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My perspective on the story behind the nearly $70,000 domain sale

Trick Nguyen — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Recently, I came across a post on X that got around 21.3K views. As soon as I scrolled down and saw it, I was immediately impressed.

First of all, thank God. Sold https://t.co/eMTso8QYuT last month. Thanks to @atomHQ

I like to share story behind that.

In 2023, I hand-registered https://t.co/WjpNG5OwJ6 and submitted it to @atomHQ Premium. It was initially approved at $3,499, but I felt the AI market was just… pic.twitter.com/7zJXkhwJHC
— Sandeep Sarao (@sndp_sarao) June 1, 2026

The author shared the story of selling the domain PCC.ai for nearly $70,000. I know that's not an extraordinary amount in the domain industry, but for a newcomer like me, it's still very impressive.

What caught my attention wasn't just the sale price, though. It was the story behind the sale — the thought process, the patience, and the journey that led to that outcome. I think there's a lot to learn from it.

Not just because of the number, although of course the number is hard to ignore. A hand-registered domain turning into a $70,000 sale is the kind of story that can make a beginner stop scrolling immediately.

But the more interesting part, at least for me, was not only that it sold.

It was how the seller described the path.

In 2023, he hand-registered PCC.ai and submitted it to Atom Premium. At first, it was approved at $3,499. Later, he felt the AI market was still very early, removed the name, resubmitted it, and Atom eventually approved it in a much higher range, around $22,000 to $45,000. After more research and a pricing review, he listed it at $77,000.

Then a buyer came in at $50,000.

Instead of accepting immediately, he kept his floor at $50,000 and asked the broker to push higher. The final sale closed at $70,000.

That is the part that made me pause.

Because if I imagine myself in that position, especially as someone still learning, I honestly do not know if I would have had the confidence to hold. A $50,000 offer on a hand-reg would already feel unreal. It would be very easy to think, "take it before it disappears."

And maybe in many cases, that would be the right decision.

That is what makes this story tricky. It is inspiring, but it can also be dangerous if I learn the wrong lesson from it.

The easy takeaway would be:

"Go hand-register .ai domains and price them high."

I do not think that is the real lesson.

If anything, this sale reminds me that the hardest part of domain investing is not always buying the domain. Sometimes the harder part is knowing what you actually own after the market changes.

The Part I Think Beginners Can Misread

Whenever there is a big public sale, especially one that started as a cheap registration, it is tempting to reverse-engineer it too simply.

Someone sees:

Hand-reg → high price → big sale.

Then the brain wants to skip all the uncomfortable middle steps.

But there were a lot of middle steps here.

The seller did not just register the name and wait randomly. He watched the AI market. He questioned the first valuation. He submitted to a marketplace. He re-evaluated pricing. He had enough belief in the asset to keep the floor when a serious buyer appeared.

That is very different from buying any available .ai acronym and assuming the same thing can happen.

I have made this mistake in smaller ways before. Not with a $70,000 name, obviously, but with names that looked interesting because they belonged to a trend. I would see a keyword like AI, agent, voice, crypto, health, or some new startup category and think the trend itself was enough.

It usually is not.

A trend can create attention, but the name still has to be good.

The buyer still has to exist.

The price still has to make sense.

And if the domain is expensive to renew or hard to explain, the trend can turn into a trap very quickly.

Why `PCC.ai` Feels Different From A Random Trend Name

Short names are strange because they do not behave like normal two-word brandables.

With a two-word name, I usually want the use case to be very clear. If I am looking at something like VoiceAgent.com or ClinicVoice.com, I can quickly imagine the buyer category.

With a short acronym, the value is more flexible.

That flexibility can be powerful, but it can also make the name harder to judge.

PCC.ai is only three letters before the dot. In a TLD like .ai, that can matter because AI startups often like short, technical, compact names. The name does not need to describe one exact product. It can become a company name, a lab, a platform, a model, an internal acronym, or something else entirely.

But I still do not think "three letters" alone explains the sale.

There are many short domains that do not sell for this kind of amount.

What probably helped was the combination:

short acronym
strong AI extension
market timing
marketplace exposure
serious buyer
seller conviction
broker execution

I am guessing a little here, because I do not know the buyer or their exact reason. But from the outside, the sale looks less like a random lottery ticket and more like a case where several good signals lined up at the right time.

The Pricing Part Is What I Keep Coming Back To

The original approval at $3,499 is fascinating.

If the seller had accepted that first view of the domain, the story could have ended very differently. Maybe it would have sold for a few thousand dollars and still been a great return on a hand-reg. Nobody would complain about that.

But later, the same name was treated as a much more valuable asset.

This is one of those things that makes domain pricing so difficult. A domain does not have one fixed truth attached to it. Its value depends on who is looking, what the market is doing, what comparable names are selling for, how urgently a buyer wants it, and how much confidence the seller has.

That does not mean every seller should ignore marketplace valuations.

Actually, I think marketplace feedback is useful. Atom, Afternic, Sedo, and other platforms see buyer behavior that a beginner like me does not see directly. Their pricing opinions are not meaningless.

But this story shows that a platform's first opinion is not always the final answer.

For future research, I think I need to treat valuations as starting points, not decisions.

If a name gets approved low, I should ask why.

If I still believe the name is stronger, I should be able to support that belief with evidence: market growth, buyer pool, active companies, sales comps, extension fit, and real use cases.

Without that evidence, "I think it should be worth more" is not enough.

Conviction Is A Dangerous Word

People often talk about conviction after a big sale.

I understand why. In this case, patience and conviction clearly mattered.

But conviction can be a very expensive excuse when the domain is weak.

This is probably the part I need to be most careful with.

If I buy a poor name and refuse to lower the price, I can call it conviction, but it is not the same thing. It is just me not wanting to admit I made a bad buy.

Real conviction should come after research.

It should come from seeing that the domain has real buyer potential, not from wanting a big number.

That is why this sale makes me want to be slower, not faster.

Slower before buying.

Slower before changing prices.

Slower before accepting that my first valuation is correct.

I do not mean being passive. I mean giving myself enough time to understand what kind of asset I am dealing with.

Some names should be sold quickly if a fair offer comes in.

Some names should be priced cheaply because the buyer pool is small.

Some names should never be bought in the first place.

And a very small number may deserve patience because the market is moving toward them.

What I Would Add To My Own Research Process

After reading the story, I would not change my entire framework, but I would add more weight to a few checks.

For trend names, especially in .ai, I would ask:

Is the trend still early enough, or am I late?
Are real companies being built in this category?
Does the name fit the extension naturally?
Would this still look good if the hype cooled down?
Is the domain short or flexible enough to survive category changes?
Can I find multiple possible buyer groups?
Do comparable sales support a higher price, or am I inventing one?
If I received a serious offer, what evidence would help me decide whether to hold or accept?

Usually I think about research before buying. This sale reminds me that research also matters at the moment of negotiation.

If I have no idea why my floor is my floor, then negotiation becomes emotional.

If I know the evidence, I can make a calmer decision.

It Also Makes Me Think Differently About Hand-Regs

I used to think of hand-reg domains mostly as low-budget experiments.

That is still mostly true.

Most hand-reg names are not good investments. If a name is available today, there is usually a reason. Sometimes the reason is simply that nobody wants it.

But sometimes a new market creates new language before domain investors fully price it in.

That is where hand-reg can become interesting.

Not because hand-reg is easy.

Because new categories occasionally create naming gaps.

AI did that. Voice AI may be doing that in some areas. Agent-related tools, automation, robotics, synthetic media, and some niche B2B software categories may create similar windows.

But the window is not "register anything with AI."

The window is finding a clean name that matches how real builders and buyers are starting to speak.

That is much harder.

It requires looking at products, startups, funding, communities, search behavior, and real usage. It also requires avoiding names that feel trendy but do not sound like something a company would actually want.

The Real Lesson For Me

The PCC.ai sale is a great story, but I do not want to turn it into fantasy math.

It would be easy to say:

"If one hand-reg sold for $70,000, I just need to register enough names until one hits."

That is probably how people lose money.

The better takeaway for me is more practical:

If I want a chance at meaningful upside, I need to understand market direction before it becomes obvious, buy very selectively, and keep reviewing my best names as the market changes.

I also need to improve my pricing discipline.

A good domain can be underpriced because I am scared.

A bad domain can be overpriced because I am hopeful.

Both are mistakes.

This sale sits in the middle of that lesson. The seller did not treat the first price as final. He also did not sell too quickly when a serious buyer appeared. That required confidence, but confidence backed by market context.

That is what I want to copy.

Not the exact domain.

Not the exact price.

Not the idea that every .ai acronym is a jackpot.

The process is what matters:

notice the market, acquire carefully, re-evaluate when the market changes, price with evidence, and do not panic when negotiation starts.

I am still far from being able to do that well.

But this is the kind of sale that gives me a clearer picture of what I should be practicing.

The Patterns I Use To Filter Auction Domains Every Day

Trick Nguyen — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For a while, I thought auction research was mostly about spotting a decent-looking domain before other people noticed it.

That sounds logical when you are new.

I open GoDaddy Auctions, Namecheap Auctions, or a drop list. I see thousands of names. Some are ending soon. Some have no bids. Some have surprisingly high GoDaddy valuations. A few look like they could be startups.

The temptation is to think:

"If I can just find the cheap hidden one, I win."

After doing this almost every day, and after getting feedback from investors who have been doing this much longer than me, I look at it differently now.

The hard part is not finding names that look interesting.

There are interesting names everywhere.

The hard part is not fooling yourself.

The First Question I Ask Now

When I see a domain, I try not to start with the price.

I start with a boring question:

Who would actually use this?

Not "could someone use this?"

Almost every domain can be explained if you try hard enough.

I mean: would a real business, with a real reason to care about the .com, understand the name quickly?

That one question removes a lot of names.

If the answer sounds like a stretch, I move on or lower my interest immediately.

For example, a clean name in a commercial category gets my attention faster than a clever name that needs a paragraph of explanation. A domain like VoteAI.com is easy to understand. You may still decide not to buy it because voting and AI can be sensitive, but the use case is clear.

That is different from a name where I need to invent the business model from scratch.

I Care More About Buyer Pool Than One Perfect Buyer

At first, I thought finding one exact company was a good sign.

Now I am more careful.

One exact company can mean demand, but it can also mean trouble. If there is only one obvious buyer, and that buyer already uses the name or owns a trademark, then I may not have a domain investment. I may just have a legal-risk problem with a price tag.

The better situation is when many companies could want the name.

Not just one.

For each serious candidate, I search for similar companies, similar brands, LinkedIn pages, Crunchbase profiles, Google results, and active websites on other extensions.

I am trying to answer:

Are there multiple buyers?
Are they in a category with money?
Are they internet-native enough to care about a .com?
Are they using weaker domains?
Would the domain help them look more credible?

DotDB Is Useful, But It Can Mislead You

I use DotDB a lot.

It helps me understand whether a term is actually being used across domains. If a keyword has many registered extensions and active sites, that can be a good sign.

But DotDB is not a buy button.

Strong numbers can mean many potential buyers.

They can also mean many existing brands, more trademark clutter, and less clean upside.

That is why I now use DotDB as a signal, not proof.

If DotDB is strong, I still ask:

"Is this broad demand, or am I walking into existing-brand risk?"

That question matters a lot.

Spelling Is More Important Than I Wanted To Admit

One investor gave me feedback on Recipeify.com that stuck with me.

The name had some good things going for it. It sounded like a recipe app, food tool, meal planner, or AI recipe generator.

But the feedback was simple:

It is kind of hard to remember how to spell.

That was fair.

I still thought it could be worth a small-risk bid, but the feedback changed how I score brandables.

Now, when I look at a name, I ask:

Would someone spell it correctly after hearing it once?
Is there a more obvious version?
Does it look like another known brand?
Is the creative spelling helping or hurting?

Wayback Is Not Just For SEO People and more useful

I used to think of Wayback mostly as an SEO-history check. That's actually

When a domain has old snapshots, I want to know what it used to be.

Was it a real business?

Was it parked for years?

Was it used for spam, adult, casino, pharma, or thin affiliate pages?

Was it tied to an exact prior brand?

A clean history does not make a domain good by itself, but a bad history can make an otherwise nice name harder to justify.

In recent research, I checked names like PestMarketing.com, RetailTrove.com, EcoCarCare.com, RmaSoftware.com, TechBio.com, VoteAI.com, and others through Wayback.

Sometimes the history was neutral.

Sometimes it raised caution.

Sometimes it simply told me: "This one needs more checking before bidding."

That is enough value for me.

Trademark Risk Is Where Nice Names Die

This is the least fun part of auction research, but probably one of the most important.

A domain can sound great and still be a bad buy.

The danger pattern is usually something like this:

made-up or semi-made-up brand
exact company already exists
trademark predates the auction
only one obvious buyer
the resale thesis depends on that one buyer

I Decide The Max Bid Before The Auction Gets Emotional

This is the most practical rule I use.

Before bidding, I write down the max.

Not a vague number.

A real number.

For small speculative names, that might be $5, $12, or $25.

For stronger buyer-pool names, maybe $50 to $125.

For a truly strong name, it can be higher, but only if the buyer thesis, comps, legal risk, and resale range support it.

