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Selling and buying domains work at home. What is cybersquatting or how to make money on domains. Domains sold on the foreign Internet

Each site on the Internet has its own name, which is not only its calling card, but also the main one for the activities of many companies. Online stores, business websites, product catalogs and many other portals, the popularity of which depends primarily on the domain. Let's see how you can make money on the resale of domain names, and how much income will this type of activity bring?

How it works?

Let's start with the fact that in order to earn income on the resale of domain names, there is no need to know the specifics of the global network, the structure of DNS servers, and many other subtleties that are needed in the field of network technologies. It is enough that a domain is the ability to easily access a particular Internet resource by entering a certain set of characters with zonal distribution in the address bar.

The popularity and cost of domain names depends on:

    domain zone (.com, .ru, .org, .net, etc.);

    domain level (.ua is the second, .com.ua is the third);

    ease of pronunciation and ease of memorization;

    type of domain names (state, regional, targeted, etc.).

Public domain names (gov) are reserved by government agencies, so there can be no talk of buying and reselling them.

Based on the above parameters, it is worth saying that a higher cost will be for second-level domains, with a minimum number of characters, easy to remember.

The essence of making money on the resale of domain names lies precisely in the registration and further implementation of convenient names that various companies, enterprises, application developers and many others may need in the future.

An example is the recent case of Apple, which acquired the iCloud.net domain of a small Asian social network. The deal was valued at $1.5 million, but such large deals are very rare.

How to make money selling domains?

You can resell domain names on a professional level, and there are even companies in the world that do it quite successfully. This is done in several ways:

    Buy domains with good names in advance - a simple and consonant name that sticks well in memory can always be sold for several times more than the original cost. Of course, it will be quite difficult to find a free option, but it is quite realistic, since the number of domain zones is constantly expanding, and what is occupied in the .com zone may turn out to be free in the .club.

    Selling domains to companies and firms - look for developing enterprises in your country that do not have their own Internet resource. Register in advance all possible options that are consonant with the name of the company, and you may soon be contacted for repurchase. If not, you can tell the company yourself that you have a suitable name for their online resource.

    Keep an eye on busy domain names - some organizations occasionally forget to renew their domain registrations, and this is a good opportunity to make money, although I personally think it's sleazy.

    Selling domains with TIC and PR are indicators of the authority of the site. Such domains can only be sold to specialists who understand such trifles, that is, to SEOs and webmasters. You can either develop such domains on your own, or buy, for example, abandoned sites that are indexed in search engines.

    Sale of similar domains in neighboring zones. Imagine that there is a site mysite.ru and the site is successfully growing and developing. Web developers will sooner or later want to expand their sphere of influence and place the resource in the .com, .net and other zones. Up to this point, you need to get ahead of the owners of mysite.ru and register in neighboring zones by posting an ad for the sale.

It is quite difficult to talk about specific amounts that can be earned. Domains themselves cost around $10, and you can sell them for $100 and $1,000,000.

Where to buy domains?

The most famous domain name registrars are:

  • reg.ru - Russian registrar
  • internetbs.net - foreign registrar

But in fact, there are much more of them, and do not forget that there are also partners of large registrars, like 2domains.ru, whose prices are usually lower.

Where to sell domains?

On special forums like searchengines.guru (maultalk.com, webmasters.ru/forum/), on special sites like telderi.ru.

Legal aspects

When selling domains, just like when running any business, there are many legal aspects to consider, and there are risks here too. There are many examples when, bypassing contact with the owner of the domain, companies sued him, suing themselves not only for “their” name, but also for a decent monetary compensation for using a trademark and many other points. Such situations are quite common, especially when it comes to selling domains with names that are consonant with the names of popular companies.

To protect yourself from litigation, you need to check in advance whether the company name is a trademark, and only then perform registration operations. This can be done through the patent office or online services that can be found on the vast global network.

Today, at the request of our regular reader, we will consider one of the modern ways to make money on the Internet - earnings on domains. After reading this article, you will find out what are the options for making money on domains, what is cybersquatting, reselling, interception, domain parking, what are these ways of earning interesting, what are their advantages and disadvantages, what is the risk of a person who wants to make money on the sale of domains, and what does he can get as a result. Thus, you, firstly, will increase your financial horizons, and secondly, you will draw conclusions whether it is interesting for you to make money on domains.

What is a domain?

To begin with, quite a bit of theory, so that everyone understands what it is about.

Domain(or Domain name) - these are the letters and symbols that you type in the browser line to get to the site, you can say that this is the site identifier on the Internet ..

A domain name consists of a unique identifier and a non-unique domain zone designation, which is written with a dot. There are international domain zones (for example, .com, .net, .info, etc.) and domain zones tied to a specific country (.ru, .rf, .ua, etc.).

