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WWYD: One Word .CO or Two Word .com?

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Trenton Hughes posted a domain name question that drew more than 50 replies in the last two days. Trenton is launching a business called UnFounded Ventures, and he asked for feedback about which domain name he should use. The two domain name options, which he appears to already own, are UnFounded.CO and UnFoundedVentures.com:

My personal opinion is that he should go with the brand matching UnFoundedVentures.com domain name for the business website. There are several reasons for why I would choose this option.

Learn the Rules Before Buying

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Recently, I started buying non .com domain names here and there when I see a keyword that I think well-matches the extension. I’m not interested in sharing specifics with you, but I have bought .AI, .IO, .CO, .APP, and .DEV domain names in auction, in addition to .XYZ that I previously wrote about. Non .com domain names is a small percentage of my portfolio and a fraction of a percentage of inventory cost.

One word of caution is that some extensions have rules that need to be followed in order to use the domain name. I learned this after winning a .Dev domain name in auction at Namecheap. A day or two after setting the nameservers to Afternic, the domain name did not resolve to a landing page. I checked in with Afternic and the domain name was set up correctly there. I submitted a ticket at Namecheap to see what was preventing the domain name from resolving, and here’s what I was told:

No Reply on a Follow-Up? Check LinkedIn

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Some deals take a very long time to finalize. I have had acquisition and sale negotiations that have gone on for years. Some deals get done and others die on the vine. If you don’t receive a response to an email you sent to a contact at a company, it is a good idea to check LinkedIn to see if they still work there.

I have been involved in many long term negotiations to buy domain names. Oftentimes, the domain name is not being used, so I follow-up every year or so to inquire if anything has changed. If the person with whom I am communicating has left the company, usually there will be some sort of email deliverability notice indicating an email address doesn’t function. This is not always the case. Here’s one such example.

What to do with an Unused Domain Name

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A person who has long owned a 3 letter .com domain name reached out to me to try and sell it. It’s a nice domain name and has a great history, but I told her I wouldn’t insult her with what would likely be perceived as a lowball offer. Instead, I shared some advice to help her sell the domain name.

I don’t offer any domain consulting or domain broker services, so I figured I would share this advice in the event someone else is looking for advice on what to do with an unused domain name.

There are three different routes a person can take to sell a domain name. These are not individually distinct, so a person can use a combination of these three options – or even all three options.

Take Some Profits and Enjoy

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I’ve built my business by keeping costs low and reinvesting most of profits into more and better domain names. When I have a nice sale – often after an intense or long negotiation, I like to spend money on something special to celebrate it.

A photo shared by someone named Youssef resonated with me:

No LTO for Trend Types of Names

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I have the lease to own (LTO) option enabled on nearly all of my inventory-quality domain names. The maximum length of the lease term is generally set based on the price of the domain names. There is one category of domain name I won’t offer LTO on – trend domain names.

For trend types of domain names – either a hot topic or something along those lines, I want people to pay in full before using my domain name. I don’t want them to pay a fraction of the cost, use the domain name while the topic is hot, and then dump the domain name back to me once the trend has subsided.

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