What is the most you have spent to buy an undeveloped domain?

[MichaelCorfman]

It is very common for webmasters to buy and sell domains or websites. We ran a poll on that topic back in 2012, and of the 35 votes currently cast in that poll, 30 of them were from folks who had bought or sold domains or websites. That's more than 85%. You can see that poll here: Have you bought or sold domains or websites or businesses?

Personally, I don't buy domains that often, but I do every once in a while. So for this week's poll I thought I'd ask how much folks who buy domains are willing to spend for them. Not with the idea of flipping them, but with the idea of buying a domain because you plan to use it yourself.

Besides voting in the poll, if you are willing to share what you have paid for domains, please do that in a post. And feel free to do the same about domains you have sold, and about your general thoughts about buying and selling domain names and websites.

Personally, for quite a long time, I never bought any domains other than unregistered domains directly from domain registrars, but that has changed over time. The most recent, and most expensive domain I bought, was gamingregulation.com for $3,000 a few months ago. We are building the site that will reside on that domain now. Previously the most expensive domain I had bought cost $2,000. That was for gamingdirectory.com, and it was bought nearly a decade ago. On the selling side, I was extremely fortunate to have registered a number of good domains back in the early days when they were available for the taking. I have sold virtually none of them, but there are two I sold for a pretty penny in 2007 when the buyers came to me with unsolicited offers. They were casinoguide.com, which sold for $75,000, and bestcasino.com, which sold for $55,000. In hindsight I wish I had registered a lot of domains like those back in 1995 when they were readily available. The most important domain I registered directly with a registrar at that time was CasinoCity.com.

Michael

[MrBinaryAff]

Hi,

Thanks for the great poll! I am amazed by your figures of sold domains, that is really good!

I/my partners have never bought a domain from anyone else except the registrator. Maybe because our projects were never very serious and were always low on a start-up budget.

Now it was good to buy new gTLD domains, and I think there are still some good domains up to grab and maybe resell.

[RacingJim]

Interesting post Michael, I have never paid more than $250 for an undeveloped domain. I would of course pay a lot more for developed domains where trust has been built up in Google and where rankings are steady so I can add value, rather like buying a house that needs doing up.

Interesting what you said about domains being available in 1995, I wish I was onto things back then, but unfortunately I was 13 and probably out playing football somewhere. There were still a lot of good domains available as recently as 2004-ish when I first got into the internet in a bigger way, but it took me until about 2008 to really start buying domains and by then it was much slimmer pickings. There were still a few gems even then though, whereas now it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.

[sweetbet]

I purchased a number of exact match domains many years ago. They were doing very well in the SERPS until google changed all that.

[DanHorvat]

Depending on the circumstances, I'd be willing to pay top dollar for a domain. There are priceless ones.

I have only paid up to $500 for a domain so far though, as I'm mostly trying to find handregs - and I do find good ones.

Recently I've found a great handreg but hesitated for weeks, and when I finally took out my credit card I saw that someone registered the domain earlier that day. I was gutted. Two weeks later I found the expiring .cc with a great backlink profile.

I got to buy that one-word EMD unobstructed by anyone - not even hoarders - because everyone was after the plural form, including the market leader in that micro niche. But it's the singular form that allows for two-word exact match queries.

I guess I was the only one who actually took the full URL of the future website into consideration. Basics, my dear hoarders.

[MichaelBluejay]

I paid $500 for VegasClick.com in 2006 (replacing VegasReference.com that I registered circa 2000). That was the only time I bought a domain name. I was lucky to score good names for my other sites back in the day, like BicycleSafe.com and WebsiteHelpers.com.

In 2003 the WizardOfOdds split with his old partners, and the deal was they got the old domain name (THEwizardOfOdds.com), and he got the content. He then partnered with me, and bought WizardOfOdds.com (no "the") to put the content on, paying $5000 for it. At the time I thought he was crazy, because $10 domains were still plentiful, but in hindsight it's exactly what he needed for his brand, and considering how much we grew the business, it was well worth it.

