Typo Domains is it really worth it?

Well headline story news today, John Cow has been sold for $50,000 at sitepoint. A perfect example of acquiring a typo domain. Put in effort, passion and dedication in the project. Make it worth $50,000 in the end.

Let me begin with this cindrella story. This domain was registered by some domainer who was thinking he will make big bucks from the name. He probably paid the normal reg. fee to register it. The blogger at John Cow decided that he wants the domain and emailed the domainer. Domainer asked for $800 for an undeveloped domain (I used to be this crazy as well in the beginning years). Finally the domainer gave in for $80 for a typo domain. He was thinking that he made good profit from his investment. Saying that the domain was registered for $7 and now he just made 11 times his initial investment. But the real story began once the owner of John Cow started putting his time and effort into it. Blog went live on July 1st, 2007. In less than a year he was able to get about 1500 rss feeders. He made over $1000 from the blog the first month. That was a good record. He put down the blog to be making $2500 / month. So we can call an average of $2000 / month.

9 months the blog was there until sold, so the total income made was $18,000. I don’t know how much money was invested because the hosting was sponsored for quiet sometime. He wrote 1-2 posts a day and thats it. The blog had about 45k backlinks, which is not that much because I already have around that in my first two months. But anywho, he ended up selling the site in one day of which it was listed for $50,000 hard cash. I think even if he would’ve set the price to $75,000, he would easily get that, but o well. He converted his $80 investment into 625 times more to make it $50,000. What a profitable return.

Now come back to answer the question typos domains, is it really worth it? You have just as much if not less chance of getting rich with a typo domain then buying a lottery ticket. He got lucky and so did the original domainer, but will you get lucky? No one can guarantee that. It is just taking a risk and putting your best into it. Results will tell whether the time and capital was worth the investment or not. Just like any other business.

Smart technique would be not to go after a typo and start with your original brand and build it. Because it is much easier to sell later on.

I am having trouble typing because my neck is sprained from the gymnastic gym which I attended for the first time in my life yesterday, and ended up landing on my neck when i did a front flip over a 5 feet 10 inch peice of thick foam, and landed on alot of foam, but the impact on my neck even it was on the foam was pretty hard. Imagine if it was the ground. I would be dead by now lol. I better go relax now and let my neck heal.