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Diligence Tip: Remove the Domain Name from Email

I do diligence on a prospective buyer because I like to know who is on the other end of an inquiry/offer email. In general, most people will reply with their full name and email address. Some people may reply with a fictitious name or nickname to try and retain some level of anonymity. For the most part, prospects don’t completely obfuscate who they are.

For my inquiry forms, the only mandatory fields are name and email address. A person may use a fake name or nickname to shield their identity, but most won’t use a unique email address nor do they take the time to create one for the purpose of inquiring about a domain name.

OOV.com Acquired for $400,000

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The OOV.com domain name was acquired for $400,000. The news was announced by Saw.com, the domain brokerage that helped its client privately acquire the domain name:

This $400,000 sale is the largest publicly reported 3 letter .com domain name sale of 2024 (to date), and on the higher end of recent LLL.com domain name sales. Once recorded by DNJournal, it will tie the $400,000 sale of Peace.com. I doubt it will stay in the top 10 sales of 2024 for very long. Notably, in a recent podcast, Ryan McKegney said that DomainAgents brokered the sale of a three letter .com earlier this year for $2 million, but the domain name that was sold can not be revealed due to a non-disclosure agreement.

Liner Acquires Liner.com

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Liner is a AI-driven search engine for students and researchers. The company operates on the off-brand GetLiner.com domain name. Last week on X, the company announced a $29 million Series B funding round:

This morning, Ariyas noted the post about the funding round and wondered if Ammar Kubba had sold the brand matching Liner.com domain name. As of today, Liner.com forwards to a Notion website featuring the Liner logo.

Slice Acquires Slice.com After 8 Years

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Slice is a company that helps independent pizzerias with technology, marketing, and operations solutions. In fact, I have used Slice when ordering from our local pizza shop. Since 2016, the company has operated on the (less than ideal) SliceLife.Partners domain name. Slice.com was the ideal domain name that the company has coveted, but it was owned and used by a major corporation.

Within the last week or so, Slice acquired Slice.com. The domain name transferred from MarkMonitor to GoDaddy under Whois privacy. Slice.com now forwards to SliceLife.Partners.

Ilir Sela, Founder and CEO of Slice, wrote about the acquisition on LinkedIn yesterday afternoon. He also posted about it briefly on X:

Last night, I reached out to Ilir to see if he could share the acquisition price of Slice.com, but I did not hear back from him. In the meantime, I added Slice to the Embrace.com list of companies that upgraded its domain name.

Candy.com Acquired by Hilco Digital

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In 2021, the Candy.com domain name was sold for an undisclosed sum in a deal brokered by Andrew Miller of Hilco Digital and Amanda Waltz, then of Saw.com. At that time, the domain name was acquired by a company that specializes in the sale of digital collectibles. It had previously been sold to a candy company by Rick Schwartz, and that company used it to catapult its business, as noted in DNJournal.

Last week, the company operating on Candy.com announced it would be migrating its business to the Candy.io domain name:

Results from One Month with Afternic Boost

Afternic began charging for its upgraded “Boost” features on September 4th. Instead of paying 15% commission for selling a domain name via Afternic with their nameservers enabled, sellers now pay 20% commission. Sellers could opt out of Boost if they preferred, and the commission fee would remain at 15%. They would not have some of the search and result page features discussed by Afternic if they opted out.

I have a portfolio hovering around 2,000 domain names. When Boost went into effect, I kept all of my domain names priced below $2,000 opted-in to Boost. Those 1,000+ domain names all have Afternic nameservers, and I think nearly all of them have the new “custom” landing page design. Some have make offer enabled and others are just BIN or BIN + LTO.