Earlier this week, I shared that I have been expanding my non-.com domain portfolio, and that I sold one of those domain names via Afternic. The domain name was transferred from my account at Namecheap, and I am awaiting the confirmation and payment emails from Afternic.

This is my first non-.com domain name sale since my .XYZ domain name sale back in 2022.

I have been expanding my non .com portfolio.

I have a non-.com domain name “On Hold” at @afternic. I paid a little more than $250 this year, and it’s pending sale at $4,595.

If it closes, it would be my first non-.com sale since my .XYZ sale in 2022.

🤞🤞🤞

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) May 27, 2024

Michael Cyger amplified a post that offers a look into a massive pitfall for operators on non .com domain names as well as off-brand domain names. Misdirected emails, also known as email leakage, is an issue many business operators don’t even know about or understand until it becomes a problem. See for yourself:

📌

"Domain suffix familiarity bias"

Where people append ".com" to a domain name because of mind share, habit or assumption.

It’s real. https://t.co/iAn98kzSXL

— Michael Cyger (@MichaelCyger) May 9, 2024

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.

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: