A tried and true off-line wealth maker is buying and selling property. Buy a property, do it up or just sit on it for a while and then sell for a profit. The online world is no different. You could start a home business based around selling domain names.

Domain name sales can provide a healthy return on investment. To illustrate lets say you found an unregistered domain called factsblog.com. The cost to register the domain through GoDaddy is $8.95 per annum. You register the domain for one year. Then sell it 6 months later for $100.00. In rough terms thats a 1000% return on investment ! Now this example is made-up. Factsblog.com did recently sell for $100 (see here) but I don’t have any other details about the transaction.

To get an idea for what different domain have sold for, have a look at Sedo and Godaddy.

There is potential to make a good income from buying and selling domains. Some of the larger sales have been:

  • Business.com – $7.5 million
  • Casino.com – $5.5 million
  • Korea.com – $5 million
  • Asseenontv.com – $5 million
  • Altavista.com – $3.25 million
  • Loans.com – $3 million
  • Wine.com – $3 million
  • Wines.com – $2.9 million
  • Tom.com – $2.5 million
  • Autos.com – $2.2 million

Here are a few online business models based around buying and selling domain names:

Expired domain Names – When you register a domain name you pay a fee which gives the right to use it for a period of time. When that time is up you either retain the name by paying another fee or do nothing and let it go. The domains which are let go are called expired domain names. You can find a few domains which are about to expire and which have good traffic. Then you register them yourself when they do expire. Once they are yours its just a matter of advertising them for sale at a price greater than what it cost to register.

Do-Ups – Find a good domain name then build a site around it. Add a web page, some back-links, do some SEO, add Adsense or affiliate links, building both traffic and income. Later on sell it as a turn-key website for approximately 10 times the annual revenue.

Typin Traffic – Look for a popular and high traffic URL. Now find all the misspellings around the URL. Buy them and place in a domain parking account. Domain Parking is simply a website which hosts your URL for a small fee. The advertising revenue from the traffic generated by the URL is shared with the URL owner. More details here

There are lots of other variations to this home business idea. Here are a few resources if you’d like to find out a bit more:

Sedo.com – A good place to start with tons of useful information about the domain industry

NamePros.com – Top rated forum for buying, selling and discussing domain names.

How I Sell My Domain Names – Teaches how to market your domain names for best price

Domain Name Express – Software for finding expired domain names

WhyPark.com – An alternative to traditional domain parking.

The Domain Secrets Book – Learn how to buy and sell domains for best profit

Filed under: Opportunities

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