Type-in traffic (type-in traffic is where a surfer types what they are looking for in the URL bar), is harder to come by nowadays, but great if you can find domains with type-in traffic. I also tried to make sure that there were no trademark issues with the domains. I did not want to end up in court because I had violated someone’s trademark, but that is a personal preference. Some domainers’ whole portfolio of domains are domains that are typos or TM issues, but that is not my style. If at all possible, I looked for domains that could be used for a website so that if I can not monetize it, I could add it to my list for future development or sell it. After a couple of months, I was able to use the revenue generated from a dozen or so domains to pay for my whole domain portfolio. This only goes to prove that using domains for Pay-per-click can generate a passive stream of income! So I guess that while it is not my main focus, by definition, I am a domainer.