Unlike the early days in my domain investing journey, I found myself hand registering a few domains the other day.

As I was on autopilot, clicking through each screen of GoDaddy up selling additional domain extensions, email, etc., I arrived at a new web page not displayed before to my knowledge.

From idea to planning to operating to finding an audience, all personal and business brands have all likely struggled with one thing when considering their launch.

Whether a new service, product, solution or brand in general, finding the perfect domain can often times feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Thousands often base the name of their brand on the availability of a .com domain name.

There’s nothing like discovering a domain name you’ve long to own is up for sale, and even better when it’s not renewed and in expired domain auction.

In the case of the latter, tens of thousands of domains expire in auction daily. There are quite a few expired domain aftermarket platforms for domain investors, hobbyists, and businesses to bid on expiring domains.

But sometimes the domain a given person desires is actively registered and used by someone. In fact, I’ve discovered many domains I long to own for Kickstart Commerce and other businesses I operate to be registered and not being used or websites no longer being updated.

In many cases, if I’m unable to reach or work out a deal with the registered owner of the given domain, then I often hatch the next move in my plan to assume ownership of the domain: backordering.

Month after month, I tirelessly search and peruse the Internet for digital strategy topics to create new or update existing article, tutorial, video, and podcast content.

While performing keyword research for an upcoming article and possible podcast, I stumbled upon an interesting search result pertaining to a new domain name leasing marketplace just for apps.

With Day One and Day Two of MERGE! long gone, I had the pleasure of kicking off Day Three moderating the Domain Name Solutions for Blockchain Challenges panel which consisted of Jothan Frakes, Jebidiah Burnett, Toby Hall, Dave Evanson, and Jodee Rich.

If you’re new to the domain investing (even if you’re not), then you likely encounter a how cumbersome of a task it is to identify undervalued domains.

From NameJet to GoDaddy to Dynadot to SnapNames along with many more domain auction aftermarket platforms, identifying and narrowing in on undervalued domains — whether expired, public, private, or closeout — is a full time job in itself.

Thousands of domains expire in auction daily (as a subset of data is shown via DomainState.com chart below), and an unidentified number of those domains go on to be caught, or deleted and made available for hand registration (small percentage, but still happens).

It’s now weeks before the 2nd Annual MERGE! Conference — a digital asset conference event gathering a number of different conferences under a single roof and with a common access pass.

As a new conference bursting onto the domain conference scene in its inaugural debut last year, I wasn’t sure what to expect although I had attended insightful events, DNHouston and DNSeattle, leading up to it.

Little did I realize, MERGE! was perfect “next” event and stepping stone to have attended. I encourage all to consider attending MERGE! this year — especially domain investors — based on the following 5 reasons: