SEOClerks

Flippa and the $100,000 domains? Really?



Write the reason you're deleting this FAQ

Flippa and the $100,000 domains? Really?

If you’re at least familiar with Flippa, if you have used it, you should’ve noticed by now the domains that often list and sell for $70-100K USD. Wow! Some domains really do look great, that’s for sure, short and old, but really how many people are ready to pay 100K for a .com domain? And it’s not even a website. Just a parked domain. Is that “an investment”? Or is it something else... Who’s gonna buy a domain for that much? I mean, Adidas, Nike, BMW and Audi and the other big dogs already got their domains, reserved them years ago. Or if they purchased them off someone else, did they pay half a million dollars? Some of the domains are even not that special. Weird or long domain names often list and sell for $50,000 USD (not even .coms). Some people even list domains for $500,000! That’s a price of a luxury mansion in Aspen. Even $50K is how much an average home is worth in Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Illinois.

How do you think? Something fishy about that?

What was the biggest price that you have sold your domain for? If it’s not a secret, of course. It’ll be cool if you share.

Cheers

Comments

Please login or sign up to leave a comment

Join
vinaya
I have listed my domains and websites for sale on flippa. I have only sold one website. However, it was not much. I often check the recent sales and always surprised to see that some websites and domains are selling for a price that can buy me a house and car. It is understood that why people are paying a lot of money for website because they see earning potential, in fact the websites that get sold are the websites that are earning well, however, I don't know why people are paying so much for a parked domain.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast
I think depends on the domain demand and the content of the site. I know some people who have made money with 5 page site that has product and which earns some good money. It all depends on how you can get the most out of the domain. I think some people promote the site to such extent the value becomes higher.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vinaya
We can understand why a website sells for a high price. If a website is already making $1000 a month, it can be easily sold for $20K. However, what makes a domain sell for a high price is quiteb surprising for me. I registered a domain fatherhoodinfo.com with an aim to sell. I though the domain has a great potentia because it is a dot com and it also has a keyword. However, I could nt sell even for $20 (I paid $10 for the domain).



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast
Yes the formula that if website is making X amount of money. It should earn X multiplied by 2 amount. And that means it is not that easy to earn money on that note. I'd still say that some people can make money on website based on influencer content. I'd say that earning regular amount is a bit not that easy for sure.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vinaya
If you want to make money by flipping website, the website you intend to sell should be making money. I once sold a start up website for $150 on flippa. If the website was earning money, I could have sold ten times more. Even though start up websites have a potential to sell, you can get a good price for a website only if it is earning well.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast
150$ is low amount on flippa. Good websites usually get sold for say 1500 onwards. that seems like lot better amount if you ask me. I wish to sell things that cost 2000 or more most of the time.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vinaya
Yes, that was pretty low amount.However, it did not take much to create the website. It did not have original design or content, it was new. I have listed another start up website for just $125. This time the website has original content. The domain is also very new. If this works out might start creating website and selling on flippa.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast
Yes if the overall spending on website is low then I guess it's not that bad to sell it for that much amount. I'd be happy with that. But the amount being low and considering expensive things in real life. I'd be selling this minimum on 1500. I hope to do that one day with some of my sites.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Corzhens
Do you really think that the amount of sale is real? This reminds me of the old coins in the free advertising newspaper. You just call for your free advertisement and it will be published on the following week. As expected there were scammers who would post a very high tag price for an old coin that later on someone would pretend to buy. But they are actually the same person – seller and buyer.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

SVibes
Money laundering probably? Haha. That's why I think.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Barida
I am thinking this way as well as I don't really understand how a domain should be selling for such a huge amount of money. There is need to investigate this kind of trend to see what is really happening at the moment.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

amelia88
I never thought about that until you mentioned it, but I guess it could be a way for money laundering to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some shady dealings going on, with money changing hands for those kinds of sums. Or maybe it is just richie-rich folk who can afford those kinds of megabucks for domain names. Who knows!



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

overcast
I am member of one site named niche site. And that site seems to have the content specific to the keywords which are in the market these days. You can see that flipppa seems to be having demand for the niche site. And many people make decent money with it. So I think if you study things it wont get any harder.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vhinz
great and catchy domain names are difficult to register these days because almost all domain name you're going to purchase is already owned by other people. Flipping domain names is a good business for other that's why they purchase domains they think are good and flip it to a higher price. It's not just good that others are taking too much advantage by selling their domain names so expensive. a $100,000 domain is really too expensive.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Barida
The amount is really expensive as I am still looking at how those that are buying this kind of domain are going to make returns from it. I think there are premium domains which is making people to buy it at such an outrageous amount.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

amelia88
It blows my mind to think that a domain name can really be that expensive. I guess if you're a big company and you want a certain domain, you'd have that kind of money to throw at it -- and I guess you can't put a price on simplicity or the ease of remembering a short, sweet domain name.

