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So what happened with Eric Borgos and his 9,000 domain names?

Name Shopping

In mid-November Eric Borgos wrote a story on his company’s blog entitled: What To Do With My 9000 Domain Names?

The story sparked a lot of interest from readers and people started commenting with their own thoughts on what Eric should do with his 9,000 domain names.  Readers posted over 100 comments on the site that were all over the place – some offering to buy several of the names, to some suggesting Eric mass-sell or drop the worst of the domain names. 

Eric laid out a number of ideas in the beginning of the article on what he wants to do. 

Selling all his domain names at once to one buyer at wholesale prices was at the top of his list of considerations.  Eric wrote: “for $8 million for example, I would make $15,000/month in interest from the money in the bank (after income taxes and the brokerage fee I would net around $4.5 million from the sale) plus I would gain another $2000/month from the savings on domain fees (the difference between my parking income and my registration fees) that I no longer have to pay.” 

Unfortunately, there are very few buyers of portfolios right now Eric points out, but the wholesale option seems to be “Eric’s choice”.

Other considerations included selling more domain names than before by listing them with more brokers, setting up all his parked domains on minisites, and setting up real sites on his better domain names.

So, what did Eric do with his 9,000 domain names?

If you read through all the comments on the post, you’ll notice Eric is active and regularly responds to readers’ comments, even the not-so-nice ones.

You’ll also learn more about what he’s decided to do, that is, until selling all of his domain names to one buyer comes through. 

Eric doesn’t believe parking is the answer, and has no plans to let any of his names expire or sell any of them at registration fee.  “In terms of keeping vs selling my domains that make no money, the vast majority of my domains are worth at least a few hundred dollars each $500”, Eric writes.

Eric also states that he continues to get a high click through rate on Google Adsense ads, contrary to what many other domain investors are saying about their own domains.   

As far as his adult domain names, Eric is working with xpays.com: “A month ago I changed all my adult domains to be parked at xpays.com. They are not a parking company though, they put up a splash page giving the visitor some free content and then it tries to get them to signup for a free trial. I get paid $35 for each signup. Xpays has many different types of sites, and directs each of my domain to the best matching site of theirs. I switched my domains to their dns, so I did not have to do anything to set things up.”

Eric claims to have doubled his revenue using xpays, making nearly $2000/month from xpays with his 4,000 adult domains, rather than the $1000/month he was pulling in using traditional parking.

For Eric’s 4,000 non-adult domain names, he’s creating minisites using his own automated mass-development system he spent several months setting up.   Go to Inventing.com to take a look at an example of the mini site template that he is using across thousands of his domains. 

After all is said and done, Eric is still developing bigger web sites like Dumb.com and WatchMovies.com, and he’s still selling his domain names – with 2010 being one of his best years in terms of volume. 

Eric comments: ” Most years I think I have sold 30-50, but i am trying to accept more offers this year. I am not doing anything different to market them, and have never done any marketing other than listing them on Sedo.com and Afternic.com and on my own site at NameShopping.com.”

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Your Sold Domains. Where are they now? Check out the Stats of Eric Borgos, InsuranceQuotes.com, More

Insurance Quotes

Many of us hope to develop our best domains, but when an irresistible deal comes along, the odds are you might just sell the name you had big plans for.  Have you ever wondered what really happens to these domains?  In the case of Eric Borgos, one of our favorite domainers we enjoy covering who has been highly successful at both domaining and development, has sold a number of quality names that have gone on to be very successful web sites. Eric also sold Bored.com and several related properties for over $4 million. 

His domain marketplace at NameShopping.com offers domain shoppers a little bit of everything, including great domains and bargain-basement prices in some cases – like his sale of TrueRomance.com for $1,000.  Or one of his earlier sales: Cookies.com for $5,000.

Here are some quicky stats from just 2 domains that Eric Borgos has sold that will make you think about your own domains. And who knows, you might think twice the next time you get an offer on one of your own domains that you know has lots of potential — especially if you only own a very small handful, like us.

InsuranceQuotes.com
 
Eric sold InsuranceQuotes.com for $85,000.  Many times names that even sell at this price, still end up parked.  But not InsuranceQuotes.com.  Type in “insurance quotes” into Google, and it’s the #2 result on Page 1 just below Progressive.com. The site gets over 10,000 unique visitors per month.

TotalPorn.com
 
TotalPorn.com was sold for $11,000.  While it might not sound like such a great name to you, the owners who purchased the name saw its potential. Since launching, traffic to the web site has climbed quickly to over 30,000 visitors per month.  While much of the traffic might not be organic, the new owners are onto something.

