Domain Sales; Numbers Game with Timing & Luck

You can judge very little if any significance to value based on the number or frequency of sales inquiries.

Assuming you have good keyword names it involves mostly a matter of timing and luck to get end-user offers and sales. Depends on if a business is in need of a name at a particular moment in time and somehow stumbles across your domain which would benefit from its keyword match.

You can own excellent keyword names which are niche dominating and category killer names but never get an offer over many years or possibly get occasional lowball offers (which lowballs come mostly from domainers or non-serious end-users).

When you read dnjournal.com you may think the vast majority of names had sold for far more than what they are worth. In fact, many names which sold for high amounts may look like reg fee names or domains you would not pay anything more than $100 for but they sold for $1000s.

End-user (non-domainer) sales is little more than a numbers game involving timing and luck.

Diverse Portfolio of Health & Wellness Domains

Just wanted to let anyone who may be interested in acquring health domain names and websites that our health, wellness & disease portfolio of domains and websites is for sale.

It’s said to be the best large and diverse portfolio of targeted traffic health domains available. More information can be found at HealthWebsites.org, or listed for-sale at: Flippa.com…

Low Price .US Domains are Getting Flipped a Lot

Over a year ago we decided to let expire more than 50 mostly bad or dubious value letter dot-us names that we had been holding since as long as the year 2002 when most of them were acquired. We dropped them due to no traffic or income, plus poor acronym use potential.

It has been quite interesting watching the majority if not all of that group sold, resold, resold, resold and sold again on the domain name forums between domainers.

The sale prices are mostly between say $5 to $20. What makes it even more interesting is what with the low prices I don’t see how the domainers are flipping them for a profit and if they are making some money doing that it would not seem to be worth all the time and effort involved. It seems there is no end in sight as I again see many of them posted for sale again on the forums by their latest owners.

Importance of Owning Your Desired Domain

Domain names are extremely popular as far as owning a website with that name, and its potential use as a business presence, marketing venue, e-commerce site, blog, email address and for information and product marketing. Obviously, there is only one exact name which is truly your most desired domain name available or for-sale, making it unique.

You probably realize the high value of owning a good domain and you surely don’t want someone else using “your desired domain name” and getting visitors looking for the domain keywords, the exact search term, or its URL, which visitors could have gone to your website, right? Why in the world permit another potential buyer to acquire your most desired available domain-name of interest and allow competitors to get site visitors going to their site, which visits you could have received instead?

There are a number of businesses and people with interest in also buying and developing your most desired domain, with some potential domain name users being quite well known both on-the-web and in the offline world too, including individuals and small, mid-size and large business owners in various businesses.

For a real-time internet-search to see “your desired domain name” and its search-engine and web-page popularity of the exact search-term, please do a Google search and search on the keywords (wrapped in quotes for exact search-term results) of your desired domain name (using spaces between words), consisting of your desired domain name (but without entering the domain name extension, i.e. .com .org etc).

As a side-note, it’s sometimes interesting to view the Google results when you combine the words without any spaces between the keywords. The results will be much lower vs using spaces but nevertheless it may be informative, especially if the number of search returns for the words without spaces are considerable.

Read about your most desired domain name

Negativity by Paying Domain Broker Upfront Money

Sometimes domain name and website owners may wish to hire a domain brokerage to sell their names or websites. I can give you some good advice (gained via my personal hands-on experience) about that, including a warning about paying any upfront fees to the broker.

Keep in mind, once the domain-broker has your money a good degree of the incentive to work hard and sell your domain or website may be lost since the broker already has his/her money, regardless of the name selling or not selling.

One more potential negative occurrence is the once friendly relationship you had with the broker may quicky go away if there are any business or personal issues involved. That can easily happen as a result of the broker already having your paid in advance monies so he may decline to issue a refund if you are later unhappy with his work and perfomance.

More information about why you should never even think about paying a fee in advance to a broker (which we published over a year ago) as part of a post about the category defining premium domain names LiveApp.com plus LiveApps.com both being available for purchase, located here: About Domain Broker and Live App domains for sale .