Absolutely anyone can register for themselves any domain name that has not yet been occupied for any desired period (further, if desired, they can extend this period). The exceptions are names in separate domain zones that require the provision of certain documents. To do this, you need to contact any registrar or reseller of domains in the desired domain zone. Once a particular domain name is registered to one owner, no one else can take it. However, if the domain registration expires in the future and the owner does not renew it, the domain name will become vacant and put up for sale by the registrar.

The domain registration service is paid, but inexpensive. Its cost depends on the period for which the domain is paid: the longer the period, the lower the cost in terms of the month or year of registration. On average, a domain registration for a year costs 10-20 dollars, and in a number of domain zones - even less.

How to make money on domains?

Now let's talk about how you can make money on domains. In its financial essence, this is speculative earnings, carried out according to the principle “bought cheaper - sold more expensive”. However, at the same time, it has a number of unique features.

In particular, you need to have a good creative potential, a good flair and understanding of the domain name market, be able to search and find buyers for domains, and, of course, have .

To make money on domains in any of the ways that will be discussed below, the most important thing is to really understand the value and cost of each domain name, to be able to choose those that can really be resold profitably.

History knows examples when world domain names, registered on time at their standard price, were resold, pay attention, for millions of dollars! And in RuNet - for hundreds of thousands of dollars!

We highlight several key areas for making money on domains:

  1. Domaining– registration of domains for the purpose of resale.
  2. Cybersquatting– registration of domains for a specific brand for the purpose of resale;
  3. Domain reselling– mediation between domain registrars and registrants;
  4. Domain hijacking– tracking domains with the end of the registration period for the purpose of redemption and further resale;
  5. Domain parking– earnings on empty domains until they are sold;
  6. Renting out domains– transfer of a domain name for management with the collection of rent.

Now let's look at all these ways of making money on domains in more detail.

Domaining (registration and sale of domains).

So, the easiest and most common option is to make money on the sale of domains by selling domain names for more than their registration cost.

To do domaining, you can either register domains from scratch or buy already registered ones in order to sell them even more expensive. The most important thing in this way of earning is to be able to see the potential in a particular domain name and not be mistaken. Because if the registered or purchased domain is not sold, then your activity in this direction will be unprofitable: you will incur expenses and receive no income.

When choosing domains for resale, you should be guided by the following rules:

  1. The shorter the domain name, the more expensive it can be sold.
  2. An expensive domain name should contain popular words or their transliteration (for example, in the financial sector - finance, forex, invest, money, business, dengi, finansy, biznes, etc.). Moreover, for domains in international domain zones, the English word will be more important, and for Russian-language zones, transliteration.
  3. The more popular the domain zone, the more expensive the domain names in it.

The most relevant areas for domaining now:

  • Business, investments;
  • Auto;
  • Real estate;
  • Tourism;
  • Construction;
  • Services.

You can buy and sell domains on special sites - domain auctions, as well as on popular webmaster forums.

Resale of domain names far from new, but not entirely ancient way of making money on the Internet. Cybersquatting, as they call it resale of domains, is considered quite profitable business. Having parked the domain in demand, after a while you can sell it many times more expensive, which will pay off all the costs.

With the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, today both large and small businesses have their own website on the Internet. All webinars, conferences and trainings say the same thing: "if your business is not on the Internet, it has no future." Hence the demand for new domain zones, creative names, and name buyouts.

The essence of reselling domains

The bottom line is simple: keep track and acquire domains that have become free for some reason, or borrow (buy) those that are consonant with the names of large companies, and sooner or later they will need it.

The job of reselling domains is suitable even for a beginner. It is based on a fairly easy principle of action, the main thing is:

  • Ability to negotiate sales effectively.
  • Have a small amount of finance for the purchase of the first batch of addresses.
  • Have basic skills in buying, parking, or renting domains.

Secondary knowledge includes the concepts of “Tits”, “PR”, “DMOZ”, “Yandex.Catalog”, “hosting”, what are NS and DNS domains. The designation and a brief description of these concepts are easy to find and study on the net, information is in the public domain.

Why keep track of already taken domain names?

For the most ridiculous reasons, even large companies sometimes do not renew the lease, although the company itself is not going to close yet. It happens that the one who is instructed to monitor the extension did not have time, forgot, elementary negligence worked or the habit of doing everything at the last moment. And now you have a chance to have time to register it for yourself and then resell the domain of the same company, but for other money.

The fact is that the address of the site where the resource is found on the Internet is acquired by the project owner for only one year, after which it must be renewed. It should be noted that domains in the "ru" zone cost about 190 rubles on average. At the end of the year, one month is given for registration of subsequent use. If during this period the ownership is not paid, the domain name has the right to purchase and register for itself any user.

Experienced cybersquatters can make good money by registering a domain for themselves on time. To some, such actions may seem illegal, but in fact everything is within the law and does not entail any violations.

Another reason is when the site is closed altogether. If it had a good, short and competent name from the point of view of SEO, it is also worth registering for yourself because, as they say, “a holy place is never empty.”

