the story of how i sold 13 psychedelic domains for six-figures (kind of)

hello it’s time for another irregularly scheduled domain name newsletter.

(short intro this week, see below for why… I always write the intros last).

Tip Of The <Whatever Cadence These Newsletters Are Sent At>

Not sure how well known this is, but if you bid on a name in GoDaddy’s auction and then the people that bid above you don’t pay (for whatever reason, sometimes fraud, sometimes other issues), you get the domain for whatever your last bid placed was.

In 2020 (ish) I ended up getting a DR 70 REALLY NICE BRAND .com for $3k because the bidders above me never paid. I don’t remember what it sold for… 5k? Maybe 7k? (Ah, those were the days, before this shit went mainstream—that same domain would easily clear $30k+ today in auction).

I wrote about that name in my newsletter at the time, and just threw a bid in at some point. I ended up using that name to build an authoritative site that I sold (but still kept the name, and then sold the name last year for 2x or higher of what I bought it for. NOT BAD).

Earlier this year I threw a shit bid ($200 ish) at a DR 50 name which quickly ran up to $6k+ — I didn’t win but the name was never paid for and I ended up getting it for 200 ish. Sweet!

So this is just a tip to, if you see a name you like, just throw a bid on it. You never know…

(Also: people are using this to get names for cheap—they will use two accounts to bid a name up to staggering amounts, and then one account doesn’t pay and the other account gets it for super cheap but just FYI before you try this yourself I’m pretty sure this is called FRAUD)…

How I Sold 13 Psychedelic Domains For $100k

I bought a lot of psychedelic-related names over the past year or two—a natural outgrowth of my interest in cannabis-related names. I’m really bad at… doing things, so I didn’t list them anywhere or whatever, I just redirected them to one single, very basic-bitch website that was just a headline and a text list of names I was selling.

So if you visited one of these names it would automatically take you to this text list.

It said “inquire at the form below” but I never put a form on the site, lol. So there was no way to contact me!

But someone found these names and reached out via a GoDaddy broker to inquire about them.

Here are the 13 names:

• Afterglow.org

• DailyPsychedelic.com

• Fungi.ai

• PsychedelicRehab.com

• PsychedelicTherapists.com

• Psychonaut.org

• GoldenTeacher.com

• MDMAScience.COM

• MDMA.ai

• Molecul.com

• Psilocybin.ai

• PsiloNews.com

• OnPsychedelics.com

I got most of those names at GoDaddy Auction, and some of the better ones via Sedo and Afternic. All in, the sum acquisition price of those names was about $14k

I didn’t really want to sell, so I came back with a fucking absurd price, like $600k lol.

No response

I sat on it for a week. I really wanted to save these for when psychedelics became very mainstream, but I’m still waiting to sell some super nice cannabis domains and that’s SO MUCH FURTHER ALONG than psychedelics and still interest is small, so I was like fuck it, there’s things I can do with this money…

So I wrote back and I was like, okay, here’s a better offer. $125k (or something).

They came back and said $60k was their max. ALSO, for some reason the GoDaddy commission was being applied to the domains on MY end, instead of the buyers, even though THEY reached out to ME.

I said, maybe, but you gotta do better. It’s insane that you’re sticking me GoDaddy’s cut.

So the Afternic guy (who was legit, thanks Richard) further negotiated the deal so that they’d pay $100k, of which I’d get $85k.

Okay fine, that’s cool with me.

So I pulled the trigger and sold all of those. I do miss my .orgs (psychonaut.org and afterglow.org), but I made very good use of those funds.

I’ve not had ANY hits on my psychedelic names since—despite this buyer only buying some of the best (and some of the… pretty average brandables).

Anyway, that’s the story.

Questions? Hit reply.

SEO Domains At Auction

So, look. I hurt my wrist when I went out to do some snow shoveling after I wrote the first part, and one thing I cannot do anymore (for now… one hopes?) is type things.

Hurts to type, so I only got one domain done with commentary, but here’s the stats from Ahrefs, you can dig in yourself. Sorry!

OrlandoBrewing.com

A DR 43 ranking for a few hundred keywords (which translates to about a thousand organic visits/mo). Solid, but geo-locked brand.

Some REAL GOOD links

Seven days left—cheap, but it won’t stay that way…

BrandPackaging.com 

Public-NYC.com

FreeLotto.com

TechTonic.com

RentVillas.com

RankXL.com

Someone buy RankXL for me—it used to be an SEO brand and I want it (but don’t want to pay money… you know how it goes)

APeaceTreaty.com

~

blah. shitty, cut-short newsletter—hopefully better than NO newsletter.

until next time…

sean
ranktheory.com