This is really the business to get into in 2005. It's a red hot opportunity that savvy investors can make a killing if you know how. And this article will walk you step-by-step through the money-making process.

Do not be put off by the term "investors". I am talking big money here. As long as you have a spare £ 5 a week then great money can be made for only half an hour of your time. As the sound of that? Thought so.

There are a few ways you can make moneybuy and sell domain names on them for profit. And I mean PROFIT. You'll see why people would be scratching at your door to buy what you have in just a moment.

Let's start with the basics.

All domain names are registered for only a limited amount time.Registrars may choose the name to use for a period of between 1-10 years. After this the rights to these domain names expire and the user again to renew the name. If they do notthis it will be placed on hold for a short time and then removed. That means it is available to anyone who wants to buy it!

This is where you can cash in!

20,000 expired domain names are made ​​available every day. Some of them are very attractive and well-established names.

Example. Last year the owners of Race.com indifferent not renew their registration fee. It was grabbed (the term used to describe purchasing an expired name) by asavvy 'investor' for a few pounds and sold for thousands and thousands back to the old owner.

The owner was willing to make large sums of money to pay for the investor because he built up qualified traffic over X number of years and did not want all the former spouse loses.

Now I must admit that making a sale for thousands is rare but certainly possible.

Chances are you can buy a domain name and write it for £ 5 – £ 50 and then sell it for anything£ 150 – £ 1000. Do this with five domain names a week, and your looking for a large sum of money for a few hours work.

It's not just businesses that you carelessly let their domain name that will buy. It's other businesses that will rename the old owners' traffic to get buy. This is a legitimate way of increasing your customer base.

And if the old owner and a new potential owner get into a bidding war … well .. the sky is reallythe border.

So there are two main reasons why people are willing to pay you a few hundred pounds for a domain name.

a) They carelessly let the domain expire. This means that they will pay you the name to get back to ensure they not lose their existing traffic doing what they can build in the course of years and years.

B) They are a business in the same field as the one with the name expire and you will pay the exisitng custom to ensurea competitor.

Here are step-by-step how you go about this fantastic part-time profitable business.

There are several sources of expired domain name information and reserach tools, some free and some which a payment of a fee.

http://www.wehavethem.com supplies lists of names due to be removed. http://Www.DeletedDomains.com you can do a little search free and more extensive search for a $ 99 annual fee.You can search for particular dueremove and can also to bid on new names removed other ', investors have been grabbed by.

What you are looking for is an expired domain name with traffic in the last month of anything over 1500. Ensure that the site is an actual consumer site. There's no point buying a domain name as the previous site was not selling any goods.

If you have a site that thousands of visitors in the last month. Chances are thatthe previous owners will be itching to put their name back off of you due to its obvious success.

Also if you see a name with a large qualified traffic thats due to expire and has a high traffic volume use an automated grabbing system such as http://www.snapnames.com and http://www.pool.com . This will ensure that the second they become available you will get registered. The cost is about $ 60, but only if their names for you. Definitely worth it in my eyes.

RememberYou can easily sell the name for hundreds, maybe thousands.

In Part 2 we'll take a look at how you go about selling the names when you acquire. But in the mean time here are a few domain names for sale at the time of writing this article. Now obviously not all names sell for this much, but it is a very real possibility that you could stumble across a gem in your business.

my.com $ 750,000

lovelife.com$ 350,000

fights.net $ 16,000

diet.us $ 35,000

askdoctors.com $ 7,500

dietary.info $ 6,000

lovemaking.info $ 10,000

textmeassage.net $ 17,000

ejobmarket.com $ 1,800

smokers.tv $ 5,000

teens.org $ 22,000

raregifts, com $ 20,000

The profits in this business are like no other. Now it's your turn to get your hands on your share in the billion dollar industry of buying and selling domain names.

Until nexttime …

Jonathan Street