Each website on the Internet has its own name, which is not only its business card, but also the main one for the activities of many companies. Online stores, enterprise websites, product catalogs and many other portals, the popularity of which depends, first of all, on the domain. Let's figure out how you can make money by reselling domain names, and what kind of income will this type of activity bring?
How it works?
Let's start with the fact that in order to earn income from the resale of domain names, there is no need to know the specifics of the global network, the structure of DNS servers and many other subtleties that are needed in the field of network technologies. It is enough that a domain is an opportunity for easy access to a particular Internet resource by entering a certain set of characters with zonal distribution into the address bar.
The popularity and cost of domain names depends on:
domain zone (.com, .ru, .org, .net, etc.);
domain level (.ua is the second, .com.ua is the third);
simplicity of pronunciation and ease of memorization;
type of domain names (state, regional, targeted, etc.).
Government domain names (gov) are reserved by government agencies, so their purchase and resale is out of the question.
Based on the above parameters, it is worth saying that the higher cost will be for second-level domains, with a minimum number of characters, easy to remember.
The essence of making money on the resale of domain names lies precisely in the registration and further sale of convenient names, which in the future may be needed by various companies, enterprises, application developers and many others.
An example is the recent case of Apple, which acquired the iCloud.net domain, which belonged to a small Asian social network. The transaction cost was $1.5 million, but such large transactions occur very rarely.
How to make money by reselling domains?
You can resell domain names on a professional level, and there are even companies in the world that do this quite successfully. This is done in several ways:
Buy domains with good names in advance - a simple and consonant name that is well remembered can always be sold for several times more than the original cost. Of course, finding a free option will be quite difficult, but it is quite possible, since the number of domain zones is constantly expanding, and what is occupied in the.com zone may turn out to be free in .club.
Selling domains to companies and firms - look for developing enterprises in your country that do not have their own Internet resource. Register in advance all possible options that are consistent with the company name, and perhaps you will soon be contacted for repurchase. If not, you can independently inform the company that you have a suitable name for their Internet resource.
Keep an eye on busy domain names - some organizations periodically forget to renew the domain registration period, and this is a good opportunity to make money, although I personally think it’s mean.
Selling domains with TICs and PR are indicators of site authority. Such domains can only be sold to specialists who understand such details, that is, SEOs and webmasters. Such domains can either be developed independently or purchased, for example, abandoned sites that are indexed in search engines.
Sale of similar domains in neighboring zones. Let's imagine that there is a website mysite.ru and the site is successfully growing and developing. Web developers will sooner or later want to expand their sphere of influence and place the resource in the .com, .net and other zones. Until this moment, you need to get ahead of the owners of mysite.ru and register in neighboring zones by posting an advertisement for sale.
It is quite difficult to talk about specific amounts that can be earned. The domains themselves cost around $10, but can be sold for $100 or $1,000,000.
Where to buy domains?
The most famous domain name registrars are:
- reg.ru - Russian registrar
- internetbs.net - foreign registrar
But in fact, there are much more of them, and do not forget that there are also partners of large registrars, like 2domains.ru, whose prices are usually lower.
Where to sell domains?
On special forums like searchengines.guru (maultalk.com, webmasters.ru/forum/), on special platforms like telderi.ru.
Legal aspects
When selling domains, just like when running any business, you need to take into account many legal aspects, and there are risks here too. There are many examples when, without contact with the owner of the domain, companies sued him, winning not only “their” name, but also decent monetary compensation for the use of the trademark and many other points. Such situations occur quite often, especially when it comes to selling domains with names that are similar to the names of popular companies.
To protect yourself from litigation, you need to check in advance whether the company name is a trademark, and only then carry out registration operations. This can be done through the patent office or online services that can be found on the world wide web.
One of the options for making money on the Internet is a domain business. The investment in purchasing domain names can provide excellent returns. The number of sites increases every year. At the same time, any owner wants to have a beautiful and memorable name. The demand on the domain market is very high, and there are not many good offers. Where there is demand, you can always make money. How to do it?
Earn money on the Internet: selling domains
Some domain names are worth millions of dollars. Company owners are willing to spend a lot of money to purchase a suitable domain. Use this to generate your own income.
There are primary and secondary domain markets. The bulk of the domain name investor's (domainer) profit comes from sales on the primary market. Here the final buyer (end-user) is the future owner of the site. Sales on the secondary market are made between temporary buyers. A domain name can be resold several times until one of the investors decides to enter the primary market with it.
You can build your earnings on domains by working on the primary or secondary market. By the way, on the secondary market it is preferable to buy domain names from other investors. Sales are best done on the primary market. This way you can earn more.