Features of earning on the resale of domains

It is worth remembering that not every domain has value, and not every one can be resold profitably. Some domains will not be in demand. For example, such a site address as 342art.ru does not have much weight. But the rabota.ru domain, which consists of a high-frequency query, will already have a six-digit amount.

Here is a real example of how someone made good money on this kind of resale. Until 2009, the Vkontakte social network had the vkontakte.ru domain, and in September of the same year, following foreign trends, it acquired the vk.com domain name. The most interesting thing is that this domain has already been occupied since 1997 and various Internet garbage was placed on it. The amount of the transaction, of course, was not disclosed, but I dare to assume that the amount was substantial.

So, we see that keywords, as well as Internet trends, are of great importance in determining the cost.
To make earnings on the resale of domains as efficient and profitable as possible, you should follow certain rules.

1. Do not tell the domain seller for what purposes you are interested and want to purchase it. If he finds out the true goal (that this resource will be resold in the future), he will promptly raise the price on it, which will further affect profits.

2. Acting as an intermediary, you should not tell who the buyer is. This may affect the cost of the domain, or the seller may decide to refuse cooperation altogether.

If you managed to buy a domain with the parameters described above for a hundred rubles, you can sell it for a thousand. Significantly the cost can increase the attachment of a site of several pages. Later, the domain can be sold together with the resource, and besides that, you can earn a good amount on the site itself, in the process of selling the domain. After all, the acquired domain can be resold within a year, starting from the first month.

There are also domains on which a one-page site hangs with information about the sale and a form for submitting your offer.

Summarize. Earnings on the resale of domains is a profitable business. Requires little investment, although this depends more on the scope of the activity; Relatively little knowledge and time to acquire them; Patience, because you don't always know when you can resell a domain.

For my part, I wish you successful earnings.

*The article is over 8 years old. May contain outdated information

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Cybersquatting is the purchase or registration of domain names for the purpose of resale. Translated from English, it means "domain capture". With a competent approach to business, a cybersquatter has a chance to build his own business, which will bring good profits.

To begin with, a domain name is bought from a seller - a registrar or on a special exchange, after which it is resold for a high price. The point is to have time to take a successful domain and sell it for good money.

It is unlikely that domains like 372wer3.ru will be in demand, but many webmasters will be interested in vkantakte.ru or odnoklasniki.ru. Since users often type in wrong site addresses, owners of similar domain names get good traffic to their resources.

How to search domains for resale?

  • Own ingenuity and imagination. You can go through well-known resources and try to check free domains by changing one or two characters ( typesquatting), for example, mail.ru - majl.ru, vk.com - wwwvk.com, or register the same name in another domain zone: ru, com, rf, etc. You can also use zones of other levels, but their resale value will be several times lower.
  • Domain hijacking, i.e. re-registration of known addresses that they forgot to renew. This method is quite often used by experienced cybersquatters. The fact is that during registration a domain name is transferred to its owner only for temporary use, not longer than for one year, then within a month there is an opportunity to renew it. savvy cybersquatter, registering it for himself and reselling the address to the former owner is already more expensive or looking for another buyer.

Benefits of making money selling domains

Tips for those who want to make money selling domains

  • New domains must be registered only through verified registrars, for example, nic.ru , 2domains , ukrnames.com (for Ukraine). Otherwise, you can give money away, and after a while find out that the domain belongs to a completely different person;
  • When choosing a domain, it is best to use the services of checking search queries by keywords. Short phrases for high-frequency user queries are an ideal domain that will collect decent traffic;
  • The procedure for transferring a domain to a new owner requires re-registration with certified documents by a notary. When registering, you should find out about the availability of a faster re-registration procedure. Some registrars simplify this procedure. To do this, the owner will need to write consent to the remote transfer of rights to manage the domain;
  • With the development of the Internet, there are new zones to register domain names. Experienced cybersquatters take advantage of this, and occupy similar advantageous addresses in all zones at once;
  • To purchase attractive vacant addresses, you can use special services. Such auctions are held on reg.ru and ru-center.

Financial prospects for cybersquatting

The domain resale business is commercially attractive. It is worth recalling only the grandiose deals of once successfully registered addresses.

For example, the domain sex.com, which was received by its first owner absolutely free of charge, back in the 90s, was sold for 14 million US currency! This is the undisputed leader in the top of the most expensive resold domains.

Also, impressive amounts were received for the sale of:

  • Beer.com - 7 million;
  • Shop.com - 3.5 million;
  • AltaVista.com - 3.25 million;
  • Wines.com - 3 million.

And this is only a small part of successfully completed transactions. In Runet, of course, the amounts are not so large compared to foreign ones, but there are leaders here too.

For example, Casino.ru was bought out for 250 thousand dollars, Fortuna.ru cost 92 thousand US dollars, and for Hi.ru the new owner had to pay 80.6 thousand dollars.

The prospects are good, and with the expansion of domain zones for registrations, the opportunities for earning only increase. The main thing is to have time to get an attractive domain, and preferably dozens of such addresses, and sooner or later there will definitely be buyers for them.