Domaining

01

Domaining, explained

The work has four parts. Acquisition: hand registering new names, buying expiring names through backorders and expiry auctions, and buying from other owners privately or on marketplaces. Holding: paying renewal fees every year, which is the main fixed cost. Monetizing while you hold: parking for ad revenue, leasing, or a simple developed site. Selling: listing names on marketplaces such as Afternic, Sedo and Atom, answering inbound inquiries, working with brokers, and contacting companies that could use a name.

Domaining is a long game with uneven results. Most names in a typical portfolio never sell, and a few sales carry the rest, so the discipline lies in buying fewer, better names and pruning the ones that stop earning their renewal. The common mistake is treating registrations as progress: every name adds a yearly cost, and a portfolio of hundreds of weak names can lose money every year while looking busy. Price in ranges backed by comparable sales, track your sell-through rate, and keep cash for renewals.

The line between domaining and cybersquatting is intent. UDRP panels accept that holding names made of dictionary words, acronyms or common phrases for resale can be legitimate, while names that target a brand are not, so check trademarks before you buy.

AI changed both sides of the trade. Tools now handle routine work such as scoring expiring lists, drafting outreach and summarizing sales data, which shrinks the edge that came from doing it by hand and puts more weight on judgment and sourcing. Demand moved as well: AI.com was bought by Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek for $70 million, reported in February 2026 as the largest publicly reported domain name sale, and the .ai namespace passed one million registered names in January 2026.

Go deeper How to Start Domain Investing: A Beginner's Guide