Ways to make money on domains, and where you shouldn’t be active. What is cybersquatting or how to make money on domains Buying and selling domains as an online business

Cybersquatting is the purchase or registration of domain names for the purpose of further 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 purchased from a seller - a registrar or on a special exchange, and then 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 vkantakte.ru or odnoklasniki.ru will be of interest to many webmasters. Since users often misspell website addresses, owners of similar domain names receive good traffic to their resources.

How to search for domains for resale?

  • Your own ingenuity and imagination. You can go through known resources and try to check available domains by changing one or two characters ( typosquatting), for example, mail.ru – majl.ru, vk.com – wwwvk.com, or register the same name in another domain zone: ru, com, рф, etc. You can also use areas of other steps, but their resale value will be several times lower.
  • Domain interception, i.e. re-registration of known addresses that were forgotten to renew. This method is often used by experienced cybersquatters. The fact is that upon registration, a domain name is transferred to its owner only for temporary use, for no longer than one year, then within a month there is an opportunity to renew it. There are often cases when the owner simply forgets to renew the term of use of the domain name, which is where it works savvy cybersquatter, registering it in his name and reselling the address to the former owner is already more expensive, or is looking for another buyer.

Benefits of making money by reselling domains

Tips for those who want to make money by reselling domains

  • New domains must be registered only through verified registrars, for example, nic.ru, 2domains, ukrnames.com (for Ukraine). Otherwise, you can give money, and after a while you discover that the domain belongs to a completely different person;
  • When selecting a domain, it is best to use services for checking search queries by keywords. Short phrases for high-frequency user requests 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 from 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 for the remote transfer of rights to manage the domain;
  • With the development of the Internet, there are new zones for domain name registration. Experienced cybersquatters take advantage of this and occupy similar profitable addresses in all zones at once;
  • To purchase attractive vacated addresses, you can use special services. Such auctions are held on reg.ru and ru-center.

Financial prospects of cybersquatting

The domain reselling business is commercially attractive. It is worth remembering only the grandiose transactions of addresses that were once successfully registered.

For example, the domain sex.com, which was received by its first owner absolutely free, 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.

Impressive sums were also 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 here too there are leaders.

For example, Casino.ru was bought 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 earning potential is only increasing. The main thing is to have time to get an attractive domain, or better yet dozens of such addresses, and sooner or later there will definitely be buyers for them.

Anna Sudak

Bsadsensedinamick

# Online business

The most expensive domain name is Insurance.com. In 2010, it was acquired by QuinStreet for $35.6 million.

Article navigation

  • Earning money on domain names
  • The essence of the work of exchanges
  • Buying abandoned domains
  • Earning money by reselling domains
  • Earnings without investment
  • Earning money from domain parking

One of the most profitable and easy ways to make money on the Internet is by selling domain names. In this article we will look at all its aspects and prospects for making a profit both with and without investments.

Earning money on domain names

Having desire, ingenuity, imagination and speed, you can make good money selling domain names. We have prepared for you simple step-by-step instructions on how to start a trading business without risks to your wallet.

The first step is registration and verification on domain exchanges. Next, you need to study their functionality and be sure to read the rules.

So, let's register on the exchanges:

  • - a platform for secure transactions for the purchase and sale of websites and domains. There is an auction where you can buy a domain cheaply and sell it for much more.
  • Reg is a platform for purchasing domains. Identity verification is required upon registration for the security of you and your future domains.

Registration on Telderi:


  • We go to the site. In the upper right corner, click “Registration”.
  • We come up with a username and password, enter the current email and captcha.
  • We go to the mailbox and find a letter.
  • Open the letter and follow the link.
  • We get to our personal account.
  • Find the “Financial Information” block and click on the “Inactive” status, as in the picture.
  • Select a payment system, click on the banner (picture with the name of the payment system) and proceed to pay for activation. We confirm the payment. Only one penny will be taken from your account.

