I spent the majority of 2007 researching and then acquiring a large quantity of domain names.
Yes, I spent the better part of a year researching and buying domains…
Why?
Because I had concluded the days when a little guy and his laptop could register half way decent domains at affordable prices were quickly coming to an end.
I registered my first domain in 1999 but didn’t fully realized their value until after a small handful of other people had already figured out how to identify and register almost all of the good domains.
Guys like Frank Schilling and Rick Schwartz recognized the value of owning generic domains early on and grabbed as many of the obvious one and two word generic .com domains they could in the wake of the dot com crash.
When the first wave of domain registrants failed to renew their expired domains Schilling, Schwartz and others like did instead.
You would be surprised at how much domain real estate is in the hands of just a few domain owners.
There is a great book about those pioneers and the early days of domain registration called “The Domain Game” How People Get Rich From Internet Domain Names by Wall Street Journal reporter David Kesmodel.
Its a great read.
His book didn’t come out until after I had registered all of my domains but Kesmodel’s account of the domain industry confirmed what I had already discovered and concluded.
Yet as late as 2007 many two and three word domains still remained available for registration to those buyers willing to risk their time, effort and money on registering longer domains.
Having realized all of the obvious one and two word domains had been gobbled up, I decided I would instead devote the time and resources necessary to scour the web for the not so obvious two and three word domains that hadn’t already been bought by speculators.
I set out to acquire as many as I could at their registration cost before they were all bought, repriced and marketed for profit.
It looks like this small window of opportunity in time has now officially passed too.
Why?
Because Registrars in addition to their processing domain registrations appear to have also entered into the domain registration and ownership business.
Not good for the little guy.
Registrars have all domain registration and expiration data.
Registrars also have a pretty good idea which domains have market value above and beyond their “list price” and those that don’t.
Well then Mr. Registrar, why not get into the domain warehousing, marketing and profiting game too?
Today while searching Google I got a result I hadn’t ever got before – a domain directly for sale by a registrar in a Google search result.
Google Search Results of Domain For Sale
I am pretty sure Google hadn’t approved of this individual ‘Domain For Sale Advertisement” within their search results – but there it was.
After seeing this domain for sale ad, I decided I would click through to see what else I could discover.
I found this placeholder:
Purchasing This URL
After landing on this page and as suggested, I contacted Network Solutions about the domain for sale and then learned about their Premium Resale Domains program.
Premium Resale Domains
Kiss the little guy domain registrant good bye.
From now on if a domain has any market value above it registration price when it expires the Registrar is going to grab it, flip it and profit from its resale – not the little guy.
With the domain inventory, renewal data and the capital, Registrars will be who profits – not their customers.
Premium resale domains are the sign posts that mark the end of an era – the time when the little guy could own a bunch of good domains at cost era.
Search Marketing Communications 
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