Buying Domain Names

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

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: