Mike Davidson: How to Snatch an Expiring Domain

A Tale of an Expired Domain

Registering an expired domain can be quite the challenge, as well as relatively expensive. Some people have had better luck than Mike with grabbing expiring domains, but then again, there are a million stories in the naked Internet, and each one is unique. It's hard to compare the relative worth of domain names or even web sites, so it's often a matter of personal choice as to how much a domain name or web site is worth.

Here's a look at the most expensive domain name sales ever. There's a chart in the middle of the page of that article that shows some tid bits about the who, what, where, and what condition the domain is in now. Interesting reading. There are a number of extremely successful web sites that are not quite so highly publicized, and from time to time, offers are made, and sometimes, sites change hands.

For example, the owner of Sonoma Health was reportedly offered US$1 million by a competitor for his entire site, after the site had been up about 1 year. The traffic to the site was, at the time, primarily being used to pull in leads which the owner converted to income in the neighborhood of US$.25 million. This was by no means a passive income generator.

Still, 1 million dollars seems a little low. Here's why... 1 million bucks invested at 10% would generate about $100,000 per year in passive income. This site was producing about 2.5 times that, although not in passive income. It's difficult to determine if some alteration in the basic business model of the site could have produced significant passive income, but it is likely. Passive affiliate and advertising strategies, such as Google Adsense, could have increased or possibly even matched that income.

In any case, it does seem reasonable that to a competitor, the value of the site was worth more than simply that income alone. For one thing, the raw volume of targeted traffic that would now be under their control would have inherent value. For another, that traffic could be converted to sales, both front end and back end. Remember, once a sale is made, this company has a new customer, and that has long term implications for future earnings. In addition, any sales made would be those that their former competitor (Sonoma) was no longer stealing away from them. Again, a long term customer/client has inherent future value.

Looking at it from the point of view of the current owner of the site, here is what we see. Starting from near zero, the site had been built into an income generator upwards of $250,000. It would take $2.5 million invested at 10% to passively generate that kind of income. In theory, then, that site was actually worth $2.5 million to him at the time, give or take.

Taking $1 million for the site would generate only $100,000, although this would now be passive income, leaving him to build, presumably yet another web site. That web site would only have to be about half as successful as the first, to match the present level of income. Not bad, but a risk, nonetheless. I think I'd keep the site and hold out for a higher bid, but that's just me sitting here thinking.

Whether you're looking to grab an expired domain name or make a direct purchase of a web site, you have a bit of a task ahead of you. While it seems like a lot more work, an alternative and perhaps lower risk approach would be to research supply and demand for your area of interest, and start a web site from scratch.

What Can We Learn from UltSearch?

UltSearch? What's that? This story is a bit of old news, but the concept behind it is still viable as a means to earn an income from the Internet. Even Microsoft was not immune to this massive Internet takeover by a man often referred to only as UltSearch.

The concept? Seek out domains that pull in significant traffic, through existing links and/or bookmarks, and wait. Wait for what? Wait for their owners to fail to renew them. Then, purchase them, basically right out from under them, and convert the site to a pay per click landing page. At that point, simply wait for the traffic, and the money, to roll in.

It has been reported that Ultsearch, as he is known, began purchasing domains in 1998, and built that into a collection of over 50,000 money making domains, all without spending anything on advertising, content creation, or linking campaigns. He eventually sold out for as much as US$164 million if you believe the reports.

There's a pretty extensive description of how UltSearch did what he did at Expired Traffic if you'd like to see more.

Does this opportunity exist today? Yes, to some degree. Actually, at this point, there are ways that you can get in on some revenue sharing opportunities where other companies do the majority of the work for you, and you split the profits.

While UltSearch relaxes on a beach somewhere spending his millions, the rest of us can marvel at his success, or learn from his example and get in on some of the action.

Get Rich Online and Work At Home

Get Rich Online, Work at Home, and Live Richly

Getting rich on the Internet is easy, if you only know how. Through Internet marketing, work at home, and home based business programs, so called online "Guru's" promise to that you will get rich by following their advice. Just put up a web site, and the money will roll in. After all, your Guru did it, and you can too, right?

Well, after spending over $10,000 of my own money, a couple years of hard work, and months of therapy later, with not much to show for it but a credit card bill, I'm here to show you how ordinary people actually do get rich online every day.

I'll also talk about living richly, getting inspired and motivated, amassing wealth in various ways and how it might compare to online wealth building, and a host of other ramblings that I see fit to put in writing. If you've already made it big online, then congratulations to you, you've already won the lottery. If you haven't, then you just might want to pay attention to some of the things I point out.

Have you been looking around at the myriad of programs, schemes, and ah... well, potential scams out there in the online world, and wondering... "what the hell is real and what is fake?" Well, some of it is real, some of it is real "only if," and some of it is fake. Of course, someone is getting rich off of the fake, just no you or me.

So follow along as I explain the good, the bad, the ugly, and the horrifying of the legitimate, the borderline, and the outright scams in the work at home, get rich quick, home based business, and internet marketing world.