We have added a link to the marketplace on our homepage or you can visit it directly by clicking on the link below:

https://auctionpus.com/marketplace.html

The concept is simple: if you see something you like, click on the domain and you’ll be taken to the push page. On that page, you’ll be able to let us know if you want to buy the domain directly ($65 per domain) or push it to auction ($55 per domain).

If you’re using Estibot.com/Valuate.com or a similar tool and want to perform a bulk check, you can download our entire inventory as a .txt file or, the same way, if you’re using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool or a similar tool and want to perform a bulk keyword check, we’ve made your life easier by compiling a keyword list and making it available as a .txt document HERE.

There are 718 domains listed at the moment of writing and we’ll be updating the list at the beginning of each month as of this point. Enjoy!

Revenue Multiples 101

Most of you probably don’t buy sites on a regular basis but those who do can confirm that there’s a HUGE discrepancy when it comes to revenue multiples. On the one hand, if you have a website which relies exclusively on search engine traffic and want to sell it at its market value, you shouldn’t expect more than 6x – 8x MONTHLY revenue. Yes, m-o-n-t-h-l-y!

Now, of course, a complex site with a consistent traffic/revenue track record as well as with plenty of room to grow and an actual business model (not just a traffic source or two, not just a monetization method or two etc.) can be sold for a lot more in terms of multiples but let’s face it, most websites developed by the average domainer do NOT belong in this category, as I’ve explained here and here

OK but What If I Only Sell the Domain Based on Its Inherent Value?

It should be clear that you shouldn’t expect more than 6x – 8x monthly rev based on the fundamentals of a mediocre website. But doesn’t having a premium domain help? Of course it can help but a lot of times, you are doing more harm than good by turning a good domain into a mediocre (at best) website.

If the domain is actually great, then a serious developer who has a respectable budget and wants to turn it into a website which actually provides value will think twice about buying it from you if it has been turned into a mediocre website.

Why? Because the average domainer who develops websites usually ends up screwing up royally by:

1) Building links too aggressively -> a Google penalty
2) Using too many ad units -> AdSense issues
3) Turning the domain into a thin site which didn’t pass a manual check -> a Google penalty

… and so on.

In other words, if I’m a serious developer and want to buy a domain from you, I’ll think twice about doing it if you turned it into something like a minisite for one simple reason: crappy development carries more risk than you imagine.

If the domain got banned by Google because the previous owner built links too aggressively (for example), I’ll have to work a lot harder and invest more money in order to fix everything.

If the AdSense account of the previous owner got closed because the domain was turned into a MFA (Made For AdSense) site, I might end up being in trouble.

The list could go on and on but since I don’t want to turn this post into a novel, I’ll stop here and make it clear one final time that:

Crappy development REDUCES the resale value of a domain!

Why Mass Development?

Nobody can deny the fact that parking is not what it used to be and let’s face it: it was good while it lasted! You were able to make some decent money by simply pointing a domain to a nameserver and doing a little bit of basic tweaking here and there. In other words, parking represented maybe the closest thing to online passive income.

But things have changed and not for the better. A great domain that made $1000 per year a few years ago can barely make $400 per year at this point.

But Hey, $400 Per Year Is Not Bad, Right?

Sure, you can look at it this way if you’re feeling optimistic today. As far as the domains that made 3-4 figures per year are concerned, this way of thinking is not entirely unreasonable.

But let’s face it, domains like those represent a minority. I’ve given the $1,000 to $400 per year drop as an example. But what about domains which were making not $1,000 but a mere $10 per year and are now making $4 instead?

From Asset to Liability

At $10 per year, the domain is at least an asset. It’s making more than regfee and if you own thousands of such domains, it adds up. But at $4 per year, things no longer stand that way and an asset turned into a liability just like that.

As a person who owns thousands or even hundreds of domains, you’re dealing with an extremely tricky situation and are naturally asking yourself what needs to be done next. The seemingly obvious solution:

Wait a Minute, Why Don’t You Develop Them?

Let’s assume that you don’t have a lot of experience as a developer and decide to turn 500 domains into websites, domains which were making about $5,000 per year together via parking back in 2007 and which are currently only making $2,000 or so per year.

You hire a few people to get the job done at let’s say $30 per very very small website. One of those 5 to 10-page minisites I’ve referred to yesterday. And as I’ve mentioned yesterday, you’ll observe a few things:

1) You’ve invested $15,000 and now have 500 5 to 10-page minisites

2) Without additional traffic from let’s say search engines (the #1 traffic source for minisites by far), in other words by simply monetizing the current type-in traffic of a website, you’re making considerably LESS than by parking the domain.

Let’s refer to the 500 domains which were only making $2,000 per year parked. Park pages have considerably higher CTRs and the 500 domains which were making $2,000 per year parked will probably barely make $600 – $700 or so as minisites without additional traffic.

