Portfolio Sells for $164 Million

[chromate]

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/02/22/searchoptimized_domain_portfolio_sells_for_164_mil lion.html

I've never really given these domains much thought before. However, now I realise what a luxury it must be to have all these domains generating so much money. No need to keep anything updated, or think up any new ideas or content. Just keep the domains renewed and relax.

Makes me wonder how future proof it is though. I mean, there must be a decreasing number of people that just type in a domain name hoping they get something relevant. Increasingly, people must use search engines instead.

[moonshield]

yea, but that is 100,000 domains. Most of them are misspellings of popular sites. So they will probably maintain an income.

[chromate]

How dya know most of them are misspellings? Not saying you're wrong. Just wondered where you found that out. Also, assuming that it is a misspelling of a popular site, as soon as the domain name resolves, the user will realise that it's not the site they expect, so they're likely to re-type the domain rather than click on one of the links provided.

So I would imagine the main revenue stream is from people wanting information and just guessing the domain name, like jobinfo.com or something. They're more likely to click the links. But they're also more likely to just use a search engine in the future I would think.

Still an interesting deal though. $164million is a lot of money. To put it into perspective, that's $1640 per domain!

[moonshield]

thats just what I heard on sitepoint somewhere.

[ozgression]

I thought this deal went through months ago.

Marchex own enhance.com (formerly ah-ha.com), a pay per click advertising company.

They will probably be using these domains as a way to get more clicks to their advertisers.

[chromate]

No idea. I've only seen it on netcraft.

Yeah, Marchex will definitely keep using them for PPC ads.

[aj8]

Buying and selling domain names can make money, but it's a very unsure thing. I've bought and sold domains in the past, and made probably a couple of thousand at it.. But, I still have a large portfolio of domains that I am not using and every single month I chuck some money away renewing a few of them ...

A long while ago I made a reasonable sum from domains ending ".to" - Tonga. I found a company that would buy them and use them in 'website redirection'.. But they went bust, obviously because they couldn't sustain the spending of thousands of dollars on domains...

Perhaps I should list a few that I'm not using in the for sale forum... Might be floggable ;)

A

[moonshield]

yea, I have a little portfolio of a around 65 domains. I have made a pretty penny selling a few of them though. I don't want to sell domains anymore, I would rather develop them.

[James]

Agreed, but when you reach a certain point you finally realize: god damnit, I just don't have the time for all of these!

I'd say develop them one at a time though, find some you really like and hold onto them, and then sell the ones you feel you don't like as much any more. That way you still sell them, and get more money from them, but get to make sure you wouldn't really enjoy owning the sites.

[moonshield]

or do the residual income thing.

[James]

Even if your sites just sit there, they'll often need at least a bit of maintainence--unless you want very very little residual income.

Of course, you can always have a bunch of websites run by other people and just take a cut of the profits--but even that takes maintainence, making sure they're all doing their jobs, sending checks to them (I assume it'd be your affiliate accounts, rather than theirs)....