Chris Swyer

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Each day website owners are allowing domain names they have purchased to expire completely by accident. Yet a well informed investor who is aggressive enough can snap up these domain names and capture a large amount of existing website traffic for what is a brand new site. Unfortunately, there are many website owners today who have lost out because of this whilst there are just as many perceptive investors who have been made richer because of it.

All websites only survive if they have regular amounts of traffic being directed towards their site each day. So often when a site which has a memorable domain name and constant traffic going to it becomes available they will quickly be snapped up by some of the more savvy domain name investors around. Then often within a matter of days they have sold the domain name on for a profit.

Say for example you find a site that was selling bridal goods (gowns and tuxedos) and yet it wasn’t doing as well as the website owner had expected so they have forgotten about it and their ownership has expired.

When the domain does expire a smart person will be informed of this through the use of a domain watchdog service. These services will automatically advise their members of any domains which have become available that they are interested in immediately. Then once notification has been received they have the chance then to buy up this domain for no more than $6.95.

Then in just a matter of minutes, the domain investor will have been able to get hold of a good domain name that seems to have plenty of good quality traffic. All they then need to do is build a very simple website page with a number of related ad links. This will then allow the site to begin to better monetize any existing website traffic it has as well as generate a much more constant flow of cash for the new owner.

As time passes then you as the investor have the choice of either building up the site even further which will in turn help to generate more cash for you. Or you can simply choose to resell (flip) the side to another domain name investor, domain name broker or a person who is actually interested in owning the website for themselves.

If you have an old domain name which you are considering getting rid of it may be well to place it on a site such as eBay or one of the many domain name auction sites which have now been set up online. You may well be pleasantly surprised at just how much you can sell it for using these sites. On eBay in recent times some of the more unusual domain names which have been put up for auction have sold for as much as $500 which is a tidy profit in anyones book.

However, for the more serious minded domain name investors out there they utilise a number of free and paid domain name valuation tools and services online, which can help them to make a more informed decision. Although the actual valuation prices tend to vary vastly because it depends on whether they have been either automated or manually generated by someone, it is not unusual for a domain to sell for more than its owner would have originally thought.