3) OK, so you need more traffic. But in order to generate search engine traffic, you need to build links and that will cost you even more money. And again, as mentioned here, search engines hate you.

Your sites will receive penalties, your AdSense account might get banned and so on. After a minisite creation + SEO campaign, let’s say a year or so later, most of your sites will probably be penalized on Google or even de-listed (which will even affect the resale value of a domain) and in most cases, you won’t even break even. You’ll be back to square one, with 500 websites which have no additional traffic and are making less than what they would have earned parked.

On top of that, you will probably lose your AdSense account as well. “No big deal”, you might think, “I’ll just switch to CPA”. Oh really? Here are two important aspects worth taking into consideration:

1) You will not always earn more by monetizing your traffic via CPA, there are more than a few niches which simply don’t have a lot of advertisers which will accept you as an affiliate.

2) Even if we assume that CPA makes you more than AdSense, it is HIGHLY unlikely that it will make you more than parking as far as most niches are concerned. And with the 5 to 10-page minisites I have referred to, it’s only a matter of time until you end up being penalized by search engines and having to limit yourself to simply monetizing the type-in traffic of a domain (as explained previously).

Alright, so building 5 to 10-page minisites is not the way to go. A lot of you are probably thinking:

Then What About Larger Sites?

Let’s refer to our 500 domains again. Instead of paying $30 per 5 to 10-page minisite, you can pay $200 for a decent site with let’s say 40 unique articles, an investment of $100,000 for 500 sites.

As per our initial example, those 500 sites are currently making $2,000 per year parked combined at this point. You’d have to invest your yearly parking revenue * 50 (yes, 50 years) just so you can have 500 live sites.

Then you have to invest money each year in order to have a steady influx of fresh unique content for each site. Let’s say $100 per year per site, in other words $50,000 per year for your entire portfolio.

Then you have to invest in SEO services in order to make it to the 1st page and stay there (yes, rankings need to be MAINTAINED). Let’s assume that your average term has 500 exact match monthly searches, then be EXTREMELY optimistic and say that you can get away with paying $100 per year per site for SEO services (and that’s only because the terms are not very competitive). Basically $50,000 per year for your entire portfolio.

A short expense recap (to make calculations easier, we’ll ignore regfees):

$100,000 initially
$50,000 yearly for content
$50,000 yearly for SEO services

Now let’s see how much money you’ll be making. We have assumed that your average domain has 500 exact match monthly searches. Now let’s assume that you’ll make it to the first page with each site and have 10,000 pageviews per year per site as an average (a moderately optimistic scenario and I’m taking long tail searches into consideration as well).

As far as your earnings per thousand pageviews are concerned, let’s be EXTREMELY optimistic (again, EXTREMELY) and assume that you will make $20. In other words, you’ll make $200 per year per site ($100,000 per year for the 500 sites combined) if we’re extremely optimistic.

The Final Numbers

Initial investment: $100,000
Yearly expenses (content + SEO): $100,000
Yearly revenue: $100,000

After drawing the line, you’ll see that you’re basically in a yearly “break even” situation and you probably won’t be recouping your initial $100k investment anytime soon.

Does having a great domain help? Yes!
Is having a great domain enough? No!

But What If Your Numbers Are Way Off?

You know what? They probably are but only because I’ve been quite optimistic! Here’s why I think that I’ve been optimistic:

1) I have assumed that each and every site will make it to the 1st page and that each and every site will receive 10,000 yearly pageviews

2) I have assumed that all sites will earn a steady $20 per thousand pageviews

3) I have assumed that there will be SEO companies willing to work on each site for $100 per year. In other words, less than $10 per month per site

4) I have assumed that you will find a company willing to build you 500 non-spammy websites with 40 decent articles for $200 each

5) I have assumed that none of your sites will receive penalties, highly unlikely given the fact that search engine algos are as unpredictable as it gets and that, whether people want to admit it or not, Google hates SEO. In an ideal situation, they would want all links to be editorial.

Is Mass Development a Viable Long-Term Business Model

You’re all smart adults, what do you think?

First of all, let me define what most domainers consider a minisite and take it from there. According to most folks, a minisite is a website which has let’s say 5 – 10 pages of unique content, a custom header and is monetized via Google AdSense. That’s pretty much it, feel free to check out some of the various minisites domainers provide as examples on forums and you’ll see that my definition applies to most of them.

That being stated, here’s how an elementary school teacher would explain the way things stand with these minisites:

1) The guys who are running the Google search engine hate you. They do not want their listings polluted with sites which do not provide any real value. If you think that your 5 or 10-page minisite actually provides value, you couldn’t be more wrong.

2) The guys who are running AdSense hate you as well. Why? Because your average 5 or 10-page minisites represent MFA (Made For AdSense) websites in their eyes. In case you were wondering why so many people get banned from AdSense, the answer is simple: MFA sites are against their TOS.

