Buying Domain Names

What Registrar Would You Suggest for a Friend?

One of my wife’s friends called me today to talk about a domain name. She mentioned that she is thinking about starting her own business and had a domain name in mind that was available to register. She wanted my opinion on what domain registrar to use.

A question like that is simple for me. More often than not, a friend or friend of a friend will seek me out for help or guidance about an impossible to buy domain name or one that is extraordinarily valuable when their budget is limited. I am sure you deal with those kinds of buyers all the time, so at least credit is due for getting educated before making inquiries.

YouForm.com Deal Looks Like a Win Win

Davis Baer, Founder of Youform, shared that his company acquired the Youform.com domain name for $7,500:

There are a few things to unpack from this and from his subsequent tweets. Youform has been using Youform.io for its website. The .com domain name was acquired via Sedo following a negotiation. Davis shared how the negotiation went, and he was able to secure the domain name for $7,500. This seems like a great deal for his company, particularly considering its initial $25,000 asking price.

5 Things I Check Before Making an Offer

Domain investing can be a high stakes business. I invest substantial amounts of money to buy individual domain names, with the hope that someone is willing to buy it from me for substantially more than I paid. When spending 5 figures on a domain name acquisition, I need to be right about my retail valuation.

Here are 5 things I usually check before making an offer to buy a domain name:

My Portfolio by Acquisition Date

One question I am asked quite a bit is about how long it takes me to sell my domain names. This isn’t something I really track, so I usually respond by saying that it can be a week or 10 years – it can be a crapshoot and come down to how motivated I am to sell a particular domain name.

For those who are curious about how long I’ve held names in my portfolio, I did a quick analysis of my inventory this morning to give an idea. Interestingly perhaps, all of the domain names I owned in 2007 and prior aren’t domain names I would sell. For instance, I bought TopNotchDomains.com in 2006 and that isn’t for sale because I am using it for my corporate website.

Here’s an approximate breakdown of domain names in my portfolio by acquisition year:

Honeymoons.com: Domain Name Led to 10x Revenue

Jim Campbell, Founder of Honeymoons.com, published an article on Entrepreneur.com that discussed how a domain name acquisition “resulted in a 7x increase in traffic and a 10x increase in revenue.” For someone like myself, this article reinforces how an exceptional category defining domain name can be transformed into an authoritative brand name in its industry.

According to the article, the Honeymoons.com domain name was acquired in July of 2023 “for mid-six figures.” Prior to the acquisition, the company had been using the less-than-ideal HoneymoonGoals.com domain name. Some of the benefits of acquiring Honeymoons.com that were cited in the article include:

Being Candid on .AI Domain Names

Andrew Rosener and Andy Booth are two domain investors whose opinions I respect. I have known Andy and Andrew for many years, and I know both have had considerable success investing in domain names.

When it comes to .AI domain name investments, it looks like their paths are diverging. Andy was recently on the Domain Sherpa show, and .AI was a topic of discussion.

In addition to this, a recent Twitter exchange between Andrew and Andy show their differing thoughts on .AI domain name investing:

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