5/10/18 (posted by admin) — GigaDomains has been under major reconstruction — but we’re getting very close! The site will display our portfolio and be easily searchable if you want a keyword domain, short name, or a particular category. Some of our best categories are: brandables including both keyword & invented words, scientific and robot names, and LLLLs. Mike has been doing the programming for the site.
And then he’ll have his work cut out for him on our sister site, GamingDomains.com. We’ve had a long career in selling (and developing) gambling names and actually had successes much earlier here, particularly in poker.
If you too deal with gaming names, you will be keeping an eye on the brick-and-mortar business of live casinos at least occasionally. Happily, they’re on an upswing. In Las Vegas, resort casinos generally had a good year for 2017 — with a qualification. Revenue derived from gaming was up 3% from the year before, but had dropped considerably as a percentage of total income; in other words, practically all growth in income was due to non-gambling sources like dining, attractions and entertainment. And those took a healthy jump.
In Atlantic City, the story is a bit different. Total revenue also was nicely up, with the news outlets saying it represented the first income boost in ten years and that “internet gambling helped.”
Helped? In one casino’s case, it came to nearly half the year’s income. The Golden Nugget Casino has a very healthy online gambling website, open of course only to players within New Jersey. Its earnings were over $8 million, according to www.PlayNJ.com, out of its total gaming profits of $19.45 million. (Figures from the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement.) The other casinos benefited from their online sites too but none to the same extent, and Ballys does not have online gaming under its name (but does have 2 sites making use of its online license: Harrahs and WSOP.com).
Atlantic City this year will be closely watched. Its healthy 2017 had to do with its limited number of casinos. For all of last year, the city had only 5 casinos operating, way down from its original 12. Some say that 12 made for an overstuffed market, driving income downward. This summer, 2 new casinos open (on the same day, in fact: June 28th) boosting the city to 7 casinos. One of the new casinos is Hard Rock Hotel AC, which apparently became a Virgin property after it was announced in January that Richard Branson purchased the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
This may or may not have impact on your gaming names, but it’s worth noting. Most American gambling webmasters do not become affiliates for the big casino company brands, however, due to the many restrictions. Still, there remain so many opportunities for domainers and webmasters connected with these big gaming regions of the U.S. — including travel, hotels, tourism & attractions, business conferences, etc.
GigaDomains Update
5/9/18 (posted by admin) — GigaDomains is still under construction, and it’ll be a major overhaul. Soon the new version will be public and you’ll be able to search our portfolio by keyword, look at all we have under a category, check out our short names and be able to contact us. Mike is doing the entire site, and the programming is extensive.
He does our other sites, too. Some are not commercialized (yet) but are excellent examples of programming we’ve used later for monetized sites. For example, Mike made what is now one of my favorite news aggregator sites: BUZZPOST.COM. If you like to read tech news, you should visit it.
Most domaining blogs don’t discuss development much, but it’s clear that if you have a good-sized portfolio you must consider putting sites up on some names so they don’t lie fallow. Even minisites are not-small undertakings, but can:
1) bring a bit of income;
2) demonstrate one type of commercial use of your domain name;
3) jump-start the imaginations of end users;
4) ward off poachers with (unwarranted) UDRP in their minds; and
5) start a history of your name being in use, which is nearly always a good thing.
It’s tiring when people email to ask how much your domain is, “because you’re not using it” — and then go on to make a very, very low offer.
Whether you put a site up or not, you definitely are using it, as inventory in your domain business.
Think Laterally
5/1/18 (posted by admin) — There was a British TV mystery show called Midsomer Murders with a detective who always told his sergeant, “Think laterally.” And of course his advice was always right, because solving mysteries on TV usually presents villains being inventive and unexpected. He’s telling his detective, Look at other ways something can be accomplished.
So it goes too, if you want a memorable, succinct domain — which of course you do — but can’t come up with the sums that generic and short .com domains command, you can do things a little differently.
You can get around the problems of cost and rarity by looking into domains other than .com. Explore the other realms of gTLDs: The keywords you need, generics you want, are often there.
I like .ws names although that extension’s promotion hit problems some time back, and it never took off like it should have. Consider how short it is to type, even shorter than .com; and that the biggest registrars support it — there’s no out-of-the-way registry site to deal with. Maybe, for a while, you might remind your site visitors to think of it as if it stood for “website,” for help remembering it — and you’re off and running. Alternate extensions are perfect, I think, for personal interest websites (“vanity” sites) or blogs, as well as mainstream commercial pages.
Our one-word domains portfolio includes generics & first names such as:
Afterlife.ws
Annette.ws
Blackbird.ws
Bluebird.ws
Peck.ws
Physics.ws
Pittsburgh.ws
Starling.ws
Terry.ws
We have some one-word .buzz domains as well, to offer for sale now; some excellent keywords in there. Contact us at Gigadomains (at) yahoo.com to inquire on any of these:
Astrology.buzz
Friendly.buzz
Lines.buzz
Odds.buzz
Podcasting.buzz
Rankings.buzz
Ratings.buzz
Sensual.buzz
Smokers.buzz
Brandables, Keywords & Companies
3/21/17 (posted by admin) — One of the most thoughtful domainers I can think of is Keith deBoer, and when his columns appear on DNGeek I always stop to read them — they’re always good. Yesterday’s post, concerning WealthFront and its list of most-desirable companies, was extremely relevant and interesting — and the list itself gave me a (nice) surprise, because a name we sold to the present owner is on it: Ipsy.
The WealthFront list is something I’ll continue to examine. Not only are the company names themselves significant, but the type of business they’re in is vital to keep alongside the names — Meaning matters. These end users represent probably the best (and most lucrative) way the term could be applied.
On the WealthFront list, I noticed that there are some plurals among the names. Mostly they were “networks,” “systems,” “technologies,” “sales,” “labs,” — which may need to use a plural to indicate the breadth of their work. It would be a small outfit indeed that did lots of research but had only one lab, for instance. However, there is always “language lab” or some other conceptual lab which would prefer to use the singular.
But other strong words such as studio vs. studios — it’s hard to say if the singular is stronger or not without knowing the rest of the domain. Another example might be engine vs. engines.
**Considering our own past sales, along with Keith’s Y Combinator keyword lists, we might compile our own list of best keywords. I notice “ware” is not on his lists. This is probably just coincidental.
An Industry That Uses Lots of Brandable Names
10/25/16 (posted by admin) — Recently, several ads for pharmaceuticals have jumped out at me during researching other things, and I was struck by the odd names these drugs had. Each was using the .com for their website.
The names were Opdivo.com, Yervoy.com, and Xiidra.com. All brandables, all kind of strange.
The first and second ones are owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb, registered in 2012 and 2009 respectively. The third name is registered by Michael Freed of Shire.com.
On the home page of Shire.com is a notice about another one: Onivyde, an oncology drug they’re marketing, now available in certain countries. Their website is Onivyde.com. A related name is Provyde, the name of their service that helps people get the drug if they cannot afford it; they do not appear to own that domain but have a trademark on the name.
While pharma companies sometimes will use a name that hints at aspects of the substance or simply combines portions of the ingredients’ names, they obviously have a wide range of choice in whatever name they choose for their product. (And of course different countries later will likely carry varying brand names of the same drug.)
In other words, these are all made-up names. They may not need to be catchy. In fact two of these examples are serious cancer drugs and aren’t likely to become household names. The website contains information aimed at physicians, not the public. (On the other hand, other drugs WILL become household names.)
Some names are deliberately chosen so they don’t sound like other things, but is it necessary for them to be a mouthful like Yervoy? Why should they buy only some twelve-dollar, not-so-great names found in drop auctions? Perhaps we should all list our more easily-pronounced brandables for the benefit of this industry.
Here are some of our best ones that sound like pharma names but we have lots more:
AMBIA.COM
ABIMA.COM
AMOZE.COM
AUTOMA.COM
INUEVA.COM
INPIA.COM
IMOSAIC.COM
LUVIK.COM
MIRGO.COM
NUESTRA.COM
PYXE.COM
KISHTA.COM
VIRIN.COM
ZENCA.COM
ZUMIA.COM
YACHA.COM
ZEVOS.COM
VEGAE.COM
SINBOL.COM
KATZURA.COM
KOZORU.COM
OHZ.COM – SEDO Auction
12/8/15 (posted by admin) — Anyone wishing to get this super-short domain, OHZ.com, should go bid right now: Sedo.com
There are only 1.5 days left in the Auction!
Due to the ocean swell of Chinese buying of domain names, I think we start regarding these Eastern domainers as superhuman and able to get profits easily. Probably this is myth, if not downright stereotype. Sometimes I am seeing missed opportunities. For instance, this domain name — DNQQ.com — which contains both the DN like in DN.com, the Chinese domain marketplace, and then it ends in QQ, like the IM service I think of as the Chinese Yahoo —
— is for sale at roughly $1,560 USD. https://www.4.cn/search/detail/pid/5989883/ref/10017
That seems like an excellent buy to me; in fact, cheap. However, I’m wondering if it’s as attractive to a buyer in China.
