As I have said previously, I believe that domain names are the internet equivalent of real estate and recently I have been adding quite a few names to my portfolio.

A few days ago I decided to take stock of just exactly how many domain names I currently had registered and realised that I had just passed the 500 mark with the registration of bunchofflowers.co.uk.

Flowers and related gifts are big business in the online world and competition is fierce. That’s actually good news for the likes of me who has no interest in setting up a virtual flower stall, but who can make money from the numerous affiliate schemes offered by online florists.

Flowers are sent to people for numerous reasons - on birthdays, to say thankyou, on Valentine’s Day and so on - the name bunchofflowers.co.uk can be used to sell related gifts and services.

I have no plans to develop it at the moment, and may end up redirecting it to a bigger project, but it was too good a name to let pass me by. Especially when you are talking less than £3 a year to register it or any other .co.uk domain name.

Incidentally, I also got bunch-of-flowers.co.uk at the same time. I’m not a big fan of double hyphens in domain names usually, but thought this was worth getting so that I had the pair should I wish to develop the name fully at a later date.

You have to be careful when building a domain name portfolio however. It is all too easy to succumb to “domain name fever” and see value in every two or three word combination you see. And I speak from experience having spent a mad two weeks a few years ago registering hundreds of names that I have since let go because they were of next to no real use to man or beast.

Focus on registering names that have real value both to you and to others should you wish to sell them on in the future. And primarily to you. There are countless individuals out there who registered “fantastic” domain names in the hope of making a quick buck who haven’t a hope in hell of finding a buyer for what in reality are worthless domains.

While doing my stock take I came across a list of domains that were for sale by a domain name speculator in December 2003.

At first glance the list contains some quite good domains and the seller wasn’t asking that much for them either. But of the 32 names offered for sale, the seller still has 27 registered in his own name so no sales there. Two have changed hands and three are currently available to register - and the two that are now registered under different names look like they dropped rather than were sold on.

The good news is that your typical domain name only has to bring in £3 a year to earn its keep and that isn’t a problem. The affiliate commission on selling my first bunch of flowers would cover that for both bunchofflowers.co.uk and its hyphenated friend.