Categories
Available Domain Names

Available .com Domain Names 25.04.09

Its been almost a month since I posted an available domain names list – just two days shy! So here we go again. This list focuses on mainly brandable keyword domain names which have recently become available (in other words they’ve been taken from expired domains lists). I didn’t spend hours scouring millions of names to come up with these, I won’t lie. However, I did spend a bit of time looking around at various sites (that offer manageable lists) and generating some names using a script. What you see below are the best of the hand-picked names. Enjoy!

The list includes names from the previous list – and also shows names which have been taken already. They do go fast, so don’t wait around. Get clicking!

  1. DreadTube.com – hmmm… tube names seem to be in demand, this could be a collection of “dreadful” videos?!
  2. ePimples.com
  3. TartMarket.com – this definitely has an adult ring to it!
  4. DigitalParasite.com – cool name for a blog / alias
  5. SiteDigest.com
  6. OrganicWebsite.com
  7. SkinLogos.com – could be a tatoo site
  8. LogoZap.com – cool name for a logo designers portfolio / affiliate shop
  9. FamePlus.com
  10. FantasyCeleb.com
  11. CityCelebs.com
  12. CodeSauce.com – cool name reminds me of “source code” except its the otherway around
  13. BestPrime.com – has a few searches, decent keyword
  14. CodePrimer.com
  15. SuperCoolDomains.com – this would be quite nice for a domainers portfolio
  16. ProducingFood.com – a recipe site?
  17. FashionChicks.com
  18. DesignClerk.com
  19. DesignDiary.com – perfect for a designers blog
  20. DesignCrate.com
  21. PhotoStumble.com – like Stumble.com but just for photos?
  22. BachelorChat.com – forum for bachelors?
  23. VodkaMakers.com
  24. TelegraphCompany.com
  25. SocialistWeb.com
  26. SovietMedia.com
  27. HdTvGuideBook.com
  28. SublimeTickets.com – brandable name for a ticket reselling website like TicketMaster.com
  29. GrooveCore.com
  30. LonelyBrides.com – adult site?
  31. PrestoPromotions.com
  32. RecipeDemon.com
  33. KeywordPark.com – domain parking for keyword names only?
  34. ScriptZoo.com – something like hotscripts.com, directory of scripts?

That’s yer lot! Let me know if you register any or just drop me a comment and tell me what you think of the names.

I’ll also consider taking requests, so if you want to see some “blog” related domain names or whatever really, just let me know…

[phpbay]domains, 10[/phpbay]

Categories
Domaining Featured Articles Web Development

Domainers Tools – Keyword Research & Insights

These tools are extremely important in helping to find out how valuable a domain name is. Keyword research can give you a rough idea of how often a particular phrase is searched for at the top search engines. The Google keyword tool is one of my favorites, it tells you how strong the advertising competition is for a particular keyword or phrase – plus you can check the popularity of a keyword based on a language or a specific country… very useful for ccTlds.

You shouldn’t register or buy a domain name based on just one particular tool – you need to research a little further. The Google tool for example only provides data based on searches done via Google – it doesn’t take into account other search engines – ie. Yahoo or MSN Live.  Using a number of keyword research tools can help you get a better idea of the overall searches & the market.

The Google Insights tool is very powerful. I’ve probably only uncovered 10% of its uses so far. It can look a bit daunting and complicated to use – but take a look at this guide to help you understand it better : How to Use Google Insights

KeywordSpy is somewhat underrated. If used together with google keyword tool it can help you get a lot of information on how popular and valuable a particular search term might be. I use these tools not only for finding domain names but also for SEO and even for deciding which keywords to use for parking.

These tools can help you find out what keywords are helping to rank a particular site in search engines… what people search for and where they are located. For example the word “Condo” is searched for more in the USA than it is in Europe, if you had a domain name with that keyword (PalmCondos.com for example) you could save time by targeting your sales to the US market (and anywhere else that they use the word) rather than wasting time trying to sell it to someone in a country where they don’t use that word much. Information like this can help you decide not only whether to register a particular keyword ccTld domain, but also give you some idea of keywords to use when parking or developing the site.

Categories
Domaining

Best Whois Tools – Find out Who Owns a Domain Name

Pronounced as “who is“, these sites/tools help you find out who owns a domain name as well as other vital domain registry information such as registration date, expiry date, last update, name servers etc.  There are thousands of whois tools that provide more or less the same data – some provide more than others and present the information in different ways.  Below I’ve listed the ones that I use the most…

You’ll most likely find one at every domain registrar and as I’ve said there are probably thousands of other ones – but it is a good idea to use trusted whois tools when you’re checking for available domain names because most of these query tools mine the data and can use your searches to register good names for the owners. Some of the tools out there even place holds on certain names after you’ve checked them – so you’re only able to register that particular name at their registry.

The tools I’ve listed above are all safe to use. They do not mine data.

If you use other whois services that you know are 100% safe from data mining then please leave a comment with the url and I’ll add them to this list.

Categories
Domaining Make Money

Are .info Domain Names Profitable?

When considering purchasing .info domain names for investment (whether new registrations or purchases made in the secondary market), it’s important to focus on how you’re actually going to make money from your portfolio. In fact this applies to all kinds of domain names, not just the .info extension.

I’ve found that a lot of people look down on the .info extension – without a good reason in most cases. I completely understand for some people investing in .info extension isn’t as worthwhile, usually because they have such big and rich .com portfolios that the smaller returns you get on .info’s just takes too long to add up.

But! For the majority, I’d say it is still worth investing in if you can find the right name to fit the extension. This is very important… you have to be careful which name you pick because unlike with many other extensions the .info’s work well mainly within the “information” niche.

At the time of writing, you can hand-register .info domains at a number of domain name registrars for around $1 each. GoDaddy for example is offering new registrations for $0.99 + icann fees = $1.12 per domain.

These promotions are not new, they’ve been ongoing since the release of the .info extension a few years ago. A lot of domainers and developers say that these promotions have hurt the extension – making it appear as “cheap” and “spammy” (more explained on this later). This may be so, but it still doesn’t take away from that fact that there is money to be made on them.

A few months ago I registered about 50 two word .info domain names – the total cost was about $55 – within a few weeks I sold 5 of these domains for over $30 each. Fair enough, it hasn’t changed my life, but that’s a pretty good return on investment however you look at it. Just from selling 10% of the names I’d made a total of $180. That’s about $174 profit from $6 investments. Not bad eh!

So what about the other 45 names?

Since registering them over 7 months ago, I’ve already sold about 40 of the names. Other than the first 5, the rest of them I sold for $2 – $5 each. A couple went for $10 each. Still I made profits on each and every single one of them so far. And, the best thing about it is that I still have 10 left. Out of these 10, I’ve developed one into an information/review site for domain registrars – and from the other 9 I will keep 6 (the best ones from the 50) and probably drop the other 3.

So based on my own experience, I’d say .info domains are definitely profitable – IF you know what you’re doing.

I think a lot of people have bad experience with .info’s because they registered poor names – names which don’t fit the extension – and in some cases people took a gamble on LLLL.info domains thinking a buyout would occur and they’d make good profits. Wrong.

Brandable domains don’t suit the .info extension and more often than not they don’t make profits… neither do acronyms (with LLL 3 letters being an exception).

If I see a website’s url as — BestLaptops.info (as an example) then automatically I’d assume that site to be some kind of information base, reviews site or price comparison site rather than a site actually selling laptops. I don’t expect it to be a company – I expect it to be either an affiliate site or just a site filled with information about which are the best laptops. Most people view .info’s in this way – and I’m assuming that’s what the intention is behind .info

I see people register domains such as  “iComputerShopping.info” – from experience I can safely say these names do not sell well – especially to the reseller market. With names like this you’re trying to brand what is intended to be an information site… not a company or product. It just doesn’t make sense. Below are a few more examples of names that don’t really work…

  • TotalBlogger.info – what’s this supposed to do? provide information about someone who’s a total blogger? good brandable name, but wrong extension.
  • MissFashion.info – same as above
  • 247ShoppingMall.info – could be a site about all the 24 hour shopping malls, but very restricted and again branding rather than keyword based.. wouldn’t get much organic traffic.
  • UKLK.info – four letter .info, hard to resell to domainers, possible to sell to end-users who own companies with those letters, but this creates a lot of work trying to find the end-user.

You see, there are a number of reason’s why a numerous types of domains don’t work well with .info – there are a lot of things to take into consideration when buying them.