Another observation: If you’re selling a numeric like 115888.com, is it de rigueur to make the price end in “888” also? I see many examples of it. Maybe Rick Schwartz could comment on this. Maybe it’s just good luck to make everything 888 when you can; so why not?
Selling CHIPs – The Chinese Market
11/25/15 (posted by admin) — If you’re selling Chinese premium domains (and who isn’t?), you have likely had this happen: You got multiple offers from clamoring buyers who agreed to a price but then suddenly went silent. You couldn’t reach them anymore, and if you did, they changed their minds — or wanted to pay less.
In the western hemisphere the issues can be a little opaque. But Chinese domainers are probably having a difficult time of it.
It seems they’re dealing not only with a volatile demand for these domains in their own country, but the Chinese stock markets, whose ups and downs strongly affect all other economic endeavors. Some buyers speak of a “crash,” and it’s unclear sometimes whether they’re talking directly about the market for these domains and the demand for them, or the general stock exchanges. In fact, when investors treat domains like stocks, the differences become blurred.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) for instance had been climbing all year, then in late summer experienced a series of huge drops/crashes. A recent big drop occurred in early November. A lot of recovery has occurred today and yesterday.
And on 4.cn, bidding on some LLLL.com domains is again reaching the equivalent of $1,000 USD and more. Business appears to be going back to how it was…
Domainers Choice Awards!
3/28/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — This year’s Domainer’s Choice Awards nominees have been selected, although the voting will not happen until May. You can check out the nominees for the different categories at http://domainerschoiceawards.com/2014-nominees/ so don’t forget to check them out and start picking your favorites!
You do need to sign up, with a valid email, since the voting system will be done by a 3rd party system this year and they will be sending you the email with instructions and where you can vote (it will be sent in May). After the voting, the awards will be given out on June 28th at Dana Point, California.
Connecting With Gigadomains.com
3/5/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — For anyone looking for special domains, or if they want to stay up to date with anything related to GigaDomains, you can follow us through Twitter:
GigaDomains
And if you want to post anything interesting, ask questions, or keep up to date, you can visit our Facebook page:
GigaDomains FB
You will probably notice there isn’t much on them yet, but we are working towards being able to interact with thousands. Visit us and post something!
Types of Domain Inquiries You’re Likely To Encounter
3/5/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — With the multitude of different domain brokers, sellers, and auctions, there will always be a market where the customer comes to you looking for a domain. It is when, we receive anywhere from one to countless domain inquiries straight to our inbox. These are the good types of inquiries, the ones you did not have to actively seek out, but rather fell on your lap. However, there are always different types of domain inquiries, and from my experience, it is good to know about them before proceeding with negotiation.
1st Type: End-User with Low Budget
This is when a person, or group of people, are trying to make a small start-up happen, or the ones that simply want to get a website going to sell their merchandise. They will pick good names, but they won’t offer much for it, or be able to, as they are not crowd funded or have much capital to begin with. Before replying, look through your domains and check what other, less expensive domains you have that could fit in with their business plan. If they don’t mention anything about their business, ask them first. These can either end quickly, or lead to a good, yet small sale.
2nd Type: Big Time End-User
These are the ones you want to get if you are selling really good premium domains. They tend to have more capital in their pocket to work with, making it easier to negotiate a good price for the more expensive domains. However, I warn you, not all of the inquiries that seem promising will go well. There have been a few inquiries where I know who they are, yet they will still try and low-ball or argue that the domain isn’t worth as much. This is when you need all of your negotiation tactics at hand, and keep a cool head. You could walk away with a big sale.
3rd Type: Resellers and Domainers
These inquiries are when other domainers/resellers want to buy a good name, at a very discounted price. This is obviously with the end goal of either parking it for a bit then reselling, or simply flipping the domain right away. Whenever I spot one of these types of inquiries, I ask what their purpose for the domain is. Many times you know who they are from their answers. An example of this would have to be when you try and sell a domain, but they want to “develop” it for something totally unrelated to the domain name; i.e. I want to create an online dog shop with GoodLayers.com. I don’t stay too long negotiating.
4th Type: The No-Repliers, a.k.a. Spammers
These are the ones that you see quite often, as you get the same emails from the same person, inquiring about several different domains you own. However, when and IF you do respond, you never get an answer back. I’m a nice guy, so I like to be courteous and respond to most of the inquiries that are sent to me. After a while, you get to know who these spammers are, and simply Delete or Spam their messages.
