What Features Determine Domains To Be Rare	1.5/5.0 (2 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Robert Orr April 06, 2009

Anyone can purchase available domain name and run an internet business , but if you want revenue from web traffic, advertising CPM and pay per click revenue share or resale value, you are going to have to shell out for a premium domain name. There is an entire business based on the procedure of identifying, buying and reselling premium domain names for profit. Every day hundreds of high end domains are auctioned off, many being purchased for tens of thousands or even millions of dollars. So what makes a domain name “premium?”

Short and sweet is often the best way to go. You want keywords that are popular searches on the internet, easy to recall, and likely to be near the top of the list on a search engine. Common words identifying high demand products or services are excellent and most likely to net the most profit. The most valuable are types of categories; segments that provide services clients pay for, like insurance.

Single word names are premier as they tend to have the most branding power. Having a single word domain is like being the authority on the subject. If you own insurance.com, you are now something of the leading authority on the subject. Two and three word domain names are less valuable, and hyphenated names are worth still less. Placing an adjective in front of a name however can improve its value by adding that ‘wow’ factor, like “hot” properties, instead of simply properties. Acronyms are also a good opportunity. Like MSN, there are many businesses who list by acronyms and the correct three or four letter combination can be as valuable as any individual.

Suffixes are another important aspect. While dotcom remains on top, dotnet, .org, dotbiz, .info and country suffixes like dotmxare also popular. Solid names with a lesser suffix tend to be worth more than more complex names with a .com.

There are 2 major types of premier domain names; those which naturally get a lot of traffic and those that are attractive more for the branding potential than the traffic they attract already. In the case of the 1st category, there are several ways to choose. The ticket to finding a domain name with higher resale value is buyer enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter if you think the domain name you are looking at is a good one if no other buyer wants to purchase it. Choose common names, keywords and combinations that get a lot of utility on the internet already.

There are several ways you can discern the potential of your targeted domain name. The simplest option is to type it in to a search engine to see how many results the name comes back with. The greater the number, the stronger the name is. There are also many tools out there to help gauge the strength of a name, some of which are available for free. The Yahoo suggestion tool come to mind. These high traffic domains can be developed into a website or they can be parked until a buyer can be found. Parking a domain name can earn a nice return if the name is searched enough.

The other type of rare domain name is valued less for its popularity as a search term and more for the name alone. If a business is seeking for a certain name, you wish to be the one to have it available for purchase. Many times these domain names can sell for as much as the huge traffic domains if not more, as companies are after something very specific, selling a product or a service.

Like antique collections, the value of a domain name is often most dependent on what the buyer is willing to spend. Always remember that the perceived value of premium domain names are ultimately worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

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