Registration on Reg:


  • By analogy with the previous site, click on the “Registration” button.
  • Enter your email address and click “Register”.
  • We read the notification and go to open the email box.
  • We find the letter and open it.
  • We see your personal account login information. They need to be preserved. Scroll the mouse wheel and continue reading the letter.
  • Find the “Confirm registration” button and click it.
  • After confirming your address, go to your personal account.
  • Come up with a code word. Write it down so you don't forget. Click “Save”.
  • Enter your phone number and click on “Link”.
  • Enter the code received via SMS.
  • Fill out the basic form and send the requested package of documents. Don’t put it off for later, do it right away so you can start practicing as quickly as possible.

The essence of the work of exchanges

Now let's take a closer look at the Reg website. So, the service has the “Registration of vacant domains” service. It's paid. Its cost is only 225 rubles. By depositing this money into your account, you will be able to register a vacant domain of any value, even the maximum (199 thousand rubles).

The essence of the Reg service: you come to the exchange, participate in the auction, select and register a domain. Pay 225 rubles and within 14 days you will pay the remaining cost of the selected domain name. If you do not do this, your registration will be canceled and your money will not be refunded. To make money on a purchase, you need to sell the domain at a price higher than your costs. You determine the margin yourself. They didn’t sell, they remained in the red.


But not everything is as scary as it seems, because you have additionally registered with Telderi. It is on this service that the sale of a domain taken from Reg. You display your “product” and wait for the buyer to deposit money. After the client pays for the purchase on Telderi, consider the transaction completed, since the buyer will not be able to return his money. As soon as the amount has arrived in your account, you pay for the domain with Reg and close the deal on Telderi. You keep the difference for yourself. This is your income.

Released domains can be expensive, but you pay a minimum fee of 225 rubles. 98% of transactions on Telderi are successful, and the cost of domains is always higher than on Reg.ru. The biggest danger in this type of earnings is the loss of your investment in the amount of 225 rubles.

Released domains should be examined on the first day of the month. You choose the right ones, identify their pros and cons. But you can reserve the ones you like only on the second day of every month from eight in the morning Moscow time.

The main feature of the Reg service is constant availability of old domains with high value. Moreover, they are released every month and are in great demand. In order not to be on the lookout for them, we recommend that you set up search filters immediately after registration and go to the site on the first day of each month to “skim the cream.” After all, you will only need to study the offers that the service has selected for you according to your preferences.

Buying abandoned domains

When the second day arrives, go to Reg in the auctions section. Enter the domains you like in the appropriate field. If the system displays a message that there is no domain according to the stated parameters, update the statistics until it appears. After the domain is reserved, you will receive this message:


Don't forget to check the "Pay in part" checkbox.

Earning money by reselling domains

Once the domain is assigned to you, you need to wait two to four weeks, as the owner can renew the rights to it. If this does not happen, the domain is assigned to you for 14 days. You sell a domain, wait for payment, make payments and close the deal.

Earnings without investment

You won’t be able to make money on domains without investments. Start-up capital is needed. But you can start with a small amount. On average, domain registration costs $2. Agree, you can try.

What types of income are there?

  • Domaining is the registration of a domain with subsequent resale. Cybersquatting is the registration of a domain for a specific brand with subsequent resale. More information about these two methods -.
  • Resellership is intermediation between the seller and the client. In this case, you can start without investment and earn on the difference by becoming a partner for a domain registrar. An excellent option for those who have their own client base.
  • Interception of domain names with small numbers - search, interception, purchase of domains with high indicators: TIC, PR, etc.
  • Renting - providing a domain to a client on a rental basis.
  • Domain parking is the redirection of visitors who came via a domain to another site or page. Let's look at it in more detail.

Earning money from domain parking

Domain parking is the use of a domain without a website hosted on it.

How to make money parking domains? The essence of such earnings is advertising. For example, you bought a domain and it is idle. To avoid losing money, use it for advertising. Find a parking lot, place it, and the service will automatically start loading advertisements that match the theme of the domain and pay you a percentage for each click on it. Income from this method of earning is distributed between you, the “parking attendant” and the advertising partner.

