It makes giving advice better when the person accepts the advise without being too defensive. It’s the difference between a conversation and an argument.

IMO, a company can build a business on any domain name. They are going to spend more effort and money to educate their customers on how to find them, pay for SEO so search traffic finds them, and then ensure they aren’t losing traffic by buying other important domain names.

“Devon Sheffield”

That inspired me to make an “i” domain I own into a “Specialised Business Directory” and at this point I think it’s the best thing I could do with this domain of mine, whose name I won’t mind telling you about:

“iinstigate.com”

LeadRefs is an excellent tool to generate a raw list of potential leads but I am still checking all the sites individually to make sure they are relevant and could benefit from what I am about to offer.

Usually I am offering my domains in the low to high $xxx range. It requires a lot of labor for a sale but LeadRefs is a huge timesaver.

While I also agree with Elliot’s opinion on your “i” names, I actually think the .org is the one that might be worth your time developing instead of attempting to sell. There’s 1300+ exact matches. Not exactly overwhelming, but there’s something there. You can build a decent website using a .org – Just ask Morgan Linton. Granted, it would much easier if you owned bedbugs.org, but obviously not everyone can start at that level. My advice is to develop Bedbuginfestation.org and create a directory of exterminators who specialize with bed bugs. Reach out to them. It’s hard work, but you might be surprised just how many sign up for a listing with you – particularly if you offer the first 6 months or a year, for free. If the leads are solid then they will pay a cheap annual fee to stay. Or maybe sell them leads instead.

I think by and large the advice you read from forums and blogs such as this is invaluable. That being said, I think it’s also easy to misinterpret an expert’s interpretation of a particular domain. You have to consider the source anytime you’re asking an expert’s opinion. Elliot consistently flips $10k-$50k names in which the development potential is pretty obvious and straightforward. However, that doesn’t mean that lesser names can’t be developed with a little creativity. BedBugList, for example could potentially be a list of places with know infestations. Sell these after they are developed and then buy yourself some good names.

I think your ‘no-nonsense’, brutality when it comes to appraisal domain names is okay, but DomainerNamer took it in stride, and that is a virtue.

However, I want you, Elliot, to take a look at these two names, and try to evaluate the businesses built on them separately:

http://www.funny-games.biz valued at over $2,000,000.00

whereas http://www.funnygames.biz is valued at only $12,000.00

That’s right, a dot biz with a dash is valued at over two million dollars, and makes thousands of dollars everyday, and rated higher than same name without a dash. Therefore, it may be time old timers such as yourself, Elliot, and others, stop pushing the mantra that domain names be rated the way they were before Google took over the internet. It’s time to exhaustively re-evaluate domain nomenclature and prices. We have to make room for Branded-names, and futuristic names as well. Anybody buying names today based on search, age, or keywords is going to be disappointed. There are so many elements that go into the panda search that it really means very little. So, adjust your thinking Elliot, just because you have a lot of friends, and people like you, that is why you are selling those names fast, and those people buying them will feel bad later. It’s time to base domain names on reality. Not what was the case 5 years ago.

But now that I get a dozen or more end-user spam mails each day, I’m starting to see it from the other side. Too many of these spam mails, and the everyday end-user will start to immediately associate “domain for sale” with viagra and “get rich quick” in the spam awards race.

I usually send out anywhere from one to 20 or 30 emails at a shot. I am sure that by not sending 1000 emails, I am missing some buyers – but my response rate is good at the lower number of highly targeted buyers. If I send out 1000 mails, its the equivalent of overfishing. We may all get more fish (more sales) in the short run, but in the long run, domain sales emails will be treated with contempt, and ignored.

It’s one thing to tell people to think like an end-user, but many people who sell domains have no experience at all of running (or even working in) a successful business. Many are just kids. With little real world experience to draw on, how can they imagine what a business owner is thinking? Instead they just spam the world with awful domain names that never should have been regged.

These Domain names don’t make sense & seem worthless to many of you, and that’s OK. I’m not trying to sell or make sense of these names with everyone here.

iThanx everyone
Take Care

True – but sending out emails individually, 1 at a time, to highly targeted potentially interested companies 100% related to the keywords in your exact-match domain is not considered illegal or SPAM.

Under the CAN-SPAM act SPAM is defined as email that is both bulk and unsolicited. Targeted email that is sent individually, and includes valid contact information is not considered SPAM.

Also, by being in business people have given their unspoken consent to be made aware of offers that would be of interest of them, a salesperson walking in their door and offering them new lightbulbs for the hardware section is unsolicited but if they have an offer which is going to reap both profit then that convention is allowed.
When a salesman comes into a hardware shop and starts trying to sell bikinis and ice cream it is spam because it is unqualified. The salesman is there because he did no research and did not bother to even check if anyone wanted or needed his possible services.

I think “qualified” is the pertinent word here, no one expects every leaflet dropped through a door to be unique to you, all it says is “to the homeowner” and leaves it like that. A qualified lead or email is one where someone has checked that someone has genuine need for their domain, custom or service.
I have a injury domain name – now if I sent that out to thousands of solicitors in that particular field I wouldn’t be spamming because it directly affects them and their business, they would want to know about it, if however only 3% of the people I sent the offer to were lawyers then I might be in trouble as stated.

I think it’s a good idea, but that might be a lot of work to get it ranked since it’s a competitive space.

You came, you disclosed your domains in a public forum and received some advice which you probably were hoping not to hear, but now you are better informed.

My advice, if I may offer it, would be to see if there are any companies that would be interested in acquiring bed bug related leads. If so, build out BedBugInfestation.org solidly and sell the leads direct to said businesses.

Good luck with your domaining endeavours and well done for being smart enough to listen and not take offence.
You’ve honestly made my day.

I agree & will do.. Thanks for the advice..

@Todd

iThanx for the Leads

There are some leads for your domains:

http://www.leadrefs.com/?domain=Bedbuginfestation.org
http://www.leadrefs.com/?domain=ibedbug.com
http://www.leadrefs.com/?domain=ibedbugs.com

No leads for bedbuglist.com though sorry. Good Luck!

You don’t need to know the specific business to know what domains make sense, what domains are searched for and will rank and therefore what domains will sell.

Elliot has some half-way decent knowledge about the domain business though selling and I suspect you came here for that insight, not his insight in to pest control. The dude can spot a good domain and knows what sells in the marketplace. You should listen

I’m no expert when it comes to bed bugs, but I am pretty good at evaluating domain names. For your sake, I hope I am wrong.

I was just a little surprised.

You may not have much knowledge about the Bedbug and pest control industry, but Bedbugs are a big issue & the industry is a very good size.

Anyways, take care

iThanx