DomainTools Blog

Buying and Selling Domains – Advice from the Experts
One of the workshop sessions on Day 2 of Domainfest featured a panel of experts who talked about the best tips and strategies for buying and selling domains. The panel included Michael Berkens, Larry Fischer, Tessa Holcomb, Jason Miner, and Kathy Nielsen. Whether you’re a domain investor, buyer or domains are part of your job description, the session was very informative.

Predictions for the Domain Market in 2011

Among the panel, the first prediction for the domain market in 2011 was that it will continue to grow with new players looking at domains for acquisition, monitization or brand building purposes. The second prediction was that the largest domain sale will likely happen this year, perhaps in the $20-$30 million dollar range.

Here are highlights of some of the best advice they had to share about buying and selling domains:

Selling Domains…

• Keep your Whois information accurate! Buyers are leveraging Whois, and by keeping your contact information accurate, you’ll help maximize your sales (There was a nice shout out to DomainTools.com when the panel spoke about Whois information and the best way to find it!). When buying a domain from someone you may not know or trust, make sure you protect yourself by researching the domain’s history. There are many websites that offer basic Whois lookup information, but DomainTools.com offers extensive historical information including Whois, IP Address (web hosting), Name Server, Registrar and Thumbnail History to help provide a complete view of a domain’s life cycle. Be sure to leverage DomainTools’ Whois for basic DNS checks.
• Provide a Ballpark Selling Price. If you want to sell your domain, the experts recommend starting with a buy it now price or at least start with some type of price point. This is more attractive for small and medium businesses in particular who are looking for a negotiation starting point and it also gives them a stronger sense of trust. If you simply have a ‘make an offer’ option, it may be more intimidating for those smaller and medium sized businesses to take the first step and approach you.
• Get your Domain in Front of Multiple Outlets. It’s strategic to extend your distribution points (again, make sure your Whois information is updated).
• For Larger Domain Sales, Go with an Escrow Company and Draw Up a Contract. These services protect both the buyer and seller. Escrow.com is an escrow company to look into, and you might also seek the guidance of a domain lawyer.
• Negotiating a Sale? It’s All About Speed to Market. As a seller, be sure to name your price, provide a link at the top of your domain’s page, and be quick to respond to parties of interest since many buyers are simultaneously looking into other opportunities.

Buying Domains…

• Do your Research and Investigate What’s Going On with Keywords and Extensions. It’s a must –  you need to nvestigate what is going on with other keywords and extensions to see if it might be worth your time and investment. Example: if you’re interested in purchasing a .co domain name, see how popular it is with a .net or .com extension to see what traffic it’s driving.
• To Buy or Not to Buy? Ultimately, choose a vertical or find domains you are interested in so you know facts and figures well. Also look at CPC (cost-per-click) trends and other domain sales numbers in your industry over the past year, and also trust your gut.
• There is a Strong International Buying Market. Kathy Nielsen of Sedo shared trending information: .de and .eu are some of the most popular ones to invest in.
• Diversify Your Portfolio. Like investing in stocks, it’s good to diversify your holdings. You can still register many good .co domains, and the buying market for .tv is also doing well (according to Sedo).
• Domain Brokerage Services: Good for Higher Priced Names. Constant feedback, goal to generate lots of interest among many parties bidding in name.
• Domain Investing Newbies Who are Looking to Get Started:Look at Name drops. Some registrars drop into certain places (example – some drop with snapnames.com so you’ll want to check there), others drop at certain times. If you want more guidance, work with an adviser or broker who can walk you through the process of name drops.
• Popular Categories for Buying and Selling Domains are in Health, Fitness, Finance and Gaming. Look at google traffic and SEO rankings.
• Heavily Consider the Brand Value of TLDs. Also, heavily consider the content (if it is built out) as this will impact the long term value.

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A very interesting thread going on at NamePros right now:

Hello everyone,I have been a part of this SEDO .mobi auction auction and I am the one responsible for the bid $611,000 for music.mobi.

However I stopped bidding at the point where I realised that the NEW auction was a scam because the two bidders that were bidding me up were NEW bidders who were not even involved in the initial auction.

The initial auction closed with me winning the last bid at $66,000.

I received an invoice and 2 emails regarding the winning bid.

Let me ask everything this key question? If you are bidding on eBay and you have a 7 day auction and you take a chance and wait til the last second to bid what if your DSL line or connection or even your computer crashes? I think many of us had this experience in the past. I know I had this happen last week on eBay when my computer froze and in essence lost the bid. Did eBay care? NO! Does SEDO care if you WERE going to bid and failed to do so if your computer crashed or had a slow connection? NO! Well, wait a second in this case they do.

They proclaimed me winner send me 2 emails, sent me an invoice. I considered the bid finished and was ready to go and play guitar and record this new song I was working on in the studio. By chance, I get an email by whom? BOTH the .mobi MTLD who started INVITING people via a bulk message hyping them up that the servers have crashed and that there is huge demand for the .mobi auction. Then Sedo followed. So 2 bulk messages sent to the world inviting them to attend a NEW auction. Not only that, they extended the auction to 2.5 hrs NOT 5 minutes.

Anyhow, I seriously have been negotiating with .mobi since 2006 about music.mobi but they seem to want money and to rob everyone of money than have someone develop a super site like I am. So the whole RFP was bogus. I tried fir over a year and they just said “you will have to bid for it”.

So, I am really upset, they caused me to miss my jam session and on top of that they allowed NEW bidders to the new auction. I say I have NO PROBLEM with old bidders that were active in the original auction bidding their maximum. Even though I was invoiced $66,000 I emailed SEDO and MTLD letting them know that I would pay them $81,000 because bidder 9 (I was the last bidder 12 to bid for the name in the original auction) rebid his maximum at $80k.

So there comes along NEW bidders 13 and 14 who did not even attend the initial, legal auction. They probably got the bulk email fro both SEDO and MTLD and invited themselves to the dance. HOW can an auction that has ended have NEW bidders? I have no problems bidding with the 12 bidders that have bid against me in the initial auction but NEW bidders who were enticed by HYPE emails? Have you ever heard of a closed auction then an hour later having a new bidder say I will outbid the winner even though i was not even in the auction? NO!

Anyhow, the bid to $616,000 is illegal. I sent the MTLD and SEDO an email and let them know that they should retract all my bids ($611,000) that were automatically placed by SEDO as a result of NEW bidders who were not even active in the original auction. In the new auction, the only legal bidder was bidder 9 who was also in the original auction. The bidder bid for $80k and i outbid him.

How can I be declared a winner then told that I am not the winner then they invite new bidders? Also how can they say that their terms of services states that they can redo the auction and there is no legal agreement? REALLY? I checked it and i saw no section that related to servers crashing and technology interruptions.Tough luck, you had 7 days to bid and you didnt. You cant be bidding after. You take a chance, then be brave enough to live by it and acknowledge that you had considerable time to bid. And the new bidders 13 and 14 and dont care who you are but you had no place bidding in an auction with the old active bidders.

Sedo I have bought numerous domains for tens of thousands of dollars and I refuse to park them and make money off parking (Domain King you can do that and **** the internet up for all of us). I will NEVER do business again with thieves especially the MTLD. They are making bank and playing everyone.

OK my story is not done yet. I stop bidding at $611k because in my mind I should not be bidding against NEW bidders (yes I did realise it at the end) who had no place in the auction since they did not attend the original one. So i stop and half an hour later I get a message from SEDO asking me if I was interested to buy mp3s.mobi for $500,000? So let me get this straight. because I bid up to $611,000 (yes I am retracting this bid and every other bid made against NEW, illegal bidders), does that mean you think I should buy another music domain? I told them I would not buy mp3s.mobi for $300 and basically told them that they will hear from my lawyers if this mess is not solved.

I suggest a class lawsuit and I seriously will BOYCOTT both SEDO and MTLD. I loved SEDO and have been a client for years but this money hungry, sleazy, unethical tactics are unacceptable. For all of you complaining that you did not get a bid in the last 5 minutes tough luck, you had 7 days (considerable time that is). I took a chance and won. I would have bid higher but I am not going to fill SEDO and MTLD’s pockets with my hard earned money because they screwed up royally.

What can I say? I am ready to kick some serious butt here. And sue these guys for emotional distress. SEDO seriously, you lost one of your top clients and super domainers. Lost my respect and you have robbed me and others in all fairness. I seriously will NOT let this go. If justice is not served, I will sue, I will go to the press, I will tell my story, I will post all the emails I got, invoices and screenshots of my winning bid and I am sure it will reflect future SEDO=MOBI auctions. Did anyone say sex.mobi? Yes, the MTLD is greedy and so is SEDO. This is bad business. REALLY bad. Not sure I can trust them. i will not be surprised if Bidder 13 and 14 were internal just to bid up my proxy of $611,000.

The world record is not real people. It would have been if other original bidders bid me up to $615k. The new bidders in my mind either are internal fake bidders or new, illegal bidders who came in after being sent bulk emails by both SEDO/MTLD full of hype.

If they do not accept my winning auction and fair win versus the original bidders even in the new auction, then I WILL pursue this since I do have some spare change here now.

Costa

MusicMusic.com
Music.us
Music.pro
Music.im
Music.fm
MP3.fm

Blog: Entrepreneur.pro

PS After 3 years of development, I will be launching the biggest music site in the beginning of 2008, so if anyone knows any bands who would be interested, let them know to sign up their email at music.us. So much for the .mobi implementation on my site.

Read the full thread.

There are a lot of parking companies out there and two of the biggest are Sedo and TrafficZ. I would like to think we are in a small community where everyone gets along and there are no conflicts that can’t be solved by just talking it out. Tim Schumacher the CEO of Sedo registered TrafficZ.de and pointed it to a Sedo signup page for its own parking service, I think that crosses a few moral lines. This has got to be the most flattering thing I have seen. TrafficZ has been trying to resolve this conflict for a while and I hope it gets solved soon. I don’t like to publicly call people out but the two companies have been fighting over this for a while and I think it is a stupid conflict. Sedo should do the right thing and let’s move on. This industry is big enough for multiple companies.

TrafficZ.de

More names sold. Here is a run down from Sedo. There are a lot of good ones like Encrypt.com for $76K. I love first names and Pat.com was purchased for a awesome price of $63K. The Drug, PCP.com was sold for $12K. A huge $25K for PlayTennis.net. I think the diamond in the rough was MultipleListingNetworks.com for $1500.

Estately.com sells for $5500. We talked about that domain earlier this week. I think this was a real steal.

A new lawsuit has been filed in the Northern District Court of Illinois by Vulcan Golf against the following companies: Google, Inc. Oversee.net, Sedo LLC, Dotster, Internet REIT, and John Does 1 through 10. The Civil Docket for the case is number 1:07-cv-03371. The demand is for $1,000,000 and it cites Trademark Infringement (15:1051). The case was filed on the 15th of this month and the nature of the suit was “470 Racketeer/Corrupt Organization”. The documents for the case were not available because they are said to be not legible however one could obtain those documents directly from the clerk’s office by calling 312-435-5699 during normal business hours.

I assume this is a domain parking lawsuit because they name parking companies. Thanks to George Kirikos for giving us a heads up.

We have seen some companies complain about their name triggering ads on the actual Google search engine but my gut feeling tells me this lawsuit has to do with companies that have domain typos of Vulcan Golf.com.

Tim Schumacher of Sedo announced this morning that they have bought the old GreatDomains.com website. Tim explained that the sale was a great victory for Sedo because Sedo had once competed with GreatDomains in the aftermarket and it feels good to own the former competitor. This marks an end to Verisign competing in the Secondary Market. There is still rumors from Verisign that if they come back, it will be in the form of a registry service.

The sale was confirmed to be over $2 Million and below the 2000 sale of the company for $50,000,000. Verisign bought the company in the dotcom bubble and was left holding the bag when the market crashed. We think the sale was around $2,200,000 and it included the customer lists and the sales history from all the years that GreatDomains.com existed. GreatDomains has been on a downward spiral since it was bought in 2000. The Traffic is estimated to be around 3,732 US Visitors a month by Quantcast. We can confirm the traffic is over 10,000 visitors a month but in terms of traffic it has seen better days. Sedo has a lot of future plans for their old new brand. They will be holding a monthly auction like Moniker’s auctions except it will be completely online. The auctions will last for 7 days and always start at the same time every month. This represents a significant threat to Moniker. If the monthly auctions take off for generic domains, they could challenge the need for live auctions at conferences. Sedo promises to do out reach with press releases if good domains are scheduled for the auction that month.

I think Sedo over paid for this purchase, but perhaps the customer records and sales data was worth it. The domain has a brand that people remember, a Google PR6, and 7,159 backlinks according to Yahoo. Look for the official PR news release this week.

The Sedo Pro Partner Forum kicked off yesterday here in New York. I have to say I am enjoying it a lot. Here is a recap from the first day in picture form. Enjoy.

Our Ride to the Resort

Lots of networking on a very fun bus ride

We arrived at the resort

Gift Baskets were waiting for us in our rooms

Sedo treated us to all you can eat Lobster and Steak

Alexander grabs two plates full

We had plenty of networking over dinner

We then headed back to play poker until the wee hours of the morning.

I just have to say it pays to Park at Sedo Pro

A huge mistake happened at Sedo last week, they sold Boobtube.com for $41,688 in a very heated auction that last two weeks, but after it was all over and the dust was settled Sedo turned around and canceled the transaction because the seller didn’t really own it. Wow… That is shocking. A two week auction that got into 5 figures turned out to be fake. Venture beat covered this experience because one of the writers was actually bidding on the domain. Read the full article at Venture Beat.

We have noticed other problems at Sedo like how they do not clean up their inventory. They have domains listed for sale that are no longer really listed. For example Wet Paint.com has been listed for sale at Sedo for a long time even though the domain traded hands over two years ago. Sedo doesn’t proactively remove domains from its system so it is hard to tell what is for sale and what is not. I would buy Wetpaint.com for $70.00 like it says at Sedo but I think Ben Elowitz the CEO of WetPaint, Inc. would have a problem with that since they just closed a Series B round of financing of $9.5 million in January.

I just checked auctions at Sedo and I spotted vcharacter.com has a bidder at $100,000 right now! I have to say that is very fishy. That domain is not worth $100,000 so I do not believe that bidder is real. Something needs to happen over at Sedo. Trust is a big factor in online auctions and having reports point out that there are huge wholes in the biggest after market site makes our entire industry look bad.