i'm quite crushed, not yet defeated but i need advice

Wow! 120 domains is quite a handful.

To be honest, you won't get much out of them if you try to sell them on Flippa or someplace else right now. What you need to do is start developing them into assets.

What niches are you in? I would take a look at your list of domains, choose a small handful(3-5) and make a plan to develop those websites in the next few weeks.

You have a couple options on choosing how to monetize each site, and each really is determined by what your audience wants. Do some research for each site to figure out what the "hot topics" are, and look to provide resources to them that will help them solve their biggest questions/problems. These resources can be affiliate products, cpa offers, or even your own information product.

Perhaps you should re-evaluate what you are doing. Focus on the site/sites that work well, get rid of the rest. I wouldn't pay the renewal costs as chances you'll loose money are greater than chances that you'll make a profit.

As for flippa, well you got to do the work an evaluate each websites and estimate if the risk is worth it.

I think the best thing that you can do right now is to stay FOCUS on doing one project at a time. There are many money making models that are available in this forum and you will want to decide on one of them.

Focus on getting one project to be profitable before engaging into another project. Follow a system that is proven to work and take aggressive action.

All the best

Zack

Sounds a lot like me, only I simply let my domains expire habitually.

I'm down to quite few now.

But I was notorious for registering a domain name without ever using it.

Probably 90% of the time.

So I know that simply, your invaluable assets are outweighing the valuable ones, and not only draining your pocket, but also your mental and emotional energy.

I think you would be well served by evaluating the situation with a discerning eye. If you've owned a domain for 1-4 years, and you haven't used it, it might be in your best interest to let the sucker go. Plus, I think you'll find that no one else will register it anyway.

It's easy to get caught up in hanging onto them for nostalgia.

Then, really focus your time exclusively on the sites that are making you money. As in getting them more traffic and improving their conversion rate. That's about as best advice I can give you looking from the outside in with the given information.

Good luck.

lotsa hard work in line for you then! I have about 10-20 sites and I have enough trouble managing them! (mainly cause I forget what I own and where its hosted lol)

Defiantly choose just a few to work on, get yourself some content, either do it yourself or buy some and que it up to auto post over a week or two while working on the next site

Hmm, It's great that you're not giving up. as for the ebook you purchase; not too sure where you purchased them from but there are a lot of white hat methods people use for SEO and website development.

As for selling the domains. Why don't you do it free through forums. A good domain forum that is free to list domains is at namepros. You might also want to consider listing this is the warrior forum. For $20 you can list more than what you list in flippa.

Also you can host your thread to accept offers instead of just auction.

All the best

Twelvo,

One thing that many people are guilty of is registering domain names and not doing anything with them, so don't feel bad we all do that!

Having lots of domains doing nothing are just overheads when it comes to renewals.

You could quickly monetise the sites if you used wordpress and became an ebay affiliate, or used software such as Pubster.

Failing that, just concentrate on one thing at a time, and maybe let some of your domains expire.

John

Start small. Take one site at a time and develop a plan just for that site and forget you have 120 of em. Once you have completed all the research and work, move onto the next one. Knock one down, one at a time. Make sure to keep note on keywords you want to rank for as it will be a huge pain in the arse later on if you don't..Pick one day out a week when you do nothing but SEO work on your domains. Could be backlinking, article submission, facebook marketing etc..

Other 6 days spend developing just that 1 site, until it's completed..After just move onto the next!

I'm not sure which ebooks you have been buying or what you consider to be black hat, but there are plenty of ebooks that will show you "white hat" methods for making money with websites. Or you could just check out The Challenge for free.

Lee

Well, if you are buying all those domains, I recommend you to research those that may be "keyword domains". You want to do this because keyword domains rank better in the SERPs. So evalutate all of those.

Throw out the ones that do not fall under the "high traffic keyword" category. That would be a great start imho.

And after you let the other ones expire that you do not need, just focus on a few at a time, not that many, it's hard to maintain tons of websites at the same time. Trust me, I tried juggling 5, and ended up only to be able to maintain one.

Wow, 120 domains that is a lot to keep up with. I will say choose the domains that you wish to keep and start building them one at a time. Let the other ones expire, it's no need to pay for something that you are not using. Make a plan to build the websites that you want to keep like making a post on each website everyday. Make it manageable for you to keep up with. Once you start building your content and building links, then monetize your websites with ads. I think the 30 WP websites will probably make you money in the long run if they have good niches, and once they start making money for you hire some writers that will post each week for you. Make this a long term plan by building a plan and stick with it, it will work out for you.

Been there done that! Everything changed for me once I started understanding SEO and keyword research. It will for you too.IMO adsense is just that ...cents!If you really want to make money I suggest that whatever niche your site is based upon(the one that is apparently getting traffic) that you monetize it better than just using adsense.Then keep building backlinks and target other keywords for ranking it.Build one site at a time and keep at it for a bit getting it to rank with additional keywords once you start getting sales from it.Take a bit of time and do some keyword research on the domains that you have and find out the competition of them. You will probably find that some may be extremely hard to rank with.If so let them expire and concentrate on the SITE. Not building new ones. One site at a time and ranking with additional keywords is my suggestion

"...i started buying domains since i was 18 withplans to develop each and every of these domains since i started..."

NEVER buy a domain unless you're going to use it right away or it's a killer ma,e that has just become available.

"...i just turned 23, and i own 120 domains now.
renewing's a bitch because i work jobs just to renew these domains..."

Ouch. See comment above. Drop those suckers fast.

"...so far, i've only got 1 developed site which i'm quite proud of."

Cool. Keep that one. Is it making money? Is it getting lots of traffic? Is it a Wordpress site that you update regularly?

"...1 developed site which i'm looking to sell..."

Does this site make money or get heaps of traffic? Probably won't sell fo rmuch if at all if at least one of these aren't happening.

"...5 other auto blogs which are not making money...30 WP sites but all without content..."

Kiss these suckers goodbye. BOOM, I just saved you $350 this year.

"...i've made money from the 2 developed sites, $20 from adsense in 2 months..."

That will pay for hosting for 2 months. Nice work.

"...i've bought eBooks but they don't usually work and most eBooks teaches black hat stuff, which i'm not wanting to do because i wanna do IM for a long term..."

Newsflash. Almost every single IM related eBook I've ever read (and there's been hundreds) had some useful info in them that was turned into profit. Ebooks DO work...people don't.

"...if there is anyone who can offer me some advice which will let me waste no time further on where i can start..."

Pick ONE method of making money online like affiliate marketing for example. Buy ONE product/course/ebook on that subject and read every last word in the book and then build ONE affiliate site from what it teaches you.

Make that site your baby and work on promoting it and only it until it makes money.

Don't buy any other domains.
Don't buy any other courses or ebooks.
Don't give up and keep working.
Have fun and take breaks or you'll burn out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...i'm thinking of selling on flippaa but $19 listing fee. should i take the risk?..."

The site will never sell unless you do take the risk. As I said earlier, does the site make money or get traffic?

I listed a site on Flippa that gets traffic and Makes money and it still didn't sell.

Search out other websites in the same nice and contact the owners to see if they are interested in buying it. That's free.

is it true that hostgator baby plan's shared IP makes it harder for me to do well in AdSense.

Never heard of that before but Adsense is a pretty weak way to make decent money. You'd need to have hoards of traffic to that site to make any money.

Drop those extra domains, get clear on what you want your business to be when it grows up and make sure everything you do builds toward that goal/dream.

Don't give up!

Mike

How about if instead of messing with 120 domains, 30 WP blogs and whatnot, you actually build ONE site that has any type of valuable and unique content whatsoever? you know, you're not going to make money by spamming the web with nonsense sites...

You have had a lot of good advice already, but what i would suggest is that yes you will have to let some of your domains go; but if there are some domain names that you think have potential why don't you just throw some blogs up on them in the meantime and try and get a spot of adsense or amazon revenue from them. That will at least keep them in a holding pattern until you can develop good sites. You could get someone to do blog posts for you really cheaply either through sites like Elance or through this forum; or populate them with some revised PLR material. I take it from your other questions that you do have them hosted on Hostgator, so setting up wordpress will be easy for you.
Wishing you heaps of luck with it
Lisa

I only have one site and it seems like enough work to try and get that going. It sounds to me like you became too excited about making money online and got in over your head. I would get rid of most of those sites and streamline your ability into a few sites. If you have a few years experience, you should be in good shape to make those worthwhile.

My first word of advice, stop buying domains. Stick to a few of them get them developed and profit from them. Too many domains/ideas will do you no good , unless you do something with them.

Wow, and I was getting agitated with myself for owning 20 domains, developing 15 of them, and only really working regularly on 5 of them. I can't imagine investing in 120 domains and not building on them.

I learned the hard way that buying domains in bulk is often a big waste of money. Unless you have the time and dedication to get them all up and running right after you buy them, there's a pretty good chance a good percentage, if not most of them, will end up going by the wayside.

As a rule of thumb now, I don't buy a domain unless I plan on building on it immediately after I purchase it.

If I were you, I wouldn't renew the ones that you don't have immediate plans to work with. By renewing and not working on them, you're just burning money.

It sounds like you have a bad case of not taking action. As has been mentioned, most ebooks will contain at least a little bit of something to help you start making money online, you just need to buckle down and apply the steps.

Not every course you take/buy/read (almost put that in spinner syntax since I've spent the last hour spinning articles) is going to appeal to you. You need to recognize your strengths and test different things to see what works for you, then create your own action plan and stick with it.

I've also read several ebooks and taken quite a few courses. I've meshed so many methods together I've created a whole new monster out of techniques that I actually enjoy doing. And you know what, it works. It makes money.

The key here is taking action and sticking to a set plan. Write yourself out an assignment schedule and follow it with whatever time you have. You might not have much time, but if you can complete at least one task a day, that's still working towards something.

If I were you, I'd focus on the sites that you currently own that are making you money and scale from there. Repeat what you did to make that $20 in Adsense income.

As far as Flippa is concerned, I'd stay away from it unless you know a bit about selling websites. You don't get that $19 back if your website doesn't sell.

You've been buying domains for 5 years but have only 2 developed sites (ignoring your autoblogs that dont make any money, and the 30 sites you've installed wp on and done nothing with).

A little harsh maybe, but I'd say you are not putting the effort in and if you're not putting the effort in you might as well let all but the two domains drop and save yourself the money. 120 domain renewals is the best part of $1K a year.

If you really want to continue then keep your best 5 and give yourself a target to have them all developed and making a profit within 6 months. If you cant/dont do that then let those go too.

Affiliate marketing is about making money, not losing it.

i really thank everyone for their input to this thread.
and also to those who PM me, with regards to buying my domains and sites.
i really wanna reply but i'm sorry i can't send out PM because my post count is less then 50.

i had wanted to post a screen shot of all my domains too but i'm below 15 post right now.

anyway, i tried to filter the domains so i would have to develop some and drop some.
but to be really honest, these domains have been with me over the years, they're somehow like my kids because i work other jobs just to keep them renewed.
i have a development plan for most of them but i find it hard to start, partly due to my bipolar disorder.

i'm thinking of putting most of them set up to be auto-blogs, but personally i don't really like the idea, because i'm afraid i get ban by google or something.

----
about flippa,
i was thinking about selling sites there actually not the domains.
i am quite apprehensive about selling sites there because of the $19 fee.
but does it work?

thanks again warriors!

twelveo, you have to have a business plan, a roadmap if you will. Otherwise you just wander around lost.

(I don't mean to be harsh, I am just speaking from experience. I started with focus, and then bought too many domain names to work with myself from time to time. It becomes overwhelming and costly and then you get very little done, unless you can outsource). So here goes...

Do you want to have a business, one that eventually will work up to a part time income or full time income, or be on a hamster wheel?

Step back and get a big picture

Search on Google and look up business plan. Do a rough outline at least. Do come back and make a full plan after you decide what you are going to do.

I hope several of your sites fall into just a few niches. It will make it easier.

Pick one broad niche, then see what sites fall into that niche. Decide what theme you are going to pursue. Sort out your sites.

Do some research on keywords and if they prospects are buyers and really hungry for what you might offer. Otherwise discard those domain names. It will save you months of hassles and frustration.