Finally, summarize my Daily Checklist Now

I still use a checklist, but I do not treat it like a mechanical scoring system.

The flow is roughly:

Pull auction inventory and drop lists.
Start with .com names.
Remove obvious junk: hyphens, numbers, awkward grammar, negative meaning.
Look for names that sound like real companies.
Check whether the commercial use case is obvious.
Search Google for similar companies and brands.
Check whether there are multiple possible buyers.
Use DotDB or DomainOnline to understand active-use signal.
Check Wayback history.
Check trademark risk with Google, WIPO, USPTO, Justia, or EUIPO when needed.
Look at comps only as guardrails.
Set the max bid.
Bid late if I prefer, but only at the max.
Walk away when the price no longer fits the thesis.

The more I research, the more I realize that auction discipline is not dramatic.

It is mostly small decisions repeated every day.

Most names should be skips.

Some names are worth watching.

A few are worth small bids.

Very few deserve aggressive bids.

That is the current version of my process.

It will probably change again as I get more reps and more feedback, but this framework has already helped me avoid names I would have bought too quickly before.

What I Learned After Researching GoDaddy Closeout Domains for 30 Days

Trick Nguyen — Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I have been spending the last month studying GoDaddy Closeout domains.

At first, I thought closeout research was mostly about finding names that looked good.

But after 30 days I think I'm wrong, after get feedbacks from everyone, some master in domain investing.

The better question is:

Which domain can I realistically sell faster to a real buyer with money? Because my main target is earn money fast, with small profit, around 30% - 50%.

That one sentence changed the way I look at closeouts.

My Old Mistake: Asking If The Name Looked Good

Here my question I ask when I get a domain

Who would buy this?
Why would they buy it?
Do they have money?
Are there multiple possible buyers, or only one?
Is there legal or one-buyer risk?
Is the price low enough for the risk?

I think after answer these question will help me prevents me from falling in love with a name too early.

The Buyer Pool Test

The biggest filter I added was the buyer pool test.

For each domain, I ask:

If I owned this name today, who could I actually sell it to?

If the answer is only one small business, I usually downgrade it.

If the answer is many businesses in a high-margin category, I keep researching.

For example, a name that looks like a local bakery domain may have one obvious matching business, but that does not mean the business will pay for it. Small offline businesses often do not care enough about domain upgrades.

On the other hand, names that could fit software, finance, healthcare, ecommerce, agencies, logistics, or professional services are usually more interesting because the buyer type may have more budget and a stronger online need.

My current buyer quality scale looks like this:

A: funded startup, enterprise, internet-native company
B: high-margin small or medium business
C: active small business with online need
D: local offline business
F: one tiny buyer only

For closeouts, I try to avoid relying on D or F buyers.

Active Use Matters More Than I Expected

One useful check has been looking at whether the name, phrase, or similar phrase is already registered and in use.

I use tools like DotDB or DomainOnline when possible.

The basic idea:

How many exact matches are registered?
How many active websites exist?
Which TLDs are taken?
Are real businesses using the term?

My rough active-use guide:

10+ active sites: strong
5-9 active sites: good
2-4 active sites: caution
0-1 active sites: weak

This check surprised me because many names that sounded decent had almost no active-use signal.

That does not always mean the name is worthless, especially if it is a strong brandable. But for cheap closeouts, weak active use usually lowers my confidence.

Personal Names Are Tricky

At first, I thought personal names should be skipped.

Then I learned that common personal names can sell if there are enough potential buyers. But they need their own research flow.

For personal names, I check LinkedIn:

how many people have that name?
are they real professionals?
do they work in fields where personal branding matters?
are they founders, lawyers, realtors, doctors, consultants, creators, or speakers?

The rough rule I use:

under 100 LinkedIn profiles: usually skip
100+ profiles: manual check required
500+ profiles: good count signal, but not an automatic buy

The hard part is willingness to pay.

Companies buy domains for business reasons. Individuals may not care, even if the domain matches their name perfectly.

So I no longer auto-skip personal names, but they are still lower priority for a small budget.

GEO Names Need A Wide Buyer Pool

GEO and local-service names were another area where I changed my thinking.

A name can match a local business perfectly and still be a poor investment.

The question is not:

Is there one business that matches this name?

The question is:

Are there enough possible buyers, and are they in a category that pays for leads?

For GEO names, I now use Google Maps and Google Search.

Strong categories include:

lawyers
dentists
roofers
real estate
clinics
med spas
contractors
insurance

Weak categories include:

small bakeries
small cafes
low-margin local shops
one exact matching business only

One matching local business is not enough for me anymore.

History Is A Data Point, Not A Final Answer

I also check history with tools like Wayback Machine, Screenshots.com, and Google searches for prior sale exposure.

I look for:

real prior business use
parked-only history
old marketplace listings
HugeDomains, Afternic, Sedo, or Dan exposure
adult, casino, pharma, or spam history
prior exact brand usage

But I try not to overreact to one signal.

A domain that was for sale before is not automatically bad. Maybe the previous owner priced it too high. Maybe the market changed. Maybe the lander was bad.

At the same time, if a name has been publicly for sale for years with no clear buyer thesis today, I treat that as a caution signal.

History helps me ask better questions. It does not make the decision by itself.

Trademark And One-Buyer Risk

Another major lesson:

One obvious buyer can be a risk, not a strength.

If the domain is a made-up word and there is one exact company already using it, I become very careful.

The risk pattern is:

made-up word
exact company or trademark exists
trademark predates my acquisition
only one obvious buyer
my only thesis is selling to that buyer

That is not the kind of bet I want to make, especially as a beginner.

For generic or descriptive names, the risk is usually lower. For made-up exact-brand names, the risk can be much higher.

Pricing Is Not Just About Acquisition

Another insight I recently gathered is that sales execution matters as much as acquisition.

Buying a decent domain is only part of the game.

You still need:

a realistic price
a trusted marketplace or lander
fast transfer and payout flow
buyer confidence
patience
sometimes outbound or relationship building

High pricing experiments may make sense for people who already have a stable revenue base. For beginners, aggressive pricing can turn a small opportunity into a long hold with renewal costs.

A $5 domain can still become expensive if it sits for years and never sells.

My Current Closeout Research Flow

After 30 days, my closeout process looks like this:

1. Source the list

I start from GoDaddy Closeout lists, usually through ExpiredDomains.

Initial filter:

.com preferred
no hyphen
no number
short
two words max when possible
readable
low price preferred

2. Exact-domain check

Before I research too deeply, I now check whether the exact domain is actually showing in the source.

This matters because keyword search can return similar names, not only exact matches.

If I search one domain and the tool returns a different domain, I do not count that as confirmation.

3. Quick eye test

I check:

easy to say
easy to spell
natural word order
commercial use case
no obvious negative meaning
reverse-word test

4. Natural market language test

I ask:

is this how buyers would describe the product or service?
is there a more common synonym?
is the shorter word better?
is the second word the right business action?
is there an obvious better version?

If the domain is understandable but not market-native, I downgrade it.

5. Classify the domain

I put each name into a primary type:

brand / company / generic
GEO / local service
personal name
SEO domain
trademark / single-buyer risk
trend / emerging category

6. Validate buyer demand

I check:

Google
LinkedIn companies
Google Maps for local names
DotDB or DomainOnline
Product Hunt or Crunchbase if relevant

7. Check risk

I look at:

trademark risk
one-buyer risk
prior brand usage
Wayback history
prior marketplace exposure

8. Live marketplace and cart check

This is now mandatory before a final buy decision.

I check whether GoDaddy shows:

true closeout price
premium buy-now price
domain taken / broker service
unavailable result
final cart price

If the live price is wrong, I do not force the thesis.

9. Estimate resale and hold time

I use NameBio and similar sales only as guardrails, not as proof.

Then I ask:

what is the realistic resale range?
how long might this take to sell?
is the closeout price low enough for the uncertainty?

10. Decide

I use these buckets:

Buy Candidate
Small Bet
Watchlist
Price Drop Only
Skip

Most names become skip.

That is not failure. That is the point of research.

Some days the final result is zero buys.

That is also not failure.

It means the filters worked.

How to link a domain name to your Discord profile

Alex Crocker — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Discord has a built-in feature that lets you connect a domain name to your profile and display it publicly. If you own domain names, this is a nice way to show one off on your Discord profile — and the verification step proves you actually control it.

There are two ways to verify: via a DNS TXT record, or via a file on your website. Both work; which one to use depends on your setup. If the domain is actively hosted, HTTP is simpler. If it's parked or you don't have web hosting, DNS is the way to go.

Here's how to do it:

Open Connections in User Settings. Open Discord and go to User Settings (click the gear icon near your username at the bottom left). In the left sidebar, click Connections.

You'll see a row of icons for services you can connect. Domain isn't shown by default — you need to expand the list.
View all connection options. Click the ">" arrow button at the end of the connection icons row to see all available connection types.
Select Domain. In the Add Connection modal, find the domain/globe icon in the second row and click it.
Enter your domain and choose a verification method. A dialog will appear asking you to enter the domain you wish to connect/link.

At this point, you have two options. The default (current view) is to verify using DNS, but you can click the grey button next to the blurple Verify button to verify using a file-based site upload method instead (Verify via HTTPS).

Option A: Verify via DNS. Discord will show you the details for a TXT record to add at your domain registrar or DNS provider:
- Name: _discord.yourdomain.com
- Type: TXT
- Content: the dh=... token Discord generates for you
Log in to wherever you manage your DNS (your registrar, Cloudflare, etc.), create the TXT record with those values, then click Verify. DNS changes can take a few minutes to propagate, so if it fails immediately, wait a couple of minutes and try again.

Option B: Verify via HTTPS. If your domain is hosted and you can create files on it, this method is often faster. Discord asks you to create a file at a specific path on your site — /.well-known/discord — with a dh=... token as its contents.

Create the file at that exact path, make sure it's publicly accessible, then click Verify. Discord will fetch the file and confirm the token matches.
Toggle "Display on profile". Once verified, the domain will appear in your Connections list. Enable Display on profile to make it visible on your public Discord profile.

That's it — your domain is now linked to your Discord account and shows up on your profile as a verified connection.

If you're looking to link a domain to your Discord server instead — so people can join at discord.yourcommunity.com — see How to link a domain name to your Discord server.

How to link a domain name to your Discord server

Alex Crocker — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Discord invite links work fine, but discord.gg/xK9mRt2 isn't exactly memorable. If you own a domain name, you can set it up so that a clean URL like discord.yourcommunity.com or yourcommunity.com/discord redirects straight to your server.

There's no magic here — you're just setting up a redirect from a URL you control to your Discord invite. There are two ways to do it depending on what you want the link to look like.

Option A — Subdomain redirect: discord.yourcommunity.com → your Discord invite

Option B — Path redirect: yourcommunity.com/discord → your Discord invite

Which one you can use depends on what you have available. If you just own the domain and it doesn't have an active website on it, Option A (subdomain) is easier and works for everyone. Option B requires a website already hosted at your domain.

Before doing anything else, grab your Discord server's invite link. In Discord, right-click your server icon → Invite People → create a permanent invite link and copy it. It'll look like https://discord.gg/yourcode.

Option A: Subdomain redirect (discord.yourdomain.com)

This approach uses something called a DNS record to point a subdomain — like discord.yourcommunity.com — directly to your Discord invite. You don't need a website for this. You just need access to your domain's DNS settings, which you'll find wherever you registered the domain (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Porkbun, etc.).

Log in to your domain registrar. Go to the website where you bought the domain and find the DNS settings. This is sometimes labeled "DNS Management," "Manage DNS," "Advanced DNS," or just "DNS."
Create a CNAME record. In the DNS records list, add a new record with these values:
- Type: CNAME
- Name/Host: discord (this creates the discord.yourdomain.com subdomain)
- Value/Target: your redirect service's CNAME target (see next step)
- TTL: leave it at the default, or set it to 3600
What's a CNAME? A CNAME record is like a sign that says "this address is actually the same as that other address." The catch is that CNAMEs point to another domain, not directly to a URL — so you can't point one straight at discord.gg. You need a middleman redirect service to do the final hop.
Set up a redirect service. A few free options can handle this for you:

Using Cloudflare (recommended if your domain is already on Cloudflare): Go to your domain in the Cloudflare dashboard → Rules → Redirect Rules → create a rule that matches discord.yourdomain.com and redirects to your Discord invite URL. No separate CNAME needed — Cloudflare handles both.

Using a free redirect service: Services like Redirect.pizza let you create URL redirects for free. You enter your subdomain and the Discord invite URL, and they give you a CNAME target to put in step 2.
Wait for DNS to update. After saving the DNS record, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours to fully take effect worldwide. Usually it's under an hour. You'll know it's working when visiting discord.yourdomain.com in a browser takes you to your Discord server.

