Oof.

It’s been three weeks inside of one week.

In addition, I did a shitload of copywriting these last few days for a project I can probably tell you about in another month-ish and my brain is exhausted. So in terms of having entertaining commentary: I’ve got nothing.

I’m an engine with no oil in it.

I’m the chalk dust that collects in that weird curvy metal chalk-holder beneath the blackboard.

Here’s an unrelated .gif:

I guess what I’m saying is, enjoy this shittier version of my usual email—but the domain are still top-notch.

Domains With Authority

It’s like the old saying goes: if you don’t do your own due diligence someone else is gonna do it for you. Wait…

Just make sure you research these further before spending your money on them.

Reals.com - ends 8/5
DR 54 | 798 RD, Links from: Time, Homestead.com, TheBalance, BrightLocal, Carrot.com, LoveToknow.com

One of the metrics I consider when deciding how much it’s reasonable to spend on a domain with Juice is how rare the inventory is. This is actually something I learned from my friend Andrew Voda, who works at Empire Flippers.

F'rinstance, if I’m in the market for a health or tech site, I’m pretty much only focused on the authority flex. Why? Because at the very least in the last year+ I’ve been writing this newsletter, health and tech sites are extremely common. It makes sense, right? Everyone interacts with tech and health every day in their lives, so when someone wants to start a site, health and tech are two extremely obvious choices of subject matter. Those two are also common subjects that people become passionate about.

So when a site comes along with a great backlink profile AND ALSO is in an industry without a lot of inventory (read: frequent expiring domains authority) that’s a factor in determining the value.

Which brings me to this site. It’s got some REAL real estate authority. It’s short, highly brandable domain, and is in a niche with low inventory.

Currently at $4k. Archive.org isn’t working for me at the moment, but from a site:URL search, it looks like it used to be a real estate directory site.

This is one of my favorite opportunities of any domain I’ve ever published (probably why I’m writing so much about it). With the way the real estate markets are in the early stages of chaos due to multiple factors related to COVID-19, there’s some interesting opportunity here if you are well-connected or knowledgeable enough to capitalize on it.

PerformInsider.com - ends 8/2
DR 63 | 1.61k RD, Links from: NYTimes, Forbes, BI, Entrepreneur, FindLaw.com, IBTimes, SeekingAlpha, CBInsights

I know this looks like a really tasty domain (and it is), but be super aware that some of the links in the backlink profile are showing up as being redirected from another domain, which is being redirected to this one.

PaceDM.com is showing in Ahrefs as 301’d to this domain, HOWEVER, it is actually forwarding to PerformInsiderS.com now, so you won’t actually have those links. There are still a lot of links still pointing to this domain, so it’s still really powerful.

If you need some big marketing authority, you’ll want to look at picking up this site.

Also: as PerformInsiders.com looks like it was rebranded from this site, so you’ll definitely want to skip the sketchy Archive.org rebuilds this time. Currently $2.6k @ time of writing. Ranking for +1k keywords.

InfiniteLegRoom.com - ends 8/3
DR 32 | 468 RD, Links from: Wikipedia, Vice, Vox, Gizmodo, Inquirer, Reason.com, Orange.com, Spin.com, TheOdysseyOnline

Speaking of high-inventory niches…

Used to be the travel-blog-and-tips from DJ A-Trak, a Canadian DJ. Not sure if it expired recently and was rebuilt as a more generic and shittier travel website before expiring again, but it’s a possibility (still can’t get Archive.org to work), so just keep that in mind when doing your due diligence.

Some really solid media links, here. Travel is not quite the industry it used to be, but it’ll come back. Probably.

TheIOTGroup.com - ends 8/3
DR 25 | 186 RD, Links from: INC.com, BuzzFeed, VentureBeat, Refinery29, eWeek.com, Parade.com, MacObserver

Buzzword buzzword buzzword buzzword buzzword. Buzzword buzzword.

Buzzword buzzword buzzword, buzzword buzzword.

Not a very good brand, but some strong tech authority here. Currently $10.

TheSweetBeet.com - ends 8/4
DR 28 | 408 RD, Links from: LiveStrong.com, Active.com, Thrillist, Health.com, AparmentTherapy.com, SeriousEats, Greatist, ChowHound

Currently ranks for about 1.4k keywords.

