Domain flipping and monetization has become a serious multi-million dollar business. There are organizations set up solely to buy, sell, park and lease domain names and they make serious money out of it. However, domain monetization success is not only limited to the businesses with bucks. You, as an individual, can also make a pretty sum by knowing some very basic techniques and tricks that would be explored in this two part series.

The undisputed champion is .com

When dealing with domains, be it new registration, sale or auction; the ones ending with .com extension have more value than any other Top-Level-Domain (TLD). Domains with one or two brandable words can make you anything from a few hundred dollars to something in hundreds of thousands. For example, the domain name DataRecovery.com was sold for a whopping $1.7 million dollars. Although the possibility of getting a brandable one or two word domain is very rare nowadays, you might just hit the jackpot with a three word domain name.

Cannot find a two word brandable domain? No problems…

Following on from the previous paragraph, I stated that you can strike a huge deal even with your three word .com domain… provided it is brandable or understandable. How? As more and more good .com domains run out, the value of registration and purchase would also significantly increase. This would create a knock-on effect, where three (or possibly four) word domains would also become rare and thus increase in value. If you register a eye-catching and brandable three word domain now, chances are that you would be able to sell it for a much higher value in three or four years. Visualize your domain registration as you depositing money in a fixed term account. The only difference is that you are earning 500%+ interest on the principal amount in this case.

Don’t restrict yourself to .com

This may sound contrary to my earlier proclamation that .com is the king; but it a very good practice to venture into monetizing domains with other extensions too. .net, .org, .info and other lesser known TLD’s can also get you good money as illustrated by the price tag of $25,500 on WallStreet.info. The point here is that “if it is brandable, it is sellable”.

Cash on country or region specific TLD’s

For some reasons, country or regional level domain’s sell for very hefty sums! Maybe its due the domains’ relevancy to a particular geographical location and the target on demographic traffic rather than niche traffic. FreeCreditReport.co.uk sold for $300k in October, 2008. The generic .com counterpart of it, however, would be priced around a few thousand dollars at the moment.

This concludes the first part of this two part series on “How to turn domains into dollars”. This post was intended to familiarize you with the basics of domain monetization. The second part will introduce you to more such tips and tricks and offer you insights into putting these techniques into practice. I hope you enjoyed this article and expect to have your company during the second part of this series.

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