Rules for organizing a domain business
Domain investors and end buyers are not the only participants in the market. There are also cybersquatters - people who register domains of well-known companies that, for some reason, are in the public domain. Cybersquatters offer to purchase the acquired domains to the companies that previously owned them or to their competitors. The manager receives an offer to buy the domain.
The company can pay for the domain name or go to court. As a rule, litigation on such issues lasts a long time. It is often more profitable for company owners to pay money for a domain than to pay lawyers.
In order to make good money selling domains, you must follow a number of rules.
1. Before purchasing domains, you need to correctly assess their significance and value on the market. Domain names in the ru and com zones are more popular. Other areas look less attractive, so you carry risks when working with them.
2. Don't buy cheap domains. The more expensive a domain name is, the higher the chances of it being resold. Evaluate the quality of a domain using special services before making a deal.
3. It’s rare to make money by buying available domains and then selling them. There are few valuable domains in the public domain. To make money selling domains, you need to use the secondary market, where you can buy in-demand domain names for the purpose of reselling them.
Investing in domains can be long-term. You must be prepared to defer your income. The domain business is designed for the future. For beginners, it will serve as an additional source of income.
How to make money on domains, how to avoid problems with the law when buying or selling a domain, how much money you need to start earning, we will answer these questions, consider the main methods, and analyze the pros and cons of each.
There are two fundamental and fundamentally different methods of making money on domains, which in turn are divided into specific methods.
- Purchase and further monetization or sale of a domain.
- Organizing a business selling domains by becoming a partner of one of the registrars.
Not a single method allows you to make money on domains without investments, but the minimum amount to start can be only 100 rubles. This is how much it costs to register an unoccupied domain name. Let's look at each method and answer the question of how to select, buy and make money on domains.
First, we will look at the main ways to make money on domains, then we will talk about domain name resellers, and at the end of the article we will look at the purchasing methods themselves.
Purchasing domains for the purpose of subsequent sale (speculation) is the most accessible and common way to make money by reselling domains. This is not surprising; the same principle applies in ordinary market relations - buy cheaper and sell more expensive. The complexities of the domain resale scheme are the same as in speculative offline sales:
- Find a domain that will be of interest to a potential buyer.
- Where to buy cheaper.
- To whom to sell at a higher price?
How to choose a domain and where to buy is described below in the article. There are several ways to sell an existing domain:
- Display in a store or auction (exchange).
- Post on the website information about the sale of the domain, with contact information.
- Contact a potential buyer (for example, searching for interested parties on forums).
You determine the starting price yourself, based on logic. I recommend completing resale transactions through transaction guarantors, for example reg.ru. This is an additional expense, but this way you will protect yourself from possible problems with non-payment or domain hijacking.
Stores, exchanges and domain auctions:
Earning money from domain parking
Domain parking, in simple terms, registering a domain and placing a sat stub on it, a redirect to the main site or advertising.
From the point of view of earning money, domain parking is the purchase of domains that are consonant with well-known site names, or the purchase of domains that continue to receive traffic (drop domains) and placing advertising on them.
Until a buyer is found, the resource operates at a loss, annual domain renewal, and possibly payment for hosting. During downtime, the best solution is domain parking. It is much cheaper and brings in a regular income. It is enough to find a provider with such an offer.
If we consider this method as the main one, then for these purposes we choose domain names with typos of known website addresses or dropped domains. Advertising is placed on such domains. And the domain owner will receive a certain percentage of profits, clicks or impressions.
People who decide to make extra money by selling beautiful Internet addresses resort to this technique quite rarely. Earning money from domain parking is needed as a temporary solution to reduce costs.
- https://domainparking.ru/ - domain parking service
- http://parking.nic.ru/ - free domain parking
Domain rental
In this case, the monetization scheme will differ from the previous ones. Renting out a domain brings good and constant income. In this case, the tenant places his website or stub on your resource.
Domain rental is used in a couple of cases:
- Your domain is exclusive and has a very high purchase price.
- The tenant does not want to reveal his information.
There are no ready-made platforms for renting domains; as a rule, everything is decided individually.
Sometimes renting a domain means registering a domain, since in fact you are renting it for a year and if you don’t renew it, it can go into the wrong hands.
Domain reseller
Essentially, this is buying domains at a wholesale price and selling them at a retail price. The domain reseller enters into an agreement to cooperate with the address element registrar and can enjoy favorable prices for the purchase of names, as well as act as a representative of an accredited entity. The profit from the price list difference will largely depend on the activity of the person who chose this earning option.
If you want to become a domain reseller, here is one of the programs “Affiliate Program
reselling domains and services."
Domaining - selection and purchase of a domain to make money
Before you sell, rent, or start making money parking domains, you need to buy this very domain. This whole procedure is called domaining.