This one looks like a strong buy. Big food-related backlinks, and is not JUST ranking for obscure recipes, but for things like lowest mercury tuna, chocolate high, and stovetop roasting. Over 250 pages still indexed. I think there’s a lot of opportunity here to recreate the structure of the old site and hit it with some good content and new links.

ThisIsAmericanRugby.com - ends 8/4
DR 53 | 417 RD, Links from: TheGuardian, BBC, Stanford.edu, Fandom, BleacherReport, MensJournal, SomethingAwful, Revolvy

A rugby site with real and relevant authority. Quite a catch, if you’re in the rugby space. Still a decent pick-up if you’re in the sports niche.

You could probably search for 10 years and not see such a relevant-to-rugby domain with this kind of authority expire.

I have to imagine a total of 0 readers on this list are in the rugby niche, statistically speaking, but you never know…

Ranks for +1k keywords, currently $500+.

LightGroup.com - ends 8/6
DR 49 | 772 RD, Links from: Behance, Forbes, TheGuardian, BBC, USAToday, Go.com, Time, LATimes, Vice, TheKnot, TimeOut, Eater.com, EOnline

This domain has a stupid amount of high-authority backlinks.

Seems to be… the website for the company behind several Vegas nightclubs, at least one of which is involved with the Mirage?

I didn’t dig super deep, but damn, this is a solid backlink profile. Ranks for 10 low value KWs, so a good sign. Decent domain brand as well.

Domains to Build a Brand On

SmartWellness.com - ends 8/5

Smart + a desirable keyword = winning brand

DentalBiz.com - ends 8/6

Create a B2B info/product business on this domain. Easy brand.

~

Thanks for tuning in…

Sean

sem AT seanmarkey.com

Hey!

Happy Saturday.

You might notice this is a day late… I was thinking people are just too engaged with these emails arriving mid-day Friday, I better send it off Saturday morning, see if we can get those open rate and clicking-on-link numbers down.

How long until my World’s Okayest Marketer mug arrives in the mail?

Actually, what happened is a bit of a story, which I’ll share—but you can go ahead and just skip to the domain names if you don’t want to hear me talk shit about Flippa.com.

Here’s what’s up:

I found an established site on Flippa I wanted to buy. After literally hours of due diligence (because anything else would be reckless when buying a site on FLIPPA—the Warrior Forum of the domain/website marketplace industry) I decided to pull the trigger and grab the site at the Buy It Now price and end the auction with two weeks to go. I was excited! It would be a solid addition to my portfolio.

However, instead of the BIN ending the auction and kicking off the payment/transfer process, Flippa told me I had to wait until my “bid” was accepted by the seller.

After a few hours, the seller “rejected” my “bid” and “canceled the auction.”

The whole process took up a ton of time and attention and in the end, all I had to show for it was a newsletterless Friday and a few really salty tweets @ Flippa.

In the end, it’s my bad for trying to do business Flippa, the garbage-juice-that-gets-on-your-hands-when-you-take-the-trash-out of internet-related businesses. Flippa support told me that was a perfectly acceptable outcome on their platform and is there anything else they can help me with.

Guess not!

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall

Domains With Authority

WashingtonIndependent.com - ends 7/27
DR 63 | 8.6k RD, Links from: NYTimes, W3, CNN, WAPO, MIT, Wired, AOL, LATimes, TheAtlantic

Used to be a political site.

It has a shitload of links, y’all. Over 1,000 links from both NYTimes and WAPO—just a ton of authority.

Here’s the story about it closing down:

On Wednesday, the nonprofit news and politics site The Washington Independent announced that, after just under three years of publishing, it’s closing shop.

Keep in mind, as you queue up to pay out the ass for this site that it closed in 2010. One page is still indexed. It’s not nothing, but it’s not a lot. It’s not gonna be as powerful as a site that expired in the last year or so, but it still has a 10/10 would get links from again backlink profile.

According to Archive.org, the site was last updated in 2012, and was online until 2014, and then it wasn’t. Low four-figures at the moment, probably goes for mid-ish four figs by the end. Can’t deny those links, or the power of having a “news” site to write about all kinds of topics, link out to all kinds of sites (or, if you’re really savvy, use as a way to get links to your main site in return for a link from this powerhouse).