Around 2005 I bought a bunch of domain names, thinking I might develop one or more of them into a site, but I haven't gotten around to it, and I have a Ten-Year Rule: If I haven't used something in ten years I'm supposed to get rid of it, so I'll be putting the following up for sale through one of the usual outlets once I get around to it. Of course, someone's welcome to make me an offer for any of them in the meantime. If any of them happen to sell for big money, it will be funny that the Wizard declined my offer to give any of them to him two years ago for free.

[TheGooner]

Never bought / sold a domain - only ever registered domains.

[golfbettingsystem]

Bought a domain for £300 off of a competitor in the same niche who had given up on his site apparently to pursue another career, thought I had a bargain given the backlink profile and Majestic stats etc....until I found it had a manual penalty for outbound links. Big lesson learned that day

[DanHorvat]

I hand registered sex.io yesterday, for that 0.01% chance that the domain will really be mine and that it's not just an error. I saw it, paid for it, and for a couple of hours I had faint hopes that the domain will really have my name on the Whois.

It turned out to be an error and I got a refund, but what a story it would have been...

[Doolally]

I've bought a few undeveloped domains in the $600-700 but have sold some for mid to high 4 figures for other undeveloped domains.

The strange thing for me is that people will pay $3k or $4k for a domain and then do absolutely nothing with it. I guess they're maybe thinking they'll get a return if they just sit tight for a few years.

[blackriver]

I have bought few com domains in $1000-$1500 range. Some of them, after developing sites, already made x times more.

[Eddie G]

Couple of mid 4 figure domains, but don't think it's worth paying more these days, unless it's a 1 or 2 really good word .com

[Triple7]

25 dollars

[Simmo!]

When exact match domains (EMDs) were in favour I'd pay decent money for a good one. Now that the advantage of EMD is simply to complement the content you simply don't need to pay high asking prices: there are plenty of very brandable names available for 10's and 00's rather than 000's - or even to register with a bit of thought.

The value now when buying is all in the content, the authority, trust and history which together create the brand. Exact match is all but irrelevant now so you definitely did the right thing selling those 2 domains IMO Michael

[Topboss]

My best sale and profit made was onlinecasino.co.za - Bought it for $2000.00 about 10 years ago and sold it a year ago for $100 0000.00. It was a developed site and making decent money though, but it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

[AndyBonus]

..... and bestcasino.com, which sold for $55,000.
Michael

I hope you got paid for that? I sold bestbingo.com to what could be the the same company and never received a penny.

[justbookies]

I have bought a few, but only two for five figures. One is a single word exact match domain but it wasn't a .com and all the new extensions have rendered it worthless in my view. The other is a .com that I think is worth much more than I paid, but I dont have the time to keep the website on it up to date at the moment . . the two .com sites I do keep up to date were both registered for free.

I did sell one name that I thought was worth maybe $100 for $7500, but it could (and was) turned into a brand.

I am kind of amazed at the worthless rubbish people often advertise on this forum for sale - I am letting better names lapse. If after a year or so you are getting no interest on sedo or the like, take the hint.

[TheGooner]

I did sell one name that I thought was worth maybe $100 for $7500, but it could (and was) turned into a brand.

If I could sell something worth $100 for $7500 like you did then I think I would be a lot more active in the domain area too - well done!

I am kind of amazed at the worthless rubbish people often advertise on this forum for sale - I am letting better names lapse. If after a year or so you are getting no interest on sedo or the like, take the hint.

As you say it is amazing what is valuable. Asian minds seem to love numbers ... 345.com sells for $800K - WTF?!
(source http://www.dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm )

And look down to #38 to #45 there are four or five more all selling for over $100K - there is little accounting for what is valuable. It just takes time to find the buyer who is willing to pay.

[Simmo!]

If And look down to #38 to #45 there are four or five more all selling for over $100K - there is little accounting for what is valuable. It just takes time to find the buyer who is willing to pay.

What I found really interesting in that list is that 91 of the Top 100 sold in 2015 (so far!) are .com - and most of the others are logical country extensions like .se. Just one .net, one .org, one .info and one .co in there that I can see.

That could well indicate a feeling that all these new domain extensions are simply creating brand confusion and .com is what is seen to be needed to be regarded as a stand-out sign of trust.

[wettFORM.AT]

I don´t buy domains very often I own only a few but these domains were all available to buy. I only bought one domain directly but it wasn´t that expensive.