Keep Your Whois Contact Information Accurate

Elliot Silver
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I want to share a tip for those of you who don’t use an email service like Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL in favor of hosting your own email on one of your domain names. If you ever sell that domain name, make sure you update your Whois contact information.

Yesterday afternoon, I found a domain name I wanted to inquire about. I saw that the Whois contact email address was a name @ a fantastic one word domain name. I thought to myself that perhaps I could inquire about that great name, too, and buy two domain names at once. I visited the second domain name and saw that it was parked.

More intrigued by the better one word domain name, I decided to do some more research on it. I saw that the Whois registration went

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Responding to An Exceptional Offer

Elliot Silver
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34

If you are similar to me, I bet that the majority of the inbound offers you receive are really low. I have found that most offers are either made by people trying to lowball me or people who are uneducated about domain name values. The result is that they offer tens or hundreds of dollars for valuable domain assets.

Early last year, I won a name inexpensively on NameJet. The cost was less than $500, and I thought it was worth a few thousand to the right buyer.I went prospecting, and I came up empty. I offered it for a couple thousand dollars on a few venues, but I didn’t find a buyer. It was a name I thought I was going to hold for a while.

At the end of the summer, I received an unsolicited offer for the domain name via the Voodoo landing page. The offer was for $20,000 and it came from a legitimate source.

At first, I was stumped about how to respond. I didn’t want to risk the offer by asking for more, especially because it was clear to me that this domain name was not really worth $20,000. I also didn’t want to immediately accept the offer fearing that the buyer would think he offered too much out of the gate. In all my years buying domain names, I’ve probably only bought a couple for my initial offer. Everybody counters, and I didn’t want to give him the idea that he would be overpaying.

I decided that my tact would be to call the buyer and ask him what his plans would be for the domain name figuring he would sell me on his idea and I’d agree to the deal. His idea was pretty fascinating, and he had the background to make something big happen. I agreed to sell him the domain name shortly after that. I think a personal conversation helped with this  negotiation  because I didn’t risk losing the $20,000 offer and I also didn’t immediately accept it either.

The end of the story isn’t nearly as good as the beginning. Unfortunately, the buyer didn’t seem to receive the funding he was expecting, and he put the purchase off until January. Since then, I haven’t heard back from him and I assume the deal is off. Easy come, easy go.

What tactics do you find effective when you receive an offer that is well above your ideal sales price?

Add a Deadline to An Offer

Elliot Silver
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5

Yesterday I wrote a post with some advice on adding a deadline to a price quote when a potential buyer inquires about a domain name. I believe it’s also important for you to add a deadline on your offers for similar, but slightly different reasons.

When you make an offer on a domain name, it’s likely you want an answer quickly. My experience tells me that the more a domain owner thinks about it, the less likely the deal is going to happen. When you know the offer is really being considered, you might set a deadline to get the person to make a decision more quickly. If the owner needs to make a quicker decision knowing that your offer may disappear, it might move things in your favor. Further, by setting a deadline, you reinforce that this offer is most likely your best and final offer.

I send out inquiries all the time. More often than not, my offers aren’t accepted because the domain owner and I can’t come to terms. On occasion, several offers are accepted right around the same time, and I need to be sure I can pay for all of these purchases. The last thing I want is to have an offer from months or even years prior get accepted and not have the comfort to spend all that cash on several deals at once. Hence, setting an expiration date on your offer can be a wise move.

One thing to consider when setting a deadline on an offer is that you need to make sure your offer is actually being considered. You’ll look like a fool if you offer $500 for a LLL.com domain name and tell the owner he only has 24 hours to respond to your ridiculous offer.

If your offer is declined, you can always tell the person you’ll keep your offer open should you have the money in the future. This doesn’t obligate you to follow through with the purchase should the domain owner reconsider down the road. It’s also a friendly way to let the owner know to contact you in the future if circumstances change.

Set A Deadline On Your Price Quotes

Elliot Silver
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11

I want to share a piece of advice with you that can benefit you in two ways. When responding to an inquiry on one of your domain names, always set a deadline on your price quote.

The first reason for doing this is because your financial situation may change from the time you price a domain name until the time a buyer agrees to buy it. For instance, you might be more motivated to sell a name today and would give a better price than you will be in 6 months. Why create a potential problem with rescinding an offer that was given months prior.

The second reason you should set s deadline is because it creates a greater sense of urgency for the buyer. Much like those infomercials that encourage viewers to act now, your deadline will create more urgency. It may also help hasten a decision when multiple domain names are being considered.

I don’t really see a disadvantage to doing this aside from potentially putting off a buyer who isn’t ready to transact. Even if the buyer comes back after the deadline, you can always agree to sell the name for that price if you want.

I like to use either a week or until the end of the present week when I set a deadline, depending on circumstances related to that particular negotiation.