Registering a new domain
This method involves using your existing experience and ability to identify trends and select consonant names.
Trends that may be gaining popularity include:
- goods;
- series;
- events;
- people, etc.
In addition to trends, you can search for available domains based on the following points:
- Short (4-5 letter) domains.
- Geographic (country, city, place in the city) domains.
- Industry domains (kredit.ru, remont.ru, perevozki.ru).
Buying a domain for a trend
A new device has entered the market, an event is being planned, or a TV series is being prepared. Example:
- Hoverboards
- Spinners
- Olympics 2026
- Game of Thrones Season 8
- Yuri Gagarin
And as a result, domains could look like this:
- giroskuter.ru
- spinner.ru
- olimpiada2026.ru (domain free at the time of writing)
- igra-prestolov-8.ru (domain free at the time of writing)
- yurii-gagarin.ru (domain free at the time of writing)
When choosing a domain, assume who might be potentially interested in it, look at similar already registered domains. Find out what sites they were registered under (online stores, information sites). And is there a possible demand for them?
Advice. How to buy trending domains?
- You should buy several domains at once using all possible spellings.
- When selecting a domain, focus on those who could buy it.
- Domain selection and purchase can be done.
- Check domain history.
- The domain must not violate copyright, otherwise it may be taken away from you and you may be fined. Read more about this in the chapter on Cybersquatting.
Drop domain registration
Drop domains are domains with history that are free for registration. Previously, there was a site on such a domain, but the site owner did not dare to renew it (forgot, blocked, or for other reasons).
Dropped domains are of interest primarily to SEO specialists. A properly selected released domain can receive traffic and have links to itself. Both of these usually give quick results when creating a new site on a drop domain or restoring an old site from web.archive.org (a service that stores information about what used to be on the domain).
There are services that allow you to track released domains and already released domains.
- https://www.reg.ru/domain/new/rereg - purchase of vacant domains.
- https://www.reg.ru/domain/new/freeing_domains - purchase of freed domains.
- https://www.reg.ru/web-tools/tracking/ - domain monitoring
- https://www.expireddomains.net/ - domains with history.
- http://dropdomen.com/ - list of released domains.
- Webdomainservice.net is a service for checking the status of a website.
- Dropwind.com - list of dropped domains and domain hijacking services.
Advice. How to buy drop domains?
- Before purchasing, check the domain history (http://web.archive.org/, https://www.similarweb.com/, https://serpstat.com/ru/).
- Not only the characteristics of the domain are important, but also the topic, or rather the demand for the topic.
- Buying drop domains is, first of all, the ability to find dropped domains and monitor those that are released. And then an assessment of the possible price for which the domain can be sold.
Buying domains at auctions
Making money at a domain auction is also possible if you know that you can sell for more than you buy. Purchasing domains at auctions requires sufficient funds, which can be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Most of the interesting variations are already up for auction. Exchanges and domain stores offer many domain names; it is possible to buy a name and not for little money. Making money at an auction involves the risk of spending more on a domain than it might be worth. But the right name can sometimes be considered as a tool for saving money.
There are many domain auctions on the Internet, but you should choose only proven ones with a large number of reviews. Little-known auctions may turn out to be scams.
Here is an example of verified auctions:
- auction.nic.ru - domain name auction.
- reg.ru/domain/new/rereg - domains being released in auction format.
Carefully! Scam - auction of antique domains
Many are trying to find easy money on “antique domains”. Most often, such sites have many tempting offers without complex legal implications. If you have heard about good earnings on antique domains, then the whole truth about them can be found on the forums.
For the most part, making money on antique domains is a scam. Scammers primarily rely on the inexperience of newcomers who have decided to try their luck in a new job. The amount of losses usually amounts to 250-1000 rubles, for which a person is unlikely to run to court to sort it out. But thanks to such mistakes, charlatans make good money.
Cybersquatting
Cyberscotting is a way to make money by registering domains containing brand names and then selling them to the copyright holder or other interested parties.
The cybersquatter finds a company in advance, under which he borrows possible profitable combinations from the registrar, in order to then offer them to the owner. On the one hand, real income is expected, and on the other, legal troubles may arise. Russian legislation has an article for the illegal use of a registered trademark. So cybersquatting is a liability.
Any business has its pros and cons. Cybersquatting can bring huge profits if the domain name interests the buyer so much that he is willing to shell out any money. Cybersquatting also has disadvantages when the costs of maintaining registered elements exceed the income.
The risk is high, but in the history of cybersquatting companies, there are very few cases where owners have sued over the use of their patented mark. In reality, it is easier for the heads of concerns to buy a domain name from a cyberscotter than to get involved in a lawsuit. The fight against cybersquatting continues, and therefore legislation is being finalized to protect the companies being created.