OurMine.org - ends 7/25
DR 40 | 518 RD, Links from: Yahoo, BI, Entrepreneur, FastCompany, TheVerge, Vice, Engadget, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, Insider.com

Uh, you might want to be careful with any stigmas surrounding this name. From Crunchbase:

OurMine has made a name for itself by hacking the Twitter accounts of tech leaders and celebrities. In recent weeks, the group has gained access to Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey’s accounts by breaking into linked accounts (Quora for Pichai and Vine for Dorsey) and using those accounts to post to Twitter.

That said… this one has a hell of a tech news link profile. The domain (though a .org) is generic enough to be about anything, really, so there are many different ways you can play this one.

SecurityNewsDaily.com - ends TODAY
DR 47 | 1.11k RD, Links from: Forbes, BBC, BI, TheAtlantic, Mashable, ScientificAmerican, Slate, LiveScience, Lenovo, Kapersky

Pros: Dat link profile

Cons: only one (‘domain is expired’) page indexed

Still, this is an extremely strong site that you can build a great tech security publication on, and use that traffic/authority to leverage on another site you have in the same space (or, you know, whatever else you come up with. I’m trying to finish this quickly so you can actually bid on this domain).

CloudComputingExpo.com - ends 7/26
DR 64 | 1.06k RD, Links from: Microsoft, Apache, Oracle, IBM, CNet, Dell, Forbes, BI, RedHat, IEEE.org

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this strong a tech-related backlink profile on any site in my year or so of doing this newsletter. I also have the memory capabilities of a circa-1992 laptop, so take that for what it’s worth. God damn, though! This link profile is a who’s who of who’s a fortune 500 tech mega giant.

The domain is not very brandable, but you can probably take some poetic license with the “expo” part of this URL can just mean generically an online gathering and display of information/products/whatever.

Also, I hear cloud computing is a popular thing these days.

Lotta good to say about this domain. Several pages indexed and still ranking for a few random keyword—all good signs.

Surprised this is just about $600 with a day or so left…

PlayThisThing.com - ends 7/30
DR 43 | 1.1k RD, Links from: Wikipedia, TheGuardian, MIT, Wired, HBR, Fandom, NewYorker, Slashdot, BoingBoing

This URL has a lot of gaming authority, and y’all know gaming is so hot right now.

Just one page indexed in Google at the moment, but I like the brand (I don’t LOVE it) as it’s fairly general across the gaming niche and could be used to build out any kind of related site.

At ~$500 with 5 days left. Get it!

EventsBot.com - ends 7/27
DR 48 | 2.42k RD, Links from: W3.org, MeetUp, Vice, VentureBeat, InformationWeek, Patagonia, CBInsights, DailyHerald

Event registration, uh… not so hot right now.

Thanks, Corona.

Still, a solid site for the optimists: when we beat this pandemic finally in 2031, you’ll have a super-fly name to build an events business on, you’ll just need to keep the site live and supplied with fresh, valuable content for the next 11 years. NBD…

Not the best backlink profile and the price reflects that—just under $200 currently. Seems to have generated most of the links from big publications linking to event-sign-up forms as subdomains (like go to eventname.eventsbot.com to sign up).

TheJackalMagazine.com - ends 7/26
DR 47 | 412 RD, Links from: Outlook, Independent.co.uk, Refinery29, USMagazine, CBInsights, Heavy.com

At $1200 with just over a day left.

Used to be a… mens fashion magazine? But it still ranks for 4.2k keywords according to Ahrefs, so the domain has legs.

Would be easy to spin up a “mens focused” site to sell all kinds of shit on. Recommended—a nice buy for a few-thousand bucks.

Domains to Build a Brand On

StopDrinking.com - ends 7/31

You’re not my supervisor!

Actually a pretty solid brand in the rehab-niche, can build an extremely authoritative presence on a domain like this. Currently at $4.5k, gonna go for a bunch more I’m sure…

~

That’s it for this week! Hope you enjoyed my Flippa story and hope you loved at least one of the names.

Let me know if you end up winning anything. :)

Now that I’ve got this newsletter off my to do list, I’m heading into the weekend like

Keep it real

Sean

sem AT seanmarkey.com

Hey!

I guess it’s Friday again. Comes every week, now?

