Our First Cash-Flow Domain Purchase: Lenzine.com

Recently I stumbled across a great site run by Godaddy.com called the Domain Name Aftermarket. Basically, all of those hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of domains that are not renewed each year are then auctioned off by Godaddy. 99.999% of the domains are total garbage and not worth a cent, but I decided to troll through the list of soon to be expiring auctions and I scooped for my partner and I a domain name that I think will be of great value to us. Lenzine.com.

The domain auction was due to expire in a couple of hours. I noted that multiple people seemed to be bidding on this domain. As most domains have zero bids and expire without a home, I decided to investigate and see what the value of this domain name might be, and why people were eagering bidding on it.

Three things jumped out at me as potential points of value:

1. The domain name was extremely aged. It was first registered in April of 2001, which makes it extremely valuable in terms of search engine recognition. The age of this domain eliminates any worries about the Google Sandbox. A 6+ year old domain name is worth quite a bit of money.

2. The site had a PR 4. Assuming that it keeps this PR, the site can easily generate between $50 - $100 a month just in the selling of Text Link Ads alone, not to mention the value of pointing this site at other sites in our network.

3. Other intangibles. A decent name (this could be "Lens Magazine", a website devoted to cameras or something.) Please, the site has two links in the Yahoo Directory, and multiple other sites pointing at it.

The site is not technically ours yet; the previous owners have a week after we won the auction to decide to renew it. If we end up scooping this domain, it will be a pretty decent score.

The price we paid for it? $54 dollars. I decided I wasn't going to lose this domain, and put in a bid at the last second and won.

We are busy with lots of other stuff, and run enough sites already. The plan for this site is to set up maybe a 6 or 7 page site on digital cameras or something, submit it to the search engines, and sell Text Link Ads. I believe that combining Text Links Ads with some random Google Adsense clicks and this site will make $100 per month, with very little effort. Our costs will be $4.95 per month in web hosting, $8.99 a year for the domain name, and $54 for the initial purchase of the domain. Assuming that we make $100 / month (which I think we will), this instantly makes the site sellable for $1200 on numerous domain forums, which would be easily achievable considering the age of the domain plus the PR plus the earning potential of the site. Our monthly costs will be $6 or so, making it a good cashflow purchase that will require little effort on our part (Text Link Ads does all the selling for us, we don't need to do anything but insert a piece of code on our site.)

Fingers crossed that we secure this domain name! Will know in a week or so, and then I will update the monetization of the domain.