I am the guy that decided to drop thousands of domains with General Top Level Domains (gTLDs) such as .biz and .cc over the past year alone.

I would not say that I have been burnt, as my domain portfolio had made much more than 10 times in profits than what I invested each year. Of course some domains made a lot of money, while some made nothing.

I simply took the decision to drop domains that were not monetizing well, and/or didn’t have any likelihood of selling within the next 24 months.

So I am not carrying any grudges. I haven’t made any losses in any of my years of domain investing, but instead made significant profits. The culling exercise that I have just finished undertaking with my domain portfolio is purely a business move to ensure further profitability and less exposure to risks.

Every day I wake up feeling exciting about the domain industry. Almost every day that goes by my web developers (who are located all over the world) have different projects working on that will enhance my businesses and help reposition them for growth, further profitability and success.

Some projects will not benefit us today, tomorrow, next week or even next year. This is the problem that I believe a lot of domainers have. They want success now. God said that he could have created the earth in one day, but he chose to do it in 6, resting on the seventh.

The domain race is not for the swift, but for those who can endure it to the end.

With the Internet, you have to understand that patience is a virtue that you will need in order to survive. Yes, with Pay Per Click and domain parking you may earn instant profits. However, as we have seen, the domain parking model is not sustainable as a business model and is rigged with the lack of transparency.

With the domain industry you can strike it lucky, but this is a business sector that is best suited for people who believe in getting ready for the main event.

We witnessed or heard of the Dot Com bubble bursting in the early 90’s. We saw the domain industry grow out of the ashes and flourish. We are now approaching the end of another decade and here we are been faced with uncertainties all over again.

Things work in cycle. That’s why we have seasons.

Something is coming. It is big. The ones who will laugh all the way to the bank are those who took the time to get prepared, instead of whining and moaning all day.

Is you domain business ready for showers of blessings? Those who prepare themselves will have an abundance of wealth.

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With domain registration costing as low as $1.99 for some domain extensions, and the possibility of selling those said domains for $x,xxx, one could easily get into the habit of registering domains on impulse without much research.

But with that been said, you would be surprised to learn the number of people who buy domains on the aftermarket as well, purely on impulse, without any clear purpose or strategy.

Domaining can be a very deceptive business. This is even more so with aftermarket domains. You buy a domain name on the aftermarket thinking to yourself, well, from now on, its only going to cost me $8 per year for renewal.

Sometimes you just register or purchase domains because you have enough money on your credit card to successfully checkout or complete the transaction. This is fine if you have a clear and definitive intention and methodology to monetize the domain name, successfully.

However, some people spend today, and realise that rather than making sensible investments, they have instead accumulated senseless liabilities.

If you have had issues with spending frivolously on domain names, here are a few essential questions to ask yourself before you buy the next domain name.

1. Can I afford this domain name?
If you are buying domains at $1.99 (mostly for .INFO) or the average $8 (for .COM) then the answer will most likely be a resounding “yes!”. However this is a trick question. I believe the fact that you can afford the $8 registration for a domain name is the problem here. Registering one domain at a time or taking advantage of bulk registration deals will not be a problem. You will only start feeling the weight of your overspending when you have to settle the credit card bills or have to contend with huge renewal expenditure for your entire domain portfolio.

So perhaps the question that you really want to ask is, “Can I afford to maintain my domain portfolio if I buy one more domain name?”

2. Do I really need this domain name?
This is again another trick question, as the answer will depend heavily on your domaining strategies.

If you are investing in domains for development, you will need to be proactive in your buying activities, in that you only buy domains that you will have the time and resources to develop, successfully.

If you monetize domains through Pay Per Click (PPC) or domain parking, then you will need to gather enough data to help you determine if the domain will be able to earn enough revenues to cover its renewal fees and more.

One of the golden rules of domaining is never to buy domains for the sole purpose of reselling them later. This will help you eliminate loads of mistakes and to avoid errors in judgement. However, if you are in the process of buying and selling domains, simply buy domains that someone else would want to buy, without the need for any hype.

3. Will I use this domain?
This question was dealt with above. However you do need to have a clear purpose for every domain that you purchase. Each domain name should help you in some way or another in your domaining strategies. This can be brand protection, monetization or development.

4. Can I buy the domain name cheaper or find a similar domain name?
This is a multi-million dollar question, for people who are selling domains. Think of the choices that your potential customers will have. When you do, you will either decide not to buy a particular domain for re-sale purposes or know how to price the domain accurately.

For domain buyers, I believe the question is self-explanatory. Simply do some research before each domain purchase. Read blogs and follow up on the daily domain news.

5 . Can I wait to buy this domain name?
I think in 99% of all cases, the answer will be a resounding “NO”! If you have found a great domain name that is unregistered, the chances are that it will not remain unregistered for long. Quite a few times when I am researching domains, I find a few that are unregistered. By the time I settle down to register them, I realise that someone else had beat me to them, only within the last few hours.

The same thing applies with an aftermarket domain name. You have a little bit more luxury where time is concerned here, but you still want to get your domain name before your competitors do.

With such tight time constraint, you want to be sure that you really NEED the domain name.

6. Will this domain save me time or money?
This is really a question that is normally asked by end-users. Will buying and using the domain name help you to reduce costs, such as marketing and advertising? Will it save you time in trying to promote and establish your brand?

7. Will this domain help me financially?
This I believe is the most important of all these 7 questions. Except for the cases where you are buying a domain name solely for brand-protection purposes, you definitely want to acquire domains that will make you money.

