There was a fascinating article at Business Insider this month, covering Rick Schwartz. Now, you may not have heard of him, but you’ll certainly raise your eyebrows at some of the basic domain names he has bought and sold over the years. He began at the forefront of domain names and the internet, so he was well placed to buy names that later shot up in value. He once owned porno.com before selling it for nearly $9 million.
His business idea was to buy a domain and rent the link from that site to someone else’s website. So, you’d pay for the link, and he’d send visitors to his site through to yours, using a simple message to do it.
Eventually, he began making sales of some of the domain names he’d picked up. According to Schwartz, his sales are each worth six figures, sometimes more.
Can you still do this today?
That’s the question that occurred to me when I began reading about his fascinating story. Of course, he was in there at the start before people realised the potential value of domain names.
Of course, there are still big sales going on out there today. However, in many cases, they’re sales going from existing owners to new ones, rather than someone registering a domain name for the first time.
There are certainly still people who make money from buying and selling domains. Indeed, Schwartz himself still does. He explains a little about how he finds potentially valuable domain names today, and it seems to rest on trying to pre-empt what’s going to be popular. Rather than guessing, it seems to revolve around researching current trends and using urban dictionaries to jump on the names that could be popular before they reach that stage.
What about the sales success rate for domains?
This isn’t mentioned in the article. We’d be curious to know how many he holds that haven’t sold. But then, it’s always fascinating to read about the hits rather than the misses. We suspect that anyone who owns multiple domain names isn’t going to list their inventory.
Buying and selling domains must surely be far more difficult today than it has been in the past. Indeed, many who do it are certainly going to make far smaller sales from their inventory of domains than this person does. However, the principle behind buying the right domains and selling them for the best price remains the same.
The bottom line is the same throughout. You buy low and sell as high as you can, just like everything else. Many elements go into determining the value of a domain name.
One thing you can count on is that we’ll always bring you the latest news on domain name sales. There are always going to be names selling for eye-watering – even record breaking – amounts. Remember to stay in touch by bookmarking our site today for the latest domain name news and views.