A great thread was just started by Gene over at Namepros. The thread asks domainers to offer the one domain name tip they see as being the most important for the success of a domain name newcomer who planning on buying or registering domains.  If you could give but one domain name tip, what would it be?

Answers so far are exactly what I’d tell anyone starting out in the domain name world — .com is god and do your own research before investing. I happened to arrive at the thread after these 2 suggestions had been made and hence offered the tip that any domain name newcomer read and follow to a tee the above 2 tips (does that count?). Those really are the most important things in my opinion — most domain newbies get burned if they invest in any extension other than .com, as do most domain newbies investing in .com without first doing their own research. Now, just imagine how badly burned a domain newbie will get if they don’t do their own research and invest in a different extension! Ouch. I don’t even want to think about that… “Burned” is too gentle a word to describe what’s resulted from their domain name investments… Does financially destroyed get the point across? What’s really sad is exactly what one person left as a comment a few days ago — that most of the people that need to read this most aren’t ever going to see it. Isn’t it ironic that many of the people that need to do their research most (new domainers) are the ones who do the least of it! How many of us won’t at the very least run some metrics and/or ask about revenue and traffic before buying a domain? Some of these domain newbies are so excited to get into the domain name market, it’s as if common sense just went out the window. I’ve seen a few new domainers now needlessly waste $5000+ on new domains. If they would have run these domains by anyone who had been in the biz longer than a week, they most likely wouldn’t have received the green light to go ahead and register these domains… But did they do that? I wouldn’t be writing a post about them if they had done their research! I could blog about this everyday..

I tease the newbies sometimes but the truth is, I don’t like seeing anyone losing a pile of money they didn’t need to lose. Those domain name registrars and registries have enough money already — don’t give them more unless it’s for good reason! New domainers today are lucky there are so many resources out there to help them. New domainers can complain all they want about there being slim pickings today as compared to the past, but I think any domainers who’s been around a few years knows how easy these newcomers have it today — the domain forums literally serve all the domain name information a domain newbie could possibly want on a silver platter. And let’s not forget about the tens of thousands of members on these domain name forums offering advice, many of whom are happy to answer questions. So don’t feel sorry for yourself for coming late to the domain name game — as many domainers would say, you’re still early, and as I’d like to say, you’ve got it easier than anyone ever has. The market today is proven, the resources out there are practically endless, the amount of networking going on has never been higher, nor has been the ability to stay in contact using services like Twitter.

If you’re a new domainer, that link I posted at the start of this post is probably something you should come back to in a couple days — heck, I’m going to come back to it myself, just out of curiosity of what other domainers see as being most important.

Related posts:

1. Why Don’t More Domainers Visit DomainState?
2. For Domain Newbies: Becoming a Better Domain Name Investor
3. Why You Should Ask For Domain Appraisals