How Automated Appraisals Help Me Make Money

Elliot Silver
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13

Every morning, I receive several emails that list expiry-stream domain names coming up for auction that day. I receive a mix of emails from auction platforms and third-party services. The emails send me domain names that meet certain criteria I have set to help me find domain names I might otherwise miss.

Off the top of my head, at least two of these daily emails have automated appraisals in them. These appraisals are one of the factors I look at when buying domain names. I don’t take the number too seriously, but if an appraisal is higher than I might have expected to see, it grabs my attention and makes me do a bit of searching to see what signals are causing it to have more value.

I regularly participate in auctions, and I don’t typically let

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Afternic and SmartName Announce New Payment Options

Elliot Silver
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2

Afternic and SmartName sent emails to customers this morning announcing new payment options and payment changes for clients to receive disbursements from domain name sales and/or PPC revenue. It looks like there are no minimums for payouts, with the exception of international wire transfers, which have a $25 minimum amount. I am not sure which options are new or changed from before.

Here’s the announcement that was sent to customers this morning along with the payment options and associated fees:

We are excited to announce that Afternic is launching new payment options and lower minimum payment thresholds for your domain sales and parking earnings. We’ve been listening to our customers and have partnered with an external payment processor to support these new features.

In October, you will notice a new look and feel to your payments section within My Account and you will be able to take advantage of these new options. While these changes will be seamless for our customers, you will need to submit an updated tax form by the end of 2018. This is not a requirement to receive your parking earnings, but we must have an updated tax form on file by December 31, 2018 in order to issue you a Form 1099 for 2018.

Please review below the new payment options, minimum earnings, and payment fees.

Payment Method Minimum Earnings Payment Fee
ACH no minimum USD $1.00
eCheck no minimum USD $5.00
PayPal no minimum USD $1.00
Wire Transfer (international) USD $25.00 USD $20.00
Wire Transfer (domestic) no minimum USD$15.00

NameFind Premiums Forwarding to Afternic Inquiry Form

Elliot Silver
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13

Every once in a while, I check out the landing pages for various high value domain names owned by GoDaddy via its NameFind portfolio company. Because GoDaddy has one of the largest domain name portfolios and probably sells more aftermarket domain names than anyone else, I visit their landing pages to see if I can learn anything valuable to help me sell my domain names.

In June of last year, I noticed quite a few of their valuable one word .com domain names had a different domain for sale landing page. The company appeared to take many of them off of a parking PPC landing page and used a different style of landing page to make it clear that the domain name was for sale.

This morning, I noticed the landing page for some of the premium names changed again. The company is no longer using the landing page that had been used before, but is now forward the domain names to what I believe is the longstanding Afternic inquiry form:

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Signet.com Sold for $300,000 via Afternic

Elliot Silver
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10

Earlier this month, Jamie Zoch reported that “Signet.com has been acquired by a currently unknown CSC Corporate Domains client.” The domain name was sold by Netincome Ventures, Garry Chernoff’s domain investment firm. From what I can see using DomainTools Whois History tool, Garry’s company owned Signet.com since at least 2004, the date of the earliest historical Whois record.

I have been given permission to share that Signet.com was sold for $300,000 in a deal brokered by Afternic. Garry told me the deal took three months to negotiate. The sale was confirmed by a representative from Afternic, but the company declined to provide further details about the deal.

I presume Ron Jackson will

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Be Mindful of Listing Date at GoDaddy / Afternic

Elliot Silver
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13

I have a few hundred domain names listed for sale on Afternic / GoDaddy. After re-listing a domain name for sale, I discovered something that is pretty small but could pose a larger concern. Domain names listed for sale on Afternic have a listing date on the listing page:

For most people, this is probably a very small detail that would go unnoticed. I didn’t really even think about it until very recently, and I want to share why it could be problematic.

I was reading the news and I learned that a big company had acquired a smaller company, and I own the exact match .com domain name of the smaller brand name, which is completely generic/descriptive. In this particular field, the smaller companies retain their own branding, so there is not a concern that the brand name would change.

When I saw the news about the acquisition, I went to check

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Steve Jurvetson Launches Firm on Future.Ventures

Elliot Silver
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4

Steve Jurvetson is a well-known venture capitalist and was a co-founder of the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). Apparently, Jurvetson left DFJ last year, and Recode is reporting that he is starting a new firm called Future Ventures. Interestingly, the company is using the new gTLD domain name, Future.Ventures for its website.

The Future Ventures brand name sounded familiar to me because the exact match .com domain name, FutureVentures.com, was sold on NameJet about 2.5 months ago. I liked the name enough to bid $777 for it, but FutureVentures.com ended up selling for $1,009. There were 37 bidders who participated in the expiry auction.

When I did a Whois search for the domain name, the Registrar Status is listed

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