Weird. Anyway…

Got an impressive list of domains this week—so filled with juice they’ll burst and stain your fingers and sash like you’re the Bramble Queen of the Blackberry Festival.

Here we go:

Domains With Authority

Remember, kids. Do your due diligence on these sites, because I did a little bit but if you’re gonna drop $20k or even $1k on a site for its SEO essence, you want to make sure there’s nothing that would make it a bad site to use in your arsenal.

Featured Site:

Suite101.com - ends 7/19
DR 79 | 59.5k RD, Links from: Google.com, W3, NYTimes, TripAdvisor, CNN, CA.gov, Reuters, NASA, Time… EVERYWHERE

You have to go 5 pages deep on referring domains in Ahrefs to get into the sub-90 DR range. FIVE PAGES.

Used to be a Vancouver, BC-based journalism/publishing company, according to Crunchbase.

Suite101 is a new kind of knowledgebase centered on personal experience and interests. Suite101 brings together people who thrive on sharing what they've been through, what they know, what they care about.

They raised venture capital, but it doesn’t say how much, or why they died. Why Oh Why are they letting this DR 79 expire? Either way, GoDaddy says THANKYA cuz this shit is over $16k at the time of writing with two days left. Almost a 100% chance this breaks through $20k.

As for what to do with this domain if you’re as rich as Uncle Phil and can drop low-to-mid five figures on it… well hopefully you have a plan before doing that. The obvious play here is to build a site on this domain—especially one related to news/media/publishing. If it were me, I’d use it as the “parent company” publisher of several other sites EXACTLY like dotDash.com — a home-base for my other sites, a completely legit use of the site and passing an ungodly amount of authority through to these individual sites in my portfolio.

God damn, that’s a good idea. I should be charging y’all for this. None of my competitors do this, please. Thanks.

HypothesisJournal.com - ends 7/21
DR 34 | 419 RD, Links from: All wikipedias, BI, Springer, Elsevier, Entrepreneur, Newsweek, Duke, Salon, Insider.com

A DR 34 with links from every country’s Wikipedia and serious academic/medical authority?

Currently priced at $160, I don’t expect it to stay that way. If you want to acquire some E-A-T signals for your questionable affiliate site, you probably can’t do much better than this. Here’s what it used to be:

Hypothesis is a peer-reviewed journal whose purpose is to provide Research Section and other MLA members with an outlet for research and research-related content: works in progress, announcements, and other related content.

UrbanPath.com - ends 7/22
DR 31 | 927 RD, Links from: BBC, TripAdvisor, GigaOm, HarpersBazaar, MacRumors, SeriousEats, MoneySavingExpert.com

UrbanPath.com used to be a “things to do in London” site, so it probably has some real nice travel/London/UK vibes if you need a site to help kick some particularly British authority your way. Archive.org has no captures after late 2016, so keep that in mind when figuring out how much you’re willing to pay.

Site is indexed (one page) though, so not all hope is lost. Just most of it, because that’s what the year 2020 has taught us to expect…

BeyondYourBlog.com - ends 7/17 [today!!]
DR 33 | 460 RD, Links from: NeilPatel, Libsyn, PodBean, Contently, TheOdyssey, TheWriterLife, MakeALivingWriting, WriterUnboxed

You get the idea… was a blogging site with a lot of “writer” authority. Not a bad brand to build a “how to start a blog” site on (or you can just save yourself a lot of pain and go fuck with a nest of murder hornets). Could also be used as a “how to write” / “how to publish” kind of site, as that’s a bit closer to how the old site was used.

Close to $1k with just a few hours left, should go for between $1k-$2k, which is a fair price for it, IMO.

OpenCongress.org - ends 7/20
DR 76 | 14.2 RD, Links from: CreativeCommons, DropBox, NYT, Forbes, CNN, Bloomberg, Harvard, Yahoo, Time, Stanford

DR 76!

Two DR 75+ domains in this newsletter. FFS, GoDaddy is cleaning up $$$$$. This one is currently just over $9k. With a few days left, I expect this to get up to the $15k or so range by the auction’s end—maybe a bit less.

Not as valuable as Suite101.com above, because it’s not as good and generic a brand, and congress pretty much only has to do with politics. Or sex, I guess.

Risky click! Haha. It’s fine, though.