5th Type: 3rd Parties, Brokers or Development Firms
It is nice to get emails from other brokers inquiring, on behalf of a client, about a certain domain you own. This way, you don’t have to deal directly with the client, and can still keep your negotiation skills sharp. They are much more polite, although you don’t really get to know the client/end-user, so you really don’t know who you are selling it to. Development firms, usually are the ones that never disclose any information about their clients, yet request enormous amounts of information about your domains. You can research these firms to check how legit they are, and mot of the time they are small firms that develop websites for clients (while also acquiring the domain the client wants to develop). These clients can be more serious about purchasing, just like the big end-users, so it is in your best interest to give them a good price.
These are the general 5 types of email inquiries that I deal with on a day to day basis, but there are always surprises.
Will The New GTLDs Affect The .Com?
2/25/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — With the new gTLD’s making their debut, there are many people divided when they think about what will happen to the .com’s that have always been around. There are basically two general points of view, while there are specific differences of thought, these are what I have come to perceive from the domaining community.
View 1: New gTLD’s will take over. It is simple, with the many different uses and applications the new extensions will have, they will make the value of regular .com’s plummet to the same level of the gTLD’s (obviously after the prices drop to normal).
View 2: .Com’s will continue to be strong. There are some that believe that the .com will drop in price, but will go back up after the initial hype of the new gTLD’s dies down. The .com’s have always been viewed as a better extension, than say .net or .info, but that is only due to people’s perception. By adding more extensions, this could cause the .com to become more rare, making it more valuable based on people’s perceptions, although it can also be a double-edged sword.
As for me, the new gTLD’s simply bring about a change that could offer much more to end-users, as well as to domainers. Allowing them to be more specific in the domain search. There is a certain disadvantage at the start though, as the price for these domains is so high at the start, that only the big companies and wealthy will be able to get the best picks. Either way, we will have to wait until the new gTLD hype is over to start truly seeing how the .com is affected.
Enom Adds New GTLD Calendar
2/24/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — Apparently, the giant in domains eNom has given its users, and anyone else interested in the new gTLD’s a calendar with the release dates and times for the different extensions. This is a great tool for us domain resellers, as it allows us to stay up to date with when the new extensions will be released.
You can check out the calendar through the eNom website: http://www.enom.com/news/674/new-tld-launch-calendar-now-available.html. Or, you can simply copy+paste the following URL into your browser (if you are using a PC):
https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=jrcl5bfa9bdoi0rbqkv8ttq1q8%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles
There have already been a few domain extensions released like, .DANCE, .CONSTRUCTION, .DIAMONS, .CEO, and .AGENCY. Stay up to date with the eNom calendar, but remember that these gTLD releases are the ones that eNom supports, so you may not see all of the new gTLD’d available. Be sure to check out other sites like ICANN or other domain sites.
A Little About The New GTLDs
2/24/14 (posted by Nate Wittig) — Some time back, the announcement that new gTLD’s would be coming out hit hard, especially among domain brokers. This was an opportunity to expand the internet as we know it, by allowing websites and domains to be more specific. For instance, we can have the name of a music group followed by the .MUSIC, or have the name of shopping store followed by the .STORE. This has enabled such an extensive network of new gTLD’s that will make it much easier for companies and people to find a niche and use the extension that applies to it.
This is good news as a domain developer; however, as a domain broker this could make business harder. With the previous gTLD’s like .com, .net, .org, etc. we saw that it was tough to gauge out what the end-users wanted. With the amount of gTLD’s exploding, where there are already over 1,300 different ones, and more are being added as we speak. As domain brokers, it is risky to try and predict the future with these new gTLD’s, as there isn’t an assurance that they will get to be as strong or popular as the .com or .net, and flop like the .mobi did.
To get a preview of some of the new gTLD’s extensions that are currently available you can take a look at them here: http://www.instra.com/en/new-gtlds/categories.
The future is uncertain with these new extensions; however, it could open up a much larger market for everyone, not just the domain brokers. The price for early access to some of these new domain extensions are incredibly high, reaching averages of $10,000 – $13,000 for each. While after about a week, the price of registering under these new extensions will lower to the regular price. So, if you are thinking of trying to register the amazing, once-in-a-lifetime domain names, you may need to either pony up the cash for early access, or hope that no one else registers the name before you get a chance to.
Welcome To GigaDomains!
2/21/14 (posted by admin) — GigaDomains.com has been working in the domains business for over 16 years. The group of people involved have all gained enormous amount of experience when it comes to branding and developing their own domains, with the occasional sale of certain domains (as there are thousands to choose from). Whether it is domaining, domain brokering, or anything SEO related, we are confident we have more than enough expertise to help anyone.
Come in and take a look around, and you may find something amazing you will like.
