Domains cost anywhere from $1.99 to $30.00 per year (most domains, .com, .net ...) when bought from a domain name registry ... some domains though have privately (or through auctions) sold for much more than their owners have paid for them !? For the record I am just stating that sex.com was sold for $14Million. why is that ? because not all domains are created equal ... .com .net .org .biz and a few others are easier to remember and more "valuable" to have ... some vocabulary words are also easy to remember and are also "valuable" ...



I am not really an expert to talk about what is valuable and what is not, take a look at what sells and at what prices on domain name journal or find lots of more information on the namepros forums.



Here is my take on domain names and the business of buying and selling.



Lets say you wanted to the same: buy some great domains in the hopes of selling them for great price later.



The idea is simple. Buy a domain and put it for sale at one of the auctions (sedo.com, afternic, tdnam.com, moniker.com etc) and wait for someone to buy it .... well the idea is simple but the odds are not in our favor. Why ? For once most of the sort names have been bought, I believe all the dictionary words have been bought too and now its the turn of two or three word phrases to become extinct (for some strange reason, domains with numbers are not much sought after ?!?) ... second you have to think of the costs involved ... surely one .com domain costs around $8/year (that is how much I pay at least) but if you are planning to do it seriously one domain wont do. People buy portofolios of what they think are great domains (in the thousands) in the hopes of selling one or two to get even or make a profit ...



Well no matter how many domains you want to buy do some research before you buy. See the trends using the google trends, check the search frequency of some of the phrases or keywords you are concentrating on, you can use one of my tools search engine queries estimates which is based on the overture keyword database.



After you have in your posession some domains you have a few choices while waiting for them to be sold.



You can post them on auctions and start advertising your willingness to sell the domains.



You can park your domains and get "some" money if people hit on the ads while visiting your domain



You can actually develop them into full fledged sites.

Can rent your domains or partner with someone else that develops them, while you keep full ownership of the domain



Parking

Developing the domains

Most "good" sort/keyword rich .com .net etc have already been bought: focus on country top level domain names if it makes sense.

Buy a name that even if you are stuck with, you have some idea on how to develop it into a website; As a matter of fact you can always develop your newly registered domain, a developed domain will most probably be bought for more than an underdeveloped one.

Each one has its own advantages.If you have a domain that everyone would be intrested in buying, the first option is probably enough; soon enough (with a not much advertisement) you can probably get a good deal.is not for all domains; if you domain does not get type-in traffic (type-in is the traffic are the people that think of a search query and instead type it with a .com or another extension at the end) then parking it won't be of any value. Most parking companies actually forbid you from linking to your domain while its parked.is probably the choice of domains that are not so "hot". You can do it yourself or have someone do it as a partner. No matter how its done you should never give your domain registries passwords away to someone that you don't trust; learn how to assign DNS settings yourselves, its not that difficult.Some closing thoughts: