PlylerLuevano54

De Wikis en Educación

I sell domains; I've got a few parked and a few others that anchor websites, but I never thought of myself as a domainer. I hadn't given it much thought, but I always imagined domainers as people who owned hundreds and hundreds of domains. I decided recently it might be amusing to find out what made a domainer a domainer and if I was one. I needed a definition.

In an earlier article I used the word "domainer" in a sentence and immediately my Microsoft Word For Mac: 2008 started screaming at me (Ok, not screaming exactly, but you know what I mean). Since becoming a domain reseller I had seen the word used repeatedly in search results, but even the spelling checker in Google Docs refused to identify it when prompted. I checked Webster's Online Dictionary: same result. I did, however, find it in the Online Domain Dictionary

. It defined domainer as "A person who makes a living in the cyberterritory, making his fortune investing in the field of domain names, buying and selling the Internet's most valuable virtual 'real estate"'.

Fond as I am of the Urban Dictionary, I found this definition more lyrical than descriptive. I tried Googling the keywords "define domainer" and the first Wikipedia definition I found directed me to a "wiki" item on "Cybersquatting." I've heard that some people consider all domainers to be cybersquatters, and I've heard that domainers consider it a dirty word so I looked no further in that area.

I finally found a Domain Definition I really liked on a blog ("blog," oddly enough considering its popularity, is another word that gets red lined by Microsoft Word) that described a domainer as one who did "domaining," i.e. selling, parking and developing domain names. I'm sure your high school English teacher told you to never define a word using the word itself or one of its derivatives; but hey, my high school English teacher taught a long time before Internet domains, domaining or domainers came along and I think I can get away with it. My one problem with this definition was, what did it mean by "developing domain names?" How did you develop a domain other than to anchor a website with it? Which, if you followed too far, would make every owner of a website a domainer, an answer I didn't at all care for.

I searched again and came up with an answer that satisfied me. It's really a matter of intent. Unlike the average website owner for whom the website is the end in itself, for a domainer the site is merely the means to the end; the end being the sale of the domain.

You'll notice that in the definition above there is no mention of numbers. It is enough that you sell, park and develop them. I couldn't find any authoritative sites on the web that used numbers--however arbitrary--to define a domainer.

I can't speak for any of you reading this article, but while I'm not developing any sites with the intent to sell the domains and Define Domain , I do sell them and park them; and since numbers are beside the point I believe I can proudly say (with all due respect to John F. Kennedy) "Ich bin ein Domainer!"