What Is A Domainer?
On a post of mine the other day Adam asked an interesting question, basically what is a domainer?
I think there are many people that even buy and sell domains that would have a hard time defining it. And I think even outside of that many people start to confuse domaining with development because in many cases people like to do both, like myself.
My quick answer to the question was:
1 A domainer is someone who buys domain names with the intent to sell them at a profit.
2 A collector is a person who buys domain names with no plan on selling for a profit.
3 A developer is a person who buys domain names with an intent to build a business on them.
It is ok to mix and match #1 and #3 but never #2.
I think this is about as simple a definition as could be said and I actually think there are multiple levels to number 1 and number 2 which I will go a bit deeper into in a later post.
But I thought I would post Adams question here, leave a comment with your thoughts on what you think the definition of domainer is.
I think that a domainer is someone who buys domains to resell, park, of develop his domains. Even someone who buys names for brand protection or to get local domains to rank well in search would be considered a domainer.
That is a great question Bruce; in fact one of my cars has the license plate Domainer so I am CONSTANTLY asked what is a Domainer….here is my $.02
Domain Name Investing Strategies
1. Domain Flipping (buy/resell domain names)
2. Domain Developing (build, market & monetize domains)
3. Domain Parking (monetize domains without building/collecting)
@Andrew – One of my next posts will be describing the flavors, I did one time before but I am going to go a bit more granular, you are right on.
@Teendomainer – The only time I would disagree is if, lets say, I just owned Missouri.me and nothing else, then if I built that into a business I would not be a domainer. That is one thing I think domainers are having a hard time separating these days because the lines are starting to blur as we start to build properties we know are valuable brands.
Nice flow of comments here. A domainer is not a one trick pony, and is not confined to one strategy like only buying a domain to flip it.
Domainers are basically “domain investors” or “domain entrepreneurs”.
What is a real estate investor? This is someone who may engage in a variety of money making activities in which the central focus is simply “real estate”.
The one thing I will not accept is for outside critics to call us cybersquatters or squatters. That is the result of ignorance/envy and we should not allow others misdefine us out of their own need to mischaracterize domainers’ interests, hard work, financial risks & successes.
@M Menius – Very true, just had that talk with a good friend of mine, he does not call us cybersquatters but thinks there should be more of a tax per year on the names that forces people to develop something on him. I asked him what made him feel entitled to have a name, simply that he wants it?
Frustrates me that jealously breeds contempt.
If a real estate investor holds a property other than beachfront/lakefront property, then how do they go about selling it? Do they merely put up a “for sale” sign in the front yard and wait for an anxious buyer? Do they look for real estate forums and try to sell it to other real estate investors? Do they hire a teenager to slap a cheap paint job on it to make it look better before they place an ad in the local paper? Well, how often are domainers guilty of taking a similar approach with their domain investments?