16 Jun 2009

Making Money With Domain Name Investing!


The practice of domain name investing is becoming a popular choice for those who want to make money on the Internet. This investment practice is fairly easy to get involved with and can pay off very well for a small investment. It is important to understand how it works to be able to open the door for big returns.

Domaining, as it is known, requires nothing more than buying domain names for websites and parking them through services or selling them outright to others. The business does take some time to master, but the rewards are generally thought to be well worth the effort. The financial payoff comes in one of two different ways - advertising dollars or resale pricing on the site names.

Getting started in domain name investing involves buying the site names, registering them and then either parking or reselling the sites. How much money one can make depends on the traffic flow the domain name pulls in naturally or how sought after the name happens to be by others.

There are several ways to determine what kinds of domain names to buy and register. The most common ways center on “type-ins” or “typos.” Typos are nothing more than sites whose names are similar to other existing websites or brand name products. The typo sites obtain natural traffic when people accidentally mistype website names or brand name product names into their search engines. This kind of buying tends to be a little tricky, most especially when brand name products are being used. Many investors don’t like the typo route because of potential legal issues that can arise. Another option is to buy actual “type-ins.” These are names that reflect common web searches. For example, “babygirlclothing” or other real terms and words that are used in searches are used for the domain names. This route is considered more above board. A final option for picking sites is to find those that were formerly used and still have traffic and backlinks. Buying these and parking or reselling them can return decent rewards.

There are many options to go about buying and selling domain names. Some people buy domain names in bulk from places like Moniker.com and then research them to see if they have money-making potential. Other options include going through domaining forums, such as NamePros.com or DNForum.com. These sites are used for buying and selling domain names. These are traded just like real estate might be bought and sold. It is a buyer beware kind of world though. Not all deals come through in the end. Some sites offer a seller and buyer ranking system to enable buyers to check out the integrity of a transaction. Other options for protection include escrowing the money through a payment service, which I prefer.

Determining the real value of domain names can be the hardest part of this type of business. It generally comes down to what the buyer thinks the name is worth. Buyers can sometimes request revenue and traffic statements.

After domains have been secured, there are ways to really make them pay off financially with little effort involves. Parking service sites are the most common way to make this happen. Services like these let owners “park” their pages with little content on them. This means the pages will appear in web searches, but they won’t contain a lot of content. Although content doesn’t go with this deal, these pages can have text ads on them. This means the owner of the domain name will reap the advertising revenue if the sites are viewed and used. The other common option for making money is to sell the domains to those who want to develop or park them.

Parking services like Sedo and Parked.com have their own rules domainers must follow. Although these services do allow text ads on parked pages, they tend to frown on backlink generation. They expect that traffic that comes in will be of natural, organic means. Simply put, they want accidental hits, normal Internet searches or existing backlinks to drive traffic. If site owners do too much to generate traffic, their pages can be taken down.

Getting into domaining can be one of the easiest ways to make money via the Internet. It requires very little effort. Using this practice to its full potential will take a little time. Although some forms are not considered as legitimate as other, the overall business is one that works quite well for many people.