I only buy names that I can quickly flip to other domainers or at aftermarkets such as sedo / ebay / tdnam etc. I prefer not to chase end-users with .info domains because its hard enough to find buyers for .com’s – it takes a lot of time. And time is money.

I see it like this… the amount of time I’d spend trying to find an end-user for a $500 brandable or acronym .info name – I could flip 100 .info to resellers for $10 or so and make more money with less effort. So I don’t bother going after brandable .info domains – they’re just too much hard work to sell.

Below are some examples of names which make sense with the .info extension –

  • VirusInformation.info
  • HipHopMusic.info
  • DivorceProcedures.info
  • FinanceSchools.info
  • EnergyProviders.info
  • StudentAccounts.info

Ok, most of those names are mine – so it would seem biased. But think about each of them – they fit the extension and would be very easy to develop a site / mini-site on them. The ease of seeing and realizing the names potential – together with the ease of development (basic blog/wordpress / mini-site) helps to sell these names to resellers. Lets take “StudentAccounts.info” for example, it would make a perfect site for students to learn about which accounts /credit cards are best for them as a student. Turn it into a simple blog and allow user reviews / comments – add a forum perhaps? Now, just add a few affiliate links or google adsense – and there you have it – easily developed / easily monetized useful site for a niche.

I’ve had offers above $40 for most of those names – but I’ve declined, mainly because I have development plans for them or because they are parked and getting good traffic. I know that by spending an hour or two on each of the domains – I’ll have them developed to a basic stage – enough to earn me $5-$10 per month in adsense revenue at least. So it’s not worth selling for so low… I’m just not in that much of a rush.

So, to conclude this article – I think .info domains names are definitely worth investing in. If you can find them to hand-register, then its a bonus. But even if you can’t find good suitable names to hand-reg you can still have a look around at the aftermarkets and forums – there are occasionally names being sold for under $30-$40 … which in the right hands could be worth a lot more.

NOTE: as you can probably tell, I’ve written this article in free flow – not a great structure to it, so I do apologise. But I will be doing a full write-up on .info domains within a few weeks so stay tuned. In fact, register for a free account and add yourself to the mailing list – you’ll get a weekly newsletter with all the sites updates and articles… oh and available domain names lists.

Till next time 😉

Categories
Domaining

Cats.net sells for $7000?

Just a few days ago the auction for cats.net ended at Sedo with the highest bid at $7,000 (usd). Does this indicate a major fall in the current market for .net domains? Or was this a fair price for such a domain? Well I personally think not. $7,000 for such a premium domain name, despite being a .net is very cheap indeed. The buyer definitely got the better end of the deal.

So what did this domain name sell for so little? I think it had a lot to do with how the sale was promoted, or the lack of promotion for that matter. The name was auctioned off via Sedo and I didn’t even hear about it till after the auction had finished. Actually, I only found out about it after it had been posted on a forum.

We were able to hear from the current owner (the seller) and it turns out the name was put into auction without a reserve price and he made no efforts to contact potential end-users to let them know about the auction. This, together with the current financial situations has meant that a good name has gone for such a low price.

Another thing that surprised me and many others was that the domain name hadn’t been promoted to possible end-users. The seller hadn’t previously made any attempts at contacting people in order to try and get a sale. This wasn’t because he didn’t think to do it, but he chose not to. And I think this hurt his pockets somewhat.

A lot might argue that there isn’t much end-user potential for this domain, possible because its not a product but an animal/pet. Well, I’d disagree. The name it self can have many uses and would appeal to the “cat food” industry or “pet products” and could even be used a cat lovers community / forum. There might not be a huge number of advertisers for the keyword but there are definitely a lot of uses for it.

I think a fair price would have been around $10,000 minimum to about $14,000.

So, there could be some lessons to be learned from this sale. It’s good to be proactive with your domain names. Contact potential buyers, send out emails and promote your name. Sitting on them and hoping people will come and make offers isn’t always going to get you the biggest sales. If you’re not good at contacting or finding potential buyers, then hire a broker (if you have a premium name that is). Get your name evaluated as well to see what kind of price to expect. Do all of this before sending it to auction – and even then… alert potential buyers and let people know the name is in auction. Don’t let it go under the radar and miss out on getting some extra bids.

