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Ask HN: What do you think of the domain industry right now?

5 points by mslagh ↗ HN
Obviously the market for domains is way down, but do you think it will ever be the same? I tend to believe landing pages will be much more important going forward than great domains. However, this isn't exactly a great time to sell some of the bigger names I'm sitting on.

10 comments

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kbrower
I think the market for keyword based .com, .net, .org, and .us is still healthy and growing.

One data point: I was lucky and was able to purchase a .us domain with 135k exact match searches a month for $200, when the .com, .net, and .org were all asking 30k+ and not budging.

What domains are you sitting on and what do you expect to get for them?

mslagh
100M+ global monthly search volume according to google. I've owned the com, us and org variants for a little while now. I think names like this will always command a high dollar, but aggregators and traffic arbiters like google, fb, twitter, hunch, digg are only going to increase the value of solid landing pages rather than the one-word domains that "corner a market." Of course it's highly dependent on the search algorithm formula -- domainheads are always coming up with google conspiracy theories :)
csomar
I think it's not getting a buzz anymore (just people no longer talk and write about it). Actually, the domain industry is still alive and many people are making some decent money with it.

However, it won't make you a millionaire; the domain rage has ended. You can monetize your domain (rank high, place ads, make money) while waiting for an interesting buyer.

mslagh
Very sound advice. +1
andrewtj
Have you ever considered leasing domains (with an option to buy) out of your portfolio?
mslagh
I have definitely considered it. This option probably makes the most sense for startups who don't have a lot of capital up front.. turning as many fixed costs into marginal costs early on in the business.
andrewtj
I'm in the category of startups with low capital which is why I asked. In spite of it being a win/win for both parties it doesn't seem to be a common occurrence — as a domainer (for want of a better description), would you say my perception is off or is that really the case? Would a sedo-like service for leasing domains interest you?
mslagh
I think that's absolutely compelling, as long as it isn't anything like Sedo. The only things Sedo does well are (comparatively) low fees and customer service (which is excellent and necessary in the industry). Other than that, the interface is impossible to work with, and the internal messaging system leaves much to be desired. The only success I've had in selling domains to startups in the past were funded, so this would facilitate more revenue for the domainer, as cash flow from parking domains has really taken a hit over the past couple of years. I'm confident this idea has a fighting chance of being a success - I've seen other companies with large portfolios of domains go down the leasing route, but there's no transparent, market normalizer that lets the individual user post and lease domains. My one concern would be that this is a nice niche business (and one that could be fulfilling at that), you'd have to do your own research to see if the idea is big enough to warrant your own time and energy.
andrewtj
My interest derives mainly from being a bootstrapped startup and from being in a tangentially related field (DNS) but I'll keep this in mind for a time when I've got more breathing room — thanks for your insight.