Anyway, that lack of flexibility in the brand gives you less room to move when building this out. I’d suggest that, if you’re buying this for something other than politics/government related, you slowly slowly slowly change what the site is about through new content and links until it has authority in whatever niche you’re main sites are in, then you can have some real fun.

Only one page currently indexed, but it’s enough. Good luck!

PeerBlock.com - ends 7/18
DR 48 | 1.91k RD, Links from: Github, SourceForge, CNET, StackExchange, DigitalTrends, Kaspersky, Instructables, Avast, SoftPedia, AdBlockPlus.org

Wow. This one has some amazing tech-related backlinks.

Currently at $1.2k, I definitely see it going for a few thousand (and being worth that much, honestly).

Here’s what it used to be:

PeerBlock is a free and open-source personal firewall that blocks packets coming from, or going to, a maintained list of black listed hosts. PeerBlock is the Windows successor to the software PeerGuardian.

Used to have a robust forum as well, it looks like.

Would also make a pretty solid crypto-related brand if you were inclined to participate in that niche and wanted to do a build-out.

Domains to Build a Brand On

Correlated.com - ends 7/24

Good data-related brand. Build a site filled with statistics and get one million backlinks. Now you’re the President of SEO.

TheBook.com - ends 7/24

Big money domain. Not sure what you’d use it for, but several people love it b/c it’s at $2.1k+ with 6 days to go. Short, simple, and easy to remember two syllable brand.

NaturalDogFood.com - ends 7/23

Bit long, but great ecom build out for selling healthy dog food, which is something pet owners (yo) pay out the ass for.

Doppler.net - ends 7/19

Technically a surname, but probably not why you’d buy it. I know, .net still sucks, but it’s short and it carries a lot of science/weather meaning, so it’d make a great brand.

CenterBeam.com - ends 7/20

If you’re a domain investor, this is not a bad acquisition—several companies use “centerbeam” as their brand and ALL of them have a longer and stupider domain than this one. :)

Currently @ $550

BrainFox.com - ends 7/21

“X fox” is a pretty solid brand naming convention, and “brain” is a pretty hot KW, so this combo would make for a very easy-to-remember strong brand. The logo though… could be a terrible logo.

Wow, I Googled “fox with a big brain” to put here and def. didn’t expect to find anything, but here you go, here’s some logo inspiration:

Gross.

~

That’s it for this week!

If you end up winning one of these, let me know—I always like to know if y’all ever put these to good use. :)

If you have any questions, comments, tips, etc., please do reach out.

And follow me on twitter so you can see what customer service issue I’m currently complaining about — @seanmarkey

~

Sean

sem AT seanmarkey.com

Heyyy

Apparently it’s Friday? I think the calendar is broken…

Hi! It’s me, I’m back with another edition of Domains to Buy That You Probably Can’t Afford, But You’re Addicted Like Me And So We Might As Well Suffer Together.

…it’s a working title.

Got a few strong domains this week—really impressed with the brands and some of the authority.

Before we dive in to those, just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Richard Patey who runs a really fantastic paid newsletter on the subject of buying and selling website. You can check it out here, and subscribe if it looks good: https://patey.substack.com/

In addition to aggregating the best deals on established websites for sale each week, he also puts together some really thoughtful posts on all things related to being a website investor, and my favorite part: amazing, in-depth podcast interviews with people in the trenches, doing the work.

This is not a paid ad or anything, I’m just being a bro. Go and check his publication out.

All right, blah blah blah here’s this week’s names:

Domains With Authority

Featured Domain:

OrderUp.com - ends 7/15
DR 65 | 865 RD, Links from: WAPO, Bloomberg, INC, AirBNB, Bustle, Zomato, Thrillist

Ooh I like this one SO MUCH but I just have, like zero use for it, personally. Not that it matters—this one is sexy and it knows it, because the price tag is already on the other side of mid-four-figures, and I expect it to push up very near to five figures before this thing ends.

What’s driving those numbers?

A one-two punch of an AMAZING brand and a robust backlink profile.

The site used to be a food delivery start-up owned by Groupon, that previously raised $10m.

The site is still indexed by Google and it ranks for ~100 keywords.

