Domaining.org.uk

I thought now would be a good time to highlight a few of the most interesting posts that I have seen over the past month…………..

Perhaps the most important event this month was ICANN’s decison to relax the rules about naming domain name extensions. Now anyone with enough cash can buy their own domain extension. So we could easily see new top level domains like .sex, .london and .eBay. Is this a disaster waiting to happen or will this open up the pool of available domains. See what expert domainer Elliot Silver has to say on this development  and see what other people are saying about ICANN’s decision in this post on TheDomains.com blog.  

Meanwhile, the Self Made Minds blog has a post that offers some tips for domainers thinking of leasing rather than selling their domains. Once you have read this, read this post about domain leasing agreements and then look at leaseadomain.co.uk/. This is all very early in the development of this market, and I would recommend that you get yourself a good lawyer before taking the plunge in this highly speculative area. This is one area novice domainers should avoid completely.

Next, here is a short introduction in how to use the Wordpress blogging platform to build sites that actually look like sites, rather than blogs. This will be especially useful for domainers who want to develop domains into minisites, for example.

Many domainers are taking their best domains and developing them into fully fledged websites. These new internet entrepreneurs have learned how they can make a decent income by either selling their domain with its established website for good money or by developing their domains and enjoying good regular incomes. I like reading about successful internet entrepreneurs and this article How I Built A Six Figure Internet Income about the income potential of blogs, from the Financial Hack blog, is quite inspiring.

Finally, this post about domain name appraisals on the Domain Junkie blog is well worth reading. It compares domain name appraisals from Moniker and Sedo and recommends obtaining appraisals from two trusted sources before negotiating a price for a domain.

I received a very interesting question a few days ago from Pink, who is the webmaster at PinkRetailTherapy.com. It was such a good question that I thought it deserved a properly thought out answer. Pink asks 

I’ve noticed is that there are a lot of good .org.uks left. I know they are not worth much yet but do you think they will be a good long term investment for further down the line? The same with .me.uks as well.

Domaining.org.uk gets readers from all over the world so its worth explaining a bit of background first.  

In brief, .org.uk and .me.uk are two of a number of UK Second Level Domain Names and the best known is .co.uk. - me.uk is for personal domains and org.uk is for non-commercial organisations. However, like the Top Level Domain .org, over time .org.uk and .me.uk have been used for a wide variety of purposes and in a variety of enterprises.

It is true to say that domainers, generally, prefer Top Level Domains such as .com and .net although demand for country code domains like .de (Germany), .cn (China) and .co.uk domains is also quite strong.

Compared to .co.uk demand for .org.uk domain names is relatively weak and I would guess that the main market for .me.uk domains is domain name speculators and some website developers.

Sales prices of .org.uk domain names have not been that encouraging and are far below .co.uk prices. There is no reason to think this is ever going to change, at least in the forseeable future. This means that, in my opinion,  all but the most generic and sought after keyword rich .org.uk domains are going to be of interest to domainers and end users.

Reported sales on the website DomainPrices.co.uk, which lists reported sales prices of uk domains, are worth looking at and back this up. (Of course, these are ‘reported sales’ and many, many sale prices are never revealed.) 

Most of the top sales of .org.uk domains reported on Domain Prices, are:-

Betting.org.uk £1,351 ( $2,700) May 2007

Mobile.org.uk £675 ($1,350) Oct 2006

Locksmith.org.uk £510 ($1,020) Jan 2008

Counselling.org.uk £370 ($740) Mar 2007

Apply.org.uk £250 ($500) April 2007 

There was one reported sale of a .me.uk on the Domain Prices site - HouseInsurance.me.uk which sold for £1,000 ($2,000) in December 2007.

I believe that domainers considering adding .org.uk and .me.uk domains to their portfolios should understand that only the most generic domains and sought after keyword rich names have a reasonable chance of appreciating in value. However, they are likely to be worth much more if developed into websites.

Domainers determined to buy .org.uk or even .me.uk should concentrate on buying domains on topics that people are searching for and are in demand such as business and commercial topics and, more generally, domains that can be used for business/commercial websites.   Brandable domains should be avoided at all costs. Also, in my opinion .org.uk and .me.uk domains are unlikely to appreciate as fast as domains with more sought after extensions.

Having said this, it is true that there are many more ‘good’ domain names available to register with these extenstions.

In terms of search engines optimization, a key word rich .me.uk will rank as well as a .co.uk domain, containing the same keywords, in the same order. Furthermore, because Google ignores hyphens, keyword-keyword.me.uk is viewed by Google as the same as keywordkeyword.co.uk. So, many domainers are establishing ‘minisites’ and niche sites on domains with these extensions and will register and develop the hyphenated version of the domain name if the non-hyphenated version is not available. Minisites can produce an encouraging monthly income and, by developing substantial numbers of these sites, they can become a significant revenue stream, in addition to any appreciation in the value of the domain. However, the amount of earnings can vary enormously depending on the topic. I have produced an introduction to developing minisites and niche sites which you can find here.

So although prices of these types of domain names will rise as the general tide of domain name prices rise, I believe that they will always be the most problematic of domains and most illiquid. This means that only a very small proportion will be worth buying and keeping for the long term. Furthermore, it takes time and experience to be able to identify those domains with potential.

The strength of these domains is the fact that they are relatively cheap if bought at registration fee prices and, if developed, can frequently be made to rank well in the search engines. However, whether building and monetizing one (or two or three) large websites is more profitable than building a substantial portfolio of minisites, or niche sites, is a matter of considerable debate.

So what do you think? Have you had success selling .org.uk and .me.uk domains. Are you holding on to the best .org.uk and me.uk domains in the hope that they will appreciate in value? Have you any experiences of developing minisites? Share your thoughts below……..