Only 22% of Top 105 Domains Sold in 2007 are Developed
I just read a great article on www.DailyDomainer.com showing that only 24 of the top 105 domains sold in 2007 have been developed. Most are parked and generating PPC income. While I understand that sites like Porn.com can generate a significant amount of type-in traffic and referral fees, it is still amazing to me why more of these high quality names have not been developed.
One of the explanations in the post for this is that why develop a domain when you can turn around and sell it at a profit a few months later. My response is that by doing so, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. For example, investment.com sold for $900,000 in 2007. It may be worth $1.1 or $1.2m in 2008 if the right buyer comes along. But, if you put 6 months of work and $250k into the site in the form of original content, design, development and marketing - it could be an advertising and cost per lead based site that would be cash flow positive and worth $10m in 2008.
Super affiliates build high performance sites that generate positive cash all the time. However, they don’t normally have access to the premium domains. It would be easy for a super affiliate who knows search, content and design to put a legitimate business on a premium domain like investment.com and create a positive cash flow business.
True, there is a risk that the time and effort you put into the site won’t pay off due to poor execution or bad business model, but that’s where an experienced domain development team like DomainStrategies.com comes in. We are proving the this model currently with Healthcare.com, Patents.com and soon WiFi.com.
It takes vision, capital and internet business know how - of which we have all three. We’ll be at DomainFest Jan 21-23 if you’d like to discuss development of your premium domains - look for Scott Fasser or Rob Monster.