Option B: Path redirect (yourdomain.com/discord)

This approach redirects yourdomain.com/discord to your invite link. It requires your domain to have an active website, because you need a web server to serve the redirect. How you set this up depends on how your site is hosted:

Squarespace, Wix, or Webflow — Look for "URL Redirects," "301 Redirects," or "Custom Redirects" in your site settings. Create a redirect from /discord to your full Discord invite URL and save it.
WordPress — Install the free Redirection plugin (available in the WordPress plugin directory). Go to Tools → Redirection and add a redirect from /discord to your Discord invite URL.
Netlify — Add a file called _redirects to your site's publish folder with this line:
```
/discord  https://discord.gg/yourcode  301
```

Vercel — Add this to your vercel.json file:

{
  "redirects": [
    { "source": "/discord", "destination": "https://discord.gg/yourcode", "permanent": true }
  ]
}

Shared hosting (cPanel) — In your cPanel dashboard, find the Redirects tool. Set it to redirect yourdomain.com/discord to your Discord invite URL and choose "301 (Permanent)."

Which method should you use?

If you're not sure, go with Option A (subdomain). It doesn't require a website, it works with any domain, and a URL like discord.yourcommunity.com looks clean and intentional. Save the path-based redirect for if you already have a website and want the invite URL to feel like part of it.

Either way, once it's set up, you have a link that's actually worth putting in a bio, a YouTube description, or on a business card — and one you can keep even if you ever change your Discord invite code.

If you want to link a domain to your personal Discord profile instead — to show it as a verified connection on your account — see How to link a domain name to your Discord profile.

How to Monetize an Online Community Without Destroying It

Alex Crocker — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every community builder eventually faces the same question: when do you start charging, and for what?

Most get the timing wrong. Not because they're greedy — usually because monetization feels like a natural next step after a period of growth, and the community looks successful from the outside. Member counts are up. Engagement is active. The effort that went into building it deserves some return.

The problem is that community trust and community revenue have an inverse relationship in the early stages. Introducing monetization before trust is established doesn't extract value from a thriving community — it undermines the trust that was making the community thrive.

Why Timing Is Everything

The communities that monetize successfully tend to have one thing in common: they spent a long time giving before they asked for anything.

This isn't generosity for its own sake. It's the mechanics of how trust forms in online communities. Members join because they believe the community will be useful to them. That belief is tested constantly in the early months — every interaction either confirms or undermines it. Communities that ask for money before members have experienced consistent value are asking for trust they haven't earned yet.

When you charge too early, a few things happen simultaneously. Some potential members who would have joined for free decide not to join at all. Existing members who haven't fully committed start to reconsider whether the community is worth the cost. And the framing of the community shifts — from "a place that's genuinely trying to help people" to "a business trying to extract revenue." That framing shift is hard to reverse.

The communities that monetize well have made the inverse framing so strong that members feel almost obligated to pay. The community has given so much that paying for more feels like the right thing to do, not a transactional calculation.

The Signals That Tell You the Timing Is Right

There's no universal threshold, but certain signals consistently correlate with communities that are ready to introduce monetization.

Members are referring other members. Organic word-of-mouth is the clearest signal that members find enough value to advocate for the community unprompted. If you're not seeing this yet, you haven't built enough value.

Members are asking for more. When your community's most active members start asking for things that don't exist yet — more structured resources, deeper access, higher-touch support — that's an indication that what you have isn't quite enough. Monetization can fill that gap rather than exploiting an existing relationship.

The community runs itself for periods. A community that requires constant founder intervention to stay active is one where the value is coming from you personally, not from the community structure. That's a fragile foundation for monetization. Communities that maintain activity and quality without you need to be there every day are more resilient — and more monetizable.

You have something the community can't easily get elsewhere. Generic community features don't justify a price tag. But proprietary tools, curated knowledge, direct access to experts, or exclusive deal flow — things that genuinely can't be replicated by a free alternative — can.

What Monetization Models Actually Work

Not all monetization models fit all communities. The right approach depends on what your community does for its members and what they'd most naturally pay for.

Tools and resources

For communities built around a specific skill or professional domain, proprietary tools are often the most natural monetization vector. Members already trust you to curate resources for them. A tool that saves them significant time or money can justify a price point without the community feeling like it's been turned into a product.

Domaincord took this approach by building a suite of free tools first — a brandability scorer, a drop list filter, an ROI calculator, and others — before considering any paid offering. The free tools established that we could build things that genuinely helped domain investors. That track record makes future paid offerings credible rather than presumptuous.

Sponsorships and partnerships

For communities with a well-defined, engaged audience, sponsorships from companies targeting that audience can generate revenue without charging members at all. The key is selectivity. A sponsorship from a company your members genuinely like and use feels like curation. A sponsorship from a company that's a poor fit feels like selling access to your audience, which members usually notice and resent.

Premium tiers

Tiered access works when you have a base layer that's genuinely valuable for free and a premium layer that provides meaningfully more value. The failure mode is making the free tier so stripped-down that it feels like a hostage situation — "pay us or get nothing." The success mode is making the free tier good enough that members trust you, and the premium tier good enough that the most engaged members want it.

The ratio that tends to work: the free tier should serve the broad community, and the premium tier should serve the 10-15% of members who want deeper access, more support, or additional features. Trying to convert a higher percentage usually means the free tier isn't good enough or the premium tier isn't meaningfully better.

Affiliate arrangements

For communities where members make purchasing decisions in the domain you cover, affiliate arrangements with relevant vendors can generate revenue that members don't directly pay. The risk is the same as with sponsorships — poor fit affiliates undermine trust, and good fit affiliates can feel like genuinely useful recommendations.

What Almost Never Works

A few approaches tend to generate short-term revenue at the cost of long-term community health.

Paywalling existing content. If members joined because your content was free, putting that content behind a paywall retroactively changes the terms of the relationship. The members who feel burned by this are usually your most loyal early adopters — the ones whose goodwill you can least afford to lose.

Aggressive upselling. Communities where every interaction feels like a sales opportunity eventually feel transactional. Members come for connection and value, not to be converted into customers. The most successful community businesses are ones where the monetization is almost invisible — it's available for those who want it, but it doesn't dominate the experience.

Treating the community as a lead generation funnel. Some community builders launch free communities explicitly to convert members into customers for a separate product. Members usually sense this framing, and it prevents the kind of trust that makes communities genuinely valuable. The best community businesses treat the community as the product, not the audience for one.

The Domaincord Approach

Domaincord has been running for seven years. The free tools came well before any paid offering. The community's value to its members comes first; how to generate revenue from that value comes later.

That sequencing is intentional. The domain investing community is small enough that reputation matters enormously. Charging too early, or in the wrong way, would have been visible to the entire audience. Building enough genuine value first means that monetization, when it happens, is welcomed rather than resented.

The full framework — platform choice, community structure, content strategy, and what we'd do differently — is covered in the Domaincord community-building guide.

Building your own niche community?

Domaincord has been building in public since 2018 — 7 years of lessons learned running a domain investing community from the ground up.

Join 1,500+ domain investors and community builders in our Discord → Join the Domaincord Discord

How to Run a Niche Discord Server That People Actually Come Back To

Alex Crocker — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Most Discord servers are dead within six months of launch. Not because Discord is a bad platform — it's an excellent one for the right use cases — but because setting up a server and building a community are completely different skills. The platform gives you the infrastructure. Everything else is up to you.

This guide covers the operational decisions that separate Discord servers that compound from ones that fade. It's drawn from seven years of running Domaincord, a community for domain investors that started as a small server and has grown to 1,500+ active members.

Channel Architecture: Less Is Always More

The most common mistake new server operators make is creating too many channels before there's enough traffic to fill them. A server with 20 channels and 50 members looks empty. Every channel is quiet. New members join, see no activity, and leave.

Start with the minimum set of channels that covers your community's core use cases.

For a niche professional community, that's usually something like:

#welcome — read-only, pinned rules and onboarding info
#announcements — read-only, admin posts only
#general — open discussion
#[your-niche]-talk — the main topic-specific channel
#resources — links, tools, useful content
#introductions — new members say hello

Six channels. That's enough to start. Add channels only when existing ones consistently overflow — when a topic keeps coming up in #general that deserves its own space. Don't create speculative channels for conversations you hope to have someday.

The test for any channel addition: is there enough traffic in the existing channels that this topic is getting buried? If yes, add the channel. If no, the problem isn't channel architecture — it's that there isn't enough community activity yet, and adding channels won't fix that.

Roles and Permissions: Make Access Meaningful

Discord's role system is powerful, but most servers either underuse it (everyone has the same access) or overuse it (a dozen meaningless roles that nobody understands).

The roles that tend to add real value are:

Member role. Not everyone who joins should immediately have full posting access. A verification step — answering a question in #welcome, reacting to a message, passing an AutoMod check — filters out bots and ensures that people who gain the Member role have at least minimally engaged. This one step dramatically reduces spam and improves the quality of early interactions.

Contributor/veteran role. For members who have been active and helpful over a period of time. This role can unlock access to channels not visible to general members — more candid discussions, early access to resources, direct input on community decisions. It gives long-term members something to earn and signals to newer members what active participation looks like.

Moderator role. Separate from admin. Moderators enforce rules and maintain quality. They don't need access to server settings. Keeping the permission set limited makes moderation sustainable and reduces the risk of a moderator making an irreversible change.

Avoid roles that are purely cosmetic or that require members to understand a complex hierarchy to navigate. If a role doesn't change what a member can access or do, it's adding complexity without adding value.

Onboarding: The First Five Minutes Matter Most

A member's first five minutes in a Discord server largely determine whether they ever come back. If they join, see nothing that immediately tells them what the community is and why it's worth their time, and can't figure out where to start — they'll leave and probably not return.

Good onboarding does three things:

Immediately communicates the value proposition. Your #welcome channel should answer "what is this community and what can I get from being here" in the first two sentences. Not a rules list. Not a request to read 15 channels before participating. The value, immediately.

Sets expectations clearly. Rules belong in #welcome, but the framing matters. "We're a community for serious domain investors — that means keeping discussions high-signal" lands differently than a bulleted list of things you can't do. The former tells members what kind of place this is. The latter feels like a list of reasons you might get kicked out.

Gives new members an obvious first action. An #introductions channel with a simple prompt ("Tell us your name, how long you've been investing in domains, and one domain in your current portfolio you're proud of") gives new members somewhere to start that's low-stakes and generates a response from existing members. That first response is the moment a member goes from a username to a person.

Moderation: Setting Standards Before You Need To Enforce Them

The communities that handle moderation well tend to have set expectations long before they needed to enforce them. The communities that struggle have rules that are vague enough that every enforcement action is a judgment call — and judgment calls create conflict.

Clarity early saves effort later. Before your community grows to the point where moderation becomes a challenge, be explicit about:

What kind of content belongs here. Not just what's prohibited, but what the community is for. Domaincord is for domain investors who take the craft seriously. Content that belongs in that frame gets a lot of latitude. Content that doesn't belongs elsewhere.

How enforcement works. Members should know what happens when rules are violated. A warning system that members understand is easier to enforce fairly than ad hoc decisions that feel arbitrary.

Who has moderation authority. Ambiguity about who can moderate creates conflict between moderators and between moderators and members. Make it clear which roles can take which actions.

One pattern that works well for niche communities: appoint moderators from your most engaged, longest-tenured members. They understand the community's culture better than anyone, they've demonstrated commitment, and they have social capital with other members that makes enforcement feel legitimate rather than arbitrary.

Quality Control: The 1% Who Drive Everything

Every community has a small number of members who account for a disproportionate share of the community's value. They answer questions before you do. They welcome new members. They share discoveries. They set the tone.

In most communities, this group is around 1% of the total member count — sometimes less. In a 1,500-member server, that might be 10-15 people who are genuinely active in ways that make the community better for everyone else.

These members are the ones you most need to keep. They're also the ones who will leave quietest when something goes wrong — they don't make demands, they just stop showing up when the community stops feeling worth their time. By the time you notice they're gone, they've usually been disengaged for weeks.

What keeps these members around: recognition that their contributions matter, input into how the community evolves, and a community that continues to meet their standards as it grows. They invested in the community when it was small because they believed in its potential. If the quality they valued gets diluted by growth, they don't complain — they move on.

Practically, this means:

Giving your most active members advance notice of changes that affect them
Creating spaces (a #contributors channel or similar) where their feedback is genuinely sought
Being willing to prioritize their experience over growth metrics when the two conflict

Knowing When to Add Tools

Discord alone isn't enough for most niche professional communities. Members will eventually want resources that the platform doesn't natively support — searchable archives, external tools, documentation, a website where the community's knowledge compounds over time.

The timing here is similar to adding channels: add tools and external infrastructure when the need is clearly demonstrated by existing behavior, not speculatively.

The infrastructure that tends to add the most value for niche professional communities:

A website where resources, guides, and tools live permanently (unlike Discord messages, which are effectively ephemeral for most communities)
A searchable collection of the community's best content
Tools that solve problems members actually have, built around the community's specific domain

Domaincord's tools suite emerged from watching members repeatedly solve the same problems manually — calculating domain ROI, filtering drop lists, scoring brandability. The tools didn't create demand; they formalized demand that already existed.

In a niche community like domain investing — where members are making real financial decisions — the quality of information shared matters more than volume. We keep Domaincord's channels focused and moderated tightly because a single bad piece of advice about a domain purchase can cost a member real money. High signal, low noise isn't just a nice-to-have in a financial niche — it's the foundation of trust.