How I Would Build Out This Site:

If I had about $10k to spend on acquiring a name for a long term project, this one would be a no-brainer. It’d be a fairly easy move to build out a kitchen/food/cooking focused affiliate site. But I think you can go one step beyond the obvious here and build a hub of a B2B site targeting the future of food (especially in a post-covid world).

Talk about cloud kitchen, or new opportunities to start a biz in this space, connect interested parties, study companies doing it successfully and break down how they operate, what they are doing to get traction, and so on. Honestly, I’d consider starting with a free/paid newsletter about the industry, and once that had some traction start a paid membership and go from there. Keep it super high quality and exclusive through by charging. (I’m imagining like Trends.co but specifically for the food industry).

Anyway. I think there’s a great opportunity for someone to be smart and creative here. Good luck!

ProjectGreenlight.com - ends 7/13
DR 41 | 475 RD, Links from: Vimeo, NYTimes, Wired, HollywoodReporter, Salon, Backstage.com, RadioPublic

Used to be a TV show executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. From Wikipedia:

Aspiring filmmakers submit their ideas in the hopes of being given the financial and professional backing to actually make their movies.

Not a bad brand for a tv-show-related website, but you may run into trouble with trademarks, maybe? And also it was a pretty well-known show so people coming to the site may be confused by the brand…

Still, it’s got some juice in video/publishing space that could make a really authoritative brand…

TexasWatchdog.org - ends 7/16
DR 37 | 1.1k RD, Links from: Reuters, Time, NBCNews, Politico, Ajazeera, BuzzfeedNews, Salon, Propublica

Probably not a great URL to build a brand on, but could be a good option to slowly build relevancy to one of your sites that would benefit from political/current event/newsy type authority and then flip it all the way over and 301 it.

Could be a good value depending on the price it goes for…

DeleteYourAccount.com - ends 7/15
DR 28 | 582 RD, Links from: Wikihow, StackExchange, LifeHacker, PCMag, FoxNews

Used to be a site all about how to delete various accounts (facebook, insta, etc.) Could be a similar site again. Rank for just a shit-load of high volume search term and monetize via ads. It’s the soulless vision of the internet our digital forefathers dreamed about.

Solid name, though. Could also be a decent URL for political/ideology site where you shout DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT at people that you disagree with.

Truly inspiring brand.

Dyslexia-International.org - ends 7/15
DR 50 | 428 RD, Links from: Microsoft, BI, BBC, QZ, SmithsonianMag, RT, EdWeek.org, IFLScience.com

Terrible brand name, but more than makes up for it in authority.

This is one of those sites you see ranking for some trendy-Best-X-health-related keyword and you’re like why tf is that site ranking… what?

But this is how. A legit site like this expires, terrible name and all, with an absolute army of legitimate, powerful backlinks.

Build a site with legit Dyslexia experts/people that work in the field, provide solid info, write a post on Best X and how it helps with Dyslexia, then outrank all the obvious affiliate sites with your wolf in sheep’s clothing site.

I don’t know WHY people hate SEOs…

Domain is currently indexed and ranking for ~200 KWs at the moment, so there’s real potential.

IGDLeaders.org - ends 7/14
DR 41 | 312 RD, Links from: CNBC, BBC, State.gov, SeattleTimes, USEmbassy.gov, CharityNavigator, USAid.gov, ThinkProgress

Wow. Not a great brand to build on, but has some seriously impressive linking domains—especially .gov charity/aid related.

Best use for this one is to lend authority and legitimacy to whatever site you’re building out… probably won’t be too helpful for like, a dick pills site, or something… but I guess you never know!

WalkRideColorado.com - ends 7/13
DR 306 | 204 RD, Links from: MeetUp, Hilton, TripAdvisor, DenverPost, Thrillist, TravelAndLeisure, GearJunkie, Auroragov.org

Do you need some Denver or Colorado authority?

Do you give a shit about recreational activities?

Are you long on travel in the US despite all the evidence to the contrary?

Good news! This is the domain for you. Build a Colorado-destination recreational travel site, sell recreational-focused travel guides, sell rock climbing equipment/cycling equipment etc.

Solid (if a bit long) brand if you want to plant your flag in a single geo-location. Some really great backlinks here.