Categories
Domaining

MysteryDomainAuction Is Canceled

Following much debate and criticism, the Mystery Domain Auction – billed as the Domaining Revolution by John Motson of DnXpert.com has been canceled just days after being launched.

Here is the official blog release taken from DnXpert: “Following legal advice obtained as a result of concerns raised by fellow domaining bloggers and some NamePros members about the legality of an all-pay auction in the US where this site is hosted in addition to consideration of the problems I may face at the end of the auction in case more than one person bids with the same amount which is very likely I have decided that the best option is to cancel this auction effective immediately.” – read the full release here (dnxpert.com)

John Motson cleverly created much hype prior to the launch of MysteryDomainAuction and within minutes of the launch on January 1st 2009, there followed a frenzy of blogs and forum posts that drove further publicity towards what was billed as the Domaining Revolution.

Drumming up the Hype!
Just over a month ago, John had decided to give away his popular eBook “The Domaining Manifesto“… but in order to download it, users were required to join the mailing list for “The Revolution”. A lot of people, including fellow domainers blogged about this and the word spread pretty fast. John also mentioned this on his own blog (DnXpert) and the ball was rolling.

Not exactly “The Revolution”
Everyone assumed that “The Revolution” was either going to be another eBook or some kind of site that changes the domaining world. Following the success of “The Domaining Manifesto”, everyone expected this to be just as good or even better. Unfortunately it was neither. It turned out that “The Revolution” was in fact the “MysteryDomainAuction” – an auction site for a domain name worth $10,000, or $10,000 in cash.

It was an “all pay” auction, meaning bidders had to pre-pay for their bids regardless of whether they win or not. In exchange they get to have a link back to their site/blog etc.

Criticism & Publicity
Just a day had passed since the release and the criticism began. The so-called “Revolution” or the lack of it annoyed many in the domaining industry. A lot of domainers expressed their disappointment via forums (eg. NamePros.com) and via personal blogs (eg. DomainNameWire.com / DnKitchen.com just to name a few). Some even went as far as calling it a scam.

Whatever way you look at it though, there was a lot of publicity, good and bad.

My Take on the MysteryDomainAuction
I personally thought it was quite a good idea and it had potential, but it just wasn’t executed properly. Had it been done differently, I think it could have actually brought more attention to the domaining industry. It would’ve been interesting to see the outcome and also to find out what the domain name actually was.

Would it have changed the domaining world? Most certainly not. John said that he was hoping that this auction would bring attention from businesses and individuals outside of the domaining industry, but I don’t think that would have happened. I don’t think many outside of the domaining world would’ve have been interested in it at all. But I guess now we’ll never know.

Scam / Rip-off – I think those are too harsh words to use. Everything was clearly explained on the website. But of course, one person stood to benefit the most and that wasn’t the winner of the auction, but it was John Motson. Maybe that wasn’t his sole intention, but that was the reality… and I think that the massive share of profit in comparison to the little benefit this would have brought to domainers is what annoyed a lot of people (domainers).

Hopefully there’s lessons to be learned here and I certainly am interested to see the reaction on forums and blogs to the news of the auction being called off. Hopefully we’ll see John bounce back with something more innovative and helpful in the near future.

Categories
Domaining

Analysis of the LLL.in Domain Market

It has been almost a year since the LLL.in buyout occurred and we at a point where there is much discussion and differing views on whether the buyout will hold or not. A lot has changed since last year in terms of registration/renewal pricing for.in (Indian) domain names and more importantly the economic situation around the world.

The buyout occured at a time when the financial / economic outlook was quite bullish. The registration for .in domain names was on a promotional special pricing of just $3 or $4 at most registrars.

Throughout the year we’ve seen some great sales of premium LLL.in names both on domaining forums, sedo and other aftermarkets. At one point we even saw sales of anti-premiums (eg. domains containg poor letters qwxz) going for upto $5-$6 in the reseller market. This can be looked at as double the return of investment (ROI) if you consider they were bought at just $3 or $4.

Thousands of LLL.in’s have exchanged hands amongst resellers, names of all letter qualities. Average names were going for as much as $25-$35 each! Double premiums with semi-premium letters were averaging around $45-$65 each. Triple premiums reached were going for no less than $120-$150 each.

