Make money from domain names

It is possible to make money from domain names even if you do not have a website. You can make money buying and selling domain names or even allowing people to place adverts on the domain until you either use it for a website or someone buys it.

A domain is a unique name used as an address to identify web pages on the internet and examples include  google.com and ebay.co.uk. In these two examples the .com and .co.uk are the top level domains and google and ebay are second level domains. 

A good domain name will tend to end .com, .co.uk, .net or .org and although other top level domains are becoming more popular these 4 tend to be the easiest to remember and hence the ones will pay the most to buy. A good domain name also need to be short and catchy as the easier it is to remember the more likely it is that people will use it.

Some recent domain name sales according to DNJournal show that fund.com sold for $9,999,950, data recovery.com sold for $1,659,000 and cruises.co.uk sold for £560,000. Whilst it is unlikely any domain you buy will be resold for these amounts it certainly does show it is possible. As well as DNJournal you can have a look at Afternic or Sedo to find out how much web domains are selling for.

What makes domain names so appealing as a money making idea is it costs less than £3 to buy a .co.uk domain from 123reg or 1&1 and a little more for a .com name. Also these sites tend to offer special offers such as buy a .com domain and get a .co.uk name free to make it even cheaper. Not only are the domains cheap to buy but once you have bought one you can earn money through companies such as Afternic and Sedo who will create a webpage for your domain and place adverts on it. This is called domain parking and you will then receive a share of any money Sedo or Afternic earn from these adverts.

The fastest and easiest ways to find good domain names is to use online tools such as  Nameboy, Webmaster toolkit, domainnamesoup, makewords and Google’s keyword tool etc. Although the majority of good domain names have been taken there are still some real gems to be found. 

The best way to sell your domain is through auction sites such as Ebay, Sedo and Afternic. If you have a good domain name and you are looking for a reasonable price it should not take long before a buyer bids for the domain or contacts you. Be careful not to ask too much for your domain as this may put potential buyers off and turning around several domains for a few hundred pounds may be more rewarding.

Be careful when you are buying a domain name that you do not register a domain name that resembles a trademark or a company name as there are various laws to prevent cyber squatting and your domain could be forcibly transferred.

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