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Researching Source of Offer

Elliot Silver
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1

It’s important that you do as much research on the source of your domain offers for a variety of reasons to see why the person wants to buy your domain name.   I think most of the reasons are obvious, but as ccTLDs continue to increase in popularity, there is one more thing to check before replying to the offer or inquiry.

If your .com domain name ends in a popular ccTLD extension, you should look to see if the ccTLD is developed, as many domain owners realize the importance of owning the corresponding .com domain name. Bit.ly is a very popular URL shortening service. Not only do they own the Liberian ccTLD (.LY), but they also own Bitly.com for protective purposes.

While many entrepreneurs on a shoestring budget will be happy to launch on a ccTLD that is more vanity than anything to do with the ccTLD, most will realize that they are losing traffic. In Bit.ly’s case, people continued to refer to the company as “Bitly” so visitors who think in .com as a default simply visited Bitly.com, which they are fortunate to own.

If your company owns a name like XXXXXXXXin.com or something like that, and you receive an inquiry, don’t just check USPTO, Google and other common places. You should also check the Whois for XXXXXXXX.in as well.

Quick Hits for the Weekend

Elliot Silver
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6

Time for some random thoughts and notes for the week.

I think some gTLDs like .NYC are going to be very successful. Businesses are going to want to buy them to distinguish themselves as New York companies, much like many European businesses buy ccTLD domain names. I think there will be trouble selling some gTLD extensions, but it really depends on the audience and marketing, and I have a feeling .NYC will be a winner.

After spending a few days in Lowell, I realize how important a city .com domain name is. People who hadn’t visited Lowell.com were very interested in learning more about it and how they can be on it. Getting a sales person on the ground in the area will be key to really generating revenue.

Aftermarket.com is now accepting domain submissions for the Domain Roundtable show in June.

Every day, I seem to find out something new about Google and how it can be used to increase awareness on my developed websites. Take some time to look at the main Google accounts page and check out all of the links. Almost all of the applications can be beneficial to a small company doing business online.

General domain sales may be down across the board for most domain investors, but there are still a lot of companies buying ultra premium domain names. Many companies realize there is little overhead required when buying a category defining domain name, and it can pay major dividends to do so in terms of traffic and trust. Buying a domain name in these tough times can be much better than acquiring a business, which comes with significant overhead.

Have a happy Easter, Passover, or weekend.

WordPress Security

Elliot Silver
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1

No matter who you are or what you do online, your websites are at risk of being hacked. With so many websites running on the WordPress platform, it’s important for owners to keep up to speed on security issues to prevent hacking and other malicious attacks. Richard Douglas has posted some WordPress security tips for domain and website owners to note, and they are important to read if you use WP.

It’s most important to be vigilant when it comes to website management, and if you do all you can to protect your sites, you will be better off for it. Website security is important whether you have customer data, business data, or anything else important. You don’t want to compromise your visitors’ computers or your content.

Keep Your Registrar Info Updated

Elliot Silver
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2

It’s important that you keep your credit card information updated at your domain registrar. Some people and companies who don’t actively monitor their domain names’ status, may not log in to their domain control panel very often since it’s unnecessary once a website is set up. Because credit card numbers change over time as do email addresses, a domain name could be lost if it isn’t renewed in time.

One example of a possible problem has to do with Cisco. Via Sahar’s Blog, I read a post discussing Cisco.com’s upcoming expiration date of May 15, 2009. Ordinarily one month+ is plenty of time to renew a domain name. However, after looking into this a bit, I see that they originally registered the domain name in 1987, and the expiration date of May 15, 2009 is the same as it was from day one. This means they’ve never had to deal with renewing their registration on this domain name.

Although Cisco owns many other domain names, all with the same admin email address, this could have been problematic for them had they used an employees’ email address, who may have departed the company sometime in the last 22 years. They also may not have had a valid credit card number on file. Both of these issues aren’t applicable in this situation for Cisco, but I am sure it happens to others. Long term domain registrations are great, but they could be problematic down the road for some who aren’t vigilant.

While it is highly unlikely that Cisco will forget to renew their primary domain name, it is important for all domain owners to keep credit card and email information accurate and updated. If a company only owns one domain name, and it has an invalid email address and an expired credit card on file, there is a good chance the domain name will expire and be sent to a drop auction.

