Can I buy a domain name and not use it? Yes and make bank!

Can I buy a domain name and not use it?

Yes! In fact, many people actually make bank doing so! Just because you buy a domain name doesn’t mean you have to host it right away, or even at all.

Most good domain names that people buy, they let sit on their hard drives for a while, before they actually host them anywhere. In fact, many have them sitting on their hard drives for years!

I myself, recently sold a .com that I had owned for about 5 years or so because someone wanted it really badly. I bought that domain name for about $10 bucks or so, and sold it for over $600! Not too bad right?

The best part is, I didn’t have to put any money into it. It was just collecting dust on my hard drive.

I recently bought a .com name myself from namecheap.com for about $11 bucks or so. I have no intention of ever hosting it, but I’m sure if I were to list it on Flippa for $100-$200, someone would buy it.

Due to the nature of this “game” you can play with domain names that aren’t even hosted anywhere or used by anyone! So put your thinking cap on and think of a few domains you like and start filling out your portfolio!

What’s the best way to find good domain names?

The best way I’ve found is by using the same people who buy them, for example GoDaddy.com.

This company has been around since who knows when. I have bought several hundred dollars worth of domains from them and they’re all still living on my hard drive! The best part is you can bid on the names there just like at Flippa.

But many times it’s cheaper because when someone else lists a name for $75-$100 bucks or so, that no one wants to buy, they’ll eventually lower the price and someone like me can try to grab it up at a steal!

Overall, I’ve had some great success with GoDaddy for getting good prices on domains that I’ve wanted without having to pay top dollar for them. Not all names are created equal, but if you look hard enough and do your due diligence you will surely find some good ones when the time is right.

I like to watch domain auctions on Flippa in my spare time and it seems like everyday someone makes a sale for $500-1000 dollars! Not too shabby if you ask me.

Can you make money flipping domain names?

Yes! I used to do it and made a lot of cash in the process.

Is it easy? No, but if you understand the basics and take your time, I’m sure you’ll start to see opportunities everywhere.

I’ll show you step by step how I would go about finding undervalued domain names that can be flipped for a big profit.

You don’t have to be a domain expert, just someone that has basic knowledge of how search engines work. I’ll explain some really advanced stuff that’s interwoven in the process, but you can skip it if you want.

What are we waiting for? Let’s start flipping!

Step 1 – Create an account on ExpiredDomains.net.

This site is a great tool for finding valuable domain names that have been dropped from the original owner.

Here’s how it works:

You login to your account and you’ll have an option to search domains by keyword, date registered or domain extension. In my case, I’m going with keywords because my intention is to find domains that match a specific name.

What I’m looking for is something like this:

Search results for Taylor Swift on ExpiredDomains.net.

I just typed Taylor and the system returned all expired domain names with Taylor as a keyword. If you’re wondering why some of them have Maps in the end, it’s because they used to be Google Maps websites.

Now that I have a bunch of Taylor Swift related domain names in front of me, my next step is to see which ones are monetized and how much money they’re making. No point in buying an expired domain name with no earnings right?

I’m going to click on the title bar and it will take me to the domain’s main URL.

I’m looking for an Adsense link, but there are other monetization methods out there like Amazon etc. Some of them offer more money than Google which is why it’s good to check every single one of them.

If you see something like this (or anything related) – http://www.taylorswift.com/tour/

You know you have a winner on your hands. I’m going to actually check all of these domains’ stats, but that’s only if the domain name is registered under someone else’s nickname or some company that might want to sell it back to me for an exorbitant price lol.

Pretty much all domains you see in the list above are monetized. The only way to find out how much money they make is to click on each one and check it individually. You can also sort them by clicking on a column’s title bar, but I usually stick with the default view.

Here’s what mine looks like after sorting by the monthly earnings column.

Step 2 – Look for monetized domains that make money.

You can’t go wrong with this one. The more money a domain makes, the more expensive it will be when you try to buy it.

Unfortunately, ExpiredDomains.net doesn’t offer any sort of price predictions based on earnings like GoDaddy.com does, but you can still use this data to your advantage.

By doing this I’ve found 3 monetized domain names that I would consider purchasing if they were not already taken. You might think that all of them are expensive for some reason, but rest assured, there are thousands of other high earners out there waiting to be scooped up.

A quick Google Search will reveal that the first two domains are owned by a company called Swiftcover. It’s a UK based insurance company that manages a bunch of Taylor Swift related websites and makes millions in profit every year.

They’re probably not gonna want to give up their high revenue domains anytime soon, so forget about them for now.

The third domain is up for auction on Flippa. Unfortunately, the opening bid is $999 which is way over my budget.

I’m not saying that healthy websites can’t be purchased for less than a thousand bucks, but if you’re planning to flip it over and over again, this might not be the right place to do so.

Going through ExpiredDomains.net like this will probably take you several hours since the search results don’t load instantly and it’s easy to get sidetracked by ‘flashy’ domain names that might be worth a couple bucks to sell for a quick buck, but don’t bring in much in terms of earnings.

Step 3 – Find monetized domain names that have a clean history.

I’m not sure why, but I never gave this much thought. I had several domains with great earnings and no one to flip them over to so it didn’t matter what they were about or how many backlinks they had.

I just bought anything with a good money potential and hosted them on some cheap shared hosting plan while dreaming about some day putting them all on a VPS and creating a network of money earning sites that would make me $1000’s in profit.

Well, eventually I stopped. Why? Well, I got tired of the speculation aspects. There’s nothing wrong with seeing a great domain name that has potential.

However, instead of buying countless domains, plus paying for their renewals year after year and keeping track of their renewal dates etc. I wanted to actually take some of those domains and build them into money making websites.

Then, either shear the sheep and collect that nice monthly revenue, or sell them for a handsome profit.

Can you buy a domain name permanently?

Unfortunately, no. You can buy a domain name and not use it, but you can’t “buy” a domain name permanently.

When you register your domain name with your registrar (Namecheap, Godaddy etc.) you can set up what is called an Auto-Renewal.

This can be done for free and allows you to have your domain name renewed automatically by the registrar so that you can simply forget about it and let it take care of itself.

In fact, if you have a credit card on file, you will be automatically billed for it. If you don’t, most registrars will send you an email reminding you that your domain is up for renewal. They usually do this about 30 days before the expiration date.

Can I buy a domain name and not use it? Conclusions.

If you’ve ever been tempted to buy a domain name for an idea that might not pan out, now is your chance.

You can purchase a domain and hold onto it until the time is right or if there are no takers sell it on Flippa.com!

There have been some amazing sales of domains in recent years so go ahead and get creative!