Advice

I don’t like to share my domain name sales. Strategically, I think it’s unwise to report what I am selling and for how much. I’d rather use this confidential information to buy domain names at prices that make sense. Beyond the strategic reasons, I don’t think it’s right to share sales without permission from the buyer.

I regularly see sales reported on NamePros, Twitter, and other venues. People have different motivations for sharing sales. It can help raise awareness of domain name values. It can help drive up the profile of domain investors looking for positive feedback from peers. It can act as a motivational tool. There are many reasons for why people share their sales.

Earlier this week, I noticed a non profit organization’s domain name had expired and was set to be auctioned if it was not renewed promptly. Over the years, I have tried to help a number of organizations save domain names that had expired without their awareness. I have found that it can be a bit difficult to approach an organization about their domain name as a good samaritan, and I thought I would share how I generally approach an organization when a domain name of theirs expired.

The first thing I try to do is identify a contact at the organization that would understand domain names and would have an idea about what happened to their domain name. Depending on the size of the organization, I would look for a CTO, CMO, President, or another executive. I prefer not to reach out to the most senior executives of larger non profits because they’re likely very busy and are more apt to ignore my email. If the expired domain name is a critical domain name to the organization or the domain name associated with their email, I will call someone at the organization.

One of the selling points for a one word .com domain name is email deliverability. What I mean is that many people assume a company called X will be found at X.com, and their associated email addresses will be email@X.com. A company called X that uses X.io or GetX.com will almost certainly lose at least some emails that were accidentally sent to @X.com instead.

Carl Hancock is the CEO of Gravity Forms. His company recently acquired Gravity.com and immediately put it to use. According to a tweet this morning, Carl enabled a “catch-all” email for Gravity.com meaning all email sent to any @Gravity.com email address will end up in an inbox. Here’s what Carl shared about that:

The last couple of years have been abnormal for just about everyone. Between the effects of the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine, just about everything has gotten much more expensive. Demand for most things is higher and supplies are dwindling. With domain names, the best domain names are in stronger hands, and there are fewer top domain names available to purchase. Inflation is probably going to be the word of 2022. It doesn’t take an economist to see the effects of inflation everywhere, including domain names.

In order to thrive – or maybe even survive, I think domain investors need to strike a balance between maintaining liquidity (cash or cryptocurrency) and domain portfolio maximization.