Responding to a Domain Name Offer

Elliot Silver
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Like nearly any piece of property or other asset, almost all domain names are technically for sale for the right price. There aren’t many domain owners who would pass up on a high seven figure cash offer for a domain name, with the exception of developed businesses or very few exceptional domain names. If you sincerely have the ability to pass up on a $5,000,000 for a domain name, I congratulate you, and you can probably stop reading this post and go back to your bottle of 1926 Macallan.
For those of you who have more of a Budweiser taste, please continue.
The problem I see is the way some UDRP proceedings have gone recently, where domain owners can potentially be penalized if they receive an offer and attempt to negotiate a better deal. It seems that some UDRP panels consider an owner’s contemplation of selling a domain name a sign of bad faith. This is dangerous for domain owners, and I know it causes many people to think twice whenever an offer or solicitation is received. Just about everything in this world has some sort of price, and simply because a person would consider selling a possession doesn’t mean that they owned the possession for the sole purpose of selling it.
That said, I think domain owners might be well suited to respond to certain domain email inquiries and offers with an agreement to waive the right to file a UDRP or lawsuit if anything about the domain name is discussed. The person making the inquiry or offer would have to waive his rights to any future legal action before ANY discussion about the name can take place. Any person who is interested in buying the name should be willing to sign, and if someone isn’t willing to sign, it probably means they have ulterior motives, or perhaps they are just kicking the tires.
I am not an attorney, so this isn’t a legal opinion, but the point of this post is to discuss the question of whether this type of agreement would protect domain owners and if it would be a legally binding agreement. Since most domain owners would be willing to sell names in their portfolio for a price (even though that price could be sky high), it might be something worth considering before future negotiations.

Mike Berkens' Daily Domain Blog

Elliot Silver
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The domain investment business is fairly small, so there are many individuals that “everyone knows.” However, there aren’t as many individuals that everyone knows and likes. Mike Berkens is one of those few people. Mike’s company, Most Wanted Domains owns tens ft thousands of great domain names, and as far as I know, Mike is as bullish on domain names as anyone else in the industry. (You can read my “5 With Mike Berkens” interview for more detailed information.)
Mike started a great blog recently, and although I’ve linked to it a few times, I want to separately encourage everyone to add TheDomains.com to your RSS readers. Mike is one of those types of people that can move and shake the industry, and I have great respect for him. He has maintained a low profile until recently, and I am glad to see him blogging.
Mike is an influential guy in this industry, and his blog is a daily “must read.”

Keyword Search Tool to find Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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I’ve been using a great keyword search tool to help me target domain acquisitions. Using KeywordDiscovery.com, a tool created by Trellian, I am able to find popular search terms related to specific keywords. I can then target specific domain names by putting the popular terms together. While I presume the main intent of this tool is to find keywords for developed website content, this tool helps me target potential domain acquisitions.
Oftentimes, the names that I find aren’t the obvious $100,000 domain names that many people target. These names are usually the strong second tier names that could sell for anywhere between $10,000 – $50,000 at auction or private sale. The advantage for me is that most of these names are less mined, meaning that the owners receive less solicitations. As a result, the owners are more inclined to discuss the sale of their domain names, and I am more likely to complete a sale.
As a rough example, using the keyword “cheap,” the most common searches are for “cheap tickets,” “cheap flights,” and “cheap airfare.” I would imagine the owners of CheapTickets.com, CheapFlights.com, and CheapAirfare.com receive hundreds of domain inquiries a week for these particular names, even though two of those are developed and one is parked.
Using the KeywordDiscovery.com search tool, I can see that “cheap bridesmaid dresses,” “cheap textbooks,” and “cheap lingerie” are all fairly popular search terms, indicating that the corresponding domain names would have some value. If I was looking for a name in this genre, I would probably hone in on these names.
Now that the Overture Search Tool isn’t work much (if at all), KeywordDiscovery.com is a great tool for domain investors to find potential domain names. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that corresponding domain names receive traffic, it is indicative of the search term being desirable.
Also, I am not being compensated to write this. I am using the free trial.

Great Castello Brothers Interview

Elliot Silver
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I have a great deal of respect for David and Michael Castello and what they’ve done for the domain industry.   Not only do they own an incredible group of developed geodomains including LagunaBeach.com, WestPalmBeach.com, and Nashville.com (among others), but they also have some other great generic non-geo related domain names names as well.
Aside from their tremendous portfolio of domain names, the Castello Brothers are genuinely nice guys who are always willing to give advice. I am especially thankful for the advice they have both given me for my Lowell.com development project. Recently, they were interviewed on SimplyGeo.com in a two part interview. Part One of the interview was posted yesterday, and Part Two was just posted today. This interview is a must read!

Creating Partnerships in the Domain Industry

Elliot Silver
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There have been plenty of times that I’ve seen certain people in the business build a successful website, and I admired their vision, work ethic and execution. On more than one occasion, I’ve even said to myself, “I’d like to work with that person if I ever have an opportunity.”
With all the consolidation that has been occurring in the domain industry, it would be smart to continue to see various individuals and small companies putting their collective heads together to create something truly unique. I am sure that Bido is going to be very successful without even knowing exactly what it is, simply because Sahar, Darren, Ron and Jeff are involved, and these guys know the domain industry.
More often than not, domain investors and developers work individually or with a single partner. While this can be productive, it doesn’t always allow for new ideas to germinate. Working with a partner can teach all parties new things and new ways to solve problems. As the saying goes, two heads are better than one.
Obviously for this to work, the partners have to be able to work with each other, which can pose many challenges in and of itself. My advice is to be upfront with a potential partner if it doesn’t look like things will work out. A partnership can be a great thing, and it can help propel your business and the domain industry forward.

Hidden Issue of "Ghost Records" at Domain Registrars

Elliot Silver
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A few months ago, I encountered a problem at one of my registrars where domain names were still listed in my account even though I transferred these names out to buyers who used other registrars. While the Whois records displayed the correct ownership, these names were still showing up in my account. This was confusing as the names still looked like they were under my control, but I didn’t have any control over them and they weren’t really in my account.
I contacted my account manager who asked me to list all of the names that shouldn’t be listed in my account, so the issue could be resolved by technical support. I was afraid to do that, as I feared a mistake would lead to the cancellation of a domain name I owned. Since there were at least a few dozen of these names, and I have a significant number of domain names in this account, the process of going through my records would have been tedious. Also, since many of the names involved were average names that I had sold, it wouldn’t have been as obvious as some premium generics I sold, and I was afraid that I would accidentally list a name I still owned.
I had never experienced this “ghost record” issue at other registrars, so I put the question out there on a domain forum, and a number of people emailed me telling me that they had gone through the same problem with various registrars at some point. Fortunately, as luck would have it, I was contacted by Jason Lavigne, Business Development manager at Rebel.com & Pool.com, who gave me a suggestion to pass along to my registrar. With Jason’s permission to post, this is what he advised me to do:

“The problem can be greatly reduced by regularly running a script to check against the whois or by using the registry message queue. The registry message queue advises registrars every time a domain is added or removed from a registrar and is more reliable than using the whois. If a registrar checks their message queue daily for transfer away notices and then adjusts their database they should be able to minimize ghost records as we’ve done at Rebel.com.”

With this information, I emailed my account representative and asked to have the customer support group run the transfer away script against the Whois records. A couple of days later, these ghost records were all removed from my account, and the problem disappeared.
Thanks a bunch to Jason for that great advice!

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