A good article about domain brokers was recently published in Elliotsblog.com in which Elliot lists domain name brokers. I know several of the same domainers/brokers and can suggest the following domain brokers, which Elliot listed in his post:

• BigTicketDomains.com – Kevin Leto
• DifferentInvestments.com – Justin Godfrey
• DomainBroker.com – Rob Sequin
• DomainsForMedia.com – Eric Rice
• MediaOptions.com – Andrew Roesner
• NameConnect.com – John Daly

By the way, Webtrading also offers a domain brokerage service (mosty for our own websites but the brokerage service can also be used to buy domains belonging to other parties), which you can learn more about by clicking-on the image below. In addition, any comments you may have about selling domains and websites, or regarding domain brokers will be appreciated.

High Priced Domain Name Pricing Model

The concept of asking a very high price for low or moderate value domain names is used by both Marchex and Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. In the past I tried to buy a few names (which if they were my names would be asking under 1k) but Frank wanted a minimum of 8k firm or even more, and would not budge a bit or negotiate the price.

Of course, that’s their business decision and a business model they apparently are following. With that said, in view of the fact they do want to sell domains, we do not see how Marchex Inc or Frank Schilling could possibly be selling many domains since I feel their prices are even more than end-user domain values.

In addition, they make you jump through a bunch of hoops, stumbling blocks and complexities before you can even make an inquiry, making buying from NameAdmin even more unlikely vs if their pricing was more realistic or flexible.

We will appreciate any comments you have about Money Matters, which feedback we could also add to our web site as we are looking for money matters and monetary ideas to expand the web site.

Domain Inquiry Sounds Better vs Domain For Sale

There has been talk on the forum boards about the best way to place a notice on your website that your domain name is for sale. Fabulous.com does a good job combining PPC ads with a domain for sale announcement page and developed a type of hybrid between a parked page and a sales page. With that said, ‘This Domain Name is For Sale’ notice does a fairly good job of getting people to make offers, but there appears to be a better way.

That Fabulous page is a good approach but I would like it even more if the banner said “Domain Inquiry” since I believe “This Domain Name is For Sale” notice will detract from the the visitor experience and potential visits to your advertisers (at least to to a degree) since the page may have has less crediblity due to the site/domain being offered for sale. The words “Domain Inquiry” has a less obvious negative meaning to a web-surfer, imo.

Any reviews, comments or ideas you have about how to effectively and professionally sell Internet domain names or websites would be appreciated. Thank you.

Dallas Cowboys Alleged Domain Price Stupidity

Part of the problem with domain name disputes and domain complaints is the fact so many companies are unwilling to spend a fair amount of money buying already registered domains to protect their valuable brands.

A more or less perfect example is how the Dallas Cowboys representatives made a bid of only $275 (really $275 and not a misprint) for the great Cowboys.com domain name at an auction when other auction bids were in the general area of 200k or higher.

However, strangely the Cowboys allegedly grossly misunderstood the auction price level (in spite of the fact a series of auction bids had worked their way up to more than $200,000., while they were present in-person at the venue) but somehow were oddly thinking a bid of just $275 would buy that great domain. Isn’t that amazing! They say the truth is stranger than fiction. A story like that is so far fetched it could not be made-up!

There is a TV show about the World’s Dumbest and the Dallas Cowboys reps at the domain auction (who I heard it said at least one was a Cowboys attorney) should definitely be on that show based on the alleged auction bidding events.

The proposed world’s dumbest appearance would include the upper management where for just 275k (which should be insignificant to an assumed billion dollar plus business) they later cancelled their absurd $275 bid after being informed the bid should have been $275,000.

This incredible true story about some of the alleged dumbest people on the planet is very hard to believe but this did in fact happen a few years ago.

Domain/Website Resale Markets Are Depressed

A domain name forum menber asked about more than unusual numbers of non-forum threads and posts lately and was wodnering why that seems to be taking place? My answer is maybe it appears that way because the domain name/website resale market appears to be declining big time and since so few are successfully selling (with the notable exception of the many which somehow almost magically sell in the DNjorunal.com sale reports each week for surprising prices) forum members have little to do all day except pass time with the non-domain related posts.

An example of how hard it is to sell at forums these days I was checking yesterday and see a majority of believed dubious or marginal value names I let expire (and got zero responses on via the Forums, or thru the Whois contact information and at other venues such as my Websites) were in fact puchased by others at places such as Snapnames.com, for example, and at for high prices vs the small amounts I would have quickly taken for them (even though I rarely offer names or websites for sale). I also see BuyDomains.com ended up getting many of my cancelled names. Really odd the marginal names appear to rarely sell at forums and via for-sale-listings at auction websites for a fraction of the prices many domain sellers would have accepted. Anyone know why?

LiveApp.com and LiveApps.com domains for sale

Two very high profile premium domains for sale, LiveApps.com and LiveApp.com. Registered since 1999. Available as a pair or individually.

There are more than 65,000 app developers and well over 100,000 apps already developed. I believe Apple Computer purchased AppStore.com last month for a ton of money.

The domains are not being sold by a broker at this time. Please contact me direct for more details or with any reasonable offers.

P.S. also interested in finding a good domain broker to market and sell these 2 great LiveApp(s) domains. Willing to pay substantial commission upon sale but not paying upfront fee as unfortunately was done before. As a side-note, domainers can be warned to avoid paying a fee in advance to a broker no matter how legit he seems, or well known he is. That’s because there’s always a possibility of a falling-out and you losing the money (since the broker already received his money, with the potential sales commission perhaps not really being his main goal but you did not realize that aspect) and thus the broker may not do much ‘work’ for you or be slow at the marketing (possibly because he already has his money) so you may end-up in a dispute and ask for a refund but the broker may not want to refund your pre-paid money, been there and done that, unfortunately! Another issue which casts doubt about how legitimate the up-front fee model is you have to ask yourself why if the broker can really get a buyer he simply does not do so regardless of getting money in advance, especially since his commission will normally be far greater than the up-front fee he wants?The answer to that question should be obvious.

It’s Always Tough Giving a Buy Price or Sale Price

One of the the most frustrating things about the domain name and website business is that in the normal course of business (even if the name or its website is not listed for sale) there will be occasional unsolicited offers to buy your domains and/or websites but most everyone has great reluctance to make the first move regarding a sales price.

In all likelihood, the typical great reluctance by both buyers and sellers to name an agreeable price results in the large majority of web site or domain-name potential transactions failing.

A prospecive buyer does not want to give a specific offer because of two reasons:

1. The prospective buyer is thinking the offer may be more than sellers expected price so seller will accept it right away and he would pay more than was needed.

2. Conversely, buyer is thinking his proposed price is too low so seller may act negative and not respond at all or else act insulted replying with a sky high price of say $50,000 for a domain he really would normally sell for $5,000 or less as an example.

A potential seller does not want to give the buyer a specific buy-it-now price due to two reasons (this is especially applicable if the buyers full identity is not known):

1. Seller may be thinking the accepable buy price is lower than what buyer was really willing to pay. Thus buyer will accept the price and domain or website would get sold for less than its potential price.

2. If proposed buy price is perceived as too high by the potential buyer it may turn buyer negative and buyer will nt reply at all. That would be unfortunate since seller may in reality accept much less than the quoted high price but never has a chance to negotiate the price since buyer already walked away or went on to an alternative name for sale or a newly registered domain.

Not really sure what solutions there may be to this ongoing problem, which in-effect stands in the way of a great number of sales. Anyone know a way to avoid this?

The Secret Identifying an End-User vs a Domainer

A “domainer” is a person or business who invests or trades in domains with the goal of reselling them for a profit, flipping them, or buys domain names mostly to park them with a domain parking firm running so called “Pay-Per-Click” advertisements on the web-pages with generating income (getting paid when a visitor clicks on ads on the page) in mind. Some domainers are also developers in the sense they develop a number of so called “minisites” which are small websites (often 5 web-pages or less).

A major intent with minisites is also to receive PPC income (typically from Yahoo or Adsense ads appearing in the pages), or from Affiliate program sales. However, some minisites may also offer various products and services for sale, often accompanied by advertising. Sometimes the minisite may be developed to help enhance the value of its corresponding domain name and bring traffic to it since it has been developed and may be listed well in the search-engines as a result of development and search engine optimization (SEO) work.

An end-user is much more likely to pay a significantly greater price for your domain vs much lower price offers you will get from domainers. That is to be expected since the end-user buyer is much more serious about putting the domain name to good commercial use compared to a typical domain-name investor or domain speculator.

Now for the secret to being able to successfully say with good accuracy the sales inquiry you received is from an end-user vs a domainer. The obvious way to figure it out is what is commonly done such as “googling” the persons name or email address and looking for other clues involving the identity of the person who has inquired. Those methods may or may not work well and often are unreliable.

The secret we have discovered over the years follows Occam’s Razor theory in that sometines the most simple answer is the correct answer. For more on Occam’s Razor please visit Occam’s Organization. So our secret is a true end-user will rarely if ever ask questions such as how much traffic or how many visitors does the domain or website get? What is its revenue? Where do the site visitors come from? Does it get typein traffic? How consistent is the site traffic? etc…

If you get questions like that it is quite likely you are dealing with a domainer or domain investor. If those question are not asked it is real likely the inquring party is a true end-user, who will in all likelihood be prepared to pay substantially more for your domain name or website vs the average domainer.

As to why it matters that much to know you are dealing with an end-user, it’s based mostly on the fact an end-user buyer is significantly more likely to pay far more money vs a domain name investor. That more than likely scenario is to be expected since the domainer wants to buy at or near a wholesale pricing level compared to the retail price range end user buyers often are willing to pay. That variation makes a major difference in the domain/website selling or not selling and in its final sales price .

Lowball Offers are Not Necessarily Starting Points

Some folks claim lowball offers for domain names are simply a starting points and a negotiating method to initiate negotiations, with an assumption both parties realize the real value of the domain.

The “starting point” view doesn’t work too well with me. If I start out with a reasonable offer of say $800 (not desiring negotiations) for a name which I feel is really worth no more than $800 (especially without any known traffic) and the seller counters with a price of say $11,000 I know right away an eventual sale is most unlikely, if not impossible.

Actually had that scenario happen recently when the owner later wrote again asking me to make a new higher offer but I countered with a new lower offer of $400 due to the declining economy and lesser desire for the name vs originally. He then indicated maybe he would take a price much closer to my original offer after all if I had not gone down in the offer, to which I said no more higher offers and the domain sale negotiations were therefore finished.

Certificate Of Authenticity, new COA’s needed

Webdesigner/Programmer needed. Currently working on our web site CertificateOfAuthenticity.com and also trying to find a good designer/programmer who can make new COAs and also do customization of the certificates offered.

Please note the website/domain name is also for sale with reasonable and substantial offers are being considered. It certainly could be a unique opportunity for a company to dominate the popular certificate-of-authenticity market by owning such a category-killer name as CertidciateOfAuthenticity.com most definately is.

For more information, or to make a serious offer to buy (or possibly advertise on this web-site) please send us an email to the graphical address below, or give us a toll-free call by clicking on the ‘contact us’ link located near the top of this web-page.

Potentially Dominate Kids Category of Websites

A very rare and perfect combination of two common words "Young Children" is now available. It’s an amazingly good term to those who would like to make a portal web site for parents dealing with young children, or for use by kids themselves.

After all, can you think of two better words for information on raising young children, education of young children, young children learning, and young children’s games, fun and lids of all ages activities!

YoungChildren.com has been registered since the year 1999 but unfortunately its been lacking a nicely developed website (with lots of content pages and useful functionality) until fairly recently when it finally had its own developed web site, but with much more work needed to eventually make it a large kids and children’s portal.

However, that past years slow web site development is a golden opportunity for an Internet entrepreneur who invests today in this fine domain name and develops a large content-rich kids website. The popularity of the site can increase dramatically with the domain name eventually likely being a leading children’s and parents presence on the-web especially with its category-killer name.

The last time we checked, a Google search reveals the words “young children” have more than 38 million results, which is an extremely high number.

Our server statistics program reveal the most popular search terms used by web-surfers who find youngchildren.com are these terms: young children, recipes for young children, youngchildren.com, www.youngchildren.com, how young children learn, recipe for young children, young children food, young children recipes and children.

However, the majority of site visitors arrive by direct navigation to the website which mostly involves typing n the domain name into their internet browser address bar window (and bookmarks). In fact, over the latest few months we looked at a strong average of 70% of all the visitors to the web site arrived that way. Direct navigation means free visitors to your web site with no promotional work, marketing or advertising costs involved. It’s far and away the best way to get “eyeballs” looking at your Internet presence.

For more information, or to make a serious offer to buy (or possibly advertise on this web-site) please send us an email to the graphical address below, or give us a toll-free call by clicking on the ‘contact us’ link near the top of this web-page.

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