In late 2009 I came to knew about .IM domain names through Namepros.com forum where one guy posted that he forgot to renew couple of .IM domains (Hotel.IM and Job.IM) which was really shocking to read because these are super premium keywords. Both of them were grabbed immediately after they were dropped and Hotel.IM fetched over US$3,000. I thought if such great keywords can get drop than there will be some chance of finding available gems to register.

First I tried to find the registrar which was offering .IM domains at cheaper rates and DomainMonster.com was the best by support and rates as well. I entered all top 500 keywords mostly used on internet to see if any .IM is available and to my good luck I found few and grabbed in immediately.

Today I have over 30 .IM domains under my belt. Some of them includes Social.IM, Mobile.IM, Free.IM, Download.IM, Data.IM, Fashion.IM, Movie.IM, Movies.IM. In the past 3 years I have sold very few with the notable sale of SEO.IM for US$4,000. In my experience I have done good at .IM domains but I would suggest every new domainer who is interested in acquiring must seek only ultra premium keywords because almost every end user is not aware of .IM domain and is difficult to make them understand the benefits and value of it.

In my next article I will share some tips and secrets about .IM domains.

Feel free to share your opinions and which .IM domains you currently own.