10 Frustrating Things That Happen in the Business of Domain Investing

There are many great things about investing in domain names, and there are great people involved in the business. There are also plenty of things that are completely frustrating and seem to happen all too often, most frequently at the worst times.

Here are my top ten frustrating things that happen in the domain business.

  • Someone backs out of a deal – buyer or seller
  • Recently acquired domain name starts earning less PPC or Adsense revenue shortly after acquisition
  • Potential buyer or seller stops communicating in the middle of a negotiation
  • Last second backorders by several people at NameJet on a domain name that had no bids
  • Forum know it alls who only post when they can put down someone else
  • $60 offers on Sedo
  • Private negotiations that are sent to auction on Sedo
  • Domain brokers who appear to imply they have a buyer lined up for your domain name but are only looking for domain names to secure exclusivity
  • Transfers and transactions that take forever to complete
  • Dozens of spam emails from Alex / Alexander about crappy domain names

What other occurrences in the domain industry do you find frustrating?

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

33 COMMENTS

  1. How about?

    “Congratulations on your recent registration of ABC.com. Your domain is valued at $xx and is also available to register in the following extensions that we would be happy to acquire for you.

    .ghid
    .dwz
    .khq

    If you don’t want to receive any future emails from us please reply “remove” in the subject line and we will continue to send additional emails anyways with every domain name you register.

  2. @ Elliot
    “Domain brokers who appear to imply they have a buyer lined up for your domain name but are only looking for domain names to secure exclusivity”
    Is when you have agreed ‘online’ with the broker, or have set up a virtual contract?

    + Annoying ‘domain price offer’ from the appraisal phonies.

    LOL “Dozens of spam emails from Alex / Alexander about crappy domain names”
    These guys must on your tail 😉

    Cheers!
    Howard.

    • I agree with you, but I don’t often look to see if others have written about something I am covering. Oftentimes people send news and don’t mention that they’ve sent it to others. Other times, more than one person is writing about the same piece of news, and if I’ve spent time writing it, I am not going to delete it because someone posted something else a few minutes prior to my article.

      On the other hand, just because NBC reported something doesn’t mean ABC won’t cover it. In many cases, we have differing opinions and/or interpret things differently.

    • One time I “barked” at Elliot saying he was posting the same story as someone else. Come to find out after further investigation, he was first.

    • LOL.. I am surprised you didn’t get one yet. I have a whole bunch:

      Alex
      to me
      Preferred Domain Availability Notification:

      xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com will be listed for auction in a few days. This domain might be useful for you, since you own a domain similar to this domain.

      To confirm interest in owning this domain, fill out the simple form here: xxxxxxxxxxxx.com

      Sincerely,Alexander
      8161 Highway 100 #183
      Nashville, TN 37221

      If you do not want more of these messages, please click the link above and follow instructions at the bottom of the page

  3. The $17,500 offer that I accept and the response is I will need to get an appraisal before we can actually go further.

    And the Sedo auto response “Please Justify Your Asking Price”

    • If that happens, you can click the unsubscribe button in the email you receive: “To manage your subscriptions or to block all notifications from this site, click the link below:”

  4. Forgetting to uncheck “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”

    Ha. I got caught up in one of those 100 comment articles here one time and my email blew up like I had posted “free eggs” on Craiglist.

  5. Man, Alex is a really busy guy these days, I can’t keep up with his 3-4 emails to hit the inbox EVERYDAY. The work ethic that guy must have…

  6. How about the person that wants $100,000 for a domain you know is only worth a couple grand and then tries to justify it by emailing you a list of the top 100 domain sales of all time!!

  7. Whilst we are at it 🙂

    How about this shortly after a new reg.

    “Congratulations on your purchase of +++.com.

    Your domain’s value has been estimated on our domain appraisal service. You can read your custom report here: ++++

    There is a large portfolio of domains related to your keywords. The current list of premium domains can be viewed here: ++++

    Cordially,

    Stefanie Shay

    If you would prefer not to receive email notifications of your estimated values in the future, you need to visit:”

  8. Is there software to source a spammer’s IP address? So you can eliminate the pain. ) Or does that go against our human rights?

  9. Godaddy auctions that do not keep active session up in last minutes of auction. I was several times out of game because was outbided and couldn’t relogin in minute/seconds I realize I can’t do next bid… because not logged anymore… Very frustrated for several lost auctions… and so names I was interested in…

  10. My biggest frustration is domainers who use no rhyme or reason in the pricing of their domains.

    Of course, I understand that it’s your domain and you can price it anyway you like, but selling a Toyota Camry for the price of a Mercedes is not going to get you anywhere.

    First, it assumes that people are stupid and will pay any amount for anything. That assumption is true. Some people are stupid. Secondly, it reveals the type of “cutthroat” business environment that a lot of domainers operate in. Basically, they will try to pull a fast one if they can.

    Either way, it reflects poorly on the domaining industry.

    • My pricing is based on my acquisition cost, replacement cost, revenue the domain name makes, personal and industry comps, as well as my financial situation at the time.

