How to monetize domain names

Domain names are the real estate of the Internet, and domainers make money from buying, parking and selling them. Even if you are not trying to make a living from domain names it is always a good idea to know how they work.

You might want to start another blog in the future and thus having a small portfolio of good domains could turn out to be useful.


Aviva published an extensive article titled “How to Get Started as a Domainer” describing domain buying strategies, best practices, how to monetize domains and so on. Below you will find some takeaways from the article:

• If you are trying to make money with domains look for keyword typos (e.g. Mortgeges.com)
• Consider using automated domain research tools like AjaxWhois.com
• If you are holding domains for long periods make sure to activate the auto renew
• Avoid numbers and hyphens on domain names
• Be careful with domain pinchers (people that register domains using information from whois services) and thieves
• In order to monetize your domains you can either park them or redirect them to a single traffic collector site running your own PPC ads

How to monetize domain names

Careful When Asking for Stumbles!

This is a guest post by maxyRO.

Just a month or two ago, StumbleUpon has started doing some spring cleaning by banning accounts that discovered spam websites and submitted them to the system. If you skipped that part of the Terms & Conditions, know that StumbleUpon forbids the use of one’s account for incentivization or promotion of websites. Inviting users to vote for one website or exchanging stumbles is also strictly frowned upon.

The crusade against spammers is not over. Up until now, the only website banned from the StumbleUpon system was Digital Point, a forum previously infamous for the exchange of stumble or diggs (they now forbid it). StumbleUpon goes further this time, by banning websites with certain voting patterns. In brief, the website received votes from the same group over and over again. One example is http://zedomax.com/ (you can try to stumble it).

Here is the dreaded message you receive if a websites has been banned by StumbleUpon:

But what does lead to this extreme measure? If you have used your account so far for promoting your website, both your account and your website might be already flagged. If you’ve been trying to fake a system that delivers impressive results, it’s time to get clean and start using it properly.

• Actively contribute to the StumbleUpon community! Take at least 30 minutes to build up your profile. Try to discover interesting articles, which can turn popular on their own.
• It’s a social website, so start socializing! Make friends, review their profiles, and communicate. Find people that share common interests, befriend them or simply say hi. It will pay off in the long run.
• Prove some altruism – be less about yourself and more about the community. Don’t submit your own articles; focus on the quality and less on the traffic. If you have a good piece, people will be naturally inclined to stumble it.

Note from Daniel: I believe we can summary this on the following way: do not try to game the system. StumbleUpon has an inbuilt feature that lets you send content to your contacts (the “Send to”), so I am pretty sure they are fine with friends sharing stories with friends. But only get the help of friends to get the ball rolling and not to artificially pump your stories; other StumbleUpon users will gladly promote your content if its worth it.

How To Avoid Common Affiliate Mistakes

3 Most Common Affiliate Mistakes

The process of becoming a successful affiliate and make good money online goes like this. Assuming you have a website already the first step is to do some research around your website's traffic. A key success factor is then to be able to match the outcome of your research with an affiliate program. Not only is the quality of the affiliate program essential but also what products/services they offer to advertiser; you. Manage this and you're well on your way. We will below run through a few common mistakes that affiliates often make. Avoid these and you have all the chances of earning really good money on your website.

“Start by finding out which your website's visitors are. Not their names but more specifically the average age and interests. Just look at what your website offer that makes them visit so often.”

Not Knowing Your Traffic

Affiliate marketing is often preached to be an easy way to make money. Rumors that you can just sit back and relax while your affiliate account keeps growing is thus incorrect. It might be a good time to settle with the idea that affiliates have to work, not more but exactly like everybody else. Start by finding out which your website's visitors are. Not their names but more specifically the average age and interests."

Read entire article here: How To Avoid Common Affiliate Mistakes