3) Everyone knows that the folks who are running the Google search engine and those who are running AdSense all work for the same company. As a result, it’s safe to say that if you’re building minisites, Google hates your guts.

In other words, your business model is 100% dependent on a company which hates you.

You want Google to send traffic your way, yet they hate you.

You want Google to send money your way, yet they hate you.

Need I say more?

The portfolio will be sold to the first person or company that contacts me by sending an email to admin@domainingtips.com. Domains can be sold individually at $49.5 each if and only if you want to purchase 10 at the very least.

Here are the 272 domains:

- Sale Over -

In order to buy them, shoot me an email at admin@domainingtips.com and let me know which domain(s) you have chosen.

- Sale Over –

Those are our 3 main selling points. I decided to launch MiniEscrow.com because, in my opinion, the market wants an escrow company which specializes in small transactions (we also accept larger transactions but please understand that the verification process will be thorough for obvious reasons) and gets the job done asap.

We really are open 24/7/365, our commission is indeed only 2.5% and yes, we accept complex transactions (domains, domains + websites, you name it).

This is not just a project someone can launch within a week or so. For example, we will be working closely with PayPal since we are specializing in small transactions and, as per the PayPal terms, we needed to go through a special verification process (if you think that anyone can be accepted just like that, you couldn’t be more wrong). As an escrow company owner, I understand that there is a lot of responsibility involved and am acting accordingly.

We have a great relationship with practically all of the well-known registrars and our contact people will be more than happy to help us make sure that everything is always running smoothly. If you guys have any questions, feel free to use the MiniEscrow.com contact form or email us at support@miniescrow.com.

Again, we’re not willing to list domains with reserves that don’t make sense. If you own a domain like WQY.com and want to go with a reserve of $10k, please look elsewhere. A domain like that (low-quality LLL.com) is worth around $3.5k – $4k at this point, so the reserve should be in the $3.5k range.

If you own lots of 4-5 figure domains and would like some money in the bank as well, price your domains to sell and contact us. We’ll ask for an 8% commission if and only if the domain sells. Not too shabby, don’t you agree?

A little bit of info about each domain:

Q.pe

Peru (.pe), with a population of 28,836,700, is definitely NOT just some random tiny island. On the one hand, Q.pe is the shortest domain on the market at this point and that gives you a HUGE edge if you want to start an URL shortener. On the other hand, it represents an amazing ccTLD investment. Everyone wants a piece of the .pe market, find just one business owner who wouldn’t want this baby: we dare you!

dFrance.com

Tourism, tourism, tourism. Ask 100 people to name their top 3 travel destinations and you’ll see that at least 80% will have France on their list. The development/monetization possibilities are endless and this much is certain: dFrance.com has “I’m ready to play with the big boys” written all over it!

Joker.mobi

A HUGE term and the stats speak for themselves: we’re talking about 9,140,000 (yes, nine MILLION) broad global monthly searches and 1,000,000 (yes, one Million) exact match global monthly searches.

Sweatsuits.net

If you don’t understand what makes this product name dot net domain a gem, you’re better off staying away from this thing everyone calls “the Internet”. Some people call them “sweatsuits” (1 word), others refer to them as “sweat suits” (2 words) but this much is certain: both keywords have a lot of search volume and by owning Sweatsuits.net, you’re covered!

MovieWeblog.com

There will always be a LOT of demand for movie review websites and this gem is the best possible domain on the market for a movie blog. There’s a lot of competition out there and you need credibility. Fortunately for you, the domain MovieWeblog.com provides just that. After all, you can’t expect to be taken seriously if you own opinions-are-like-you-know-what-but-please-read-mine.museum! Watching movies, reviewing them and making money through affiliate programs such as Blockbuster.com and Netflix: sounds like a great way to earn a living, wouldn’t you agree?

SatireCartoons.com

Anyone who visits sites such as Digg on a regular basis can confirm that not a day goes by without a funny cartoon going viral. There’s a LOT of traffic on the table and having a domain like SatireCartoons.com will definitely represent an edge. After all, who wants to tell people about a site called Look-At-These-Satire-Cartoons.travel?

AmethystQuartz.com

Here’s a challenge for you: call a handful of jewelers and ask them what they think about the domain AmethystQuartz.com, let’s just say that each and every one of them would LOVE to own this baby. People will always want to buy jewelry, there are TRILLIONS of dollars at stake and most potential end users consider the amount you’d love to receive for this domain pocket change!

SmallHeadphones.com

There’s a lot of demand for small headphones and that will never change. Some people simply want to go by unnoticed when listening to music in class, other people need small headphones for professional reasons but this much is certain: small headphones represent an industry and by owning SmallHeadphones.com, you and only you will be in the spotlight!