What to Do If Someone Backs Out of a Domain Deal

Elliot Silver
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10

If you’ve been investing in domain names long enough, it’s likely that you’ve experienced one of the most frustrating things that can happen to a domain investor. You’ve agreed to buy a domain name and the owner decides to back out for some reason.

For some it’s just frustrating, but for others there are bigger issues. Perhaps you started building out the domain name before you were in possession of it, or maybe you contacted potential buyers hoping to quickly flip it. Whatever the case, it’s a disappointment to say the least.

You may have options of you have an agreement in place, even if you don’t have an “official” contract with the seller.

My first recommendation is to be in touch with the seller and let him know you are not satisfied with the situation, especially if there isn’t an error/mistake behind the deal breaking down. Discuss options for buying other domain names or work out some sort of agreeable financial settlement for your inconvenience.

If this can’t be worked out, let him know you plan to seek legal council to remedy the situation if necessary. I like to keep lawyers out these types of situations, but let the seller know that is an option and perhaps just that threat will get him to sell, especially if he was reluctant to sell due to a higher offer.

Let the person know you plan to blog/write about the situation on a domain forum. If the seller is wrong and doesn’t have a good excuse (ie he received a higher offer or just doesn’t want to sell anymore), others should be warned about this for the future. If you opt for this route, make sure you state the facts accurately because what is written can not be taken back.

If you’ve exhausted all efforts on your own, you should be in touch with a lawyer who has domain name and IP experience (see this list of  domain name lawyers). A lawyer may be expensive, but if this is a key acquisition, you’ll want to know your legal recourse to complete the sale.

Domaining.com Newsletter Now Requires Membership

Elliot Silver
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25

I just received an email from Francois Carrillo, owner of the popular Domaining.com domain news aggregator, announcing that the Domaining.com daily newsletter will no longer be available for free to everyone. The email is below:

“From now only members having minimum a “Trader” membership could receive the daily Domaining.com newsletter.
A lot of our members already meet this requirement, it’s time for you to upgrade your membership.
And this way can participate in the 24H “no reserve” daily auctions website we are about to launch. It should be crazy!“

I intend to sign up for the $10 lifetime “Trader” membership because I value the morning newsletter. I am not sure if there are other ways to achieve “Trader” membership status, but it’s not expensive for the value I receive.

I don’t love this idea from a business perspective because I believe that many people will not pay for this service and the newsletter readership may suffer. As a result, when I advertise articles and/or domain names for sale, the newsletter may reach less people than when it was free, decreasing my marketing cost effectiveness.

As discussed many times before, Carrillo has every right to make any business decision necessary to keep his business viable. However, I think it would be far more effective to actively promote a free newsletter to domain investors and simply make up for any lost revenue on sponsored advertisements, which will be more valuable if there are more readers.

Case Study: The Value of Content

Elliot Silver
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25

I’ve written about TextBroker.com before, and now I want to give you an example of why it’s very important to have unique content on your websites.

I pay around $4.70 for most unique articles I have custom written for some of my websites. The articles are around 200 words in length, and I proofread each of the articles, add some personal insights or ideas, and write additional commentary based on my experience. I also generally add a related photo from Flickr, a stock photo website, or from one of my photo albums. These articles drive great (targeted) traffic that would be expensive for me to purchase.

Here’s an example.

A few weeks ago, I realized that many people would be searching Google and Bing to see if they need to give a tip or a Christmas gift for their dog walker. I had two articles written by TextBroker, and I also used my own experience to add more information.

One article was written about tips for Christmas gifts for a dog walker and the other article was about Christmas tips for dog walkers, and I posted them on DogWalker.com. I also did some minor SEO work with the help of the All in One SEO plugin.

These articles have received over 500 visits from search engines, and the cost was under $10 and about 30 minutes of my time. Had I paid for this traffic with Adwords (which I also use), the cost would have been much more. Additionally, once a particular campaign ends, the traffic stops. With custom content, traffic will continue to come as people search in the future.

Whether you write your own content, hire a third party, or do a combination, it’s important to have unique articles on your websites, which will help drive traffic to your sites.

End of Year Recommendations

Elliot Silver
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4

It’s getting close to the end of the year, and although things appear to be quiet, I think there are a lot of people focused on internal things right now, like closing out their books.

With the year coming to an end, here are a few things you might want to do with regards to your domain business. As always, consult with an accountant and/or attorney for tax and legal matters, since I have no experience in either category.

  • Go through financial records now rather than April to make sure you’ve accounted for everything
  • Take a look at your domain holdings and ensure auto-renew is enabled on the names you want to keep, and disable it on the names you want to drop
  • Be sure all of your parked domain names are resolving and showing relevant ads.
  • Compare revenue, CTR, and RPC across parked domain names and websites with Adsense.
  • Optimize your domain names and websites that need it
  • Ensure that all of your websites are resolving and don’t have error messages on them
  • Upgrade your WordPress websites if needed
  • Back up your websites
  • Back you up your data and financial records
  • Determine if you need new business supplies, computers, or office equipment, and order them before the year ends to expense them in 2010.
  • Book 2011 travel and hotels in advance to expense what you can.
  • Seek out the people who made offers to you this past year to see if you can close any last minute deals. Some people need to deplete budgets and buying domain names could be beneficial.
  • Reach out to domain owners who may not have been willing to sell domain names in the past. Maybe something has changed.
  • Renew domain names you plan to keep for as many years as is feasible.
  • Make sure your credit cards on file are still valid and didn’t expire yet.
  • Pay your trusted designer/programmer in advance for upcoming projects.
  • Reach out to advertisers and get commitments for the next year.
  • Thank the people who have advertised this year whether they plan to continue or not.

Big Coup for .ME Registry with AOL’s About.ME Acquisition

Elliot Silver
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18

Back in October, I wrote about a new website that offered splash landing pages for personal profiles. About.me offers neat customization options for people to create cool looking landing pages.

About.me was in beta until about a week ago when they went live across the board, and according to reports, there were about 400,000 people who signed up for the beta round. Credit blogs like TechCrunch and sites like Twitter for helping to rapidly spread the word about the startup.

According to a new blog post and video interview on TechCrunch this afternoon, About.me just announced that it was acquired by AOL. That sure was fast. The company apparently signed a letter of intent back in November, but the deal was just announced today. Terms of the deal were not released, but TC guessed that “it’s in the tens of millions of dollars.”

Wow.

This is pretty big news for the .ME domain registry because it puts a .ME domain name in the spotlight. I don’t think I own a .ME domain name, but I would think domain names terms like Love.ME, Find.ME, or Meet.ME would be in higher demand now.  Love.ME and Find.ME are domain names owned by the registry, so perhaps news like this will encourage them to auction some of the premium reserved names more quickly.

I certainly don’t think this announcement means all .ME domain names are worth more, but it does put .ME more on the map. I know of a few other pretty big deals but don’t think they’re public. If a name makes sense as a .ME, then perhaps this sale will increase interest.

How I Find Out Who Is Emailing Me to Buy a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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29

Knowing who you are negotiating with is very important when it comes to domain name sales. Although someone would probably be happy to sell a domain name for the price he or she asks, I am sure you would likely be disappointed to learn that a huge company bought it without revealing themselves, even the price you received was the highest they were willing to pay.

In light of yesterday’s article about Facebook buying a domain name apparently in a covert manner, I want to give you a few strategies I use to try and find out who is inquiring about my domain names, assuming it’s not a poor college student working on a thesis or a work at home mom wanting to start a website with no budget.

First thing I do is some research on the name of the person who sent the email. Oftentimes, the buyer uses a fake name, so the signed name doesn’t always help. You can use sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to do your due diligence and see where the person works if they use their real information. You should also review the Whois information for the domain name from which the email is sent if it’s not a public service like GMail, AOL, or Hotmail.

The next thing you can search is the IP address from which the email came. This generally isn’t very helpful because there is limited information available, but you can compare it to other IP ranges on past emails for the same domain name. If you have received emails from different people at the same IP, you can at least know they are connected.

If this fails, you can search other domain registrations, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and general Google searches for the term used in the domain name. This may reveal who would be interested in buying the name so you can narrow it down.

One very good way to find out who is inquiring is to ask for a phone number. Whether you are comfortable negotiating on the phone or not is up to you, but you can research the phone number ownership on a site like WhitePages.com. Additionally, if it’s a small or medium sized business and the owner gives you his or her number, you might get a match when searching Google, and the business filings with phone number is listed.

Finally, the most important thing is to price domain names at what you want to sell them for and don’t go below a number you are comfortable with unless necessary. You should also not back out of a deal you make if you find out the buyer is a big company. Not only does that create a legal liability, but it also is unethical.

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