We saw very few names being dropped and those that were… even all anti-premium letter names… got snapped up within seconds. Competition amongst drop catchers was fierce, with some names being taken within 4-8 seconds after being dropped. However, with about 8-9 months passing after the buyout… things started to change.

Despite the higher quality names holding value throughout the year, the lesser quality names started to go down.The top speculators would have forseen this and taken actions just in time to make sure they didn’t lose out. However, many have fallen foul and will lose a lot of money.

The bleak economic outlook and talk of a possible recession has made everyone more weary of how we invest our money. The aftermarket has been hit quite hard… the renewal (and registration) price being around $14+ is a factor many have started to take more seriously, especially with many names being close to expiry.

The top drop catchers are only going after triple premiums or high quality double premium names and leaving most other names alone. From names being taken within 4 seconds we are starting to see some names being available for registration for up-to minutes after drop.

And now with news of hundreds more LLL.in’s close to being dropped – what will happen with the buyout? Will it hold or will it fail?

I think it will fail. Thousands of names are coming up for renewal between now and April 2009. With high renewal prices I’m sure there will be big lists of names being dropped, especially poor quality names. There will be way too many names being dropped that not all will get picked, especially not anything less than double premiums.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in LLL.in domain being valuable and I believe the buyout will re-occur. LLL ccTld domains, especially when we’re talking of developing countries such India, China and Brazil will no doubt be increasing in value over time.  However, the lesser quality names are just too expensive to be taking a risk on in the current economic climate and I doubt there are enough people willing to take a gamble right now and buying large number of dropping names.

I believe the better quality letters and popular acronyms will still continue to get snapped up within seconds, but the lesser quality – maybe even double premiums will be available to register once again. But again, I don’t think this will last too long.  As the financial markets around the world become more stable we will see once again the dropped names being registered… and slowly but surely the buyout will re-occur.

What do you think? Share your views on the LLL.in domain market by leaving a comment below.

Categories
Available Domain Names

Available Domain Names – list 1

To celebrate the launch of Demonised.com – I’ve decided to make this a very special edition of “Available Domain Names”. This is the first list that I’m making public since the “proper” launch of Demonised.com, so you’re all in for a bit of a treat.

I will be trying to release a new list once a week (sometimes more and sometimes less) – it will all depend on the response I get from each list and also how much time I have in between my other work/life.

Act Quick!

Although these lists get published here first… they will also be shared across various forums, so if you see something you like, don’t hang around too long! Reg it before its gone!

Stay Informed! Subscribe!

Find out as soon as I release a new list, there are different ways to subscribe – click here to see all the options. Or just fill in the subscription form below…

I recommend that you register on the site rather than just subscribe – registration gives you more options!


In list #1

This list contains a mix of domains including domain names based on search terms, ‘brandable domains, short domain names, dot com’s, dot info’s and more! Its a bag-fulla-goodies for everyone.

Recommended Registrar:

DynaDot Domain Name RegistrarRegister .com’s for $7.50 ($8.99 regular pricing).
Register .info’s for $1.99 ($2.99 regular pricing).

If you don’t like the domain you register they let you get a full refund (minus icann fee of $0.20) for up to 5 days! Delete option is in the account – refund takes 1 minute. Great for tasting a domain to see if it brings traffic/revenue etc.

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Available .Com’s

StorePallets.com Somewhere to store your favorite color pallets or…
FebruaryThemes.com
Afbud.com
Bacud.com A name? 6,800 google results
Afbad.com
MrZel.com Nice! Very brandable!
HaloThemes.com
ColombiaPhotography.com Great for a photographer / company based in Colombia
LawFirmsDelhi.com
SellStockPhotography.com
Nejde.com Estibot loves this one! $2,500 <—
StorePaint.com
ParkingCones.com Can never have enough – use this as a online shop to sell them!
PrintAdvertisments.com Careful. Its missing an “e”
BusinessCardsHolders.com
London4StarHotels.com
BulletinBoardThemes.com
InStudioPhotography.com Very brandable and useful
StorePaint.com Looks useful – estibot likes it.
FujiPhotography.com TM’d – but surprised to see this.

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Some .info Domains

Most of these names fit very well with the .info extension and have use… please post a comment if you register any – you don’t have to say which one you took… just a “I reg’d 1.info” will do.

