Where are all the dot com’s?


No seriously… “Where are all the good .COM domains, eh?” That is a question which I get asked the most often by people. Here at DomainStryker.com we process literally millions of expiring domains that are going to be auctioned off but there aren’t that many great dot com’s included in our lists. Why?!? Why oh why…?????!?

Relax, there is no conspiracy.. The answer is real simple. There aren’t that many valuable .com keyword domains that are being auctioned off or released by domain registrars nowadays. There are plenty that are suppose to expire because the original owners do not renew them, but they never actually get to the auction stage.

The registrars have become domainers themselves in recent years as the domain industry has exploded in popularity and attracted VC funding and outsiders… Things have gotten very complicated thanks to them but it’s really no surprise and was to be expected. These money hungry companies are building up their own portfolios by basically cherry picking whatever they like from inventories of millions of domains.

So what happens is that companies such as eNom.com, Tucows.com, Register.com, etc actually keep the best domains that expire for themselves, and of course those happen to be dot com’s. A company such as eNom even runs it’s own “premium domain name brokerage” website over at AcquireThisName.com where they sell the domains for thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in profit. How about that?  Been going on for a couple of years now too.

Yep, I know what you are thinking… This totally sucks! But what else is new? They aren’t really breaking any rules or doing anything illegal. It’s all by the book. Their just doing whatever they can to turn in a profit at the end because they got businesses to run and investors to please.

Those who follow the expiring domains aftermarket since the early days know that things have been changing quite a bit since 2007. It’s never really been fair though either since the establishment of an aftermarket. There has always been loopholes, numerous “transparency” issues and people exploiting the system however they can and for as long as they can.

This business of buying domains and selling domains is definitely not for everyone. You have to be pretty creative or shall I say “clever” because there are many challenges to overcome if you are to become truly successful and master the art of domaining… But you know what they say, where there are huge risks there are even bigger rewards. Once you figure it all out, it doesn’t seem so bad and the money…. Mmmm ;) Lets just say it more than makes up for all the headaches involved!

One comment so far... Post another one below!

  • Hi

    I’d imagined this would be the case … can’t blame them. It must be so cool to have access like they have.

    I’m into securing great names and then developing them quickly rather than domaining as such and I’m yet to “figure it out” .. tend to spin my wheels a bit.

    There must be some second tier type names that the Registrars ignore, ones that are still valuable, given that their attention is likely to be focused on the top shelf.

    Or do you think they just sweep up everything of value into their vortex?

    If so, where’s the opportunity for the little guy? Is its .net, .org or elsewhere?

    Best

    Jeff

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