04/07/2018 at 16:18

1381 0

I have long wanted to write an article on this topic and tell you how you can make money selling domains. I won’t say that this way of making money is easy; for successful implementation you need to be smart and be able to think logically.

What is a domain

If you are new to making money on the Internet and have not come across such a concept as a domain, I will now tell you in detail.

Domain - in short, this is the name of an Internet resource (site). You can see it in the address bar of your browser, for example, I have a domain website:

Before people create a website, they always register a domain (the name of the future website). As a rule, the domain should reflect the theme of the site, be beautiful and memorable.

How to make money on domains

People who understand the importance of Internet projects are ready to shell out a lot of money for the domains they need.

Example: You want to make a website on the topic “business” and you want your website to be called Biznes.ru, but this domain has already been occupied by another person.

At this moment you start to come up with another domain, but this one has sunk into your soul and sounds solid and looks beautiful.

What to do?

There is a way out, you can contact the person who owns this domain and try to buy it. The price of a domain will depend on the quality and the company or person who wants to buy it.

Let's imagine that you are the owner of the domain Coca-Cola.ru and a representative of the Coca-Cola company contacts you and asks if you can sell them this domain. The price of the domain itself is around 300 rubles per year, but a company representative offered you 3 million rubles, will you refuse? I think no!

This is how domains are resold.

Ways to make money on domains

Registration of new domains

This is the easiest and at the same time the most profitable way to make money on domains. Its essence lies in registering new domains, which will be expensive in the future.

Example: you heard that some new products will appear soon, some new brand will enter the market. Let's imagine that these are new cigarettes, you need to find out the name of these cigarettes and register domains with this name in all possible zones.

There can be a bunch of such examples; you can register domains for anything, films, brands, products and much more.

When this brand gains momentum, this company will need an official website, they will begin to check the availability of domains and, accordingly, if the company is serious, it will contact you and try to buy a domain from you.

And now some statistics, below I will give you information about the most successful transactions using this method of earning money:

The most expensive domains purchased on the Russian Internet

✔Sms.ru - was purchased by the company for $550,000

✔People.ru - purchase price was $90,000

✔Hi.ru - $80,600

✔Vodka.ru - $50,000

You can also register short domains consisting of 2-3 characters; such domains are difficult to find, but still possible. In the future, it can also be sold for good money; short and sonorous domains are well valued.

Selling old domains

For this method of earning money, you need to know what TIC and PR are.

TIC - thematic citation index. Assigned by Yandex to each domain and the larger it is, the better for the site. The more other domains that link to your domain, the larger your TIC will be.

PR is a similar situation, only for the Google search engine.

The higher these indicators, the more expensive the domain will cost. You can buy such domains on a special exchange and resell them there, in a way you act as a reseller, only not with cars, but with domains.

Website and domain exchange - Telderi.ru

Purchasing valid domains

For example, you liked a certain domain and would like to buy it, but you don’t have a lot of money for this. You can copy the domain and go to the wonderful resource cy-pr.com using this service, you can do an automatic analysis of the site and find out until how long the domain has been renewed:

As you can see, my domain lease will end in 5 months and if I forget to renew it or simply don’t want to, then the domain will go on free sale and you can buy it at the standard price.

This method is very painstaking, I advise you to monitor several hundred domains at once, then your chances will increase. And of course, you will need to remember about the end date of your domain lease; you can write this information down in a text document so you don’t forget.

Renting domains

There are times when a person does not have enough money to buy a specific domain. You can offer him an alternative and rent out the domain with a monthly payment. This way you can establish passive income.

How much can you earn by selling domains?

This is, of course, a question that worries everyone who starts doing this. But it’s difficult to guess here; it all depends on your ingenuity. You can sell one single domain and provide that money for the rest of your life.

But you can also waste several thousand without selling more than one domain.

I have already given examples of selling domains on the Russian Internet, now I will tell you about transactions that took place on the foreign Internet. Prices for domains abroad are very different from ours:

Domains sold on the foreign Internet

✔Fund.com - domain was sold for $9,999,950

✔Diamond.com - sale price $7,500,000

So the question of how much you can earn is very difficult to answer.

