Domain Name Speculation Heating Up

For the last few months I’ve been getting more into the domain game and buying a variety of .com’s. It gets addictive after a while. I’ve probably purchased around 100 domain names so far in a wide variety of categories. I’ve registered a few and picked up a few in drops. (It’s like stamp collecting for the modern geek.) I register domain names for 2 reasons: 1. portfolio (their resale value) or 2. for new sites/projects we have or might have in the future. (I only go after .com with a few exceptions for .org’s)

I’ve seen a lot of new registrations this year - it looks like the domaining game has been heating up. Of the hundreds of domain names I’ve checked, quite a large percentage of them have 2006 registrations. A number of them showed registrations within a week of when I’ve looked them up.

Last month I almost got into a bidding war for floridaphotos.com, but backed off at the end (it sold for around $360). I also almost registered unfussy.com, but waited, and somebody else picked it up a few days later.

If you’re fairly new to domain name speculation, check out Mike Davidson’s excellent post on how to pick up an expiring domain. It’s an interesting read.
I use DomainTools (used to be called whois.sc) - they’re the best for looking up domain name information. You can also check out Instant Domain Search to quickly check for domain name availability.