The Long View

The metrics that matter for a Discord community aren't the ones that are easiest to see. Member count is visible. Engagement rate is visible. The quality of interactions, the depth of relationships, the proportion of members who genuinely benefit from being there — these are harder to measure but more important.

Communities that optimize for visible metrics tend to grow quickly and decline quickly. Communities that optimize for genuine value — where members come back because being there makes them better at the thing they care about — tend to grow more slowly and compound more reliably.

The full strategic framework behind these decisions — platform choice, content strategy, monetization timing, and the mistakes that kill communities — is covered in the Domaincord community-building guide.

Running a niche Discord server of your own?

Domaincord has been doing this since 2018 — 1,500+ members, 8 free tools, and a community that keeps growing without paid ads.

Join us → Domaincord Discord

Platform Dependency: The Hidden Risk That Destroys Online Communities

Alex Crocker — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 2013, Streamzoo was one of the most engaged photo-sharing communities on the internet. Over a million users had built their social graphs there — followers, following, years of shared photos, and community relationships that had real meaning to the people in them. Then the platform shut down. No warning, no data export, no migration path. The community simply ceased to exist.

This wasn't a failure of community. It was a failure of infrastructure. And it's been happening to online communities since the internet began.

The Pattern Is Older Than Social Media

Before Streamzoo, there was MySpace. Millions of musicians and fans had built their audiences entirely within MySpace's infrastructure. When the platform collapsed into irrelevance, those audiences didn't transfer. The relationships existed on MySpace, not anywhere else.

Google+ launched in 2011 with genuine ambitions to compete with Facebook. Some communities found real value there — particularly tech and photography communities that appreciated the platform's circle-based structure. When Google shut it down in 2019, those communities had roughly six months of warning and limited tools for extracting their history.

Vine had 200 million active users in 2016. Twitter bought it and killed it. Creators who had built audiences of millions had to start over on other platforms, and many of the audiences never followed. The community energy that made Vine distinctive — the looping video format, the in-jokes, the collaborative chains — couldn't be replicated anywhere else because it was a product of that specific platform.

Clubhouse exploded during the pandemic lockdowns. Audio-only, ephemeral conversations — it felt like the future of community building. By 2022, the hype had evaporated and the communities that had formed there had largely moved on or dissolved.

The pattern is consistent: communities form on platforms, platforms make decisions that communities can't control, communities suffer the consequences.

Why This Risk Is Underestimated

Community builders consistently underestimate platform dependency risk for a few reasons.

The platform is working, so the risk feels abstract. When Discord is functional and growing, the idea that it might shut down or make a catastrophic policy change feels distant. The risk only becomes real when it materializes, at which point it's too late to mitigate.

The community feels like it belongs to you. The members joined because of what you built. The culture, the norms, the relationships — those emerged from your work. But the infrastructure those relationships live on belongs to someone else. There's a meaningful difference between the community and the platform, and it's easy to forget it.

Switching costs feel like stability. If your members are active and engaged on a platform, that looks like a healthy community. But high engagement on a single platform also means high switching costs if that platform disappears. The stickiness that looks like strength is also the thing that makes a platform failure catastrophic.

Anatomy of a Platform Dependency Failure

When a platform shuts down or makes a destructive change, communities lose several things simultaneously:

Member contact information. On most platforms, you don't know your members' email addresses. You can reach them through the platform's notification system, but if the platform is gone, your ability to reach them is gone too.

Content and history. Years of discussions, shared resources, answered questions, and community knowledge disappear. Even if members export their own data, there's no way to reconstruct the relational context — who said what to whom, what the conversation was like.

Discovery mechanisms. New members find communities through platform search, algorithmic recommendations, and network effects. When the platform is gone, those discovery pathways close.

Social graph. The follow/friend/member relationships that constitute a community's structure exist as database records on the platform. They don't transfer.

The Spectrum of Platform Risk

Not all platform dependencies are equal. It helps to think about risk in terms of what you'd lose if the platform disappeared tomorrow.

High risk: Your community exists entirely inside a single platform you don't control. No website, no email list, no external content. If the platform is gone, the community is gone.

Medium risk: You have a primary platform and some external infrastructure, but the external pieces are underdeveloped. You have a website, but it's dormant. You have an email list, but it's small. If the platform disappears, you'd survive but lose most of your reach.

Low risk: The platform is a front door, not the house. Your content lives on your own domain. Your email list is substantial. Your tools and resources exist independently. If the platform disappeared, you'd lose the real-time interaction layer but keep the community's knowledge, reach, and contact infrastructure.

The goal isn't to eliminate platform dependency — Discord's real-time voice and text features are genuinely valuable and worth using. The goal is to ensure that your community's core assets don't live exclusively in a place you don't control.

What Mitigation Actually Looks Like

The communities that survive platform failures have usually done a few things in advance.

Own a domain and build content there. A website on your own domain is the most resilient piece of community infrastructure you can have. Content published there is indexed by search engines, shareable via URL, and exists regardless of what any platform does. This is why Domaincord runs a full website alongside its Discord server — the Discord is where the conversations happen, but the website is where the community's knowledge compounds.

Build an email list. Email addresses are the most portable social graph that exists. When a platform shuts down, you can still reach everyone on your email list. Even a small list of genuinely interested members is more durable than a large following on a platform you don't control.

Create things that live outside the platform. Tools, guides, case studies, directories — any resource that exists on your own domain and provides value independently of the platform. When someone discovers one of these resources, they find the community through your infrastructure, not the platform's.

Distribute rather than concentrate. Maintaining a presence on multiple platforms means no single platform failure is catastrophic. The investment required to maintain multiple channels is real, but so is the insurance it provides.

The Right Relationship with a Platform You Don't Own

The goal isn't to avoid platforms — it's to use them without depending on them for survival.

Discord is genuinely the right tool for Domaincord's real-time community layer. But Domaincord treats Discord as a front door, not a foundation. The website, the tools, the blog, the email list — these are the foundation. Discord is where members gather, but it's not where the community lives in the sense that matters for long-term survival.

When you have that relationship with a platform, a shutdown is disruptive rather than fatal. You lose the front door, but you keep the house.

For a fuller look at the community-building decisions that go into making this work — platform choice, content strategy, monetization timing, and more — the Domaincord community-building guide covers the framework we've developed over seven years of building this community.

Don't build on sand.

Domaincord has been running on owned infrastructure since 2018 — here's what we learned about building a community you actually control.

Join 1,500+ members → Domaincord Discord

Discord vs. Telegram: A Modern Community Platform Showdown

Alex Crocker — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the ever-evolving landscape of online communication, Discord and Telegram have both risen to become dominant forces — each carving out a powerful niche among communities, creators, and digital enthusiasts. While both platforms excel at connecting people, they approach the challenge in fundamentally different ways. This article examines the key differences between Discord and Telegram, and helps you determine which platform is the right fit for your community's needs.

Real-Time Communication & Voice Capabilities

When it comes to live, real-time interaction, Discord is in a league of its own. Its persistent voice channels allow users to drop in and out of conversations effortlessly — no scheduling, no call links, just click and talk. Discord supports high-quality audio with customizable bitrates, video conferencing, screen sharing, and its "Go Live" streaming feature, making it the go-to platform for communities that thrive on spontaneous interaction.

Telegram, by contrast, was built first and foremost as a messaging app. While it does support voice and video calls — including group voice chats — the experience is notably less refined than Discord's. Telegram's strength lies in broadcasting messages to large audiences quickly and efficiently, not in hosting real-time audio hangouts. For communities where voice is central, Discord wins decisively.

Community Structure & Organization

Discord organizes communities through Servers, which are subdivided into topic-specific text and voice channels. This structure makes it easy to separate conversations by subject matter, assign roles to members, and keep discussions focused and discoverable. Admins can build a sophisticated community architecture from scratch, complete with onboarding flows, welcome bots, and tiered permission systems.

Telegram, on the other hand, organizes communities through Groups and Channels. Groups support up to 200,000 members and allow for two-way conversation, while Channels are designed for one-way broadcasting to unlimited subscribers. This makes Telegram incredibly powerful for announcements, newsletters, and signal-style updates — but less effective for fostering genuine back-and-forth community discussion at scale.

Moderation & Community Management

Discord's moderation toolkit is arguably one of its greatest strengths. Server admins can leverage AutoMod, tiered role-based permissions, keyword filters, and a wide ecosystem of third-party bots to maintain a healthy community environment. Assigning moderators, restricting channel access, and automating rule enforcement are all deeply integrated into the platform's design.

Telegram's moderation tools are functional but considerably simpler. Admins can mute users, restrict media types, and rely on bots for anti-spam workflows — but the permission system lacks the granularity Discord offers. For large, complex communities that require nuanced access control, Discord's tooling provides a meaningful advantage.

Privacy & Security

This is where Telegram takes a clear lead. Telegram's Secret Chats feature provides true end-to-end encryption, and those messages are never stored on Telegram's servers. Users can also enable self-destructing messages for added confidentiality. For standard group chats, Telegram uses robust client-server encryption.

Discord has made strides here with its DAVE protocol, which introduced end-to-end encryption for voice and video calls. However, Discord's text messages are still stored on its servers and are subject to platform moderation. For communities where privacy is a top priority — such as those handling sensitive information — Telegram remains the more secure choice for written communication.

File Sharing & Media

Telegram's file sharing capabilities are remarkably generous. Users can upload and share files of up to 2GB, supporting virtually any file type. This makes Telegram especially appealing for communities that regularly exchange large documents, videos, or software files.

Discord's free tier, by comparison, caps file uploads at 8MB — a significant limitation for media-heavy communities. Users who need higher limits must subscribe to Discord Nitro, which raises the cap to 500MB. For communities that rely on lightweight media sharing or simply chatting, this distinction may be negligible — but for power users, Telegram's edge here is substantial.

Bots, Integrations & Customization

Both platforms boast rich bot ecosystems, but they serve different purposes. Discord bots are deeply woven into community management — handling moderation, leveling systems, music playback, event scheduling, polls, reaction roles, and integrations with platforms like Twitch, Spotify, and GitHub. Discord also supports webhooks and developer-friendly APIs.

Telegram bots are highly capable in their own right, with accessible APIs that allow developers to build custom integrations, automate workflows, and connect Telegram to third-party tools via services like Zapier. Telegram's open API is often regarded as more developer-friendly, enabling a wider range of creative applications. For pure community engagement, Discord bots are more feature-rich; for custom automation and broadcasting workflows, Telegram holds its own.

Accessibility & Device Support

Telegram was designed mobile-first and remains one of the lightest, fastest messaging apps available. Its cloud-based architecture means messages sync seamlessly across every device — phone, tablet, desktop, and web — with minimal resource usage. This makes Telegram especially accessible for users on older devices or in areas with limited connectivity.

Discord, while available on all major platforms, is more demanding on hardware and benefits most from a stable internet connection. Its desktop app is where the experience truly shines, and users on low-end devices may notice performance trade-offs. That said, for communities that value a rich, feature-dense experience, Discord's resource requirements are a worthwhile trade-off.

Pricing

Both Discord and Telegram are free to use, with premium tiers available for power users.

Feature	Discord (Free)	Discord Nitro	Telegram (Free)	Telegram Premium
File Upload Limit	8MB	500MB	2GB	4GB
Custom Emojis	Limited	Unlimited	Limited	Expanded
Message History	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Monthly Cost	$0	$9.99/mo	$0	$4.99/mo

Which Platform Is Right for You?

The answer ultimately depends on what your community needs most.

Choose Discord if your community thrives on real-time voice chat, interactive engagement, organized channel structures, and rich moderation tools. It's the gold standard for gaming groups, creator communities, and any group that values a "virtual living room" experience.
Choose Telegram if your priority is large-scale broadcasting, mobile-first accessibility, strong file sharing, end-to-end privacy, or reaching audiences across regions with limited infrastructure. It's the preferred tool for channels, signal groups, and communities where the admin's content drives engagement.

Discord excels at depth — fostering tight-knit, highly interactive communities. Telegram excels at reach — broadcasting to massive audiences with simplicity and speed. For many modern communities, the smartest move may not be choosing one over the other, but strategically leveraging both: using Telegram to grow and broadcast, and Discord to engage and retain.

Why Domaincord Runs on Discord

When Domaincord launched in 2018, the decision to build on Discord rather than Telegram came down to one thing: domain investing is a conversation, not a broadcast. The community needed dedicated channels for acquisitions, appraisals, drop-catching strategies, sales, and general market discussion — organized in a way that's actually navigable. Discord's structured servers, role-based permissions, and real-time voice rooms made that possible. Telegram simply doesn't have the architecture for it.

Telegram would have made it easier to push updates to a large audience. Discord made it possible to build something members actually come back to. Seven years on, that call has held up — and the organized, moderated, actively engaged community that exists today is a direct result of Discord's tooling working the way a niche investing community needs it to.

Whether you're building your first community or scaling an existing one, understanding the strengths of each platform is the first step toward creating a space where members genuinely want to show up. If that kind of depth sounds like what you're after, come see how we do it on Domaincord.

