Look at the Other Extensions

Elliot Silver
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2

When I receive an offer or inquiry, I tend to do a little research before replying. I want to see who is interested in acquiring my domain name, and I also want to see why they might be interested in buying the domain name.

To do this cursory research, Google, LinkedIn, and even Facebook are the primary tools I use. Typically, I can find out all I need to know within a few minutes of searching.

One of the best tools that can be used though, is one I use every day: Whois searches. Despite GDPR being in effect rendering this tool less useful, it can still be helpful.

A Whois search is helpful because it

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Summer Fridays: Not Great for Outbound Emails

Elliot Silver
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6

When I worked in the corporate world (Wunderman and AIG), Summer Fridays were great. It was the day to dress down, sometimes enjoy a free bagel breakfast, leave work early, and usually have a bit of quiet time in the office while the management teams were out in the Hamptons or elsewhere. It’s been well over 10 years, but Fridays in the Summer were typically low key.

I should have remembered this yesterday when I sent several outbound emails aimed to sell a couple of domain names. Using my LinkedIn account, I sent a couple of messages to executives about an exact match domain name I think they would use well. I sent a few additional emails to other people as well. No responses. Nada. This is abnormal for me.

A Summer Friday, especially in August, is probably the worse time to send emails to corporate executives to sell a domain name. Many aren’t working, and those who are working, are probably trying to finish up so they can close down for the week and get out of the office. Even if an email gets through and there is interest in a domain name, it will take a while for the decision makers to discuss, negotiate, and approve a deal – let alone bring in the legal team to hammer out the purchase agreement and the finance team to deal with the payment.

In the corporate world,

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Make Sure the I is Not an l

Elliot Silver
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4

Depending on the font in an email or a website, a lowercase “L” can look an awful lot like an uppercase I. Someone could try and fool a buyer into thinking that they are selling a valuable domain name that begins with the letter “I,” but in reality, it is really a lowercase “l.” They may look the same in some formats, but obviously one would be a word and the other would not spell anything.

It seems like most domain name marketplaces and auction platforms make an effort to ensure there is little confusion when it comes to the letters in a particular domain name. Listing the domain name in all lowercase letters is helpful, and having the option to view the uppercase version is helpful as well. I think most of the major platforms and marketplaces don’t allow sellers to interchange upper and lower case letters. This isn’t foolproof because some people may not think the l is a L even though the letters are lowercase.

When it comes to email negotiations though, it is possible these two letters could be interchanged

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A Hyphen May Help You Find a Buyer

Elliot Silver
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0

Darryl Lopes, formerly a broker at Uniregistry and now an independent domain broker, shared a great tip on Twitter this week that could be helpful to domain investors who are looking to sell a domain name:

For the sake of discussion, let’s say I want to sell DomainInvesting.com. The traditional way that I would search for a buyer if I was doing outbound would be the following:

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Proving Ownership After GDPR

Elliot Silver
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23

GDPR has been in force for over a month, and it is creating some complications for domain investors. This afternoon, a friend emailed me to get some advice. His company is close to selling one of its domain names, but the buyer wants to confirm that the company owns the domain name. Because of GDPR, the Whois record shows “Data Protected” as the registrant. It’s challenging to prove ownership when the Whois information does not reflect this.

I made two suggestions to my friend, assuming that the buyer had contacted his company via the contact link on the landing page and the fact that he replied was not sufficient to the prospect. Here’s what I would do if I needed to prove ownership of a domain name:

1) Take a screenshot of the domain name in my registrar control panel. Take a second screenshot of the actual page where I can modify settings for the domain name.

2) Forward the domain name to a destination of the prospect’s choice temporarily (ie for a few minutes or hours).

I would also explain

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Don’t Rely on Outlier Sale Data

Elliot Silver
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13

Every day, NameBio reports the largest public sales that transacted at domain name aftermarket platforms and auction platforms from the prior day. Nearly every day, I see at least one domain name sale that leaves me scratching my head a bit. “Why on Earth would someone pay $x for this domain name,” I think to myself.

A critical error a domain investor – especially a new domain investor – can make is buying or registering other domain names that look similar based on the sale price of an outlier domain name sale.

People and companies buy domain names that make sense to them but may not make sense to others. Perhaps the buyer is working on a marketing campaign or wants to secure a domain name for a project or rebrand. A domain name is a unique piece of Internet real estate, and sometimes a company or person needs a very specific domain name when an alternative will not work. If the domain registrant is unwilling to lower the price and the buyer has the funds, it can lead to a sale that stands out to others. This is obviously great for the registrant, but it likely doesn’t mean that similar domain names are worth any more than they were worth before the sale.

Here’s a fictitious example:

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