Two years ago I read about making money with domains (someone likened it to online real estate) and bought a few domain names. Last year I submitted my domains to the TRAFFIC EAST 07 auction to be considered and two of my domains were accepted into the Silent Domain Auction: NewYorkAnimalHospital.com and GroomingCats.com. Of the two NewYorkAnimalHospital.com received no bids while GroomingCats.com sold for $550. Buying the domain only cost $8.95 per year and I had it for two years before I sold it.

Even though I made money on this sale I want to let everyone know that it’s not that simple before they rush out and start hoarding domain names. I still own a bunch of domains which still haven’t been sold yet! Alot of research goes into choosing domains and alot of people make the mistake I did when they first started out. That is to register any domain that they think sounds good.

There are actually two ways to earn from domains:

1. Buy them and resell them for a higher price
2. Buy them and make money from the revenue made from parking them.

But even if you’re planning to sell them later on you should always park them while you’re waiting so they’re not just wasting away and not earning anything for you.

Submit your domains into Auctions

If any of you have domains which are just sitting there and haven’t learnt how to sell them then I definately recommend submitting them to auctions to see if they’re be accepted. What have you got to lose? Moniker is a place to submit names for consideration, make sure you check there often since you need to submit names way in advance for consideration.

What about Parking?

Parking your domain names basically consists of registering with a company who will host and place advertisements on your domain related to the name itself. So instead of a dead website when people type in your website they will be greeted with a variety of different templates containing clickable advertisements. You make money when people click on these ads.
But how many people are really going to just type in your domain name into the address bar? If you plan to make money this way you need to do research into the names you wish to buy. No one is really going to just type a random bunch of words and this is why what you think may sound like a good name actually isn’t. You need to do research into keywords and how often people search these words.

You could register generic domains such as chocolate(.)com which is a great domain since it’s short and you immediately know what chocolate is. But in reality most good generic domains have been taken. Another idea is to register typos of popular websites, but you also need to be careful with this since if you register a domain that infringes a copyrighted name then you could be in for trouble.

As you can see there is alot to think about when it comes to domains and I haven’t even covered half of it. If you really want to go into domaining then make sure you do your research. Look it up online and browse through forums. Make sure you don’t rush into it!