Domains to Build a Brand On

CarSound.com - ends 7/14

Currently at +$700, could be a great car stereo/speaker site. Is that still a thing? It was pretty hot in like 1998, but I’m not cool anymore, so am unsure if it’s still a thing…

RideGuide.com - ends 7/15

Lotta action on this one. Could be a site about Uber/Lyft businesses (recruit drivers, recruit new users) or a ride-sharing B2B publication… probably not gonna be cheap, though. Great two-word brand (that rhymes! It rhymes, y’all) and is centered around a pretty hot industry.

Hmm, could also be just a car/vehicle blog in general if I think about it. Write about Teslas, write about cycling, write about custom car builds… you get the idea.

August.net - ends 7/16

Not sure what you’d use it for—and even considering its a .net, it’s hard to get my general/ubiquitous and well known than a month. And if you gonna grab a month you might as well grab the one that only exists because another, less awesome month name was thrown away in favor of honoring a Roman emperor…

~

All right kids, that’s it for this week.

Hope you found something you loved.

PS — I’m thinking of offering some kind of high-end consulting service around expired domain SEO, whether that’s going through a few names you’re considering buying to find the right one, going over your plan for building it out/redirecting, etc. Either one-off hour-long calls or ongoing private Slack group—I dunno.

Tell me your thoughts. Would that be useful? If not, what might?

Have a great Bastille Day.

Sean

sem AT seanmarkey.com

Hey!

Long time. How’re things?

Oh, right, the apocalypses.

Never mind.

I found some domain names for you that are valuable because they have a bunch of links built to them from previous enterprises, and separately some domains that would make a good brand to build a business on.

Also, I found one domain that is neither one of those things, but it is fucking amazing:

19 years ago someone registered BogTits.com, presumably a typo of *big, but it is only just now expiring. Here’s the link if you want to carry the torch for the next two decades. We’ve all registered dumb typo’d domains—but to put a ring on it for 19 years—that’s impressive.

(Of course my secret hope is that someone, in 2001, registered BogTits.com as a kind of troll, and intended to make a site as stupid as my own bog site: HowToStartABog.com, but never got around to it).

Anyway!

I’m sending you this email on July 3rd when everyone is checked out for the long weekend because I’m bad at marketing.

Good luck, let’s get to the names.

Domains With Authority

TheRogueMag.com - ends 7/6
DR 47 | 319 RD, Links From: Vice, News.com.au, People, Refinery29, People, Elle, TeenVogue, USMagazine

From the links, I’d guess this used to be some kind of pop-culture/celebrity-ish magazine? Bid now and rescue this site from the soulless void where it used to reside, and elevate it into the clouds, beneath the stars, by publishing some utterly generic content and selling links to SEO agencies for $333 a pop (that’s your Angel Number).

[Quick story, speaking of Angel Numbers. I was bidding a few months ago to try and win AngelNumbers.com (it’s a huge and slightly-under-the-radar niche) and some person that me and… I assume a domain investor (who ultimately won) were bidding against was 100% in the Angel Numbers industry, because every time they bid, it was like… $888; $999; $1111; $2222; etc. LOL. Also, they kept bidding with like like 11 seconds left because they thought this was eBay circa the year 2000 and it took forever for me to lose that auction.]

MINOnline.com - ends 7/6
DR 61 | 1.44k RD, Links From: NYTimes, WSJ, BI, Reuters, CNBC, INC, PBS, Fool, TheStreet

MIN Online (media insider newsletter, I think) used to call itself “The community for smart media leaders” but rebranded/merged with FolioMag.com (which is still live).

Those backlinks tho.

At +$2k now, probably gonna push past $5k if I had to guess, those backlinks are going to kick someone’s media/b2b/business site into the MESOSPHERE (that’s one level about the stratosphere, which is where the metaphor usually stops, but I’m next level, dawg).

The domain name kind of sucks, but it’s generic enough that it can be used for any tangentially related niche if you’re creative enough to come up with an acronym…

ICOWatchList.com - ends 7/6
DR 49 | 1.35k RD, Links From:

All right, nerds. Here’s a crypto/blockchain/whatever related domain with very relevant and powerful backlinks. Inventory-wise, these suckers are rare. Honestly surprised this is below $1k—even with the kind of boring, pigeonhole-y domain name.