Then decide what to keep and what not. Then you need to choose a process - what are you going to do - examples affiliate marketing, selling your own product. Then a systematic way of going about it. Step one, two, three. Some sites will take off and some won't.

Once you focus, and get your big picture in mind, set up a systmatic way of putting together your themed sites and commit to how much time to spend a day, you will be on your way to making something happen.

---

Ahh, bipolar. Even more reason to focus and write out your plan step by step. On your bad days, you can be on autopilot once you get this plan figured out and written down.

On the days you are flying high, don't follow through with any impulses. Write it down and let it simmer for a while, until you are more in balance, then make a decision. If it is good, it will be just as good later.

Stick to your written down plan and steps. You will need it more than most.

Extra tip, I suggest you make sure to drink plenty of water and eat a good diet, skipping most fast foods. Learn about using healthy oils in your diet.

It really does make a big difference in brain chemistry, even bipolar.

Wishing you the best.
Jeannie

And here I was upset at myself for buying one domain name and then forgetting I had it. I would definitely say pick a few domains that are related and find a way to monetize those domains so that they work together. Don't give up! Keep at it.

Awesome thread... it's all great advice for anyone in this business. I just came from the "procrastination" thread... Now, I'm gonna go focus.

wouldn't it be better if we just concentrate and develop on a fewer websites? We can't control that much websites. It's virtually impossible. I think less is more.

I had the same problem while ago. I bought domain after domain without real plan what to do with those. Soon realized Domain reselling is not something for me. So then I started developing them. Take best 5 domains out of your collect and develop those and then optimize and backlink them for 3-4 months Until they started earning money.

I know this story.

My bad habit was saying "hey, I want to do ________" and having general shiny object syndrome where at one point I really wanted to be a copywriter, then I wanted to make info products, etc, etc.

Basically I didn't get anywhere until I said "this is what I'm going to do" and then started doing it. So here's my advice (and forgive the crassness)

Those 120+ websites are not your kids. If you actually had 120+ kids then somebody should get you a state sanctioned vasectomy.

Now quit screwing around, find something you genuinely enjoy and believe that you can be accomplished in and get started.

hello,
i will give you a fast advice and i hope it helps.
keep only this domains,
1-domains that at least cover its cost/ year because later it can be developed easily as an aged domain.
2-domains with thousands of exact searches on google. because also with a handful of links it can make very good earnings. (i am an expert in this model, i have a website that make 2$/day with 10 links and 3 pages only)
N.B. keep only .com,.net, .org

then drop the others take this decision now to success in this business you need to learn how to clean your portfolio yearly or you will loose money that is for sure.

for autoblogs it worked once with me but generally it is not good and to make this work the domain should have some original content in the beginning, more age than a year and some pr. else it will not work.

drop the useless 110 domains and replace it with a 20 good domains that has some search volume. and spend the registeration fees that you used to pay to develope the good 20 doamisn that you will get.

dont try to pay money to sell them but if any can be sold for free it will be great. no body will bye a undeveloped, zero earnings domains unless they are primum(has ks of search volums
i hope this was helpful)

Do not give up my friend, behind every cloud there is a silver lining...the sky is not your limit ...

I would suggest that you consider very carefully which domains you wish to keep and which ones to sell them off.

Set a goal for yourself.

If you just develop 1 domain a month, assuming each website makes $20 (which I know you are capable of) per month. By the end of the year you should at least make $240 every month.

If you can consistently do this for 5 years you will be probably making $100 a day.

Wishing you the very best.

Hi Twelvo,

Did someone tell you that more is better? It's true only if you are making money and ramping up.

Someone should tell you, "the idea is to make money, not spend it without doing anything with it".

Find out what works and get good at it.

My best to you.
jerry

Get rid of any domains that have been stagnant and haven't produced much cash. Focus on 2 or 3 main domains and try to build them up (new content and more links). Don't invest into ebooks and software if you can't afford it. Use free resources such as this one to get help and get your questions answered. At this time I can tell you're spreading yourself out to thin and you're not getting traction in anyone given area, you need to refocus and scale whatever starts showing some promise.

hi everyone.
i really appreciate every comment and advice that everyone have given me so far.
i really value every comment that have been posted here, thank you.

i'll be printing this whole thread on paper, try to summarize it and put it all into an action plan, which i will be putting up at a later time of the day

i wish i could PM everyone of you to say thank you, but i can't just yet because of my post count.

thank you everyone once again.
thank you.

