Self Financing Domain Deals

Elliot Silver
-
6

Sometimes to complete a domain sale, you need to offer a payment plan to the buyer, allowing him to pay over time. It might not seem advantageous to do a no-interest deal like this, but sometimes it’s necessary to close a deal.

I’ve bought a couple names using payment plans simply because it was offered. My thinking was why the hell not take a payment plan when it would cost me nothing to stretch payments out, and I could pay a lump sum if/when I sold the domain name. If you’re offered a no-interest payment plan when buying a domain name you want at the right price, it’s a no-brainer.

When you’re selling a domain name on a payment plan, here are some things that you might want to consider (these things may be different if you’re the buyer):

Keep the domain name in your portfolio or put it in escrow (like Moniker escrow) until all payments are made. If the buyer has your name and you have no money, you have less leverage when you want to be paid the outstanding balance. Legal costs to get it back could be more than the remaining payments.

Do not change the DNS unless absolutely necessary. If the buyer uses it in a way that infringes upon someone else’s trademark or does something else that would reflect poorly upon you, it wouldn’t be very good and may cost you the domain name. If you do need to change the DNS, monitor the content and make sure you let the buyer know there are restrictions.

Make sure the buyer knows if all payments aren’t made, the seller keeps the domain name and payments that have been made up until that point. You don’t want to keep the domain name in limbo if payments aren’t all made but the buyer thinks he still has rights to it. It’s your call about whether to cancel the deal if the buyer is a day, two days, a week…etc late with payments. This is a personal choice and I guess it would be dependent upon your relationship with the buyer.

Have all details spelled out in a sales agreement or clearly put in an email.   Don’t make assumptions on something like this, especially if the amount to be transacted is significant.

Be assured that the buyer isn’t going to try and sell the domain name before it’s paid off. It would suck to have a 3 letter domain name be subject to a UDRP because the buyer (before paying for it in full) tried to sell it to a company that believed it had rights to the domain name.

The payments should be divided fairly evenly. You don’t want to have small upfront payments because there is less incentive for the buyer to keep the deal if he has to make very large payments at the end. If he’s only paid a small % of the price during most of the term, it may be more likely that he would back out knowing that he hasn’t lost much.

Never, ever back out of a deal if you receive a better offer during the course of payments. I don’t care if you sell a name for $10,000 and you get a $100,000 offer.   If you are willing and able to finance a deal like this, I am sure your reputation is worth much more than the money you would forgo by keeping the deal. You could pass the offer along to the buyer and work something out, but that’s between the two of you.

In today’s market, self-financing deals with a payment plan is a decent way to close a deal.

Risks in Buying ccTLD Domains: Example of .LY Domain Name Taken by Registry

Elliot Silver
-
15

ccTLD investing is probably most interesting to me because of my travels, not because I am a ccTLD investor, or because I use ccTLD domain names regularly. Businesses in many countries outside of the USA favor local ccTLD domain names over .com, although there are still a number of countries whose citizens prefer non-ccTLD domain names.

One of my biggest fears with ccTLD domain names is that the country in charge of the registry can set rules and regulations that wouldn’t be expected in the US. It’s one thing if you live there and are accustomed to those local laws, but it’s another thing if you’re a US citizen and you use a ccTLD in the US, but your domain name is governed by a foreign entity.

Internet consultant, Ben Metcalfe, reported about a situation his company is facing with regards to VB.LY, an important .LY domain name his company owns – well owned.   According to a post on Ben’s blog,

The domain was seized by the Libyan domain registry for reasons which seemed to be kept obscure until we escalated the issue. We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.

It seems odd that a domain registrar is taking over a domain name based on its content, since the content is hosted on servers that reside outside of Libya. When I reported an instance of copy theft to Godaddy, they told me it was out of their scope since the domain name is only registered at their company, and the actual website is hosted elsewhere.

This is something every ccTLD investor and web developer MUST consider when buying ccTLD domain names. I wrote an article about how domain hacks can lead to confusion in the market place, but I think this is a far more important consideration. A company like Bitly, whose primary domain name operates on Bit.LY, needs to be mindful, especially when Bitly has very little (or no) control over the content to which they are linking.

Great to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer

Elliot Silver
-
11

I’ve always been reluctant to work with a search engine optimization expert. I’ve basically stuck with the free SEO analysis tools found throughout the web, which has been helpful to a degree, but it’s certainly not the best way to have the best possible SEO on my websites.

The primary reason I’ve been hesitant is because I am concerned that the advice and recommendations that are given would be too complex for me to understand, or they would be far too expensive to implement, especially when considering the potential reward for doing them. It doesn’t make sense to pay for a professional SEO review if you can’t do what’s needed to help your website.

