Domain Investing Notes

The GoDaddy appraisal tool is useless. It does not know what a domain is worth — it knows what domains with similar letter counts and extension patterns sold for in a dataset that skews toward the wrong end of the market. Ignore it entirely.

What actually matters: phonetic brandability, memorability on first hearing, absence of hyphens, extension. A four-letter .com that sounds like a word is worth more than a dictionary word .net almost without exception. The market for three-letter .coms is essentially closed — everything good is held.

The interesting plays are in obscure but phonetically clean combinations. Two syllables, no ambiguous spelling, .com or .org. If you have to spell it out when saying it aloud, it is already compromised.

Drop catching is a different game entirely and mostly automated now. The manual opportunity is in identifying names that are expiring because their registrant gave up, not because the name has no value. That requires judgment the tools do not have.