Also, here’s food for thought; you can study the foreign market, since the price of domains there is much higher.

Each website on the Internet has its own name, which is not only its business card, but also the main one for the activities of many companies. Online stores, enterprise websites, product catalogs and many other portals, the popularity of which depends, first of all, on the domain. Let's figure out how you can make money by reselling domain names, and what kind of income will this type of activity bring?

How it works?

Let's start with the fact that in order to earn income from 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 an opportunity for easy access to a particular Internet resource by entering a certain set of characters with zonal distribution into 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);

    simplicity of pronunciation and ease of memorization;

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

Government domain names (gov) are reserved by government agencies, so their purchase and resale is out of the question.

Based on the above parameters, it is worth saying that the 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 sale of convenient names, which in the future may be needed by various companies, enterprises, application developers and many others.

An example is the recent case of Apple, which acquired the iCloud.net domain, which belonged to a small Asian social network. The transaction cost was $1.5 million, but such large transactions occur very rarely.

How to make money by reselling domains?

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

    Buy domains with good names in advance - a simple and consonant name that is well remembered can always be sold for several times more than the original cost. Of course, finding a free option will be quite difficult, but it is quite possible, since the number of domain zones is constantly expanding, and what is occupied in the.com zone may turn out to be free in .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 consistent with the company name, and perhaps you will soon be contacted for repurchase. If not, you can independently inform the company that you have a suitable name for their Internet resource.

    Keep an eye on busy domain names - some organizations periodically forget to renew the domain registration period, and this is a good opportunity to make money, although I personally think it’s mean.

    Selling domains with TICs and PR are indicators of site authority. Such domains can only be sold to specialists who understand such details, that is, SEOs and webmasters. Such domains can either be developed independently or purchased, for example, abandoned sites that are indexed in search engines.

    Sale of similar domains in neighboring zones. Let's imagine that there is a website 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. Until this moment, you need to get ahead of the owners of mysite.ru and register in neighboring zones by posting an advertisement for sale.

It is quite difficult to talk about specific amounts that can be earned. The domains themselves cost around $10, but can be sold for $100 or $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 platforms like telderi.ru.

Legal aspects

When selling domains, just like when running any business, you need to take into account many legal aspects, and there are risks here too. There are many examples when, without contact with the owner of the domain, companies sued him, winning not only “their” name, but also decent monetary compensation for the use of the trademark and many other points. Such situations occur quite often, especially when it comes to selling domains with names that are similar to 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 carry out registration operations. This can be done through the patent office or online services that can be found on the world wide web.

The Internet is becoming increasingly commercialized every year. Thanks to this, there are many ways... Today I want to digress from the topic and other financial instruments, and talk about investing in website domains or cybersquatting. The topic is far from new, but its relevance does not lose over time. The Internet is constantly evolving, the audience is increasing, new companies are coming, and the old ones go bankrupt or simply forget to renew the domain on time. In this article, we’ll talk about what cyberquatting is, look at examples, and also discuss who domainers are and how to make money on domains.

Examples of cybersquatting

I've been running this blog for over 6 years. All this time, I regularly publish reports on the results of my investments. Now the public investment portfolio is more than 1,000,000 rubles.

Especially for readers, I developed the Lazy Investor Course, in which I showed step by step how to put your personal finances in order and effectively invest your savings in dozens of assets. I recommend that every reader complete at least the first week of training (it's free).

A little information. A domain is the name of a resource registered in a particular zone (“.ru”, “.com”, “.net”, etc.). A well-chosen domain name makes the resource easily recognizable and memorable, which has a positive effect on its traffic. Each site has a unique domain name, not found anywhere else on the Internet.

A striking example of successful cybersquatting is the sale of the sex.com domain for $7,000,000. Another success story can be considered the stunning rise in the value of the vodka.com domain. There was information on the Internet that at the peak of its popularity it was sold for $3 million.