Discord vs. Traditional Forums: A Modern Community Platform

Alex Crocker — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In recent years, Discord has emerged as a leading platform for online communities, providing a dynamic alternative to traditional forums. While each has its place, Discord stands out with its real-time interaction capabilities, multimedia support, and flexible community management. This article examines the key differences and advantages of Discord over traditional forums, emphasizing why Discord may be the superior choice for many modern communities.

Real-Time Interaction and Communication

Discord:

Instant Messaging: Discord offers real-time text and voice chat, allowing users to communicate instantly. This feature fosters lively, dynamic discussions and immediate interaction, ideal for communities that thrive on active participation.
Voice and Video Channels: Beyond text, Discord supports voice and video communication, enabling more personal and immediate connections among community members. This versatility enhances user engagement compared to forums' text-focused discussions.

Traditional Forums:

Asynchronous Communication: Forums typically rely on asynchronous communication, where users post and then wait for replies. This format can delay conversation and lead to less interactive discussions.
Text-Centric: Traditional forums are primarily text-based, which limits the scope of interaction compared to Discord's multimedia capabilities.

User Engagement and Community Building

Discord:

Dynamic Community Spaces: Discord servers are easily customizable with different channels for specific topics, interests, and activities, promoting diverse and organized discussions.
Interactive Features: Bots, custom emojis, reactions, and integration with other apps enhance the user experience, engaging members in fun and innovative ways.
Community Events: Discord's real-time capabilities lend themselves to hosting live events, such as Q&A sessions, workshops, and games, creating a more immersive experience for members.

Traditional Forums:

Static Discussion Threads: Forums organize discussions into threads, which can be less engaging over time, particularly if updates or new posts are infrequent.
Limited Interactive Elements: While some forums incorporate multimedia and plugins, the overall experience is generally less dynamic compared to Discord's interactive features.

Accessibility and Usability

Discord:

Cross-Platform Availability: Discord is available on desktop, web, and mobile platforms, ensuring that users can stay connected from anywhere at any time.
User-Friendly Interface: A clean, intuitive interface makes Discord accessible to both tech-savvy users and newcomers, minimizing the learning curve.
Seamless Updates: Regular updates improve functionality and introduce new features without disrupting user experience.

Traditional Forums:

Platform Limitations: Many traditional forums do not offer the same level of cross-platform accessibility, potentially limiting user engagement.
Complex Structures: Some users may find the structure and navigation of forum categories and threads cumbersome.

Security and Moderation

Discord:

Robust Moderation Tools: Discord provides a suite of moderation tools, including permission settings, filters, and bots, which help maintain a safe and welcoming environment.
Privacy Features: Users have control over their privacy settings, enhancing security and comfort within the community.

Traditional Forums:

Varied Moderation Capabilities: The level of moderation and security features can vary significantly across different forum software, sometimes requiring additional plugins or external tools to achieve the same level of control as Discord.

Conclusion

Discord, with its real-time interaction capabilities, diverse multimedia support, and robust community management tools, presents a compelling alternative to traditional forums. While forums have been a cornerstone of online discussions, their static nature and limitations in user engagement and interactivity highlight their challenges in meeting the needs of modern communities.

For enthusiasts seeking a vibrant, inclusive, and interactive platform, Discord offers the future-forward solution. Its ability to combine the spontaneity of chat with structured, organized discussions makes it an ideal choice for community building in the digital age. Whether you're coordinating a community event, sharing multimedia content, or simply connecting with like-minded individuals, Discord stands out as a versatile and superior platform.

It's exactly this combination — real-time depth, organized channels, and proper moderation — that led us to build Domaincord on Discord rather than a traditional forum. Domain investing moves quickly, conversations overlap, and context matters. A forum thread simply can't replicate the pace or feel of a live community. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, come join us on Discord.

Ahrefs vs SEMrush Comparison [2022]

Charlie Kemp — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMT

When on the market for a professional SEO toolset that can aid in building and growing your online presence, there are many of them available. Two of the biggest SEO tools on the market, Ahrefs and SEMrush have been competing against each other since 2010, and have been helping all kinds of businesses thrive online. But which one is best?

In today's Domaincord article, we give an honest overview of each base-plan tier for both Ahrefs and SEMrush to help you decide which tool is best for you. Let's jump straight into it. In this article, we will be comparing both SEO tools using the key focuses below, as well as closing reviews of each tool and our pick for the best.

Key Focuses:

Domain Crawling/Ranking
Keyword Research and Analysis
Backlink Research and Analysis
Site Audit and Suggestion Capabilities
UI and Usability
Pricing
Support and Education

What is Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is a large SEO tool that contains multiple tools for website owners and marketers, that are able to utilize link building, keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking as well as site audits and much more. Ahrefs is a tool that most marketers use to help get their website and search terms higher up on Google rankings.

What is SEMrush?

SEMrush is another large-scale SEO tool that has many tools for marketers as well as website owners to improve their SEO and searchability on search engines like Google. SEMrush features several tools such as link building, keyword research and analysis, competitor analysis, site audits as well as competitor analysis.

Which SEO tool is better?

After purchasing both a "Lite" plan on Ahrefs and the "Pro" plan on SEMrush (these are both considered the lowest-paid subscription tier) - we put both tools to work with one project. We tracked keywords, made changes to the site as well as testing every aspect of the SEO tool to see which one compares the best. Let's find out more about this.

Domain Crawling and Ranking Ability

Domain crawling and ranking ability are something that both tools can do very well, if done correctly. Domain crawling is built-in natively to both Ahrefs and SEMrush, so we will review both of them starting with Ahrefs.

Ahrefs domain crawling can be a little slow. Their domain crawling doesn't start straight away, and after adding a project for ourselves with only 50 pages – it took roughly an hour to show the results of the crawl. We're not sure why this is the case, but it is something to be aware of when using Ahrefs if you're in a rush. Saying that, Ahrefs' crawler is very perceptive of the site it's crawling, and can find issues that many tools won't find, which is a big selling point for Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is also quite good at ranking sites, but you have to use either Google search console or add keywords manually to be able to do this. If you do link Google search console, however, you can review all of your sites/project "Organic Keywords" which shows you the search volume, difficulty, traffic and position as well as a few other stats that can really help with understanding where and why you rank where you do.

SEMrush, however, does seem to be much more efficient than Ahrefs. The crawling speed of SEMrush does still take between 10-20 minutes depending on your site, but compared to the 30 minutes of Ahrefs it does seem much quicker.

SEMrush does also rank your website both comparing to other SEMrush users as well as the global website population making it great to track where you are compared to others. As for keyword tracking, just like Ahrefs – SEMrush prefers you to link Google analytics as well as Google search console to get the most out of the tool as it can track and watch keywords you are ranking for, as well as future keywords without you needing to add them manually.

Keyword Research and Analysis

Keyword research and analysis is one of the main reasons why you would buy either SEMrush or Ahrefs, to find out what's popular for your business or product/service, as well as ways you can improve your already ranking keywords. To start with, we're going to take a look at Ahrefs keyword research.

In Ahrefs, this is called "Keyword Explorer". The keyword explorer is a tool is very powerful, but does not make straight up suggestions. In this case, we used "piano repair" and ran the search. From the results, you are able to see several stats that will aid in the use of a said keyword. Keyword difficulty shows how hard it would be to get ranked in the top 10 (as well as an estimation).

It also shows the volume of searches, how much a cost per click ad would cost – as well as traffic potential. Something that Ahrefs does very well is it adds plenty more value to the original search. In this case, we used "piano repair" but as you can see from the screenshot – we had 3219 extra keywords we could use, as well as questions, and other related search topics.

Not only this, but Ahrefs shows the current ranking for the keyword and positions 1-10 (1-4 for CPC) allowing you to see who you would be competing against should you use the keyword.

SEMrush

SEMrush does have some amazing features when it comes down to keyword research and analysis. First off, the keyword analysis tool has everything you expect it to have. Just like Ahrefs, you can search for a keyword and get a volume, results, CPC, and difficulty rating. Not only this, but when you enter the keyword – you also get related keyword variations as well as questions that you should add to your content to help the site or business page rank better in Google and other search engines.

SEMrush also has keyword lists, and planners that can be used across their platform for convenience, just like Ahrefs. Something else that SEMrush has that both tools do, is the keyword tracker. If your site ranks for a keyword, you can enter the keyword into the Keyword tracker and watch its position every day with automated reporting and analysis to see where your keyword ranks, and ways to improve. This is very nice to have as it can show that the tool is helping you.

Something to note with both tools is that both display different results, and unfortunately – both are accurate. This means that although they can't 100% confirm the real number of visitors and search queries, it's a best guess – but using a wide range of other tools to compare, we realize that Ahrefs is much closer to the average than SEMrush, but not by too much.

Backlink Research and Analysis

Backlinks are the bread and butter of SEO, and is typically the one term associated with SEO tactics for new marketers or website owners. Although it's not all about backlinks anymore, they still play a massive part in your site's successes. Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have powerful and "all-seeing" backlink crawlers that let you see exactly where your backlinks are coming from, as well as being able to find broken backlinks (not included in Lite) and where to find new backlink opportunities.

Ahrefs backlink explorer which features both backlink research, and analysis, is a little hard to navigate. Although Ahrefs is incredibly detailed, finding information you want from Ahrefs and a specific backlink can take a good few click to actually find the information you're looking for.

Saying that, the level of detail added by Ahrefs is massive showing the backlink, the DR of it, traffic, and all the details about when the backlink was first and last seen on the net. It is very helpful for people wanting to know more about their backlinks, as well as how to approach new backlink opportunities with similar keywords.

SEMrush

Sorry Ahrefs – SEMrush is destroying you on the backlinks front. SEMrush has one of the best backlink tools available and for many reasons. As we mentioned, Ahrefs backlinks are great, as it shows you a great deal of detail as well as further information on how to get new backlinks – which is great. SEMrush on the other hand provides all of that and much more.

SEMrush has three key tools you will likely use; "Backlink Analytics", "Backlink Audit", and "Link Building Tool". Just like Ahrefs, Backlink Analytics lets you check all of your site's backlinks, their toxicity rating, and a number of other stats and values showing you exactly where and how much traffic is being brought in from a referring domain.

Backlink audit and link building tool on the other hand are unique to the two SEO tool providers. Backlink audit shows you the level of toxicity of a backlink. This means that if you get negative backlinks that will harm your SEO value, then SEMrush will tell you – and show you how to remove them. This is also an automated process, so why not let them help you take the negative backlink away to keep your SEO in good health.

The link building tool is a huge life-safer for many people, and we use it all the time. The link building tool lets you type in your domain and some keywords for your domain. At this point, SEMrush will do some digging and find backlink opportunities to allow for easy and quick backlinking to your site. This is NOT automated bots etc., but is SEMrush contacting other website owners requesting to link a broken link to your site. This is often a paid service in the SEO industry, and SEMrush allows you to do this included with your plan.

Overall, SEMrush takes the cake with backlink research, analysis, and overall backlink capabilities.

Site Audit and Suggestion Capabilities

The site audit is another key part to the SEO tools and can provide invaluable information and suggestions to fix major SEO issues with a website. Both Ahrefs and SEMrush feature accurate and perceptive site audit tools, but we will check out Ahrefs first.

Ahrefs "Site Audit" function is one of the best ways to find issues with your site/project as well as make several suggestions on what is at fault, as well as ways to fix them. Ahrefs does require you to add a "Project" before allowing the crawler to check for issues – but this is the first step anyway when using Ahrefs.

Once you've added your site/project, and the crawl has finished – you will be greeted with a "Health Score" which is your website's SEO health overall. As you can see from the screenshot above, one of our projects shows a 92 which is great, but there are still several high-severity issues such as "Multiple Meta description tags", "Broken Images", and "double-slash in URL" which can all negatively impact SEO and search rankings for the site and keywords used.

Not only does Ahrefs show the top issues (and all issues if you dig deeper), but it also tells you exactly what you need to remediate, as well as the outcome of not fixing them. Ahrefs does not hold back on the information provided and is a great tool to use to make sure your site is SEO-perfect.

SEMrush

Just like Ahrefs, SEMrush does have a very advanced crawler that can review your website or page and tell you everything that is wrong with it. The site audit capability on SEMrush is very similar, and does identify the same issues as Ahrefs making them almost identical when making suggestions as well as an overall health score.

Something that SEMrush does do differently is how it tells you, and scores you around suggestions. Using the same page as we crawled on Ahrefs, SEMrush did pick up on hundreds more issues, but were mostly duplicate issues on different pages that could've been picked up into one "issue", rather than multiple. Although this specific alert was an issue that I changed once and it fixed over 100 alerts, it's good to know that if one specific page on your site has an issue – SEMrush will pick up on it, even if every other page is fine.

SEMrush is also very fast to update and check issues that you try to fix. If you're like us, you probably try to fix each alert one by one and do a full crawl to see if it's fixed, but this takes up time, and resources for the Pro plan. SEMrush has a feature that crawls specific issues, meaning it's faster as well as saving resources from your plan. This is something Ahrefs does not have and is a massive help for new site owners that will likely have many SEO issues to change.

UI and Usability

Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have similar UI and usability functions. First, we'll take a look at Ahrefs.

Ahrefs has an easy-to-understand layout, and although nothing fancy, it definitely does the job. All of Ahrefs tools are lined up along the top navigation bar, with the most commonly used at the front as well as an "More" tab for the lesser used tools. Over time, this does change to what tools you use the most.