Eric’s NameShopping.com is definitely worth looking over.  There are thousands of names listed and you might find your diamond in the rough.

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Revealing look at Eric Borgos, his NameShopping.com makeover & hundreds of his recent sales

Name Shopping

With every domainer trying to keep the cash coming in, especially those with huge portfolios, Eric Borgos the Millionaire Domainer and Developer gave his portfolio of thousands of killer domains an extreme makeover. 

The new NameShopping.com web site is more than just a web page with a long list of domain names, it offers a domain search engine, commissions for domain brokers who have clients interested in purchasing domains, and it’s domains are categorized making it easier for prospective buyers to quickly find the names they’re looking for.

The categories range from Adult Domain Names like Orgasms.com and Skimpy.com to Gambling Domains like SportsBets.net to Bookie.net.

Eric also owns geo domain names and thousands of others like Databackups.com, Telemarketers.com and Autopsies.com. 

Amazing Insight into a Domain Enterprise

If you’re really interested in seeing what Eric sells his names for, the new NameShopping.com web site also includes a huge list of his recent domain sales.  The prices might give you insight when trying to sell your own domains.  Despite Eric making millions, he still sells hundreds of his names in the low $xxx and $xxxx. 

As Eric commented on this story: 

My dilemma is that even though I have thousands of great domains, at least 75% of them earn less than the $8/year I pay for them, so it is worth it for me to sell the non-earning ones when I get a good offer for them, even though I might be selling for less than they are worth.

If you scour his names sold page there are some very interesting sales like Buffy.com for $1,000 (sold cheap to WB for legal reasons), InsuranceQuotes.com for $85,000, ILoveTV.com for $25,000, and VideoSlots.com for $75,000. 

CelebGossip.com sold for $5000
MoneyListings.com sold for $1100
BeautyExpert.com sold for $3750
ResourceHome.com sold for $1000
TowersCasino.com $350
OxymoronList.com sold for $2500
4Mags.com sold for $750
ParentSavings.com sold for $1000
BroadwayStage.com sold for $2000
WickedLingerie.com sold for $1000
CarInsuranceLeads.com sold for $1000
SecureDating.com sold for $2500
DogOwners.com sold for $900
CatOwner.com sold for $250
Taboo.net sold for $15,000
AutoUnlimited.com sold for $1000
GetProtected.com sold for $3000
FinestCigars.com sold for $850
DirtyLines.com sold for $250
Jam1.com sold for $600
HotToys.com sold for $15,000
LoanPayments.com sold for $2,500
AutoUnlimited.com sold for $1,000
GameTheory.com sold for $10,000
NoPrivacy.com sold for $2,000
ErectionHelp.com sold for $700
BigWallet.com sold for $1,000
EarringStore.com sold for $670
VitaminGuide.com sold for $3,000

The full list of domain sales can be found here.

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Millionaire Eric Borgos racks up more domain sales; how they stacked up against appraisal tools

celeb gossip

Even if you watch the domain sales over at Sedo and other sales reported on NameBio, it’s always interesting to see what sales Big Time Domainers like millionaire Eric Borgos, a domainer who’s done it all, ends up selling his names for.  Eric might have sold internet properties in the millions, but he doesn’t hide the fact that several of his names sell in the $X,XXX and even lower. 

I stacked up Eric’s most recent sales to Valuate.com (powered by Estibot 2.0) and Estibot 1.0 (head-to-head) and Valuate (in our opinion) did a better job of squaring up the sales based on the actual sales price.

While this might sound a bit confusing, Valuate is POWERED by Estibot’s 2.0 Beta Engine – so the results are different when Valuate’s appraisals are compared to Estibot’s 1.0 Engine that is currently public.  So I thought looking at the varying appraisals would be worthwhile. 

I’ve decided to provide a little more clarification to this story thanks to one of our readers; since the versions of the Appraisal engines are different when you use the current version of Valuate.com up against the current version of Estibot.com.

While Estibot 1.0 can certainly make you feel better about your names, you might not always find a buyer willing to pay their appraisal values.  If you’re patient, it’ll pay off if you can land that buyer.  And who’s to say, with the right end user, you might even get more…

Everyone has their own way of dealing with things.  Some use Estibot’s 1.0 appraisal tool.  Some use Valuate.com (which for clarification, is powered by Estibot’s 2.0 Engine that is currently available at http://beta.estibot.com/).  Some even use fee-based appraisal sites (which we don’t recommend).  Others use their own market research.   And of course, there’s always your gut instinct.

