Nick Caristinos
In the world of domainers, people are constantly looking for new ways to monetize their domains, make better domain selections and get higher up on the search engines to generate both pay per click income and to increase the potential resale value of their domains.
A recent example of this new trend of purchasing domains based on how high the subject matter ranks on the search engines, is the recent ebay auction listing for BernieMadoff.com. The listing sets the starting bid at a hefty $10,000, which may seem high but with google searches listing the “madoff scandal” in the 50th spot and “fairfield greenwich group” in 86th place it is perhaps not completely unreasonable to expect domains like BernieMadoff.com to sell for large sums of money based on their earning potential.
One of the challenges facing domainers today is knowing what domains have potential value, so it comes as no surprise that headline news would be a great place to start when coming up with new domain names to register. By watching the headlines and following the Google Trends list and other search engines for what stories are making the tops of the search one can create lists of domains based on these hot headlines. Of course news can be fleeting and so the trick is choosing which stories have longevity and or will leave a legacy the public will continue to have interest in once the initial fanfare fades.