Unscrupulous People Trying to Sell Names Owned By Others

My business model involves the re-sale of domain names. Oftentimes, I will buy a domain name on a venue like NameJet, and after I won the auction, paid in full for the name, and have it in my possession, I may seek out an end user buyer via resale of the domain name.

This morning, I sent out some emails to end users about a domain name I recently won at auction. A few minutes after my first email went out, I received a reply asking me how much the domain name would cost. After sharing my price, the prospect emailed me back asking why my price was higher than what my “colleague offered a few days ago.”

Since I don’t have any co-workers or employees, and since this was an expired domain name rather than a private auction, I am pretty confident

Domain Auction Prediction Algorithm

Every once in a while, I think of a tool I think would be helpful to my business. I don’t have any type of computer programming background, so instead of spinning my wheels and throwing money at something I wouldn’t be able to adequately tackle, I figured I’d write a blog post about it and maybe someone will create it.

Every domain name that goes to auction, whether expiring auction at NameJet or private auction at TRAFFIC, has many unique attributes. There is extension, keywords, length, inbound links, Google results, keyword search numbers, pagerank, number of other extensions registered, how the domain name was used previously…etc.

All domain names probably have dozens of unique attributes that can be identified, and each attribute plays an important role in the domain name’s valuation.

I would love to have a tool that uses an algorithm to predict the closing price of a domain auction before the auction begins. With thousands of auctions occurring daily across many platforms, there is plenty of data that can be used to predict the sale price. I think it would be a great add on to a tool like FreshDrop, and it could even be a Firefox or  Chrome extension that could be enabled on the auction platforms, allowing me to sort by predicted closing price.

This tool is different than automated appraisal tools like Estibot because it would actually predict closing prices rather than value. In addition to a domain name’s attributes, the tool would also take the auction conditions into account as best as possible. For instance, it would be able to use the auction’s start time, venue, number of backorders, high bid prior to auction, and other factors into account when predicting the closing price. With each auction that the algorithm records, it would be able to self adjust for more accuracy.

Do you think a tool like this would be helpful, and would you pay for something like this? How would you go about getting something like this built?

NameJet Auctioning Premium .PW Domain Names

NameJet is auctioning a number of top .PW domain names beginning in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to make you aware of the auction. Included in this auction is 23 single letter .PW domain names. The only single letter .PW domain names not included in the auction are p.PW, u.PW, and w.PW.

The .PW domain registry recently announced that they made an off-market deal with an Internet startup company called Upworthy, which has pledged to make u.PW its exclusive url shortener, like Twitter has done with t.CO. w.PW does not resolve, and p.PW looks like it’s already an active website. The terms of that deal were

TRAFFIC Auction Results Update

I received a number of comments on my blog yesterday regarding the fact that the TRAFFIC auction results weren’t livestreamed or blogged by anyone, and I want to post a brief follow up on that.

As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t going to be a bidder in the auction and I had no names listed for sale. I decided to take some time to enjoy my trip to Las Vegas (blackjack and the pool) instead of sitting an a domain auction. Sorry, that this upset some, but that’s life.

I reached out to Rick and Howard, and I was able to get some information about the auction, which I posted below. Over 50% of the listed names sold during the auction.

A couple of the auctions have offers close to reserve, so they are labeled as contingent pending owner approval (I assume). If the name doesn’t have a number next to it, I believe it means the name did not sell. It looks like there were some good deals to be had.

TRAFFIC auction results:

My Top 5 Picks for the TRAFFIC Auction

When I received the list of names for today’s TRAFFIC auction, there were a couple of names that caught my eye that I had a serious interest in buying. Since then, I’ve come to terms on a couple of large-ish purchases, so I will most likely be on the sidelines (well, probably playing blackjack or at the pool) for this auction.

Since it’s unlikely that I will be bidding, I thought I would share my top 5 picks from the auction without worrying that I am going to end up giving myself additional competition.

Online bidding is not available for this auction, so if you aren’t in Las Vegas and have a serious interest in the domain name, you should get in touch with conference organizers to sign up for phone bidding: “Just contact Ray Neu.  ray at 54.ws before NOON today west coast time.”   Alternatively, you can try and get someone that you trust to bid on your behalf.

May Great Domains Auction Nets $175k

Sedo’s May Great Domains auction ended last week, and the converted total sales value in USD was $174,838.09. The largest sale was MPH.com for $62,000. Several three letter .com domain names sold in this auction for fairly solid prices considering the letters.

I believe this is one of the most successful Great Domains auctions in a while, with the exception of the auction that included the sale of Moms.com (for over $250,000). Listed below are the sales from this month’s auction.

mph.com 62000 $US
engineer.co.uk 10099 £
upv.com 10000 EUR
child.org 9976 EUR
sbq.com 9300 EUR
chz.com 9100 EUR
kjq.com 8600 EUR
d-y.com 5655 EUR
booklets.com 5099 $US
emq.com 5000 $US