This is called domain kiting or "tasting"[0]. The founder of Go Daddy decried the idea a decade ago[1]. Of course this was after running their own kiting operation for some time using ad placement via Google Ad Sense for Domains (no content necessary, just a domain name). I know, because I worked on the app that serviced 20M domains and fed metrics back to the team that decided to buy or release. The project was shuttered after some employee abuse (buying the domains for themselves) and shortly before Bob declared the moral high ground.
I think you could be making assumptions about the target market / audience that differ from your own experience.
Since domain tasting became prohibited it’s common to have large portfolios and wait for someone else to drop a domain they don’t know how to monetize. These lists grow to the thousands pretty quickly, especially when you make data based decisions.
That said giving away your domain list / strategy to a third party is a risk in of itself.
To be fair it could be as simple as scanning their user list for a single sign up from one of those domains and then plastering a logo on the front page saying they use their product.
Does this add value to others who use GoDaddy auctions?
Somebody somewhere out there will find value for this. I just don't know what that number is for you.
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What do you think about the usability of the app?
I personally don't care about pagerank when looking for a domain. I care more about the domain itself. Others my differ. Just a personal preference. In my experience, pagerank is meaningless.
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I thought the name was cute - Do you think I'd face any issues with it? (legal issues from GoDaddy)
GoDaddy also owns gomommy.com so not sure. In the grand scheme of things, probably unlikely but I'm not a lawyer and this is purely an opinion.
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How could I monetize it? Do you think its valuable enough to pay a monthly fee - $10 a month?
I personally wouldn't pay for a service like this but someone else might. Not exactly the most helpful answer but there is a target audience for most things. You just gotta go find them.
It might be fun to F with godaddy.com and start pumping them randomly with domains. Mixing random words in the dictionary and trying combinations in sequence like a typical user would would be effective.
Set this up to happen on a daily basis through proxy servers for different ips, and you might create an interesting way to bleed them a little bit.
Record the domains entered, and see how many times you get them to nick you. It would make for a fun blog post.
Keep in mind, they have to pay ever time they register a domain.
I bought a bunch of domains a while ago, to build something like this, and split-test the names, but haven't put any effort into it yet. Is there legit interest? It would have to be strictly third party generated content, otherwise it could be taken down due to various legal reasons... I think I would need to hire an attorney anyway.
I'll probably let all the domains expire, except for "shit.business", that one is gold.
This is a potentially addictive and risky venture. I've personally bought hundreds of domains over the years, and professionally in the thousands. I've probably broken even or profited a little. Most of the domains I buy for the name just sit there unused for 5+ years.
I like the simplicity. I think the challenge is how to get it in front of your target market at the right time. Could you partner with GoDaddy (etc) to catch people right after they buy a domain?
See also ‘domain tasting’ (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting), where registrars would temporarily register non-existent domains when someone attempted to load them, showing a ‘for sale’ page to skim extra money off registrations.
I'm sure tasting still happens on dropped domains, though; registrars have data on search interest and can find dropped domains that are likely to be profitable even taking transaction fees into account.
Domain tasting used to be easy money for spammers. Simply "taste" a huge number of domains, such as misspellings of popular sites, and put typically ad-filled domain parked pages on them. Figure out which ones make money and which don't, register the ones that are profitable, let the others lapse, and move on.
I can. I used to work at GoDaddy and they have an "Executive Domain Team" that is basically just a fancy word for a group of people that assist domain kiters. If you search for a domain on GoDaddy's whois, they put a hold on it and publish the list to potential domain "investors" (read: kiters) who then have the option of purchasing it out from under you. These are people that literally invest thousands of dollars to buy up domains on the off chance that they can resell them at a profit. Anytime there's a sunrise period on a new domain TLD, these guys go in and buy all the popular and common names wholesale and they have a dedicated person that works at GoDaddy to help them do this.
Anytime you have a question about whether something is a scam or not, just ask yourself where the money is. In this case, it's in GoDaddy making money off of any time a domain name is sold, re-sold, auctioned, or if it changes hands. It's where the majority of their money made comes from, outside of services where people just don't know that better alternatives exist.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting
1 - https://web.archive.org/web/20070707203924/http://www.bobpar...
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