Domain Sales

In my opinion, much like sharing DN Journal’s sales chart to prospective buyers, sharing a list of companies that use or own keyword .com domain names is a good way to encourage prospects to purchase their own keyword domain names. If a company learns that larger companies are utilizing keyword domain names, they might want to acquire their own keyword domain names.

Dominic Mueller complied a list of large companies that own keyword domain names, and I believe a few others have done so as well. I was just sent a link to Domain Guardians’ website, where they have compiled an even larger list of “premium domain names owned by companies.” Their report contains nearly 400 keyword domain names owned by large companies and brands.

I listed a few others they didn’t note below:

• Pacific Coast Feather Company – Featherbeds.com
• Pacific Coast Feather Company – DownComforters.com
• Dreyers – FrozenYogurt.com
• Vail Resorts – SkiRentals.com
• Vail Resorts – Snow.com
• Landor – Branding.com
• US Navy – Navy.com
• IAC – Green.com
• Orange – Orange.com

If you are approaching end user buyers with exact match keyword domain names, you might want to send them a link to Domain Guardians’ list to show them how other companies are using exact match domain names for their own businesses.

One tip if you do this. Make sure you actually have keyword domain names that you can compare apples to apples. Even if it’s a smaller niche industry, it’s likely important for the companies you will be pitching.

We’ve all seen domain sales before that are similar to domain names we own. We (you and me) think that the buyer would possibly want to purchase one of our similar domain names if we could only get in touch with them to let them know the availability and price.

The problem that I’ve encountered though is that many sales are done in private and the Whois information goes to privacy. This makes it difficult to find out who bought the name, especially if the buyer was a large company with many levels of red tape.

One of the best things you can do to find out the buyer’s contact information is to reach out to the seller to ask for the buyer’s contact information.  Since the Whois has changed, you can most likely find out the seller’s contact information using DomainTools’  historical Whois lookup tool.

You’ll most likely want the person’s name, email address, and phone number. You might even offer a commission to that person as an incentive to give you the buyer’s information. I would also let the seller know why you want it by mentioning your domain name.

Some sellers are reluctant to give out any information because they may have other names to sell that buyer and also because many people don’t like giving out the contact information of someone they know, especially if they don’t know you. However, if you let them know why you want it, perhaps they will be willing to share to help you close a deal, or maybe they would even be willing to contact the buyer on your behalf.