But if you’re looking to make a sale that might attract more interest and close quicker, chances are the Valuate.com apraisal will fall more in line with market price — which ultimately is based on Estibot’s new BETA Appraisal engine.  Looks like Estibot has made improvements to their appraisal engine in v2.0, so the prices look more realistic for those looking to liquidate.

Here’s How Eric’s Latest Sales Stacked Up Against Valuate and Estibot 1.0

CelebGossip.com – $5000
Valuate.com Price: $9,500
Estibot Price: $42,000

FixErrors.com – $2000
Valuate.com Price: $2,600
Estibot Price: $6,500

MoneyListings.com – $1100
Valuate.com Price: $1,100
Estibot Price: $890

BeautyExpert.com – $3750
Valuate.com Price: $4,700
Estibot Price: $4,000

ResourceHome.com – $1000
Valuate.com Price: $85
Estibot Price:  $2,400

TowersCasino.com – $350
Valuate.com Price: $0
Estibot Price:  $260

NYCStudent.com – $250
Valuate.com Price: $220
Estibot Price:  USD reg fee

FindRates.com $5500
Valuate.com Price:  $570
Estibot Price: $2,700

TeenDays.com – $250
Valuate.com Price: $2,000
Estibot Price:  $670

AutoWizards.com – $750
Valuate.com Price: $160
Estibot Price:  $40

SportsFishermen.com – $1000
Valuate.com Price: $460
Estibot Price: $250

OxymoronList.com – $2500
Valuate.com Price: $380
Estibot Price: $110

4Mags.com – $750
Valuate.com Price: $530
Estibot Price: $90

ParentSavings.com – $1000
Valuate.com Price: $170
Estibot Price:  $1,100

BroadwayStage.com – $2000
Valuate.com Price: $1,900
Estibot Price:  $3,700

WickedLingerie.com – $1000
Valuate.com Price: $1,100
Estibot Price:  $7,000

CarInsuranceLeads.com – $1000
Valuate.com Price: $1,300
Estibot Price: $1,900

SecureDating.com – $2500
Valuate.com Price: $2,600
Estibot Price: $1,800

Other Related Tidbits

According to Eric, all the reported domains he sold he owned personally and most occurred after people looked up registrant information, then contacted him.

At the time of this posting, SecureDating.net and BroadwayStage.org are available for hand-registration.  BroadwayStage.net is a Premium name for sale at GoDaddy listed for $1,888.

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Eric Borgos who sold Bored.com for $4 million shares his experience with domaining partnerships

adopt me

Eric Borgos has been experimenting with different ideas, websites, and business models over the years including partnering with other individuals and organizations on his domain names. 

In a recent story on his company’s blog, Eric shares his experience with partnerships.  Although partnerships can be “sweet deals” as Rick Schwartz has proven, not all end up that way.

Before there was Webkinz, there was AdoptMe

Eric talks about Adoptme, a popular site he developed – and trying to get an AdoptMe Plush line of toys in stores:

In the end, I lost around $62,000, plus several years worth of time and effort working on it. The biggest problem was that my partners (some business friends of mine) took several years longer than expected to launch the toys and ran out of money, so I either had to finance them or scrap the project before we ever launched it, so I was pushed into financing it. I am still glad I did all of this though because it is not something I would have ever done by myself, and as evidenced by the huge success of Webkinz, it was a great idea.

Eric Invested almost as much time in FindRentals.com as Bored.com (which sold for $4 Million)

Eric also discusses the contrast between working on Bored.com and FindRentals.com – which he’s invested a lot of time and money into.

… it has grown year after year, at one point with a staff of around 25 people (many of them salespeople paid on commission). The site is a success, but I have not made any money from it so far. In the 9 years since we started FindRentals.com, I paid over $100,000 to my programmer to do work on it, plus monthly fees to the webhost, and I personally spent a huge amount of time working on it. I spent more time on FindRentals.com than any of my own sites, other than maybe Bored.com.

More lessons learned over at Impulse

Eric offers others lessons learned over at his company blog – including his experience with partnering on FindCash.com and Cyberworx.com.

Overall, Eric’s feelings on partnerships can be summed up by his opening statement:

I am not a big fan of partnerships. I know many big companies (Apple, Google, etc.) have been built that way, but it has never worked out very well for me. Many people don’t like partnerships because of potential personality conflicts or business decision making conflicts that come up and eventually ruin things, or because they don’t want to give up control of the business. But, those were not the problems I had. Almost every time, the problems I had came down to money.