I’ve known that Bill Hartzer has been a SEO expert for quite some time, and I’ve even used his help on a small project in the past. However, I recently worked with him on one of my websites, and I was very happy when he gave me some good recommendations and SEO tips that were understandable and actionable. He was thorough and thoughtful in his replies to me, and I knew he wasn’t simply cutting and pasting advice given over and over. I really felt that he took the time to look through my site and see where it was lacking.

Bill is also a domain investor, and he knows how domain investors tend to think and act. His help has been very appreciated, and if you need to consult with an expert SEO guru, Bill’s your guy.

PS: This is NOT a paid post. From time to time, I like to write articles about people who have been helpful to me and may be helpful to you.

Social Networking is Key Element of Building Your Website

Elliot Silver
-
6

For my blog, I am somewhat active on Twitter, although I generally use it as a means to communicate outwardly rather than having a discussion with others. I’d say that about 60% of my posts are “Tweeted” by me shortly after posting, and I get a bit of traffic as a result. With so many balls in the air, I don’t really have enough time to check in with Twitter very often.

A while back, I set up Twitter accounts for Lowell.com, Newburyport.com, and Burbank.com, and I still update them occasionally using CoTweet. I didn’t bother to set them up for other websites of mine, figuring it wasn’t necessary. Well, that assumption was pretty wrong.

Today, I decided to open a Twitter account for DogWalker.com, and within an hour or so of setting it up, I had two new registrations and one paid listing. I don’t have a lot of followers yet, but I am now following quite a few people. It seems that when you start out, you end up following a lot more people than people who follow you, but with a bunch of people automatically following their followers, you can build up quite a number of followers.

Instead of having to laboriously search through Twitter to find related businesses to follow (dog walkers and pet sitters), I noticed that one company had a list of hundreds of pet care companies, so I just followed all of them. I don’t expect to “Tweet” much, but I might give special offers on Twitter – like donating $10 to local non profits of a new advertiser’s choice.

The total time it took to set up was under an hour, and I expect this to help generate business. Sometimes the most obvious things are missed, and I certainly missed it with some of my newer websites.

Yes, this idea is pretty obvious right now, but even smart people who know this sh*t need to be reminded every once in a while.

Think Twice Before You Use a Domain Hack

Elliot Silver
-
21

Domain hacks can be cutesy, and the more publicity some of the popular hacks receive, the more others want to emulate. The problem with domain hacks is that they can be confusing to consumers, especially when they don’t mention the “dot” in their branding.

Just the other day, I wrote an article about a new start up called Bump, which smartly operates on Bump.com. One of the people who read the article made a comment about another company called Bump, although that company operates on Bu.mp. Unfortunately for the Bu.mp guys, they are most likely going to lose traffic to the Bump.com start up, and not only is it their own fault, but there’s really nothing they can do about it since Bump.com is a venture backed company and the domain name wouldn’t be for sale.

Delicious and Bitly were two of the first startups that went mainstream to use domain hacks, and luckily for both, they were able to get the .com domain name to match (Delicious had to purchase Delicious from the registrant). Delicious probably paid a lot more for its .com domain name simply because it built up considerable traffic and brand recognition unintentionally. People, especially in the .com centric US, just assume it’s on a .com.

Just this past week, Google announced its new url shortener, which uses the domain hack Goo.gl for its own url. Smartly for them, they also own Googl.com in the event of typos, although it seems like they are differentiating it from the main search site by emphasizing the “dot.” On a side note, it will be interesting to track the traffic to GL.com, since there will probably be people who inadvertently type in Goo.gl.com in error.

My recommendation to start ups and to anyone who wants to use a domain hack is that they should only do it if they can secure the .com. If they can’t secure the .com but must use this hack for some reason, it’s critical to emphasize the “dot.”

At What Revenue Multiple Do You Sell a Website?

Elliot Silver
-
35

I wanted to write about this before, but the news of AOL’s acquisition of TechCrunch motivated me to post this general question: At approximately what revenue multiple do you sell a website that has a business operating on it?

Over the past few months, a number of individuals and companies have made inquires on a couple of my websites. I’ve always replied that I have no interest in selling, because for me, it’s silly to sell a revenue generating website that has nearly zero overhead. On the flip side of this is the fact that there should really be a point at which I would sell the website and domain name, since the ultimate goal is to make money.

Now I know there are LOTS of considerations to take into account when selling a website (like loss of revenue and tax considerations), but at what type of revenue multiple should a company be willing to sell a website? This is a very vague question because it would be a very different answer for a company with an operating loss, tiny profit margin, or 100% profit margin, but I look forward to seeing what you think.

1...141142143...214Page 142 of 214