Let's do the math...

2 * $5 = $10/month
32 * $5 = $160/month
120 * $5 = $600/month

Basically, it seems like you're leaving a few hundred dollars at the table every month. You're being like the 'gentleman farmer' who bought a farm and thought the cows would milk themselves and the corn would grow on its own. If you don't do the work to put those sites to work for you, you won't make money.

Also, $5 a month per site is on the low side, depending on the niches involved. Adsense isn't always the best earning monetization method for a site. You need to have a project/task plan when you buy a domain to avoid wasting time and money and part of this includes knowing which monetization method to use for it.

For example, if I knew Adsense would pay me 20 cents a click and a similar CPA email submit offer would pay me $1.40 an action or a Amazon or CJ commission would pay $10 I wouldn't use Adsense. But, if a single Adsense click paid in the $3-5 range, then I would tend to use it. (If you don't know how to determine this, then there's a knowledge gap you need to address.)

No, not at all. The problem is a lack of work.

Not really.

Basically, if you don't know what the project you're working on actually is suppose to accomplish and what you need to do to accomplish it, it becomes impossible to focus on it in a meaningful way. That is at the heart of the problem here, a lack of knowledge and lack of work, not a lack of focus.

It depends on how good you are at project and task management. If you suck at these skills, don't know how or when to automate and/or outsource tasks and so forth, or if you plan to let 30 blogs go undeveloped, then don't buy a lot of domains.

Thanks everyone for your reply. Appreciate it.
I was lost in action for almost 2 years and did not log in.

I saw all the replies only now and was shocked to find so much replies.
Thank you all.

When I first started looking at IM, I was guilty of the same thing.

Every time I had an idea I dashed off and bought a domain to use. I started each project with enthusiasm then, if it didn't make money right away, I lost interest.

I ended up with a tons of useless domains. Although the domain names were good (IMO), they were actually useless to me.

So, I changed from automatic renewal to manual. The theory behind that was; if I haven't done anything with them in the first year, the chances are that I won't ever do anything with them.
I then offered a lot of the names for free to anyone who wanted them on WF just to get them off my list.

I now only have the domains that are making me money.

So, do yourself a favour and switch to manual renewal and let go of the domains that are never going to make you any money.

Be realistic and ruthless, after all the object is to make money not spend it keeping a bunch of undeveloped domains - just in case...

Concentrate on doing more of what is making you money.

Good luck.

Wow that seems like a lot of domain names. I think it will be difficult to maintain all of them as there will be no quality maintenance of all the websites. How about deciding one one niche market that you want to business a business in and start building a list. I still feel building your own list is the way to have a long term internet business.

You need to build an authoritative site. It's much cheaper in the long run and benefits are huge.

Absolutely agree with most everybody. Drop all of the baggage, quit buying stuff you don't need

Focus on the best one. Create an offer and start list building with it.

I won't go on any more I think it's all been covered here.

Thanks for the great thread, I picked up some good stuff here.

Dave

Sorry to hear it. I'd sell them on SEDO, not flippa. Since you already have the domains set up, you can sell them for a few bucks and might even alleviate your initial investment. That or you can just cut your losses and learn from the experience.

Well if you were lost in action for 2 years don't leave us hanging! Let us know what you did and how you're doing now

You remind me of how I used to be.

I gathered up stuff for years but never took action.
Focus was my main issue.

Pick one thing and see it through to completion.
My father once said that I had no "Stickabilityness"

He was right, at least until now that is.
I still sometimes get dazzled by that bright shiny object but I know that ive accumulated enough stuff over the years that will continue to make me a small fortune if i will just use it.

Sometimes instead of buying more "stuff" i would buy something motivational, preferably an audio that I can listen to.
It works wonders and will give you a lift to enable you to start/continue a project with renewed vigor.

If you want to PM me I can give you a booklet on how to keep motivated.
No affiliate links or sign up of course.

Cheers