1. To use it for a website that they intend to use for themeselves now or later for their community, their business, their interests as a blog, in these cases hyphens in the name, though not ideal,  are not overly concerned about.
2. To either create a website on that domain name with the sole purpose  to sell it as a working website worth buying OR keep hold of the domain name and park or store it in hope that someone will pay them as much money as they can get for it now or in the future.

Unfortunately, finding a good domain name that will work, is brandable, has high social interest and is potentially worth large sums of money on it’s own without a good working website attached, is extremely difficult to obtain as a very large percentage of them have already been purchased, parked or redirected and will continue to stay that way for many years or until someone forgets to renew, gets board and gives up the interest or they sell it at the first half decent offer they receive.

Gumtree, Ebay, Twitter, Google, Face Book : think about those names, we all know them now, but not so long ago all three were unheard of and honestly, would you ever have considered using any of those three domain names for the purpose they are being used for ? and could you imagine that they would be so successful ?

What is the one thing they all have in common ? They are all short, easy to say, very easily remembered and commercially brandable.

Nowadays, generally a good domain name is only as good as the person or the website behind it, how well the name is known relies a lot on how easy it is to remember, how quick and easy it is to say, how well it has been promoted to the world , unless of course you are lucky enough to think of a domain name that everyone has missed and is used on a daily basis then generally it’s the catchiness that makes the domain name work and generally high promotion levels and countless repetitiveness plus of course sheer hard work . If you can crack all that then you could be very quids in but the chances of that are very, very slim.

We also now have multiple domian name extensions, .com, .co.uk, ,me, org, .TV , .co, .eu, .ie, . in
There is a domain name extension for most countries, so even if you happen to stumble across a good domain name, chances are most of the main extensions will already have been taken so it’s possible you may only be able to purchase .info or .org.uk etc which really does narrow your chances of making any money or even a website that is worth mentioning or even worth creating .
If you had Hotels.info, chances are people would enter Hotels.com, or Hotels.co.uk and your .info would simply go stale and do nothing worthwhile as it is not obvious.

In the early days of the internet, domain names were not really taken that seriously as the internet was so new, after all the net was intended to be used as a communication tool, not an information or business tool.  But some people saw a possible future commodity of the domain name and some of the biggest names in the business world were snapped up by chance takers willing to spend a few Quid  or Bucks to hold a name that was big in society and some of them got lucky very early on with large companies paying obscene amounts of money to get the name of their business for the Internet once they saw how fast it was all starting to develop and how the World Wide Web was starting to become a serious entity around the world. An entity that for many turned into a commodity.

Now the other end of the spectrum. Nowadays, generally all the ‘major’ , ‘obvious’ domain names have been snapped up and are either used to hold a website or are parked or are redirected to another domain or website. Which leaves people like you and me with the dregs of what is left and having to work overtime in order to get the domain name that is right or even harder, a domain name that is potentially worth lots of money to the right buyer.
I purchased the domain name FinancialApple.com a few years ago and had ideas that I would sell it to make a profit as I really thought it was a good name. Two years later after trying to sell it at domain name auctions and selling sites, I let the domain expire. Immediately someone else purchased the name and put it up for sale for around $1500.
It didn’t sell and I watched with interest to see what would happen to it, obviously feeling slightly gutted that I had let it expire, but nothing came of it. Financialapple.com is still available to be purchased by someone but strangely enough, Financialapple.net has been purchased and is parked at Go Daddy. Maybe one day FinancialApple.com will be bought and used to make a great website, who knows, maybe it never will but I certainly would not waste any more money keeping hold of it for another year or two.

Forgetting about domain names to sell for huge profits, today, a domain name that is purchased from the ‘left over dregs’ is only worth what the website offers. So basically, you may think you have a great domain name, but what is that domain name going to be used for ? If the website is workable, likeable, catchy, the domain name is memorable and the website works so well that people really catch onto it, then the chances are there is a future for both domain name and website, but generally only as a duo. If you can crack the website and get it so popular that people keep coming back to yoru site, then you can even get away with a really obtuse or strange domain name as people will start to remember it.
CraigsList.com, it’s a classifieds directory, basic in design and feel but used by thousands of people every day. How much it’s worth I have no idea BUT (personally I think it’s a daft name) CraigsList.com is known worldwide. Obviously not as popular as Facebook or Ebay but still more popular and receiving more traffic than millions of other classified sites out there on the net.

Nowadays people want to buy,  a working, monetising website that people like, use and keep coming back to and in our honest opinion , most parked domain names will probably sit parked doing nothing for many years to come and even if they do sell, it probably will be in years to come and probably for very little return if not at a loss after adding the cost of years of parking and domain renewals. Many, many domain names are passed around like Dinky Toys on Ebay with most people only making a small profit (if any at all) or selling at a loss just to recoup some of the money they have spent on buying the domain repeatedly over a few years. Not good business acumen BUT it does keep people on their toes and can be fun if you don’t mind parting with a few pounds or dollars in taking a chance. Ultimately it’s easy to get carried away and if you are considering buying a domain names to sell, be very, very shrewd and kick yourself before you part with your cash and start getting excited unless it is blatantly obvious you have found a gem and not some fools gold that will only torment you into believing you will be rich one day from that domain name purchase.

Google
You Tube
Face Book
Twitter
Gumtree
Ebay

Those websites are known and are working globally with millions of visitor hits daily each and are worth an absolute fortune each. BUT look at the work it has taken to get them to that stage, look how many years they have been running and consider how many people it takes and has taken to get those sites up and running and maintained in order to create the services that they provide to internet users.. The money and time that is needed to create a working website that people like and go back to regularly takes time, dedication, money, resources, skill and lots of patience. Repeat that sentence 10 times and you will have a slim idea of just how much work goes into creating a website that has the potential to be worth a lot of money.

So when you decide to next purchase a domain name in the hope of selling it for a profit or keeping hold of one for a rainy day, don’t hold your breath and give your credit card or your wallet to your neighbours Rottweiler dog to look after as  reaslistcally you should only hope to see something back and a learning experience on the way.  But who knows, you may get lucky and find that elusive or super catchy domain name that just smacks you round the face like a wet kipper and says, People will love this. Then you have a lot of work to do in order to convince people that you have the one that is worth it.