Domaining on Forums Part 2

As promised, this is the second part to my ‘Domaining on Forums’ series. Check out part 1 if you missed it.  Once again, I will be focusing on the two major domain forums NamePros.com and DNForum.com.  Something I forgot to mention in part one is that access NamePros remains completely free, while there are some membership fees to gain access to certain parts of DNforum.  DNForum has three different membership levels: Gold, Platinum and Exclusive.  I am a platinum member which allows me to post new threads in the marketplace forum.  There is an Exclusive member area only and marketplace, these threads can only be viewed by ‘Exclusive’ members.  The Exclusive membership is a bit pricey but is a lifetime membership that has some real perks (it’s on my Christmas list… hint, hint).


Both forums facilitate some very lively discussions on every aspect of domaining. It’s good to spend some time reading and adding to the discussion.  Seasoned domainers on forums will tell newbies to spend at least 3 months reading and asking questions on domain forums before they buy their first domain name.   Forums are a great place to learn and ask questions about aspects of the industry.  A great thing about forums is that there is always someone knowledgeable about the topic you have a question about.  Also, many industry service providers frequent forums to answer questions, address problems, offer advice, or just chime in on certain topics.  As you know the domain industry encompasses so many topics, all of which are addressed (in detail) at both forums.

Here are some of my favorite threads on domain forums (click to the last page of the thread to find the most recent posts):

How to find potential end users (NP)

What’s the most you have paid for a domain? (DNF)

Godaddy discount codes (NP)

Sedo.com thread (NP)

LLL.com discussion and sales report (NP)

LLLL.com discussion (NP)

Notice most of the ‘domain’ discussion I linked to was on NamePros?  Well, there seems to be more actual discussion about domain names there than at DNF.  Still DNForum has a very active marketplace and good discussion.  However, lately some of the most active threads on DNF are political threads, which I usually don’t have enough time or will to engage in.

Buying and selling on domain forums – Forums are great places to do business.  As a rule of thumb remember that when you sell a domain/start an auction at a domain forum you should only expect ‘wholesale’ or ‘reseller’ prices for your domains.  I prefer to buy domain names from members on forums for this reason.  There are many hidden gems in the auctions and sales threads.  As I mentioned in part one, the only domains I like to sell on forums are ones I do not want anymore or that I plan to drop.   Don’t get me wrong there is money to be made by flipping (or selling) domains on forums, I spent quite a bit of time doing that when I rejoined the forums a couple years back.  I wouldn’t recommend trying this in the current market.   From my experience, I would say that there are some more serious domain investors that are active in the DNF marketplace.  In my opinion, the membership fee keeps those small timers from accessing the marketplace at DNF.  You would expect that the quality of domains is better too, well I’ll let you determine that.

There are some handy tools and features that can make your domain forum experience more productive.  I really like the iSpy tool that both DNF and NP utilize it daily.  I just open a tab and keep it on iSpy, every once in a while I will go back to that tab and see if there’s a thread that catches my interest.  Also, the ‘advanced search’ is nice tool to use when looking for someone/something on both forums.  Of course, it’s very important to utilize your signature if you are a frequent poster on a forum.  I link to NameTalent, my Twitter page and a few of my minisites in my signatures.  I get lot’s of visitors coming from forums to my pages via my signature lines.  Here’s a tip: don’t link to parked domains in your forum signatures.  Lastly, at DNF there is a really great alternate language forum for those who wish to do business in other language or who cannot speak English.

I’d just like to take a minute to say thanks to the facilitators of these great domain forums.  Adam Dicker owns DNForum.com and Ron James (RJ) owns and operates NamePros.com.  Thanks for all the work on these forums, they are important resources to the domain name community!