Domain Name Capitalists

Over the years, domain names have been speculative, virtual real estate investments making many domain name buyers millionaires. Some of the wealthiest domain investors bought top-level domains with the extensions of .com, .net, and .org with the goal of reselling the domain name. Typically the highest offers are received for premium .com domains that are often keyword specific. Some of the highest prices ever paid for domains were:

sex.com $12 million
fund.com $10 million
porn.com $9.5 million
business.com $7.5 million
diamond.com $7.5 million
casino.com $5.5 million
asseenntv.com $5.1 million
korea.com $5 million
altavista.com $3.3 million
vodka.com $3 million
Wine.com $3.3 million
autos.com $2.2 million
express.com $1.8 million
wallstreet.com $1m
rock.com $1m
websites.com $970,000
drugs.com $830,000

These domain names are easily recognizable and possess strong branding possibilities. That is not to say that domains with other extensions are worthless. Quite the contrary, but above all, the .com extension is memorable to most Internet users and have historically sold for substantially more than other domain extensions.

In order to facilitate the listing, sales, purchasing and transfers of domain names, domain companies such as eBusinessDomains.com and Exdon.com were formed.

These domain companies are resellers and auctioneers of domain names. If you are looking to buy, sell or park a domain name, these sites offer expansive inventory of domains, services and tools to help you find the right domain name.

The business of buying and selling domain names in bulk is also known as "domaineering", has become a huge lucrative enterprise. The investors that buy domain names in bulk usually have a portfolio, like stocks, of many domain names. These investors are referred to as a "Domainer" and the business as "Domaining".

Many famous domain investors found that they could park their portfolio of domains and make money through traffic generated by web surfers who search for a subject, also called "organic" traffic. For example if you had the domain chocolate.com and a web surfer typed in chocolate without the extension, the search engine would most likely display chocolate.com as a result. Without actually having an ecommerce web site selling chocolate, the domain could make money with ad placements through pay-per-click advertising while the domain was just "parked". Domainers also found that purchasing and parking expired domains, was also profitable by taking advantage of the left over traffic from newly expired domains through keywords and pay-per-click ads.

Some of the more legendary domainers are: Frank Shilling, Yun Ye, Richard Lau, Clark Siegelin, Dr. Kevin Ham, Mike Bahlitzanakis, Rick Schwartz, Kelly P. Conlin and Marc Ostrofsky, just to name a few.

Dr. Kevin Ham won the Ernst & Young 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Technology Pacific Region and he won the “Domainer of the Year” in 2007. His domain businesses generate millions of dollars and his virtual domain real estate portfolio consists of thousands of domain names.

Richard Lau was the winner of the first T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s Year Award.

Mike Bahlitzanakis sold www.cellphones.com for $4.2 million, a huge profit since he bought if for only $90 in 1996.

Marc Ostrofsky sold Business.com for a reported $7.5 million in 1999.

Yun Ye sold a portfolio of domain names for $164 million.

These Domainer’s have all been very successful, and are model visionaries for the business of Domaining. Their achievements are the leading force of making Domaining a multimillion dollar business. Reading their success stories in not only inspirational, but also tells of an emerging market that has seen many changes and extensive development over the years. In order to adapt to those changes a few companies have excelled in providing services to help domainers and the business of domaining to be simple and profitable.

One such company is NameMedia, headed by Kelly P. Conlin, has purchased more than 650,000 Internet domain names. NameMedia was built to buy, sell, and develop businesses around Domaining. Mr. Conlin said: "Our objective is to build the largest portfolio of undeveloped real estate on the Internet. Some of the sites we have will be held for resale. The best ones, the waterfront properties, we'll build businesses around. It's a content-light, user- friendly way for people to find what they want."

NameMedia makes money through the use of pay-per-clicked ads and organic traffic on parked domains using Web 2.0 technology and the profits resulting from direct search or organic traffic. Their sales are project to possibly double in the next three years. NameMedia is one of the largest media companies to provide tools and technologies that create a better consumer experience.

If you are a Domainer, you are probably familiar with another company called Reinvent. Reinvent, founded in 2000 by Dr. Kevin Ham, has a portfolio of premium generic domain names and builds a global advertising network that provides advertisers with resources for obtaining a global presence. Reinvent specializes in professional domain solutions with targeted pay-per-click advertising relevant to each unique domain. Reinvent is dedicated to future acquisitions and continuing technological advancements.

Name Administration Inc., also called NAmedia, also serves the domain name investment community and operates thousands of generic domain names for paid search and development purposes. They possess a huge catalog of virtual properties. Their domain names are memorable websites with premier keywords that are searched by nearly every person on the Internet from time to time. For example, they own PlumbingFixtures.com, eShopping.com and SavingMoney.com. Name Administration, Inc. uses micro portals or small websites in their business model.

The business of "Domaining" made many famous domain investors millionaires. Although the days of the dot.com era have passed, there is still a very lucrative market in domain names. For the most popular domain companies this commerce is moving forward with new insight and technologies.

The Internet is not going to fade away anytime soon. In fact, it is an evolving technology that is expanding exponentially. Therefore, the market for premium domain names will continue to thrive. The business of providing marketing services for domain name investors, will also persists as a rewarding business.