      It may be frustrating to see what domain investors want for their domain names, but go ahead and email random people who hold great domain names and see what their prices are. It’s no wonder they’ve held their names for 15+ years without finding a buyer. At the end of the day, it’s their prerogative and if they needed to raise cash, they know they could sell them at lower levels but don’t feel the need.

      I spend a considerable amount of time trying to buy domain names in private and pricing often makes no sense to me, but the domain market is imperfect and that imperfection results in opportunity for people who are savvy and willing to take smart financial risks.

  11. The biggest struggle is to shut down these spammers from India, and overseas, who really have little recourse that can be done to them.

    They have really started spamming end users hard, and ruining the legitimate experience of acquiring a domain name for many end users.

  12. There’s lots, but here’s two….
    GoDaddy auctions allowing owners to renew their name after I’ve invested my time and money bidding on it, paying for it, then getting an email stating the owner renewed a few days later, my time is lost and I have to wait for a refund. F*ck that. Get it together GD auctions.

    Also, I feel I have some decent names, give or take. Yet, I cant become a namejet seller. I see some real trash go through namejet at times and I just scratch my head. Let’s go namejet, let me in already damnit!!!!

    Comment trolls too. Get a life.

    Happy holidays all!

  13. Here are a few real frustrating domain stories:

    First I have an Alex story. I recently got his usual email on a domain I was sure was mine for years, hmmm. I like the domain (CamChatroom.com) and could not understand how it was not renewed. That is another fishy registrar story for later. Anyway I paid the redemption fee and got the domain back – thanks for the heads up Alex, lol…

    Before we assume it was my fault the domain did not get renewed (as is the case 99.9999% of the time – I get plenty of “GoDaddy messed up and didn’t renew my name – can I have it back?” emails) let me tell another story about another registrar that did “lose” 2 of my domains this year.

    I got emails from Sedo that they were removing 2 domains from my account, hmmm. I went and checked the whois and sure enough these 2 domains I had for years were not mine anymore and they had been recently registered with a new reg date and no age. In other words they had expired and were picked up. I went and checked my account at the registrar and the domains were still showing in my account with an expiration date of next year – this is because I renewed them. I went and checked my account payment history at the registrar and sure enough it showed records of my paying the renewals. I never received any emails regarding any changes or expiration notices on these domains, and since they still showed in my account with an expiration date of next year I never knew I lost them. I would still think they were mine if Sedo had not removed them from my account. This is still an ongoing issue I am dealing with so I will not say much more now but when it is all settled I will post all the disturbing details. The registrar’s excuses so far have been what I am sure is pure BS. It is not a big registrar by any means and probably nobody here has any names registered there so don’t worry much – I had them there because I got them there when they listed and exclusively offered names expiring at their registrar. I should have transferred all my domains out of both of these registrars years ago, my bad.

    How frustrating is that?

  14. I’m not a domain investor by any means, but I do own quite a few related to my business. What I hate more than anything is getting the emails from overseas domain registrars trying to get me to buy all the foreign TLDs for my domain “before this other local company registers them.” I’d love to know how many people fall for that. My response is always the same – “Let them register the domains. My attorney will deal with any trademark or copyright infringement issues as they arise.” Miraculously they never respond to that.

  15. If you are getting 60 offers at Sedo, you have only yourself to blame. They allow you to set a minimum price.

    I have all my listings set at $1234 which is by no means representative of what I’m willing to take for most, but it seems that once you get above a grand, you weed out most of the total time wasters.

  16. The issue or practice “certain” Registrars cherry-picking & pocketing for their own accounts,, choice, desireable expired pre-drop domain names … and thus not letting customers or the general public to have equal & fair access to such attractive/valuable/premium domains…thus another form of self dealing and blatant use of unfair insider advantage…and similar or “on par” dealings would be considered an equivalent form of insider trading by securities industry regulators
    ——-
    As a somewhat relevant parralell —-> On Wall Street,, investment banks & securities brokerage fims and their reigistered Employees can NOT buy Shares of Hot IPOs.. which are “in high demand” & over-subscribed new stock offerings which rise/pop up to a high premium above the IPO offering price on the first trading day…cuz such activity is considered to be unfair (to the public) use of insider advantage and also sorta a form of self-dealing insider trading by the SEC and NASD

    Just cuz ICANN’t & Verisign are so lax or too loosey-goosey on such REG’s & guidelines to allow or enable this stuff…. doesn’t make it right…Eh ?

    • Are you serious?
      Domainers lamenting that registrars are using their ‘advantage’ to squat (oh, sorry…. “Invest”) a name for profit before they themselves can do it?

      If “fair” existed in domain names, you wouldn’t. Be thankful things aren’t “fair”.

  17. @ Roy

    Hey, our boy Roy.. you seen full of Joy ! …

    I’m not sure yet if you know Squat or fair … Could you please give a lucid & detailed summary of your interpretations of both… Cheers !

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