A lot of these large companies have mega-bucks to put towards advertising and marketing, so I'm sure they just count it as part of that budget.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Jeane
I'm thinking that some of those really expensive domains are priced thusly by people who are sure that eventually someone will buy that domain. But some simply hope they'll be lucky to make a lot of money off a small investment. And truth to be told some actually do get lucky!

I'm sure there are business who will be willing to pay a lot of money for certain domains which would give them an edge over their competitors but I think the existence of gTLDs might shake things up a bit and we'll see fewer of these ridiculous prices.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

amelia88
It's crazy to think that just buying and reselling one decent domain name would be more than some people's annual salary at those kind of prices. In some countries that may even be several year's salary.

Maybe I'm in the wrong industry as a freelancer and should go into website domain name flipping! ;)



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vhinz
I think expensive domain names are intended for really big businesses who what a domain name that is great and suits their company. People who are flipping domains really know that they can really gain profits from doing it. And maybe they have sold already expensive domains that's why they set that prices.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

vinaya
I once read a news that said Zuckerberg paid $750 for a few weeks domain. The domain was registered for $10 and used Zuckerberg's daughter's first name. I do not know whether this is true or not. However, I can assume that Zuckerberg paid because he saw the value on the name. That's the point in regard to high priced domains. If the buyer sees the value, he will willing to pay any price provided he has money.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Jeane
No risk no reward. You’d need to take risk to find out whether you’ll make money from domain flipping. Just think of a good domain name someone might want to use in future, buy that domain and wait for a
customer to find it.

If others have made six figures off domain flipping, others can do it too. It will be a little harder though because someone who doesn’t get a .com domain name (and can possibly do without it) could just opt for a gTLD.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

amelia88
You're right about the no risk/no reward mindset. I have a tendency of playing it safe and going for the sure thing rather than the risky bet, but I think I've just got to branch out more and go out of my comfort zone. Gotta start thinking of some catchy domain names!



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Cristian
There are a lot of sellers out there that dream of getting rich just because they think they got a perfect domain that everybody wants. So ignore the crazy offers for long domains that aren't that special, to begin with.

On the other hand, I understand why the short, .com domains are so expensive, especially the ones that also sound kind of cool. And make no mistake, there are people and companies out there looking to buy such domains!
I give you an example. A startup is formed and starts having huge success, like growing over 1 million dollars business figure, their domain name is something like crappylongdomainname.com so once they start getting some success and some cash they'll be thinking about changing the domain name, it is only natural if you want to grow as a business, you need to have a short domain name, it inspires trust and authority to people.
I've seen this happen a couple of times, one client of mine paid over 35k for a 5 letter .com domain. Wasn't really a word, but reflected with the brand and was catchy as hell, so yeah, in my opinion, worth every penny since they now have even more success.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Youngshark
That is super expensive. I am not a micer but there are prices which are simply not worth putting your money on. I mean there is so much you can do with that cash in terms of investment and the domain can be bought at a cheaper price and marketed as time goes by. I would not purchase for that amount.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

theresajane
I think it's all about taking risks and applying your skills in this field will really help. Well, as for me, I wouldn't buy a domain that costs a lot that I honestly can't afford. Well, you can buy that domain that costs a fortune, but, maintaining it's traffic is another thing. It all boils down to your skills in the field.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

focusedwriter10
I have been asking myself the same question, "what is so special with these domains?" Anyway, in life, we are all unequal, your salary might be someone else pocket change. Some people do not feel the pain buying such domains.

In my opinion, only websites that are making good returns can cost that much. Otherwise, for a domain, I cannot even dare. Nonetheless, those buying such domains have either ended-up being successful or disappointed. There is so much to handle after purchasing the domain.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

Corzhens
This reminds of the days before the internet, there was this free newspaper ads called Buy and Sell. You just call their number to place your ad. In the category of miscellaneous, there were several ads about selling coins minted in 1900 to 1905 costing 100,000 pesos or around $20,000 each. The market value was even less than 10% of that amount but those sellers were posting that outrageous ad for their own reasons. Maybe they could fool some buyers.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?

cmoneyspinner
No I don't think there's anything fishy about $100,000 domains or websites. For the simple reason, that's what some people do! That's how they make their money. They intentionally build a terrific website and flip. Much like how people buy a piece of real estate and flip it!

I used to follow 2 blogs and I loved them. After a few years of receiving their posts, I received an eMail saying that the sites has been sold. I found out that the lady at one of those sites made a sweet deal on the sale.

Also, one night I was watching one of those late night TV talk shows and Justin Bieber was the guest. He had just bought somebody's website for a substantial amount of money.

That's what people do. Build great websites and sell them. Their websites are like owning real estate that appreciates in value. Also, it's a job. It's what they do for a living.



Are you sure you want to delete this post?