Domain registration in the “.ru” and “.com” zones costs from 90 to 600 rubles, which is affordable for almost any user. The simplest and most beautiful thematic domain names have long been purchased, including for further resale, so it is unlikely that you will be able to make money without diving into the specifics of the topic.

Cybesquatting - what is it?

In simple words, cybersquatting is the purchase/registration of domains with potentially popular names for their subsequent sale and profit. Cybersquatting is carried out by domainers. A domainer is a person who searches, analyzes, buys and sells domain names. Another common name for domainers is cybersquatter. The success of any cybersquatter depends entirely on his imagination and ability to see the potential in a particular domain.

Of course, we are not talking about making money on domains like 1t5r22gh.com, here you need to come up with a really interesting and memorable site name. Simple and sonorous names are very popular, for example: abc.com, avto-moto.ru, mba.net and so on. If the name contains some thematic words, for example: auto, forex, food, etc., then they will certainly be of interest to the creators of new online stores. Let's move on to cybersquatting methods.

1. The first and most commonplace method of cybersquatting is the registration of new domains (for example, on 2domains.ru) with interesting names, which can subsequently be sold for much more than the cost of the registration itself. Not long ago, 4-letter domain names in the “.net” zone ran out and this led to the fact that the cost of already registered names increased significantly. That is, you can simply occupy still free letter 3- and 4-digit names in the most popular zones, and in the future, in a few years they can be sold for decent money.

2. Buying ready-made domain names that you think have the potential to increase in price. It is important to determine this potential here, because if you make a mistake, it will be quite difficult to sell the unsuccessful domain even at the price at which you bought it.

Some webmasters purchase several domain names and then do not use them for one reason or another. You can contact them and buy back unclaimed domains. You can also buy domain names on special auction sites like www.auction.nic.ru, telderi, webnames.ru/auction. You can also use the forums domenforum.net and searchengines.guru to search and sell domain names. The buyers here are often intermediaries who buy domain names for further resale.

3. Using special software, you can track the release of domain names with small, already established indicators of TCI (10-100) and PR (1-2), which have not yet been intercepted by more nimble cybersquatters. If you have time to buy them back quickly, you can also make good money on them.

There are special reseller programs (okej.ru, mysitecost.ru, etc.), in which theoretically you can make money on the difference in the cost of domain registration. For example, your registration price for the program is 110 rubles. You earn 10 rubles and advertise for selling domains for 120 rubles. The main factors for increasing profits here are the number of buyers you can attract and registering the most profitable reseller panel with the lowest domain cost.

4. Another, not yet very common way to make money on domains is renting out domains. This method is suitable for domainers who own in-demand domains, but for some reason have not yet found a buyer.

  • If you are buying a domain for resale, you should not inform its owner about this. Often, when the seller becomes aware that he is dealing with a domainer, the price of the domain increases significantly or the deal falls through completely.
  • It is important to learn how to determine the prospects of a particular domain name. To do this, you can study how popular various topics are on the Internet, and which site names are the most popular in each of these topics. Also, remember that a good domain name should be short, sweet, and memorable.
  • If you hear about the opening of a company, organization, etc., then check whether the domain for their website has already been purchased. Quite often, companies build a website last and they can make money on it. It should also be remembered that when using an exact occurrence of a registered trademark (patent, etc.) in a domain, the domain can be transferred to the copyright holder.
  • Now more and more people are creating personal pages in the format of a full-fledged website. More or less popular personalities are willing to overpay for the exact spelling of their last name in the domain.
  • To keep up with the latest cybersquatting news, in addition to the forums that I have already mentioned, you can read domainer blogs (for example, from time to time I read idomainer.pro).

P.S.. Making money from domains is more like a business than an investment. At the moment, I cannot boast of successful cybersquatting experience, although I have been keeping several promising domains in reserve for some time. Let's see how successful this idea will be. If you have experience with cybersquatting, write your opinion on the topic in the comments. In conclusion, I suggest watching an interview with the famous domainer Alexander Baratov.

Profit to everyone!

 

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