If you’re interested in acquiring this for your crypto-related site, I doubt you’ll need advice from me on what to do with it. If you’re not sure what to do with this name, or don’t have a crypto site, you probably shouldn’t pick it up. Just sayin.

PS - I don’t own any cryptocurrency. When BTC was in the low hundreds I was like:

poor af

Feel free to send me some, though, so I can use it to fall for some unsophisticated crypto scam in the future. Bitcoin Mining Pool Investment? Sounds awesome! So I just send you my bitcoins and I’ll double my money and you’ll pay me back? I’m in. Here’s my Coinbase password…

FamilyCircleCup.com - ends 7/10
DR 38 | 597 RD, Links From: Tennis.com, BBC, USAToday, NatGeo, BleacherReport, Encyclopedia.com

A professional women’s tournament just outside the city of Charleston, SC. Used to be sponsored by the women’s magazine Family Circle, but they closed down in 2019 and now it’s called the Volvo Open. Not sure the TM issues with a defunct magazine or whatever, so use at your own risk.

But if you happen to have a tennis-related affiliate site, you’ve won the lotto (right after you pay out the ass to win this thing at auction, $1500+ currently).

Would also work well to help prop up your general sports site. I don’t recommend building a site on this domain permanently, because it’s a terrible brand and you’re better than that!

#inspire

FlightSimStore.com - ends 7/5
DR 39 | 514 RD, Links From: FlightSim.com, FlyAwaySimulation.com, SimHQ.com, SimFlight.com, JustFlight.com, ThirtyThousandFeet.com

Damn. I want to keep this one to myself and hope it slides under the radar at just a few hundred, but

a) if I did that all the time this newsletter would be less valuable and I’m trying to really create some value, and

b) WTF do I know about flight simulation? I also have way too much on my metaphorical plate, and I don’t want to take “domain food” out of the “mouths” of “hungry affiliate marketers.”

Figuratively speaking.

This seems like a potentially lucrative niche that doesn’t have a ton of heat (read:attention) on it. From reviewing PC games (for the traffic), to reviewing and pushing the $300 - $10k flight simulation rigs, I believe there’s money to be made here. It won’t be easy—there are some big players in the space, but the search volume and buying intent is there:

and also:

The site has the age, the relevancy, and the authority to do well fairly quickly in this niche. It also has many pages indexed and ranks for a few hundreds (suuuuuuuper longtail) keywords.

I expect the price on this one to go up quickly (currently below $200) as you all fight it out. If you end up winning, let me know. I’m always interested who does what with the names I highlight. I think this is a phenomenal opportunity.

HouseVegan.com - ends 7/6
DR 33 | 372 RD, Links From: Self.com, MoneySavingExpert.com, Greatist.com, TheOdysseyOnline.com, ChowHound, OhSheGlows, VegNews.com

Damn, y’all are spoiled. This is another really amazing opportunity. Used to be a vegan-focused recipe site. Still ranks for 1000+ KWs.

If you’re an unscrupulous type (I know you are), I’ll just say that the archive.org captures look… robust.

This is obviously a site that Google’s algo loves. Good for a fresh build or a redirect to your kitchen/cooking-focused affiliate site.

SmarterTechnology.com - ends 7/5
DR 37 | 1k RD, Links From: OpenStreetMap.org, IBM.com, FastCo, Springer, ScientificAmerican, Gizmodo

Easy. Valuable technology links and really really solid two-name brand. Currently at $300ish, but this has to go for close to a grand at LEAST. You could 301 this to your current tech site, but this name is begging to be built out. And the fact that it has juice already? Money.

Good opportunity here.

Domains to Build a Brand On

NeedleArts.com - ends 7/10

Solid needlework, knitting, etc. brand. If you’re in to that.

FlimFlam.com - ends 7/6

Common slang-ish saying. Could make a solid brand (though maybe a slightly negative connotation).

Decapitated.com - ends 7/5

Speaking of negative connotations… this one has it. However, in this case, I think it makes a great (one word) brand for the right niche, like gaming… not flight simulators though, probably…

~

That’s it for this week. Hope you found something to spend your cashmoney on.

Thanks for being a subscriber. I’m gonna make a commitment to be more consistent with this newsletter. You’re welcome.

Any questions/comment—I’d love to hear from you, just hit reply and hit me back.

Happy July, etc.

Sean

sem AT seanmarkey.com