If you develop the domain name, the website should give you a decent Returns On Investment, and provide you with a consistent flow of revenues. If you park the domain name, it should at least comfortably earn enough to cover the annual renewal fees.

Ask yourself those questions whenever you plan to make a domain purchase and I guarantee that you won’t regret wasting money on domain names that will prove to be liabilities rather than assets.

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The whole domain industry seems to be finally getting excited about Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs). Even the American domainers are evidently testing the waters.

We had the chatter, the hype, the forums and the conference, so now what’s next?

I’m very pleased to hear that the TRAFFIC ccTLD went very well. Unfortunately I had other business commitments elsewhere in Europe and wasn’t able to fit TRAFFIC ccTLD in.

From what I have read so far on DN Journal it seem to have went very well and even surpassed expectations.

One of the reasons why I wanted to attended the ccTLD conference was to hear first-hand about the various restrictions and residency requirements that some registries seem to have for ccTLD. It would have also been good to chit-chat to the respective registry representatives and even local investors to get a clear idea as to the types of domains that are likely to do well on the domain aftermarket.

Analysis of ccTLDs
The ccTLDs do have tons of potential. The end-user markets are quite strong. If domainers get the right types of domains they could be laughing all the way to the bank.

Whereas a significant amount of the .com domains are parked or registered by speculators, I believe the majority of all registered ccTLDs are owned by end-users. Europeans like to use their own ccTLD.  One of the reasons for this is that while the .com version of their desired domain may be already taken, the ccTLD version is normally still available for registration.

Also, using the ccTLD is better for local search, branding and building trust amongst their local clientele.

Investing In ccTLDs
There are some ccTLDs that have loads of potential. And at the moment, that is all that they have got, potential. This is due to the fact that there are still loads of unregistered premium domain names for some ccTLDs. So the end-user still has a choice of top quality unregistered premium domains, and as a result, may be unwilling to spare the cash to invest in an aftermarket domain name.

Some ccTLDs are currently only attractive to long-term investors. It will take time, and even faith/risk-taking for the full aftermarket sales machinery to kick in for quite a few ccTLDs.

The only ccTLDs that will do well immediately on the aftermarket are those that monetize well, and those where the amount of unregistered premium domains are extremely limited.

If the ccTLD does well with domain parking, then there will be an immediate and active domainer-to-domainer sales market. If there are very few unregistered premium domains and the internet penetration in that particular country is quite high, then the domain aftermarket sales to end-users will be very strong.

My ccTLD Investment Strategies
Personally, I currently own my fair share of ccTLDs. I also owned hundreds of domains in various ccTLDs up until late last year. Most were sold, while some were dropped.

This recession has highlighted quite a few risks in my buy and hold domaining strategy. Given that barely any business sector was spared, I had to take various measures across my businesses in order for them to remain profitable.

When companies face economic uncertainties they take quite a few measures, most of which are tied to cutting costs. These costs are often related staff costs, and quite often the end result will be redundancies. The other popular measure taken by businesses is re-organisation. This often includes selling or shutting down certain aspects of a business.

With my domaining business, this re-organisation and shut down process will involve my buy-and hold investments. I am switching my business to a buy-and-flip model and limiting the number of long term buy-and-hold investments.

With that being said, this means that I won’t invest in the majority of ccTLDs until the aftermarket for those ccTLDs become extremely active. Of course the profit margins will be absolutely minimal, as all the great premium domains would have been registered by the buy-and-hold investors.

Diversity is key for the success of any businesses. I will keep a mixture of both long and short-term investments. However, I will reserve the long-term ccTLD investments only for the ultra-premium domains.

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The British recession was declared over by the Britain’s leading economics think-tank yesterday after it released upbeat estimates showing that growth in GDP resumed in April and May.

This is the news reported by all major newspapers yesterday including The Times and The Independent.

What does this mean to you?  Well it should mean that if you had any hesitations getting into domain investments then you should reconsider NOW and buy premium domains while prices are still at an all time low.

The bargains that are out there now will not be available much longer because premium domain prices will be on the way up again!

Savvy domain investors have been buying premium domains significantly under value for the last six months.  Many of them did so because we told them how to do it.

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I will quickly raise my hand here. I use to have this mentality that domains should not be sold. A domain name is quite unique, and if you happen to own a particular domain name, as there is none like it the value can only increase.

This is true, but only for some domain names. As we have seen in recent months, not all premium domain names will retain their value. As a matter of fact, rather than increasing in value, they will lose their value.

A lot of domains were overpriced in the first place. I have written before that there have been countless questionable domain sales figures in the past. Some domains and their reported sales figures just do not add up. However, save that for another day.

So the question is, are you selling domains? If an offer comes by, do you reject it, thinking that a multi-million dollar offer will come sooner rather than later?

Lets face it, when you get an offer on certain domain names, you should seriously consider yourself lucky. And am not just talking about crappy domains here.

There are some premium domain names that are indeed category killer, niche-dominating domain names. But the key thing to look at is, in that niche, how many potential end-users would you have that truly “get” domains?

If the players in that niche are unlikely to ”get” domains, then the chances of a domain sale in that niche are extremely remote. So yes, the domain name is a category-killer premium domain name, but the target market for an aftermarket domain sale is either very tiny or non-existent.

If you can’t successfully monetize a domain name, or don’t have the resources or time to develop the domain name into an ebusiness, then any offer that is profitable is a damn good offer.

Don’t get sentimental to domains that will never sell. You are falling in love with a liability, and that cannot be a good thing!

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