Fair Market Domains

Archive for July 18th, 2010

Ok, you may have already heard that it's possible to make money buying and selling domain names but you're not really sure how it all works. So, to help you out, we've put together this short, simple overview of the domaining business.

The domain name industry is one of the hottest online businesses today where more and more individuals learn how to buy and sell domains for a profit everyday.

Domaining, as it's called, is the process of buying, selling, developing, or monetizing Internet domain names. Marketers dealing in domain names are known as Domainers. Income from marketing domains come from several different methods including domain parking, domain (website) development, or from simply reselling them.

Let's take a look at each of these methods for profiting from domains.

Buying/Selling Domain Names

In its simplest form, the easiest way to begin domaining is by searching for unused, expired, or "for sale" domain names. Then, you purchase those domains and just resell them for more than you paid. It may sound easy but the trick is to find good names that other webmasters or businesses are looking for.

Domain Parking / Forwarding

If you already own one or more domain names that are currently unused, another way to earn income from them is to "park" or "forward" the domain.

You can park your domain name with a parking service. That simply means that you point your domain to a webpage on the parking service's server. These services then pay you a percentage of the advertising revenue that is earned from the advertisements that will be placed on the "parked" page. Also, many of these parking services offer a listing service where your domain can be placed for resale.

It's also possible for you to make your own parked web page where you create a one-page website that displays ads. In this instance you could receive 100% of the ad revenue.

Forwarding your domain is a related function that can also earn a little income for your idle domain names. One way to do that is to sign up for affiliate offers and then set up a redirect page on your domain which is then "forwarded" to the offer. When a visitor comes to your web page they are immediately forwarded on to a sales page for an offer that you could earn commissions from. 

Domain Development

With this income method you could create an actual web site for your domain name. Typically, these sites are built with content related to the actual domain name. For example, if you had a domain name based on selling digital cameras, you would create a web site with articles, images, ads, and products about digital cameras.

You can develop these sites to sell products and services for commissions or they can be created with the intention of selling the entire site once you've finished building them.

Things To Watch Out For

Although there are many ways to make money in the domain name business, there are also a number ways that can result in your losing a lot of money.

One of the most important things to determine before buying any domain name is to make sure you're not purchasing one that contains a tradmarked name. You can quickly find yourself in serious trouble from the trademark holder with domain names containing trademarked terms. So, do your research before buying or registering any domain name.

As with any product in any market, one sure way to lose money is to pay too much for the domain. The goal is to make a profit from buying and selling domain names but that won't happen if you payed too much or if the market determines that the domain isn't worth as much as you thought it was.

And, there's alway the possiblilty of getting scammed by ‘email’ offers, fake buyers or other types of frauds such as check fraud or other variations of payment fraud.

Hopefully, this brief overview has given you a better understanding of the domaining business and how it's possible to make money from domain names. Future articles will go into more detail on how this exciting and profitable businesss works. So, be sure to check back often for more training and information on learning to buy and sell domain names.