Here is a question for you domainers. Are you hand registering any domain names these days? I remember waaaay back in the early 00’s I would sit in front of the my computer and type in hundreds words and word combinations to see if I could score a .com or really nice .net or .org. Most of the domains I owned back then were hand registered ones that I thought of myself.
With nearly 110 million active domain names in the registry, you may think that trying to find quality domains to register in 2009 is a waste of time. Well, I usually spend a couple hours a week ‘hunting’ for quality domains to hand register. However, I no longer spend hours thinking up words/combos to see if they are available. Today, I prefer to search through lists of available domain names provided by some of the most generous people in our industry. Many of the domains on these lists are recent ‘drops’ (expired and available again). I have found some real gems this way. I do still search for available domains at times by just using my brain and registrar of choice, I just don’t spend much time on that process anymore.
I am going to share a couple of my (top secret) favorite places to look for available domains:
NameClerk’s AvailableDomainNames.com – Simply stated, Bill puts together the BEST available domain name lists on the net. Can’t thank him enough.
Chip’s FreshAvails.com – Another great source for available domains, including many adult related ‘avails’. Thanks Chip for your hard work!
Here is a funny video I dug up registering domain names.. LOL
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FZ1M_UmQes
Want to show off a hand registered domain name? Post it in a comment here!
Thanks Mike. I appreciate the kind words about my service. I’ve only purchased one domain on the aftermarket; the one I use for my blog. The rest I’ve registered myself, most of them off the drop.
There’s plenty of money to be made from hand registrations but it takes a little work. Most won’t receive much traffic so parking is a dead end. The secret lies in adding some unique content in order to get the domains indexed for the keywords that make up the domain.
A one page Whypark site with unique content can turn a dead domain into a $10 or higher monthly earner.
$10? No big deal, right? Do that with 100, 200 or more domains and you’ve got yourself I nice residual income. You also increase the value of the domains exponentially when and if you decide to sell them.
Thanks again for pointing out my service, Chip’s as well.
-Bill
Thanks again Bill, always appreciate your insight!
When i was new to domaining i spent huge amounts on hand registered domain names, most of them i dint renew the next year. But still i think there is still some chance of finding a diamond if you keep updated with latest technology and news so that you can register a domain related to that. But i suggest to stick with drops, there will be some quality names that drop every day, which you can register.
I still believe in hand registering domains. I have hand-regged a couple of good domains, one that I sold later for low-mid $xxx, and another that with some basic seo, now ranks 9th for a keyword search 50k times a month.
i do still believe in it. just a couple months ago a friend of mine just sold an $8 hand regged domain for $1400 after 3-4 months regged it. that make me believe we still have prospects in hand regged domains.
Thank you very much for this post. I find AvailableDomainNames.com very usefull in my work. You are the best!
Hell no its not
I still find some gems by hand registering domains. Just takes a lot of time and luck.