Vestis Gets Defensive

Elliot Silver
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Many companies defensively register or acquire domain names as part of a domain name defense strategy. The most common strategy revolves around securing domain names that could be used by bad actors for cybersquatting, phishing, or other nefarious activity. Some companies take defensive domain registration further by securing domain names that could be used against the company in any negative manner.

Over the past few days, I noticed one company that has taken defensive domain name defense to a level I can’t recall seeing before. My DomainTools Registrant Monitor email identified many domain name registrations related to a brand called Vestis, and it looks like that business went on a massive defensive domain registration spree.

From what I can see, it looks like many of the domain names were registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy in March and recently transferred to MarkMonitor, a brand protection-focused domain name registrar.

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‘The Domain Name is Not for Sale’

Elliot Silver
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I’ve tried to buy thousands of domain names from registrants who told me some variation of ‘the domain name is not for sale.’ That may be true at that point in time, but the status can change. It doesn’t hurt to follow-up every once in a while.

I recently spent some time looking through hundreds of old emails I sent trying to buy domain names. I followed up on some older leads to re-engage the owners. Perhaps circumstances had changed since our last discussion. I like to follow-up between 6 months and a year after an email exchange, when I see a domain name isn’t being used.

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How to Buy a Domain Name That is Owned by Someone

Elliot Silver
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For a domain investor, buying a domain name is second nature. Investors hand register domain names, purchase domain names via expiry and private auctions, and acquire domain names owned by others via private acquisitions. For people who aren’t in the domain name business, acquiring a domain name can be confusing, frustrating, and challenging.

When I want to buy a domain name owned by someone else when the landing page or website doesn’t provide information, the first thing I look at is the Whois record. Among other information, public Whois data provides the domain registrant’s name, location, email address, and phone number. Domain registrars like GoDaddy have Whois lookup tools, as do third party services like DomainTools. Oftentimes, the registrar where the domain name is registered offers the most detailed information.

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CEO of NFT.com Shares Domain Name Acquisition Learnings

Elliot Silver
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Jordan Fried is the owner of some exceptional domain names. A few of the domain names he owns include NFT.com, PuertoRico.com, and Fried.com. This afternoon, Jordan posted an insightful Twitter thread offering some learnings from his domain name acquisitions. I think he offers some very good advice to people who are in the market to buy domain names, and it is well worth a read.

The target audience for the tweet thread is probably other Founders and CEOs, but domain investors can use it to understand a high end domain name buyer’s perspective:

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Check Archive.org for Historic Pricing

Elliot Silver
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This afternoon while doing some acquisition research and due diligence, I came across a domain name that is for sale. The “for sale” landing page looks somewhat dated, as if it was created quite a long time ago. Within the messaging was the asking price of the domain name along with some other (unappealing) domain names that the registrant also seems to own and wants to sell.

I then visited the Internet Archive – Archive.org – to get an idea of the domain name’s history, time on the market, and asking price history. Archive.org shows how different websites looked over the years. You can enter in a particular domain name, and you can see many entries from past days, weeks, months, and years.

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How to Buy a Domain Registered to Domains by Proxy LLC

Elliot Silver
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2

Domains By Proxy, LLC (DomainsByProxy.com) may be one of the most prolific domain registrants. Domains By Proxy isn’t actually the owner of most domain names registered to the entity. Domains By Proxy, LLC is the Whois privacy service operated by GoDaddy.

Customers of GoDaddy who do not want their contact information shown on a public Whois record may use Domains By Proxy as the Registrant Name for an additional fee. By using Domains by Proxy, a domain registrant’s name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and other private contact details are not shown in Whois lookups. Earlier this year, GoDaddy began offering Whois privacy by default on most new registrations and inbound domain transfers, but some people still pay to use this service.

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