Many people these days saw domain auctions, and how many buyers have actually bid and how high a domain can go up to. So they buy, collect domains to resell. A $9.99 registered domain can double, triple, or multiple to several figures. People start collecting and/or registering domains with the sole purpose of reselling. But what they don’t know is that not all domains are worth collecting and not worth what sellers stated.

If you see a domain on ebay auction or any other places, always look up for details of that domain. Say domainiwant.com is up for auction with a low starting price and the seller would say something like “premium domain”, “valuable”, “priceless”, or even give you tips about why you should buy it, and luring with long expiration date. But most sellers don’t tell the truth behind it. If you check on whois.com or dnsstuff.com, you will see that that domain (most domains) is registered just a few days ago!!!  Why would you want to buy that? Unless of course the domain name really describes your business!

Also do not believe the sellers when they say the domain is appraised for $xxxx. Ask them for appraised certificated from a PAID appraiser, that have a positive record. If the appraiser’s site is unknown to you, look in alexa.com for comments on the site, check with BBB.com for issues, and try googling about the site. Not all appraisers are trustworthy because most use software other than SEO and life appraising by several evaluators. If you really want that domain, say asking for $5000, why not pay about max $50 for appraising at godaddy.com, sedo.com, or other legitimate sites, when you have already decided to buy a $5000 valued one?

Remember that not all 3 letter domain names are really valuable. Always check their history and when they are registered. There are many 3 letter domains for .com, .net, .org with no meaning, you can't even imagine what these 3 letters stand for in the craziest, weirdnest or in really foolish mind! Those domains are worth only for the cost they are registered for! (Sometimes not even that price! Say the domain is registered at company1 for $15.00, but there's a company2 when domains can be registered for $6.95!)

If you’re buying expired domains, check for the domain’s history: what’s it used for, what type of contents, etc… You do not want a domain name sold by an adult company who uses it just to trick people to visit their site. Say canyoutellmemydomainhistory.com up for auction by adult company previously redirected to their explicit site or a scam site. Buying that domain would not be very wise. Search engines and other users would have left negative feedbacks on domain rating sites, and most will not click on the site because of their past experience, etc…

After you bought a domain name, don’t just leave them as is. Get a cheap hosting or even a free hosting to put some contents to it! Domain without contents will gradually disappear form ranking, search engines and will not worth more than registered price! So put some contents, it doesn’t have to be professionally designed, a simple one with contents for spiders to crawl periodically would be perfect and will keep the rank or will even increase it. Yes that also means higher price than you’ve paid for in future!

Lastly advertise your domain at low cost agencies. Just to have the domain names rotating, clicked on or viewed by unique viewers so as not to devalue it.

Hope this guide helps all the wannabe collectors and collectors who had had bad experience or people whose domains is not worth what it used to be!

-Best wishes in your hobby