ParkingGuides.info Either for domain parking or car parking – useful.
SexTrailer.info
SexAnimals.info Everyone is a sex animal!
SexTechnique.info Not everyone has this though!
MusicCopyrights.info
ParkingFines.info Make a site about Parking fines and how to appeal etc.
IndianBrides.info
ItalianBabes.info
DesignPortfolios.info Guides and how-tos for designing all kinds of portfolios.
DesignDepartment.info
BussinessPlan.info Extra “S” but lots of people search like this. Overture+Wordtracker
FemaleAthletes.info
FemaleBodyParts.info Hmmm…
BankOfBrazil.info Most “BankOF… + major country” is taken.
BankOfIsrael.info
BankOfItaly.info
FemaleArtists.info

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Recommended Registrar:

DynaDot Domain Name RegistrarRegister .com’s for $7.50 ($8.99 regular pricing).
Register .info’s for $1.99 ($2.99 regular pricing).

If you don’t like the domain you register they let you get a full refund (minus icann fee of $0.20) for up to 5 days! Delete option is in the account – refund takes 1 minute. Great for tasting a domain to see if it brings traffic/revenue etc.

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Some more… mix tld’s

Mostly .co.uk in this list… next time I’ll add in some .net’s and .org’s and maybe some .in’s – if anyones interested. By the way, please leave a comment if you register any – you don’t have to say which one you took… just something like “I reg’d 1.us and 2 .uk’s” will do.

LearnAlgebra.co.uk I had problems learning – now I just don’t remember any of it.
PhotographyClasses.co.uk Very useful. Shouldn’t be hard to find end-user for this.
FemaleAnatomy.us Hmmm…
BreastExams.co.uk Useful
BreastLovers.co.uk Adult orientated no doubt.
StoreCreditCards.co.uk Every store wants us to have one of these!

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That’s it for now

I had a much bigger list to post, but at least 30% of the names were already taken since the time I discovered them (about 2 days ago). Next time I’ll try to be faster at post them as soon as I find em’

Anyway. Hope you like something in there… let me know what you think and of course please do leave a comment if you register something… more interest you show… the better my lists will get 🙂

And as I mentioned above… to get updates via email – via rss feeds or via fax… make sure you subscribe. It takes very little time. In fact ‘register instead, because you’ll have more options in terms of subscriptions and how you receive them… (ok not really fax – I lied!)

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Categories
FAQ (Domains)

What is “Domaining”?

The term “domaining” is used to describe the business of buying, selling, developing and monetizing Internet domain names. This is where the domain names are being used for investments instead of developing websites.

Think of it as Internet real estate if you like. The person involved in this business is usually referred to as a “domainer”. He/she invests in domain names with the hope of selling them for a profit to an “end-user” or even to other domainers.

You can think of it as buying empty land, not for the purpose of building a house on it, but as an investment with the view to sell to someone who has might want to build on it.

See the related content below for more information.

Categories
Domains For Sale

Sale: AdwordsCenter.com

AdwordsCenter.com gets a few visits and is generating revenue from clicks whilst being parked at Sedo. I’ve added the domain to my domains portfolio – if you’re interested you can either make me an offer via the portfolio or via Sedo – which ever you prefer.

AdwordsCenter.com

The domain has been parked at Sedo since the end of May 2008… Counting from June 2008 the domain has received 80 unique views and 17 clicks – totaling just over €6 (euros) in revenue.

Not a huge deal in terms of traffic and revenue – but keep in mind the domain has not been optimized and has only been parked (never developed as far as I know).

Therefore it would have to be assumed that the visitors are coming from pure type-in traffic.

Furthermore, they are actually clicking on related adverts, proven by the good click-through ratio.

Also, the payout from each click has been very good in most cases. Highest being around $2 from one click.

Possible uses

You could buy the domain and develop it into a website about Adwords – a blog/information center about how to make use of adwords. Basically a traffic/promotions website.

Considering the high paying clicks just from parking, you could be getting at least double that amouth using adsense or yahoo ypn – not to mention affiliate links and private advertising.

Price

I’m not looking for a big sale on this, just a quick one.

Taking offers from $75+

Register on Demonised.com and/or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date with future domains for sale – and free available domains lists.

Thanks for looking.