When clicking through Ahrefs, the navigation bar at the top of the page never changes, and will always remain in the same place – however the main content will likely add a left-side column which showcases more tabs on the main tool you're using. I.e. if you head into "Keyword Explorer", you will have left-side navigation showing extra tools within the keyword explorer. This helps to keep the site clean and functional. A new feature added within the last month – is Ahrefs colour palette. This allows you to choose between light and dark colour settings.

Speed-wise, Ahrefs is actually very fast. Although the site audit speed can be a little slow depending on how big your site is, other aspects such as keyword explorer or backlink explorer are rapid when compared to other SEO tools on the market – including SEMrush. If you don't like waiting for results, then Ahrefs might be your preferred tool!

SEMrush

SEMrush, as we've already mentioned, does look quite similar and features the same top-navigation bar, but has extra tools and resources rather than the native tools per the Pro subscription. Just like Ahrefs, SEMrush has a left-side navigation bar for all the tools that the Pro subscription has access to and although they are almost identical, SEMrush does look a lot more modern and easier going on the eyes. Something to note, is at the time of writing – SEMrush does not have a dark mode feature, so you're stuck with the orange, black and white (which looks great!).

Functionality wise, SEMrush is about the same as Ahrefs. SEMrush is comparable in speed, with keywords and backlink analysis taking just a couple of seconds to get a whole catalogue of data and information, but similarly to Ahrefs – the site crawl can take a little bit of time. From adding the site to having a full-site audit, it took just 14 minutes which is acceptable for the tool, still considerably faster than Ahrefs on this front.

Pricing and Tiers

Ahrefs

One major factor that can be the deciding one when purchasing a SEO tool can be the price, and what you get when purchasing a paid subscription of one of these SEO tools. Both Ahrefs and SEMrush have very similar pricing, but features vary a little bit.

Ahrefs has four plans, Lite ($95/m), Standard ($190/m), Advanced ($385/m), and Enterprise ($960/m). These are spread over two subscription lengths, monthly, or annually – where you're able to get 2 months free. All paid tiers have the SEO dashboard, Site explorer, keyword explorer, site audit tool, rank tracker as well as free alerts, with more perks being added the higher the packages you go.

For this review, (of Lite – the lowest subscription), you're able to use the tool to manage;

5 Unverified project, and Unlimited verified projects. (Verified using GSC, or manual verification).
750 Tracked Keywords (additional costs $50/m for 500 extra).
Keyword, Domain, and Backlink Analysis
Domain, Keyword, and Backlink Analytics; 500,000 results a month, ($50/m for an extra million).
100,000 Page Crawls per Month (max. Of 25,000 per project).

Something to note with Ahrefs, is that some features such as content explorer, domain comparisons, additional site explorer/audit features and the notable "Ahrefs Search" are all in the higher packages, and are not within the lite edition.

SEMrush

On the flip side, SEMrush only has three paid tiers, Pro ($119.95/m), Guru ($229.95/m) and Business ($449.95). SEMrush do break down the tiering much more elegantly, showcasing the exact numbers of searches you're able to do, and several green dots underneath each plan – comparing themselves. Paying annually does save 17% on subscription cost.

For this review (of Pro – the lowest subscription), you're able to use the tool to manage;

5 Projects (or Websites)
500 Tracked Keywords
Keyword, Domain, and Backlink Analysis
Domain and Keyword Analytics; 10,000 Results per report; 3,000 reports per day.
100,000 Page Crawls per month (split into 20,000 per project).

SEMrush also opens the door with many on-site tools such as keyword research, on-page SEO, competitor analysis, link building, rank tracking, content optimization, seo analysis and even site-audits to help you improve your sites presence. The full list of SEMrush features can be found here. These are included with every paid plan, although some may have limitations.

Support and Further SEO Education

In terms of support, both platforms are all for helping and assisting customers where possible. Ahrefs features a live chat function, as well as email support over a 24/7 period meaning you'll be able to get an answer typically in less than 30 minutes. SEMrush on the other hand has live chat, email support as well as multiple country phone lines if you prefer to speak to someone over the phone. This is also considered "follow the sun", as there will always be a team working somewhere whenever you need them.

Both SEMrush and Ahrefs have further education outside of their tool on their respective YouTube channels as well as on-site education platforms such as Ahrefs "academy" that can help people understand more about SEO, and how not only the SEO tool can help – but also other aspects of SEO to help grow your business. Both education platforms have a wide range of free to access content (regardless of if you're paying for it) and both offer a great level of information.

In terms of support and further SEO information provided, both tools appear to go the extra mile to make sure you have the best setup for success from an SEO standpoint.

Our Honest Opinions

Ahrefs

Our honest opinion on Ahrefs is mostly positive. All the aspects and tools included with the Lite plan are more than enough for anyone getting started with SEO and or marketing their own, or someone else's website. The tools are all fairly self-explanatory and the level of support provided by Ahrefs and their team is exceptional. Overall, we're really happy with the trial period we had with Ahrefs and we did in fact see a performance increase after making changes and using the tool to our advantage.

The only downside of Ahrefs Lite plan is that many features that some people may want are not included in the plan. Although the cheaper out of the two, Ahrefs could have so much more potential if they were to include features such as broken backlinks, or content explorer in their Lite plan. With that being said, the difference between the plans is somewhat significant, so may not be achievable for new customers. With that being said, that would be our only downside to the tool and we think it would be great for people wanting to start mastering SEO on their own site and others!

SEMrush

Our honest opinion on SEMrush is again, nearly all positive. All the tools as well as the constant education stream you'll experience as a SEMrush customer does make the tool well worth the money. Although SEMrush is the more costly tool out of the two, there is a clear reason why. The extra services and features that are included in the Pro package are identical to the Lite package of Ahrefs, however it does come with the added benefits and features that are in the higher tiers of Ahrefs' packages.

With that being said, SEMrush Pro would be the perfect subscription to trial, and use for a couple of months for marketers or website owners who would utilize 5 or less sites. We saw almost instant improvements to our site ranking and search performance just by using SEMrush. We also got some easy backlinks using their backlink tool!

Our Overall Winner

After using both products on the same and different sites, our overall winner in this comparison has to be SEMrush. With all the extra features as well as the effectiveness of each of the tools included do make it very close between Ahrefs and SEMrush, but for the slight extra cost on the base-tier plan, it just has to be SEMrush.

If you have more than 5 sites/projects, we would likely switch to Ahrefs as there are unlimited projects included, but if you have less – it has to be SEMrush. How was your experience with SEMrush or Ahrefs? Let us know in the comments!

Where to get low-cost and free domain names

Kieran Cairns (Emily) — Wed, 18 May 2022 00:00:00 GMT

A website and therefore a domain name is an unavoidable nesscesity for any business in the 21st centuary. However, despite what you may have heard you do not have to pay hundreds of dollars for a domain name, you can actually even get certain domains for free. However, like with most free things in life, there are caveats.

In this post we will discuss the differences between free and paid domains, along with a list of providers to get your domain name from and tips on how to avoid the all to common "bait and switch" marketing.

No Domain / IP Address

Few people know you can actually allow other people to access your website without a domain name. All web servers will have an IP address associated with, and if there is a single website hosted on the server you can often access your website by typing the server IP into your web browser. However accessing your site through an IP addresses come with a number of issues.

Poor Formatting

The biggest issue you will come across is the formatting of an IP address - they are a series of numbers with periods in between them for example ‘72.5.70.5’. Many people will struggle to remember this sequence of numbers in the correct order including periods if spoken verbally and quite frankly to many people it looks very suspicious as it doesn’t follow the normal conventions of a website address for example Domaincord.com or Google.co.uk which is made up of a word or multiple words followed by the domain tld .com and .co.uk respectively in these examples. There are no numbers as they are difficult to remember and don’t portray a professional look.

Not always an option

The second issue you will find with the IP Address method of accessing a website is that it is not industry practice for web hosting providers to provide dedicated IP addresses to individual customers. It may come as a surprise to many people, but there is actually a shortage of IPV4 IP Addresses (those which contain just numbers and periods), this means web hosting providers are reluctant to provide IP addresses to their customers for their website as they have to justify each request for a new IP and the governing body does not accept needing the IP address as a website url as valid justifcation.

Dedicated IP addresses often cost extra

Unless you are hosting your website on your Home PC (which is not recommended), you are likely to find yourself needing to pay your hosting provider as much as $10/month for a single IP address, unless you have a hosting plan that includes one free of charge. In the instance you have to pay for an IP Address you will always be paying more than the cost of the other domain options disccussed in the post, even more than the paid ones.

Free Domains

Free domains are universally the cheapest way to get your website online with a human-readable address. They are more practical than an IP Address from a usability point, however they fall behind other options in areas like longevity, reliablity and professionalism.

Easy to read, but can still look unprofessional

Free domains are easy to read as you can decide what comes before the period In the address, just like you can with paid domains. However, unlike paid domains you are extremely limited in what options you can have after the period. Common free domains end in extensions such as .eu.org, .ml, or .tk amongst others.

This means by solving the issue of readability you have created a new issue - trustworthiness and professionalism. Many people still don’t trust domains that end in usual and unique extensions.

This issue is compounded by the significant number of fraudulent websites run on free domains, which is much higher than is found on a domain extensions like .com.

As of May 2022, 4 of the 5 free domain names provided by Freeenom are ranked in the top 10 most abused domain extensions by Spamhaus, with an average of 1 in 3 domains being used for fraudulent purposes.

For comparison, .com domains have an abuse rate of less than 5 of every 100 domains and .net domains are even lower at just under 4 in every 100 domains been misused. This means the abuse rate for the most common free domains is over 6 times as high as that found on paid domains.[1]

Unfortunately, this means many people will have seen free domain name extensions used for malicious purposes like phishing and therfore are likely to be aphrenrsive in visiting your own website. This is particulary an issue when you are trying to get people online to visit your businesses site.

You can lose your domain without notice

Unfortunately, renewing your free domain does NOT guarantee you can continue using it. On many free domain providers, including the biggest which is Freenom, you are not actually the domain owner (like you are usually). Instead you are a licensee which means the company can revoke your free domain name at any time, without notice or reason and you have no recourse to regain control of it as its in the terms you agreed to.

Not only does this mean you can loose your domain name at the drop of a hat, the domain provider could repurpose the domain for their own use (as they are the owner of it). In the case of Freenom they are known to revoke any domain name that gains significant traffic and replace it with advertising, of which you are not entitled to any compensation for.

No business wants to loose their domain through no fault of their own, and they certainly don’t want it replaced with adverts that coud be directing potential customers to compe

Who are free domain name suitable for?

As we have already established free domains are certainly not suitable for businesses. However, despite all the drawbacks they can be an acceptable option to host a project you want to share with someone, for example a website you coded.

Free Domain Providers

If you choose to use a free domain name for your provider there are couple of options available to you which are detailed below.

Provider	Extensions	Notes
Freenom	.tk / .ml / .cf / .gq / .ga	Freenom are known to revoke domain names for no reason.
eu.org	.eu.org	Registrations are manually approved which can take up to a week. You do not need to live in the EU.

Free Subdomains

Easy to read, but look unprofessional

Like with free domain names, subdomains are easy to read as you can pick the words at the beginning - however this time instead of been stuck with a strange extension like .tk your hosting providers domain is included as well.

Not only does this make the name even longer, you are basically advertising the fact you got the domain name for free, as no business uses someone elses domain name for their website.

Stuck with your web host

Most free subdomain names are provided by web hosting providers, which means you can only keep the domain as long as you are hosting with them. This means if you decide to move to another web hosting provider in the future, you will need to aquire a new domain name.

Also like with free domains the provider could decide to stop providing free subdomains are even close down completely, leaving you with the headache of choosing a new domain name and updating everywhere you have listed your domain name.

You will also loose any rankings your domain has gained on google if this happens.

Who are subdomain names suitable for?

Like with free domains, subdomains are a great option for non business use, for example showcasing a project and unlike free domains, you have a much larger array of options to choose from and they can last longer If you choose a reputable provider.

Free Subdomain Providers

If you choose to use a free subdomain you can find information on the main providers listed below.

For Hosting Customers Only

Provider	Sub-domain
Netlify	example.netlify.app
Vercel	example.vercel.app
GitHub Pages	example.github.io
Surge	example.surge.sh
Weebly	example.weebly.com
Wix	example.wix.com
WordPress	example.wordpress.com
Blogger	example.blogger.com

Paid Domains

Paid domain names are by far the best choice for a business or other professional website. They most often come in extensions everyone knows and loves for example .com, .net and .org.

Professional & Affordable

The key advantage of paid domains is the profesionalism they portray. Everyone knows and trust’s domains that end in common extensions such as .com, which means you negate the risk of people thinking your website is a scam.

Paid Domains are also much more affordable than you might think with dozens of companies offering the best selling tld’s such as .com or .org for less than $15/yr. You may have been recommended to register your domain with your web hosting provider, whilst this is an option its not always ideal as they often charge considerably above the market rate.