If you decide to start cybersquatting and are wondering where to start? First, identify the cybersquatting target. But do not forget about responsibility before the law.
Typesquatting
Typesquatting is the registration of domain names that are similar in spelling to the addresses of popular sites, counting on the error of some users.
This type is used not only for domain resale, but also for advertising promotion. By registering domain names that are similar to well-known sites, but with a typo. Users end up on a fictitious website, where they see posts promoting a particular product. Currently, commercials bring in good income.
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04/07/2018 at 16:18
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I have long wanted to write an article on this topic and tell you how you can make money selling domains. I won’t say that this way of making money is easy; to successfully implement it, you need to have ingenuity and be able to think logically.
What is a domain
If you are new to making money on the Internet and have not come across such a concept as a domain, I will now tell you in detail.
Domain - in short, this is the name of an Internet resource (site). You can see it in the address bar of your browser, for example, I have a domain website:
Before people create a website, they always register a domain (the name of the future website). As a rule, the domain should reflect the theme of the site, be beautiful and memorable.
How to make money on domains
People who understand the importance of Internet projects are ready to shell out a lot of money for the domains they need.
Example: You want to make a website on the topic “business” and you want your website to be called Biznes.ru, but this domain has already been occupied by another person.
At this moment you start to come up with another domain, but this one has sunk into your soul and sounds solid and looks beautiful.
What to do?
There is a way out, you can contact the person who owns this domain and try to buy it. The price of a domain will depend on the quality and the company or person who wants to buy it.
Let's imagine that you are the owner of the domain Coca-Cola.ru and a representative of the Coca-Cola company contacts you and asks if you can sell them this domain. The price of the domain itself is around 300 rubles per year, but a company representative offered you 3 million rubles, will you refuse? I think no!
This is how domains are resold.
Ways to make money on domains
Registration of new domains
This is the easiest and at the same time the most profitable way to make money on domains. Its essence lies in registering new domains, which will be expensive in the future.
Example: you heard that some new products will appear soon, some new brand will enter the market. Let's imagine that these are new cigarettes, you need to find out the name of these cigarettes and register domains with this name in all possible zones.
There can be a bunch of such examples; you can register domains for anything, films, brands, products and much more.
When this brand gains momentum, this company will need an official website, they will begin to check the availability of domains and, accordingly, if the company is serious, it will contact you and try to buy a domain from you.
And now some statistics, below I will give you information about the most successful transactions using this method of earning money:
The most expensive domains purchased on the Russian Internet
✔Sms.ru - was purchased by the company for $550,000
✔People.ru - purchase price was $90,000
✔Hi.ru - $80,600
✔Vodka.ru - $50,000
You can also register short domains consisting of 2-3 characters; such domains are difficult to find, but still possible. In the future, it can also be sold for good money; short and sonorous domains are well valued.
Selling old domains
For this method of earning money, you need to know what TIC and PR are.
TIC - thematic citation index. Assigned by Yandex to each domain and the larger it is, the better for the site. The more other domains that link to your domain, the larger your TIC will be.
PR is a similar situation, only for the Google search engine.
The higher these indicators, the more expensive the domain will cost. You can buy such domains on a special exchange and resell them there, in a way you act as a reseller, only not with cars, but with domains.
Website and domain exchange - Telderi.ru
Purchasing valid domains
For example, you liked a certain domain and would like to buy it, but you don’t have a lot of money for this. You can copy the domain and go to the wonderful resource cy-pr.com using this service, you can do an automatic analysis of the site and find out until how long the domain has been renewed:
As you can see, my domain lease will end in 5 months and if I forget to renew it or simply don’t want to, then the domain will go on free sale and you can buy it at the standard price.
This method is very painstaking, I advise you to monitor several hundred domains at once, then your chances will increase. And of course, you will need to remember about the end date of your domain lease; you can write this information down in a text document so you don’t forget.
Renting domains
There are times when a person does not have enough money to buy a specific domain. You can offer him an alternative and rent out the domain with a monthly payment. This way you can establish passive income.
How much can you earn by selling domains?
This is, of course, a question that worries everyone who starts doing this. But it’s difficult to guess here; it all depends on your ingenuity. You can sell one single domain and provide that money for the rest of your life.
But you can also waste several thousand without selling more than one domain.
I have already given examples of selling domains on the Russian Internet, now I will tell you about transactions that took place on the foreign Internet. Prices for domains abroad are very different from ours:
Domains sold on the foreign Internet
✔Fund.com - domain was sold for $9,999,950
✔Diamond.com - sale price $7,500,000
So the question of how much you can earn is very difficult to answer.
Also, here’s food for thought; you can study the foreign market, since the price of domains there is much higher.