What to do with Extra / Unused Domains

Elliot Silver
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Every once in a while, a family friend or friend of a friend gets in touch with me to ask about their unused domain names. Sometimes these domain names were bought for a project that was never launched or they were previously used and are no longer needed.

I want to share the advice I generally give to people who own extra domain names but aren’t in the business of domain investing. Generally speaking, I recommend three options for them to either use their domain names, make money from the traffic their domain names receive, or to increase the likelihood of selling their domain names.

Three ways to profit from unused domain names:

1) Park the domain names to earn pay per click (PPC) revenue. It is free to

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How to Keep a Domain Registration Private

Elliot Silver
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Whois privacy is often cited in a negative manner, but there are many valid reasons for people wanting to keep a domain name registration private. I keep some of my domain names privately registered as a means of cutting down on spam, preventing others from seeing domain names my company owns, and preventing others from knowing what domain names I am buying and selling.

Whois privacy is offered at most domain name registrars. Private domain registrations are  generally inexpensive. Some registrars such as Uniregistry offer free privacy on domain names.

I want to share a few ways domain investors can keep their domain name registrations private. Keep in mind it would be very easy for an attorney to get a court order to reveal private Whois information for legal reasons. Also, keep in mind that I am not a privacy expert, so my privacy needs aren’t critically important to my business, and the suggestions below aren’t going to guarantee privacy. For that, an attorney should almost certainly be consulted.

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Always Good to Reconnect with a Domain Owner

Elliot Silver
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Whether you are a buyer or a seller (or both), it makes sense to check back in regarding a domain name.

At the beginning of the year, I was working with a few people who had significant interest in domain names owned by my company. Unfortunately, due to their budgetary limitations, we were unable to work out a deal. I thought it might be a good time to reconnect now that a couple of months have passed.

My pricing position hasn’t really changed, but perhaps theirs has. Maybe they have a tax refund coming or they needed a gentle reminder about the domain name. They may have shifted focus to their business, figuring that they can reach out about the domain name at a later point in time. I am someone who is happy to work with a buyer to get a favorable deal done, and I am hopeful that reconnecting a short time later will give a negotiation a shot in the arm.

If you are a

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Have a Reasonable Price When Doing Outbound Sales

Elliot Silver
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Sometime within the last 6 months, someone I don’t know emailed me to ask if I was interested in buying one (or more) of the three domain names he listed in the email. I was interested in one, and he told me the price was $500,000. When I saw the price, I said no and he asked for a counter. I told the owner we were too far apart, and I didn’t bother to submit an offer.

A couple of months after receiving the email, I saw that the domain name sold for around $10,000.

Had the owner started in the $10-50k range I may have made a competitive offer. His asking price out of the gate made me question my own valuation, and I didn’t want to submit a lowball offer or get into a valuation argument with the owner.

There are two lessons

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Realtor Shares Advice About Real Estate Domain Names

Bill Hauck
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Publisher’s note: Bill Hauck shared an insightful comment earlier this week about real estate domain names, and I asked him if he would be willing to expound on it in a blog post. Bill was kind enough to write the article below sharing some of his advice.

I’ve been a residential real estate agent for nearly 20 years and a domain name investor/enthusiast for at least the last ten years, maybe longer. During that time, I’ve purchased a number of real estate-related domain names to use for my real estate business, and others for the sole purpose of licensing or reselling. If you’re considering purchasing real estate-related domain names with the goal of licensing or reselling them to an end-user, my thought process as both Realtor and as a domainer may be of some help to you.

As a Realtor, I wanted to acquire geo-specific, real estate-related domains for lead generation. I was able to acquire several on Namejet and purchased (or negotiated trades for) other domains directly from the owners. Here is a list of domains I was willing to purchase over the years, albeit not at very high prices; SiouxFallsLots.com, SiouxFallsLand.com, SiouxFallsListings.com, SiouxFallsTeam.com, SiouxFallsCondos.com, SiouxFallsCondominiums.com, SiouxFallsBuilders.com, SiouxFallsBuilder.com, SiouxFallsSDRealEstate.com, SiouxFallsProperties.com and SiouxFallsHome.com. While I still own most of the above domains, the most desirable domains a Realtor can own, and more importantly may be willing to pay thousands of dollars for, are “City”Homes.com or “City”RealEstate.com. I was fortunate to acquire SiouxFallsHomes.com after many years of staying in touch with the owner and making generous offers for the domain.

In my opinion, “City”Homes.com is a bit shorter and slightly more brandable. However, I like the keywords in “City”RealEstate.com better and the domain can also be used for residential and commercial property. While there may be some money to be made in other real estate-related domain names, my personal preference when investing in geo real estate domains is to focus on “City”Homes.com and “City”RealEstate.com.

Once you have a quality real estate domain (RED) that you want to license or sell is to find an end-user. Years ago, I used to make lists of individual real estate agents and their e-mail addresses. While I had some early success that led to licensing three real estate domains (REDs), the returns weren’t high enough to justify all of the work. More recently, I’ve found that it’s become difficult to find e-mails addresses of individual agents, although I suspect there are services available for such purposes.

Here are some bullet points from my personal experience

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Bounced Emails Can Yield Hidden Info

Elliot Silver
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With most domain name privacy services, an email that is directed to the anonymized email address will automatically be forwarded to the domain owner’s email address. The sender won’t know the email address until the owner responds.

Yesterday, I was sending out some domain name offers and inquiries, and one of the emails bounced as undeliverable. This email happened to be a privacy service email, and I found a bit of a surprise when I opened it. The bounced email report showed the email address of the domain owner, and that gave me two important pieces of information that may prove to be helpful.

First and foremost, the email address will

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