Did I buy a useless domain?

18 replies
I just bought a 3 word .com domain because google keyword tool showed those three words together had 20,000 searches per month.

I was in broad search. When I hit "exact" those three words drop to 58 searches.

thanks in advance,
lloyd
#buy #domain #useless
  • Profile picture of the author Scott Murdaugh
    There is zero way of anyone knowing that without knowing the domain.

    Feel free to PM me, I'll give you my opinion.

    -Scott
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  • Profile picture of the author speel00
    I think the real question is if the domain keywords is about a topic that you love? You can buy all the top keyword domains that you want, but for the most part if the site has nothing to offer-the site will go down the drain.
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  • Profile picture of the author Louise Green
    There is no such thing as a useless domain, just useless management.

    Here's a good example of something we did a few years ago.. we bought domain name that was just random letters.. not even a word, and turned it into a powerhouse.

    Manage the site right, and the rest will follow.
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  • Profile picture of the author Domainate
    Originally Posted by lloyd02 View Post

    I just bought a 3 word .com domain because google keyword tool showed those three words together had 20,000 searches per month.

    I was in broad search. When I hit "exact" those three words drop to 58 searches.

    thanks in advance,
    lloyd
    No way of knowing without seeing the domain, but not all domains with low searches are useless. Most brandable domains for instance aren't going to have high searches and that doesn't generally affect their value much. Also, a lot of financial areas for instance with really high CPC can still get you decent money with #1 rankings on even low-search terms.
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  • Profile picture of the author Underground SEO
    It's not at all useless, since you own it you may as well do something with it, even if it broguth in just one affiliate sale or whatever a month then that's still 30usd or so - better than just leaving it doing nothing! Just promote it alongside your other sites and projects
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    In my opinion, I wouldn't waste my time with anything that got under 1000 exact searches. Think of it this way: if you're going to go through the work of promoting a domain...at least make it one that gets searched.

    Like I said though, just my opinion.
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    • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
      Originally Posted by lloyd02 View Post

      I just bought a 3 word .com domain because google keyword tool showed those three words together had 20,000 searches per month.

      I was in broad search. When I hit "exact" those three words drop to 58 searches.

      thanks in advance,
      lloyd
      You just learned a valuable lesson about keyword research the hard way... now savor the moment and move on.

      Originally Posted by speel00 View Post

      I think the real question is if the domain keywords is about a topic that you love? You can buy all the top keyword domains that you want, but for the most part if the site has nothing to offer-the site will go down the drain.
      So that begs the question, "How do IMers succeed in markets they know nothing about and don't love?" For example, I have sites that deal with musical instruments. Yet, I cannot play any instrument, cannot sing and the only thing I know about music is how to listen to it...

      Originally Posted by Louise Evans View Post

      There is no such thing as a useless domain, just useless management.

      Here's a good example of something we did a few years ago.. we bought domain name that was just random letters.. not even a word, and turned it into a powerhouse.

      Manage the site right, and the rest will follow.
      Louise, you should write a book and include these useless domains as examples:

      Youtube.com
      Google.com
      Yelp.com
      DMOZ.com
      Yahoo.com
      Digg.com
      Xanga.com
      Godaddy.com
      Expedia.com
      Craigslist.org
      Kiiji.com
      Baidu.com
      Twitter.com

      I bet you if we didn't know what we now know about these domain names and they were available for sale, most IMers would look at them with preconceived notions they learned through being brainwashed by smart people... and not buy them.

      Louise is right; a domain name will give back what you out into to it. Don't get set on believing that keyword rich domain names are the Holy Grail of Internet Marketing because they are not. It's awesome when you can get them, but when you can't you have to become a savvy IMer.

      Learn On Page SEO and Off Page SEO, master them and you can build a traffic pulling high converting web property with a domain name like moogle.com

      Originally Posted by Scott Murdaugh View Post

      There is zero way of anyone knowing that without knowing the domain.

      Feel free to PM me, I'll give you my opinion.

      -Scott
      I think Louise answered that question succinctly. If a IMer is shivering in their boots over the order of a domain name, the chances of them becoming an online success is pretty slim.

      The name he chose doesn't guarantee a thing. If lloyd02 doesn't learn both phases of SEO and then hammer his competition, he could have SEO.com and go down the tubes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian York
    Depends on what you were trying to achieve.

    If you were trying to rank your site for that term and thought that there was a lot of searches and that having the exact domain would make things easier- then yes you just wasted your money.

    If you wanted a niche specific name but were planning to use it for other styles of promoting- such as ppc, facebook advertsing, forums, videos, articles etc. Then no you haven't.
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  • Profile picture of the author DrGUID
    I once bought a domain name for a joke to have a laugh with my colleagues.

    After the dot com crash I put a software business on it and it's made me $100,000.

    No domain is useless!
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    If you guys wanna give all your domain names with 3 words and some 20K BROAD searches per month, be my guest and send them over.



    OP, understand WHERE are the 20K searches and work that domain.
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    People make good money selling to the rich. But the rich got rich selling to the masses.
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    • Profile picture of the author xohaibx
      Domain play an important role if you are targeting only one keyword and only for an excellent Search Engine Optimization, but if you want to build a huge content site or something like YouTube or stuff, then domain name does not really matter. Make sure you build an extremely high quality website in whatever niche you are trying to build, and over a period of time traffic would automatically enhance.

      A good way to create a quality site is to put a lot of top-class content with good internal linking. And, you will have a good website in few days.

      In short, if you are trying to target only keyword then it is a mistake because it won't be easier to rank.

      And, if you are trying to target a series of keywords then you should relax and continue working on the same domain name.

      Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss more.

      Cheers!
      MK
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  • Profile picture of the author RohitShah
    Go ahead and do your thing. You already have very short domain, build a great site and people will start talking about your site. Do not worry much about searches. Concentrating on On-Page and Off-Page will work great for such short domain.

    P.S: Can you reveal the price you got it for?
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    • Profile picture of the author lloyd02
      Ok, I dont' feel too bad about it now, and as for the price, I paid 15.00 for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author zachary0611
    From what I have seen the keyword in the domain name has more value in bing and yahoo than google
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  • Profile picture of the author ladyspinner
    No one can answer if it is a useless domain because it depends on what you do with it. If you develop it correctly, then it can be the best one to surprise you. And a pleasant surprise at that.
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  • Profile picture of the author verbose
    I have a 3 word domain that is the same thing. I get about 100 searches a month on that term. But I rank for the first 2 word combination, last 2 words combination and the first and the 3rd word combination. Sits is getting about 3k visits and growing. So see what else can do with those words. Also related words in the niche will do well.
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  • Profile picture of the author lacraiger
    as long as it is a .com then it has potential. other tld's could be useless...
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