What to Think About When Looking for Domain Name Value

My uncle bought Bollinger.com as the family domain name in 1994. At the time, he had no idea of what the value of such a URL purchase could become. Over the past several years, however, he has had offers in the tens-of-thousands of dollars from multiple companies, including the well-known Bollinger Champagne Co. Of course, knowing my uncle, he would never sell the domain name unless he was offered an outrageous sum of money—perhaps in the high 5 figures to even a 6 figure number.

On second thought, however, a number in the 7 figures might not be so outrageous for some domain names. In fact, the owner of candy.com paid three million dollars for his URL in 2009, and now he’s sitting on a pretty awesome candy site from which I am willing to bet he has made quite a bit more than the sum he sacrificed for it.

I currently own about 10 domain names, for which I paid roughly ten dollars each; because I only paid for a one-year subscription, I’ve thus far invested approximately 100 dollars in this effort. Will my investment pay off? Well, that depends on many factors. Two of the domain names are being developed, and one is up and running, growwithtrellis.com, which is likely the site on which you are currently reading this blog post.

Domain names gain much more value when they are developed into a website, particularly when one devotes a great deal of effort to the site. Simply sitting on a domain name, however, can be a tricky investment, as finding the right buyer is never easy; often times a buyer may just try to find another URL for a better price. Yet owning a top quality premium domain likes cars.com or candy.com can have a huge pay-off, perhaps enough to retire on if you’re well into your middle age years.

Common sense would tell you that the shorter the domain name the more likely it is to be valuable. This is not always the case, as two-word domains can be much more valuable than an obscure one word name. For example, couponreviews.com goes for $1,888