It’s not always a case of your web host scamming your either, it’s because most web hosting providers go through resellers (bigger registars) to provide domain services, which means they have to add profit margins on top of the prices set by the registrar, whilst offering no actual benefits to the customer.

Hundreds of options

As of April 2021 there is over 1,500 recognised domain extensions, with the average registar offering a selection of over 500 to choose from. Options range from your traditional options and country codes like .com, .net, .org, .info, .io, .co, .co.uk through to newer extensions such as .top, .xyz and .bio and even industry specific tld’s such as .flowers, .hair and .pizza.

Not only does this mean you are always guaranteed to find a suitable domain name for your business, you can even tailor the domain to your industry for example JamesB.Hair or Typesof.flowers.

However, be aware each tld will be sold at a different price, ranging from as little as $3/yr for .ovh all the way through to $75,000/yr for domains ending in .hoteles - no that isn‘t a typo. Fortunately the average price across all tld’s is less than $50/yr.

Highly Reliable

Unlike with free domains and subdomains you will find a paid domain is incredibly reliable, this is because when you buy a domain you sign a contract which means as long as you pay your annual renewal fee, you will not loose your domain.*

*You may still loose your domain if you violate your providers terms of services, although generally the terms only prohibit using the domain for criminal / immoral purposes.

Who are paid domains suitable for?

Unlike the other options discussed paid domains are suitable for just about everyone, from students through to busineses. The only thing you need is money to pay the annual renewal fee.

Choosing A Provider

There a number of things to compare when selecting a domain name registar, for example pricing and support.

The key things to look out for are the following:

Renewal Pricing - This should be clearly indicated when signing up and there should not be a significant difference between registration and renewal price, as it often means you are being overcharged for renewal.
Customer Service - You want to make sure the provider you choose has good customer services, particulary if you haven’t owned a domain name before.
Minininum Registration Periods - You should not use a provider that forces you to pay for your renewal upfront to get a promotional price.
Whois Privacy - Following the GDPR Rules introduced in 2018 most registars have started offering free whois privacy to all customers. You should ideally select a provider offering free Whois privacy if you do not want your name and address to be publiclly linked with your domain. This is an issue mainly for indviduals, but can also apply to home based businesses.
Freebies - Many providers offer freebies such as email forwarding or DNS management, however you should never pay more for a provider that offers these as you can easily get the features for free from other companies such as your hosting provider.

Recommended Providers

There are a handful of providers that are known by the industry to be reliable, cost effective and to offer good customer services.

Provider	Extensions Available	Price Range	Notes
NameCheap	500+	Moderate	$0.18 ICANN Fee not included in listed prices.
NameSilo	400+	Inexpensive
Cloudflare	200+	Inexpensive	At cost domains, however you must use CloudFlare DNS.
Porkbun	500+	Inexpensive
Sav	300+	Inexpensive

Avoiding Bait & Switch

Like with all other industries there are bad players in the industry that pray on peoples lack of knowledge. You have likely see adverts for GoDaddy when searching for a domain registar or watching the TV - because of this advertising they have become on of the biggest domain registars in the world.

However, they also by far the worst for value. They will offer extremely competitive deals such as $1/yr for a .com domain registration with renewal approaching $20 on the second year, and if you are in the EU VAT will be added to this price - other registars do not charge VAT. Not only is the renewal price well above the industry average of $10-15/yr, you get nothing extra for that price.

In effect GoDaddy is paying for the 1st year discount by doubliding the price on the second year, and keeping at the same price or increasing it going forward. You will never approach the $10-15/yr territory with GoDaddy.

Fortunately many people have recongised this predatory practice and called them out on it and more their domain names to another company before renewal. However, instead of GoDaddy changing their pricing strategy to be more consumer friendly they have begun forcing customers to pre-pay for 2 years to get the first year sale.

Getting A Paid Domain for free

Few people know it is possible to get a paid domain such as .com or .org for free, well not quite free, but pretty close. A number of the larger paid web hosting period will offer a free domain if you signup to a long term contract or pre-pay for 1-3 years.

Whilst this can save you money as you will need web hosting anyways, consider wether you want to be in a contract with your hosting provider for the sake of a $10-15 saving. If you later decide your web hosting provider is not right for your needs you could find yourself forced to pay a steep fee to keep your domain, which is likely to be a lot more than you saved.

Most web hosting providers also expect you to pay for renewal after the 1st year, which like GoDaddy promotions can cost considerably more than the market rate.

So whilst it is most certainly an option if your budget is constrained, consider the potential costs in the future if it doesn’t work out will likely outweigh any savings you made.

[1] www.spamhaus.org. (n.d.). The Spamhaus Project - The Top 10 Most Abused TLDs. [online] Available at: https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/ [Accessed 17 May 2022].

How I Built and Sold OvrPwr.net — A Gaming Site Flip Case Study ($1,500)

Charlie Kemp — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT

📌 2025 Editor’s Note: This case study was originally written by Charlie, an active Domaincord community member. Since publishing, we’ve built a suite of free tools that would have helped at every stage of this journey — including the Brandability Checker, Dropfilter, Portfolio Prep, and the upcoming ROI Calculator.

When I was younger, I would always be Infront of games, and I always loved being the “achievement hunter” out of my family, which was fun when you have two older brothers! No matter what the game was, I wanted to truly complete it.

When I was younger, some easter eggs in the old Call of Duty’s were quite hard to understand or figure out, but searching the internet was quite a tough task back then. Fast forward to today, and there are thousands of game guides, reviews, and troubleshooting content sites that you can use to get easy lists of achievements. I wanted a piece of that action.

This article is all about how I thought up, developed and created a highly competitive niche gaming guide site, and sold it less than a year after committing to it for $1500.

How did I get the idea for OvrPwr?

The idea of having my own site was always something that I loved doing but didn’t always have the motivation to go forward and write all the content myself. When I first started with TechQuack (my first content-based guide and troubleshooting website), I never intended to sell, but felt like there was someone who could take it further than I could, and as you can see from this article — this was true.

Whilst owning TechQuack, I also owned the domain OvrPwr.net. OvrPwr was a brandable name for “Over-Power”. Initially, I wanted to make OvrPwr a drink brand, more of an energy drink brand because when you drink an energy drink you can often feel overpowered.

After selling TechQuack for $1000, I felt like I was missing something in my life, and I wanted to have a purpose and I wasn’t sure where to find it. After trying to flip domains and have side-hustle writing and investing, I felt like the time had come to utilize the OvrPwr.net domain.

I wasn’t sure initially what I wanted to do with OvrPwr, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to provide gaming guides, or tutorials in games, or anything around games at all. After a few days to think it over, I decided to create a gaming guide website. I had only really just sold TechQuack and didn’t really use WordPress, which I came to use for OvrPwr, but originally — that wasn’t the original.

How did I get started?

After I had decided what I wanted to do with OvrPwr, I usually rush into things. As I wasn’t too confident with anything other than pure, hard-coded PHP — I decided to head over to CodeCanyon. I had a license key from TechQuack but did in the end having to pay for another license. This was the first instance of OvrPwr.

At this point, OvrPwr.net was ready. I had made the logo on Photoshop a few days before, experimenting with colours and layouts, and I decided that OvrPwr needed something bright, something catchy. OvrPwr’s old logo was bright orange and wasn’t even symmetrical!

Once the site was set up it was finally time to start writing some content. Something that I’ve always been able to do, is write content just how I like it. After TechQuack, I learnt that affiliate-based content (where you provide links and if a reader clicks, you may receive a commission) was where most of the money was. My first post on OvrPwr was called “How to get Free CSGO Skins in 2019” and I provided affiliate links (10% commission on earnings). This article took around 30 minutes to write and post, and I was so excited!

In 30 days, this post had generated a massive… 4 views.

This made me feel quite… sad. Personally, If I don’t see results quick, I often get disheartened but sometimes persistence is needed, and sadly without spending advertising money on getting your site noticed, getting authentic, natural readers take time.

After posting a further 10–15 posts around CSGO, and League of Legends — I decided to call it quits on OvrPwr.net. This was the downfall of OvrPwr.net. Every 30 days, the 10–15 posts that were made were generating around 25–30 views a month which wasn’t at all the speed I was hoping for.

Something I didn’t realize, was that gaming and gaming guides are a highly-competitive niche with an average of 74 DR for the first page results. Because of this, it was almost impossible for OvrPwr to rank on the first page of Google Searches, making it seem hidden to readers.

The Uprise of OvrPwr

I left OvrPwr.net for around 6–8 months, just dwelling and collecting dust. I got some emails from Namecheap, who was my domain and host for OvrPwr.net. I was in a place, where I was considering giving up on and letting the domain and hosting expire, but at the time — I was in a good frame of mind.

I knew from previous experience that creating these content websites and generating roughly 1000 views a month will bring a nice return on investment for not too much work. So, I decided to start it all up again. I paid for a SEO consultant for 1 hours’ worth of work ($150) to help me out with what I needed to do to get this back on the successful road.

After 45 minutes, the SEO consultant offered me a few solutions. Most of it was keyword based, and what I should be writing for good starting exposure for my content, but a massive part of the SEO he said was down to its performance. The site took a new viewer 7 seconds to load, and in most cases, a reader would click off within 4–5 seconds of loading.

Knowing this, I decided to make the jump to use WordPress for the core of the website. This migration wasn’t easy but was well worth the time. The load time went from 7 seconds down to just 1 second, which was amazing and prove beneficial for the long-term. WordPress is the best for these kinds of content-sites, and will always be on top for both small, and large-sized blogs.

Once everything was migrated, I thought it was time to switch to something else that I had been after since I registered OvrPwr.net… OvrPwr.com. With knowing a bit about domain flipping, I decided to hunt down the owner of OvrPwr.com and decided to buy it from her. She didn’t want anything to do with the domain, I decided to offer her only $50, which she happily accepted.

Once OvrPwr.com was connected to WordPress, it was time to start writing again. I used the keywords that the SEO consultant had provided and spent a good 3–4 months writing high-quality content that got natural views, all from SEO.

Running OvrPwr — Day to Day Operations

As you can tell, OvrPwr was a bit of a bumpy ride in terms of commitment, but once I was in this limbo state with the site running itself, with the 20–30 posts I had, on WordPress, on OvrPwr.com. For me, this was generating around 100–200 views a month, which was perfectly fine with me, but it was draining my wallet for hosting, domain costs, and some plugins I was using on WordPress.

Although this was good, it was not really at a point where I could sell the site, or even consider leaving it to build backlinks itself, or just let it die out. Compared to my other site, TechQuack, I felt like I needed someone to help me build the site.

Acquiring Staff

A lot of people often go to freelance sites, or otherwise, off-shore employment agencies to get cost-effective labour or services that will provide a good return on investment, but I was new to this and I didn’t have any plans on doing this because I would’ve had to pay a minimum of $400 per month, which was a lot for me at the time.

One of my friends, was looking for a job, knew English quite well and the average monthly wage in his country was only $200 a month. What’s more, is that he was really into games. He loved playing games like Genshin Impact, League of Legends, and Fortnite. These games were all massive when I first employed him, and I decided to take a plunge and invest in him for a number of months.

He was able to write daily articles, that returned a nice 30–40 views, per article, within the first 7 days of posting them. Some of these articles were more news-based, rather than guides and tips and tricks like I had been writing. I was really happy with his work, and couldn’t have asked for anything more. This was quite an investment for me, but I made a great relationship with the writer, and will likely be working with him on my other projects.

Revenue Streams

With spending almost $250 a month on OvrPwr, I needed to really figure out how to make money. At this point, OvrPwr had Google AdSense running, but that was it. Google Ads are great for people who have a good niche, and one that gets plenty of views — however the gaming niche, with only 1000/views a month, isn’t something that should be the main source of income. As you can see, over the last 3 years — OvrPwr didn’t earn much from ads served by Google.

I needed to write some affiliate content. Affiliate content is content that would let me earn a commission or revenue from readers clicking, using, or purchasing something from another company — but coming from OvrPwr.

I wrote some more “How to earn Giftcards for FREE” which helped me get a few extra $ a month, but nothing special. I also wrote some guides on how people can buy gift cards or gifts for their friends using code sites such as Gamivo, or G2A. These sites generated around 85% of all revenue on OvrPwr.

On average, OvrPwr was earning around $20 a month, which was still quite a massive loss — but I soon came to realize this may have been my fault.

How I sold OvrPwr for $1500

After running OvrPwr for 3 years, but truly committing to it for 8 months, I had made the decision to sell it. Some months I was getting 1800 views a month, but sometimes I was only getting 900 views a month, but averaged out to be around 1500 views a month.

I spoke to my writer and asked what he thought to sell the site. This is a hard decision because the writer would normally lose their job with this, but thankfully I was able to re-purpose the role for my other projects.

We had decided that if we couldn’t push OvrPwr over the 2000 views line, then it was more of a wallet drain and pain-point for myself, then it was only best to let someone else deal with it. OvrPwr was my baby and was something I had really committed to, and had devotion towards but sometimes, the business way is not always the nicest way.

Similarly, to the sale of TechQuack, I decided to sell OvrPwr over on Flippa. Flippa is a great, but slightly expensive place to post websites, domains and apps to get in front of hundreds of thousands of buyers who will have expertise in the category.