Do you give buyers deadlines when they ask for pricing, and if you do, what amount of time do you typically give.

Go Daddy Guest Post: How To Protect Your Accounts

Elliot Silver
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18

Go Daddy CISOThis is a guest post from Go Daddy’s Chief Information Security Officer, Todd Redfoot. In the post, Todd discusses how you can keep your accounts protected and your domain names safe.

Knowing that an outside party accessed one of your accounts can be incredibly frustrating and exhausting. But there are practical steps you can take to protect your accounts and the information you store in them.

7 basic ways you can make sure your accounts stay secure:

  1. Use a strong password. Eight characters is really not sufficient, a strong “passphrase” is the better choice. A creative device to help with generating strong passwords is to use a phrase that has special meaning to you. For example, “I need a strong password to make sure I’m completely secure,” could become the password InaspTmsIc$. Passwords should consist of a minimum of nine (9) characters and contain at least one special character.
  2. Change your password – often.  This can be as simple as setting a reminder on your calendar to change your password at the beginning of every month.
  3. Use a variety of passwords.  You should never use the same password for multiple accounts. It simply makes it easier for hackers to access all  of your accounts. If you find it difficult to remember all these crazy passwords – try a password safe. There are many free ones out there that will safely store all your passwords in an encrypted database on your machine. Make sure you do your research before downloading anything you find on page 1 of a Google search.
  4. Always, always, always log out.  This is particularly true if you’re using a shared computer, such as one at work or in an Internet café. Regardless of the account you’re in, Facebook or Wells Fargo, take this precaution every time.
  5. Make sure your account is up to date.  Some digital spring cleaning can also protect you. Remove expired credit cards you have stored in accounts and make sure your phone number and address are correct. Not only does this make your account secure, it also ensures that companies you do business with can contact you if there’s ever an issue.
  6. Beware of Wi-Fi hotspots.  Sure, they’re convenient. But you shouldn’t use them to access secure accounts. Hackers are known to roam hotspots looking for their next victim.
  7. Protect your PC. Be careful what you download – only use trusted, well-vetted sources – and invest in anti-virus software to keep your computer safe.

When you have done “everything”, what else can you do?

  1. Do the 2-Step.  Two-step authentication adds another layer of security by texting you a validation code to enter whenever you log in or make important account changes. If it’s available to you, take advantage of it. Go Daddy offers two-step authentication in the US and Canada. You can find out more information about it here.
  2. Never share your account with others.  By giving others access to your account, or purchasing products with someone else’s payment method, you are giving them full access to your account details. If you need to delegate management of your resources check to see if you can assign permissions via account management settings. Go Daddy provides “Account Administrator” functionality. This allows management of your resources from separate accounts, limiting direct access to  account details and billing information. Read more here.
  3. Check for keyloggers on your computer.  Your computer might have malicious software, known as keyloggers, installed that records every keystroke you make — including your user names and passwords.   Run anti-virus programs regularly to detect keyloggers. We recommend using your favorite search engine to find software that removes key loggers from your computer.
  4. Don’t fall for a phishing scheme.  Cybercriminals look to create a sense of urgency to trick unsuspecting victims into downloading malicious files. Many attackers try to lure  you into their schemes by sending emails that look legitimate, but include links to fake login pages that closely resemble the legitimate website. Hover over links, check for misspellings (acmebnak instead of acmebank), but don’t click. Go directly to the website and log in as you would normally; any message, important action, etc. will be there if the email is legitimate. Emails from Go Daddy, in most cases, include your first and last name, a clear first indicator of legitimacy.

Protecting you data is as critical as locking your car or your house – don’t give an attacker an easier route by using weak passwords or unsafe networks.

Test Your Sale Message

Elliot Silver
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One of the nice aspects of parking with Internet Traffic and Voodoo is the ability to add a “for sale” message across the top of your domain name landing pages. I have found that people are more apt to visit the landing page and inquire vs. sending an email after looking up the Whois information.

Having a message in a bright header is great, but the wording of the message is also important in order to get the visitor to inquire about the domain name. You are given a few options for this message:

  • Message wording
  • Pricing (or no pricing)
  • Where to send visitors to make an offer or inquire

In my opinion, it’s important to test the wording on your landing pages to see what drives the most offers, as well as what drives the most sales. I would assume it’s only a statistically significant test if you receive enough offers that the test is valid, but you can test just the same even if you don’t receive many offers.

I recommend looking at Frank Schilling’s company landing pages to see what his wording is and compare it to the default in the Domain Name Sales platform back end. Check out what other people are using, and test your own variations. It might be helpful if you have different portfolios and do some A/B testing just to make sure all things are as equal as possible.

At the end of the day, the quality of the domain name is what will drive the most offers, but you want to make sure it’s clear that the domain name is for sale (or lease) and the visitor should easily be able to get in touch to discuss.

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