Classic Response to a Domain Inquiry

Elliot Silver
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18

I get random legit email inquiries for some of my domain names, but many of my friends get a whole lot more of them than I do. They get annoying after a while, and instead of politely responding to a $500 offer for a domain name that is worth six figures, people are tempted to respond rudely, In my opinion, this does nothing effective. If a guy is offering $500 for a six figure domain name, he either thinks you are an idiot or he doesn’t have a clue about domain values.

I do have a response that I like to give to random legitimate inquiries, and I would like to share it. I think it may be a bit passive aggressive , but it helps educate, as people are far more knowledgeable about real estate than domain names. This response took a bit of time to construct, but it’s now easy to cut and paste (with the exception of the link that might be difficult to include in some email systems.

My response is built for an email that went something like this:

“I see you are the owner of XXXXX.com, and it isn’t developed yet. My company is in the process of developing a website which would be perfect for the domain name. I would like to offer you $x,xxx, which I believe is a fair price for XXXXX.com.”

My response:

Dear XXXXXX,

Thank you for your interest in XXXXXX.com. This is a domain name I bought for a specific purpose, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to develop it as I am working on a number of projects. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t sell it anywhere near that price either because it’s worth much more.

When I visit Palm Beach, I always travel on South Ocean Drive. In between Mar a Lago and Sloan’s Curve, there is a beautiful undeveloped plot of land right on the Intercoastal Waterway, and it sits next to twenty and thirty million dollar houses (check it on Google Street View. Unfortunately, the owner hasn’t developed it. I, too, have plans to build a beautiful house (further inland) and it would be perfect for that plot of land because I can dock my boat right in the backyard.

If I approached the owner of that plot of land, and I said, “I looked at the MLS and your plot of land is worth about $4,000,000 – I would like to offer you what I believe is market value” – do you think he would sell it after years of not selling it (and by the looks of the trimmed lawn, it is well maintained)? I am sure he has been approached by many and has turned them all down as he presumably doesn’t need the cash and the land is a better investment than money in the bank earning less than the rate of inflation.

If I really want that plot of land, I will need to offer much more than its worth, in order to convince the owner to sell. Likewise, my domain name will be as difficult to acquire, especially because your initial valuation is so low. If you still wish to purchase my domain name, you are going to have to knock me down with an offer. Until that time, I wish you well in all of your endeavors online.

Quick Hits for the Weekend

Elliot Silver
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10

Some quick (and informal) hits from the last week.

On Thursday, I was thisclose to buying a ticket to fly to Las Vegas for the Domain Madness finale. If it wasn’t for a trip to New Hampshire in a week, a cross country trip in 3 weeks, followed by a trip to Michigan right after, I would be at The Palms with the Domain Consultant crew.

SES is a great show with a lot of information for developers. If you can make one of the many shows, it’s worth attending. If you can’t afford to pay for the actual show (or if you don’t want to pay), get a free exhibition floor pass and meet with some of the companies that exhibit.

There have been more times in the past 2 weeks than I can ever remember where I started to respond to an ignorant/misinformed/stupid post on a domain forum and ended up deleting my post before hitting submit.

If you own a geodomain – especially if it’s a city, state, or country domain name, you NEED to be in San Diego for the GeoDomain Expo at the end of April. If you want to develop it, there are no better mentors and advisors than those who will be at the Expo (ie Dan, David/Mike, Skip, Jess, Fred, Mark, Sara, Josh, Shaun, Nat). If you are looking to partner (or maybe even sell), these people are your primary targets. I mean, who else are you going to turn to – newspapers? LOL. The agenda should be posted in the next few days, but no matter what the panels are, it’s the informal events that are best.

I am not investing in any .tel domain names. I simply don’t get the concept behind why I would want or need to have a .tel domain name, and if people don’t want/need them, investing in them will probably be a fruitless activity. If I want people to have all of my contact information, I make sure they have it. If someone can’t find my phone number or other contact information quickly, chances are very good that I don’t want that person to have it.

Speaking of .tel, have you noticed that most of the people who talk about alternative TLDs like these (ie mobi, asia, tv…etc) have significant investments in them? I don’t want to be an ambassador for an extension. It shouldn’t be the job of registrants to pump a particular extension.

I was very surprised to hear about Monster Venture Partners closing its doors. This is big news that will impact domainers in more of a trickle down affect, as the company invested in domain names and partnered with companies that own great domain names.

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