Flippa charged me $29 + 10% After Sale Fee ($150 on sale completion), but was an easy-to-list and easy to use experience which is great, as it takes maybe 5–10 minutes to list. Within 24-hours, I had 3 offers for OvrPwr. I had listed it at a $2000 buy-it-now price, but bidding at $800. One offer was for $1000, another for $850, and one at $1100.

To me, these offers were low, but the problem was — I was losing more money than I was gaining and these values would actually save money and relieve some weight from my shoulders.

I countered the offer at $1100 for $1600, before they countered for $1250, and I made one last counter offer for $1500. This offer was accepted by the buyer, and within a few days — I was paid directly into my bank account and the transfer process was easy. I gave the buyer the account details and pushed the domain via Namecheap.

What I would do differently next time?

If I was ever to create another site like OvrPwr, and will probably use some of these tips going forward with my other projects. I feel like next time, I need to;

Focus on Keywords (Low Difficulty, Low Traffic Keywords).
Build Backlinks Early On
Write a “Content Plan” and “Content Creation Guide” for any Writers
Commit to it, and don’t give up when it’s not fast-growth.

Keywords are massively important, even if they’re easy to rank and only bring in 10 views per month, this is still worth it because it’s a rank that you can hold if you’re early. This was massively important for OvrPwr’s initial growth.

Backlinks are essential to DR, and as mentioned earlier, the higher your DR, the easier it is to rank higher on Google, but it’s not essential. Backlinks and guest posting for other people will be the best way to gain these backlinks.

When I tried to help my writer get started, with a creation guide and some titles and keywords in a list — this would’ve made content creation 10x faster, and a lot easier for my writer. This is also a massive help for when you have duplicate content, separate from WordPress.

Don’t. Give. Up. I need to not give up when the views are low because in a few months of work it could be 500–1000 views a month, or maybe more and will be well worth the initial 3-month struggle.

In conclusion, OvrPwr was my baby-site, that I did put a lot of effort and heart into, and even though it was losing me money — OvrPwr was definitely a massive learning curve for me, and I’ve gained endless experience and a writer who can help me with more projects going forward. The buyer of OvrPwr has a track record of taking these sites and making them into amazing sites, so no doubt that you might be seeing OvrPwr on a search near you, sometime soon.

How I Built And Sold An Expired Domain, TechQuack.com, Into A Successful Tech Blog ($1,000)

Charlie Kemp — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

📌 2025 Editor’s Note: This case study was originally written by Charlie, an active Domaincord community member. Since publishing, we’ve built a suite of free tools that would have helped at every stage of this journey — including the Brandability Checker, Dropfilter, Portfolio Prep, and the upcoming ROI Calculator.

Have you ever just wanted to start a blog from the ground up, with no prior SEO, no prior experience? I did. I wanted to find the next ‘big’ tech blog that I had built by myself from the ground up and enjoy all the benefits that came along with it, but making a blog of that scale to compete with the big dogs was always going to be tough.

A New Journey

I think it was a Saturday when I woke up out of my bed from a long week at my full-time job being an IT Support analyst. I had always had the idea of wanting to make money passively, and every time you search for that on google you find “build a blog” or “create your own blog page”. This idea of creating my own blog page was silly in my head.

At the time, I was flipping domains, I.e., buying domains that had expired with traffic, or brandable names and selling them straight on. I was doing this on some smaller forums and had sold a domain or two on Domaincord. Flippa was a site I was also familiar with, but because of high-fees, I opted to avoid this as much as I could.

I was using my default tools to find domains to flip and decided to run a search through some old domains (first registered before 2007). I had stumbled upon a domain TechQuack.com. For some reason, this domain jumped out in front of all the other domains. Looking at the stats, it had 3 backlinks from old-school phone blogs and was registered back in 2007.

I thought this alone would sell for more than the $10 registration fee I had to pay, so I went ahead and bought the domain TechQuack.com.

The first month of ownership

At this point, I looked into the history of TechQuack and saw that it was in fact a tech blog at one stage in its life. This did make me question all of the above, and that day when I woke up and thought I might start my own blog.

Tech was a field of interest for me, being an IT Support analyst for a small company, and knowing that 50% of my job role meant I was googling for solutions to strange and wonderful issues on my clients’ computers. That, right there was the trigger for me creating and developing on the site we now know as TechQuack.

Knowing that my job and many other technical support jobs meant people were Googling for answers meant that I might be able to get some natural SEO views to the site. It’s worth mentioning at this point that I’ve only really hosted and dabbled in website development at this stage, so this wasn’t going to be an easy task for me to start with.

The first week of ownership had me creating a Google Drive folder called “The Tech Project” where I had a spreadsheet with all my content ideas. These literally included “How to fix printer issues”, and “How to troubleshoot internet issues on PCs”, enticing, I know.

I slowly realized that writing down all these ideas was great, as I could keep track of what I needed to write up and post to the site. But what site? There was no website or framework installed on the site for me to upload to. I had recently been recommended WordPress by a fellow blog owner as it was easy to create, manage, edit and sell on in the future which was ideal for me, but me being the naïve person I am, I ignored this and went straight onto CodeCanyon.

On CodeCanyon, I found an amazing script within 30 minutes of searching called Varient. This script had everything from backend administration, it ran on PHP (which for some strange reason I loved the idea of) and it looked great from a front-end perspective.

This script was bought, installed onto my shared-hosting with Namecheap and I was ready and configuring the site within minutes. From the ground, it didn’t look very ‘techy’. I quickly hopped onto Fiverr and asked someone to create me a logo that included a duck (for the Quack) and something that was a little technical. This was the image I was sent back!

This logo was what I had imagined, it was simple, incorporated a little duck and I thought this was a perfect match for the black and white design I had on the website. I was ready, this was it — time to write some content up for the site and get it all published for the world to see.

My First Post

When I say it was a challenge to get the content written out, I’m not kidding. I had well over 200 content ideas ready for TechQuack, and I had tried to write the easiest ones first to get some content on the site. After about a month of trying to write and gather pictures, I had roughly 5000 words posted on the site over 20 articles.

Originally, TechQuack had a few categories. There were Windows and Mac, but the other category had everything from reviews, guides, and Linux content as well as web-development information that I had written for college a few years prior. I was really happy with what I had on the site and decided to see if I could find my own content on Google just by searching for it.

What a mistake...

I had gone through over 100 pages to find “How to fix Printer Driver Issues on Windows 10” and still hadn’t seen my web page which was really disheartening. I thought surely, I was in the top 1000 websites for this search, but no — I wasn’t there. At this point, I realized I needed to do some more investigation into why my content wasn’t being listed — Queue, Google Tools.

The Downfall

When I say the downfall of TechQuack was quite a hard one — it would be an understatement. Just like one of the previous owners, I had abandoned my project, with 5000 words on it, a fully functioning website running for the next year or so with no updates.

For about 6 months I had left the site completely by itself, and didn’t even check to see if it was still online. It wasn’t until I sat thinking about passive income again (and yes, I was very money-focused at this point) when I remembered I owned this dying, low-level tech blog.

See, I had come to realize that this site that I had been around for quite some time, which is great for SEO, and the content I had was content that people were searching for, but thousands of other high-ranking sites were already taking all the users. No one was searching page 100 of Google to find their resolution to a problem.

I had given up on the site, but I wanted to change it, not for the money but to build a community and a repository to prove to myself that not only can I change a website and flip it for a solid profit, but to further my knowledge in the tech field.

The Turnaround

One of the main pushes for me turning this around was my own knowledge, and possibly getting the site ready to sell. I wasn’t going to flood the site with content anymore, as I had lost a bit of passion to create the content to post on the site. I decided I needed some help, but not for the content but rather the statistical and analysis side of it.

I enlisted the help of Google. Google has three amazing tools that I wasn’t aware of that I needed to use on TechQuack, and boy did I realize what I was missing when they were set up.

I used Google Analytics to track where my users were coming from, what they were looking at, and how long they were looking at them for. This was a crucial stage of the turnaround and made selling TechQuack easier in the coming months.

I used Google Search Console to see where my content was ranking, and to start with it was very poor, with around 10 impressions/month.

I also used Google Ads (AdSense) to drive some monetary value through the site, as at the moment my site wasn’t making any money.

These tools allowed me to track the progress, and next up on the list to fix TechQuack was the content on the site. The content wasn’t relevant or was too saturated on the search engines to have ever been seen. I didn’t know anything about SEO back then, but I decided to go into some competitor’s websites to find the content they were writing.

The Major Turning Point

At this point, I had written another 5000-ish words for the site, and my impression count went from 10 to 200 in less than a month, which was very motivating as I could see people were visiting my site. I was making a few cents a day from ads, and my viewer count was going up.

I had just come back from work, and someone had a very difficult question, on how to set up a recurring email auto-responder on their Outlook office client. Initially, I had googled this at work thinking I would get hundreds of responses, but there weren’t any there. In the end, we had to consult Microsoft themselves about this directly to help, and even they were confused.

Remembering this, and realizing how silly it was (as people being in the office for only ? days of the week was quite normal, and people wanted to automate their out-of-office responses), I felt the need to write this up.

I wrote up “How to set up Recurring Out of Office in Outlook 2016” and little did I know how amazing this one article would be. After a few days, I noticed that my view-count and AdSense balance was rising quite healthy, but almost anonymously. I logged into the Search Console to find out what was going on, and I couldn’t believe that my one post had logged over 200 views in less than a week.

This one article alone started to generate even more content and was even generating backlinks for myself which was amazing for SEO. This major turning point was what sold TechQuack in my opinion.

The Monetary Value

After about 6 months from previously abandoning the site itself, I had established around 20,000 words worth of articles (~60 articles) and was happily on my way to make more — when I received an offer from my old pal who told me about WordPress. After asking questions about analytics and the monthly earnings of the site — he offered me a solid $400 for the site.

I won’t lie, this shocked me. I had only really spent around $60 in total, and I was happy to accept his offer. A couple of days went by before he contacted me again about it, and the news wasn’t good. Old naive me should’ve switched to WordPress way back when I was recommended to. My old pal wouldn’t buy the site unless everything was migrated to WordPress, and I had no idea how to use WordPress, so the deal fell through and I was again ready to abandon the project as this had upset me.

At this point, from Adsense advertising on every page, and on the header on the main site — along with a few affiliate links from the device and service reviews — I had generated around $200 from the site in a year, which isn’t too bad all things considered. I was “technically” in profit, although with my time factored in for writing and producing the content I think I was at a loss.

Finding a buyer and selling TechQuack

Right at the start, I was tempted to sell TechQuack for the domain value, but by this point and the previous offer I had received, TechQuack’s main goal for me was to be developed on, and sold to someone who had more time and resources to manage it and take it to another level.

At this point, I realized that TechQuack was a stepping stone journey that had taught me a lot on how to develop my own content, my own site, and further it to become what it is today. TechQuack will always be something I will remember as my first-developed project that I felt I had really improved.

Going back to the original offer, I realized that moving to WordPress wouldn’t be such a problem and so I went ahead and moved the site over to WordPress. This took a total of about a week because I lacked knowledge on how to transfer and set up WordPress, but thanks to Namecheap’s support I was able to finish setting this up with a nice theme I bought of CodeCanyon, and thus TechQuack had migrated north to WordPress.

On WordPress, my next step was to sell TechQuack.

Selling it was going to be tough, and I knew I would have to work on selling it but eventually I knew it would all go through and sell. My first port of call was to go back to my old pal and try to offer him the original $400. The speed at which he declined was ridiculous. He turned down the offer because of the 1000 page views/week I was getting, 800 of them were from the Out of Office article that did me so well. This was a bit of a knock as I thought other people might think the same, and so I opted to auction the site.

I headed over to Flippa, a great place to sell established sites. I say established sites as the fees can be a little high for low-tier or low-value sites. I set off an auction starting at $400 and within 2 hours of listing it (7-day auction) I had several questions and 2 bids for $400, and $425. After all, 7-days had passed, the site TechQuack.com had sold for $750 to a private buyer. Unfortunately, this buyer dropped out and as I was about to relist it, I had a private offer (over Flippa) for $1000.

This offer blew me away. I took a site that I had only invested my time into, and around $60, and had just received a four-figure offer for it. Admittedly, you might not call $1000 a 4-figure offer after fees… but I like to keep it that way! And just like that, TechQuack, and all of its content had sold for a nice profit.

Selling TechQuack was not at the forefront of my agenda when I first started this project, but when you get to be a part of something that doesn’t only make you happy, but can help you earn a living — that’s what it was all about in the end.

TechQuack is now a quite successful tech blog generating around 5k views/week, all unique and the curve seems to be going up. The new owner has posted a lot more content than I ever could, but they are now reaping the rewards of this amazing website.

For sure, If I could do it again there are so many things I would do differently, but as with any project, you learn, and you fail — but the next project will be so much better. I am already working on another project, which will be amazing too, but this time — I’m not focusing on the money but rather building a brand, and a community that will love the site just as much as I will.

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1. Source the list

2. Exact-domain check

3. Quick eye test

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5. Classify the domain

6. Validate buyer demand

7. Check risk

8. Live marketplace and cart check

9. Estimate resale and hold time

10. Decide

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