How much are you willing to pay for a great domain but for a hobby site?

[Joel R]

it means I have to resist buying shiny toys for bit of time so my slush fund can get built back up.

The Marketplace Black Friday sale is going on right now in the IPS community! You should grab the themes and mods while you can - they really are the best prices of the year since we have no other sale at any other time. A domain that good deserves some good mods!

https://giphy.com/gifs/night-stop-her-gVv0K9mssfJao

 

[Noble]

For a good domain i knew would take off $200.00 is nothing

 

[frm]

I used to buy and sell domain names. I still have a portfolio of names that I keep that I'll either sell or eventually develop.

I paid $2750 for my initials (3 letters) in dot net that I used for my business domain and now it's just collecting dust because I don't use it for that purpose. The resell value on it is about $800-$1400 now but will probably keep it.

I spent $500 for my first initial, middle initial, and full last name in dot com. That will eventually be developed into my photography portfolio (photography is my hobby, but I still need to put together a portfolio because ya never know if you get good and someone needs a last-minute wedding photographer and you're free, you banked $1000 for the day and a hotel/etc.).

I bought a 4 letter acronym in com/net/org for $3000 as it's often used, and it does get traffic. Might turn into a forum but need a direction first as it was a "confessions" site before but positivity only (private notes to brighten other people's days) dedicated to a good friend that lost the battle with PTSD. I don't quite know if I can change the connotation of it to being negative, as it can be, and be a ranting forum.

Another 4 letter acronym that I might turn into a general discussion forum, not used, but in Urban Dictionary.

I have four US area codes in .us which cover 2 full states. They oddly get traffic and I wanted to develop a phone listing of some sort at some time (just aggregate and list) as it'd create a lot of pages (and oddly enough, people do search phone numbers).

My worst investment was opening a forum in a highly competitive, highly saturated, but highly lucrative niche (forex). It's something that I wasn't ever interested in besides getting the clicks and affiliate signups. Domains are somewhat of a ranking factor and it had to fit and be descriptive. The domain itself was $1299 and I dropped another $8-10k in development/addons/custom theme/logo (almost all DBTech lifetime addons and vbSEO [where'd that go? ]) as well as articles, forum posting, a forex Q&A (so basically article writing but short). No matter how hard I tried or how much I dumped into it to create more content, I couldn't break page 4 for even searching that niche and forum! Forget about an article ranking... I did get a contractual ad for $1500/mo for 3 months at least...

tl;dr
This is what I would spend on what types of domains
Pet projects that you have a feeling that will go nowhere: registration (new in com) to $50
Hobby (because hobbies often turn into something much more): $50-500 (generally I stick around 150-250)
A small business: $1000-5000
And a business you want to bank with:: the sky is the limit. (I ended up spending $1000 on my current .org that I'm working on developing as a forum as it is a geographic name searched 400,000 times monthly and the com owner had sentimental value so wouldn't sell it to me back in 2012ish for $40,000... I keep following up with him on whether he'll let it go or not, but I think I'm gonna end up spending $100,000+ on it when the time comes and it'll be worth every penny with direct traffic alone--I estimate that it makes a good $10-30 per day in AdSense on a 5 page "blog" alone)

 

[Leaf_Green]

I'd spend more because forums themselves are only a hobby to me rather than a source of income. Even if I have to spend a bit to get things off the ground, that's okay if I find the community and niche fun.

Not just a domain, but I recently offered around $800 to absorb a site nearly exactly about the same specific niche. I haven't heard back yet, probably because the site has been inactive for a long time. If I'm helping to prolong the life of the fanbase and the owner wasn't making anything from it either (passion project) he has nothing to lose by putting his inactive site in good hands and earning something in the process.

Guess I'll just wait and see if anything comes from this.

 

[frm]

Guess I'll just wait and see if anything comes from this.

You're also not taking multipliers into account here. Generally speakiing, it's 36 months.

That said, if this one person is niche dominating with 10 domains making $22.20 a month each on on a $5 per month VPS, it's really not even worth responding to.

All my domains make at or above registration fee ($9), but even at $800, I'd ignore it too. Why? It's not what it's worth to me, as it pays for itself, it's what it's worth to you.

I'd merely counter with very few words, "Make me a higher offer" or "Open Escrow with $2500 to this email and it's yours".

Lowballing ($500 and under) goes straight to trash.

 

[overcast]

I see many who buy expensive domains But what about the revenue out of it? What's the point of spending if the ROI is nothing?

 

[zappaDPJ]

I see many who buy expensive domains But what about the revenue out of it? What's the point of spending if the ROI is nothing?

A good domain with a decent ranking might well lead to a long term gain. Short term monetization is not the only vehicle to profit.

 

[haqzore]

A good domain with a decent ranking might well lead to a long term gain. Short term monetization is not the only vehicle to profit.

Agree.

Put another way... A premium domain is often more "investment" than it is "day trading".

 

[frm]

A good domain with a decent ranking might well lead to a long term gain. Short term monetization is not the only vehicle to profit.

Domains that are undeveloped don't rank.

Undeveloped pages are "parked" on what I'm sure everyone has seen with textual ads all over it related to the domain and what the person may be looking for.

Say you own DenverSalon in com. People actually type that in their browsers. And, whoever bids on those similar keywords through Google Adwords, etc. are getting their ads served there too.

Would you develop a site, taking man hours, plus maintain it, to rank and potentially make more; or, would you be on the hunt for another CitySalon name earning $25+ per year to buy that you can later sell for multipliers or to an actual salon for $2500+ so they don't need to bid as much because there's a track record of "clicks"?

It's a no brainer for me. I build a portfolio of revenue generating domains and make sales at times, but primarily focus on my own interests to develop (which if all domains were your interest and you developed them with passion, you'd kill the market).

Edit: I just woke up and read that wrong. I think I just expanded on your shorter phrase, hopefully educating others though.

 

[zappaDPJ]

I think I just expanded on your shorter phrase, hopefully educating others though.

You did

 

[Leaf_Green]

I usually see it coming down to $$$$$ here. I get it, if this is what you do to pay the bills. Completely fair enough. On the other hand if you're a purely a hobbyist, motives and pursuits differ. I was just speaking from a hobbyist perspective. Not all hobby sites are created with profit in mind. On the contrary, it might cost you money. But if that's what an admin enjoys doing, more power to them. (I know other admins who operate forums without profit.) Not too different to spending money on anything else for enjoyment. Just weighing in on what the OP seemed to be looking for.

 

[Poshnjari]

And me vote No - It's a hobby, the money could be used for more important things.

 

[Kyrie]

Maybe it is naive of me, but I personally hate spending any amount of money if it doesn't bring some back.

My current project I spent $15 on.

 

[haqzore]

Maybe it is naive of me, but I personally hate spending any amount of money if it doesn't bring some back.

My current project I spent $15 on.

Fair opinion, but seriously starting a business is rarely free or guaranteed to return starting capital.

Sometimes you just gotta pony up & dive in.

 

[Kyrie]

Fair opinion, but seriously starting a business is rarely free or guaranteed to return starting capital.

Sometimes you just gotta pony up & dive in.

Also true, but I haven't thought about a website as a "business" since I sold my one big community. After that it's been purely for tinkering mainly.

 

[deslocotoco]

I think domains names and prices are extremely subjective.

A good marketing practice can really make your brand have a 'name' for itself with the proper time, independent of the domain name.

Why eBay, Facebook and Best Buy are great names?

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I paid $150 for a domain and never used it. It was a waste of money but I suppose that is a part of learning. I bought a GoPro drone for $1,000 and that turned out to be a waste lol so there is other worse things to buy I reckon.