Why Content Aggregators Suck

Elliot Silver
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11

The web is littered with websites that basically send out spiders to fetch content and post it on their own websites. There are also sites that repackage the RSS feed from other websites.  The objective is generally to monetize the little search traffic that comes for each post.

The owners of these sites often defend their action by saying that it can help the original site with SEO and may even send traffic to the original article if someone stumbled upon it via search engines.

It may seem like a small nuisance, but it’s actually a big deal and here’s an instance of where it may cost me A LOT of money.

A while back, I posted a few domain names for sale with the pricing. At the time, I was looking to move some names and priced them accordingly. One name didn’t sell and I still own it. I recently received an end user inquiry for the domain name, and the value is significantly greater than the price I set to sell to other domain investors.

My original post has been removed, but there are dozens of copies of it with the asking price on these aggregation websites that are supposedly helping my blog. Now I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I believe it’s just a matter of time before the inquirer says, “why should we pay $xxx,xxx for this domain name when you were willing to sell it for $xx,xxx so recently?” Comps of this particular name have sold for significantly more than my asking price, but it’s tough to justify such a huge price increase in a short period of time. It’s easy to say what I should tell them, but in a negotiation, it’s difficult to really justify this difference.

Sure, I could be happy selling it for that price since I would have been fine with it before. However, the situation and circumstances have changed, and it’s quite likely I will lose a significant sum as a result of aggregators indexing my original post.

(I do realize they may never be willing to pay the perceived value and may never have either. As with all negotiations, this one will be unique, but it’s tough to have this one particular facet of the negotiation in their favor.)

Afternic Records Nearly $400k in Domain Sales

Elliot Silver
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9

Despite the fact that the last week of the year is typically a very slow week for domain sales, Afternic scored nearly $400,000 in domain sales, which only includes their public sales that were $2,000 and higher.

Leading the way was the sale of WEHR.com for $73,700. The former owner of Wehr.com was Mdnh, Inc., which is a subsidiary of the publicly traded Marchex. The current page at WEHR.com announces that the World Energy Holdings and Research website will be coming soon.

Here is a list of some of the public Afternic domain sales from the past week.

wehr.com $73,700.00
onlinebanks.com $30,000.00
BusinessPlanet.com $22,500.00
aone.com $10,000.00
surveyreport.com $7,200.00
gamesonline.org $6,988.00
calgarycanada.com $6,500.00
filetaxreturn.com $6,400.00
drtea.com $6,160.00
nyack.com $6,000.00
propertymanagementservices.com $5,188.00
leadking.com $5,000.00
merla.com $5,000.00
plazaonline.com $4,388.00
kluane.com $4,300.00
thedreamcatcher.com $4,300.00
telecell.com $4,188.00
optex.net $4,188.00
uploads.org $3,988.00
preferredprovider.com $3,810.00
publici.com $3,700.00
webtome.com $3,688.00
officekit.com $3,588.00
homeservice.net $3,500.00
autoinsurances.net $3,400.00
mercurycommunications.com $3,300.00
typesafe.com $3,288.00
airad.com $3,188.00
ibunker.com $3,188.00
sweettempered.com $3,188.00
neuralinterface.com $3,110.00
glowstudios.com $3,088.00
coloni.com $3,000.00
dlogic.com $2,988.00
exclusivehawaii.com $2,988.00
magicgifts.com $2,890.00
starofasia.com $2,800.00
dreamcommerce.com $2,788.00
unionassurance.com $2,788.00
mygocon.com $2,750.00
drivechain.com $2,700.00
vevie.com $2,691.00
telelive.com $2,655.00
bookbank.net $2,612.00
getpersonalized.com $2,600.00
influentialthinking.com $2,588.00
spiritentertainment.com $2,588.00
netprice.org $2,588.00
theprogram.org $2,588.00
webhostingserver.com $2,500.00
zorgeloos.com $2,500.00
groceryshoppers.com $2,488.00
fotolibro.net $2,488.00
stopit.net $2,488.00
gifthint.com $2,475.00
equalweight.com $2,400.00
studioprints.com $2,397.00
heyladies.com $2,388.00
myword.net $2,388.00
nakamura.net $2,300.00
fashionjewelrywholesale.com $2,288.00
tigercool.com $2,277.00
yourpaintings.com $2,239.00
airwireless.com $2,200.00
hostgeneral.com $2,188.00
learnbeyond.com $2,154.00
onlinespot.com $2,088.00
theuniversalgroup.com $2,088.00
carforsale.net $2,088.00
notme.net $2,088.00
otava.net $2,088.00
thinkaboutit.net $2,088.00
independenthotel.com $2,077.00
kosherwholesale.com $2,012.00
22u.com $2,000.00
ahcv.com $2,000.00
flowingstreams.com $2,000.00
javateak.com $2,000.00
nyhair.com $2,000.00
preferredcontractor.com $2,000.00
salestechnologies.com $2,000.00
tekstream.com $2,000.00
westkingdom.com $2,000.00

Was Income.com Sold by Sedo Today?

Elliot Silver
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7

SedoA few weeks ago, I learned that Income.com, a domain name owned by Internet entrepreneur and marketing guru John Reese, had been put up for sale and was being marketed by Sedo domain broker, Dave Evanson. According to a post on the Wicked Fire forum, Reese sent an email stating that Sedo “listed it at  $1MM but think they can sell it for more.”

I have been monitoring the Whois for this domain name, and I just noticed a change in the registration this evening. Sedo is now shown as the domain registrant, which generally happens only after a sale has been consummated.

I can’t confirm that the domain name has in fact been sold, but it does appear that way to me. I have reached out to Evanson for more information, and I will post an update as soon as I hear back.

If Evanson did help sell the domain name, this would be his second huge sale in Q4, as he was the broker on the $750,000 Ringtones.com sale earlier this month.

Income.com Whois 12/20:

Income.com Whois 12/21:

Favorite Domain Story of 2010: Turning $10 into $1,200 into $151,000

Elliot Silver
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8

It’s just about every domain investor’s dream to turn a relatively inexpensive purchase into a hugely massive profit, but the chances of that happening are very slim. This story played out earlier in the year, and it’s my pick for the story of the year in the domain business.

Earlier this year, ChatRoulette.com was one of the most popular new websites online. People could visit the site and video chat with others throughout the world. Millions of people visited the site, and the only thing that really slowed the growth was that many users apparently thought it was appropriate to turn their video feed into a softcore porno.

In December of 2009, a domain investor hand registered the domain name CamRoulette.com. Shortly thereafter, he sold the domain name in private to Adam Strong for a reported $1,200, reaping a huge profit margin on this hand registration.

The madness didn’t start there.

In March of 2010, Adam Strong listed the domain name at DomainConsultant.com’s Domain Madness auction, where it sold for an even more massive $151,000.

To make this an even more amazing story of riches, traffic to ChatRoulette has waned since hitting its peak earlier this year, and it’s likely that if the domain name had not been sold at the time it was sold, it would not have the same value today. It’s the stuff domain investors’ dreams are made of.

Every domain investor dreams of turning a hand registered domain name investment into a huge payoff. In 2010, this happened right in front of our eyes.

This is my favorite domain name story of 2010.

Afternic’s 5% Cash Back Offer Explained

Elliot Silver
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0

As you’ve already seen, Afternic is now an advertiser on my blog, and someone asked me about the 5% cash back offer currently being promoted by the company.

Since I didn’t have an answer, I referred the question to Afternic, and here’s how the cash back program works when you sell a domain name using Afternic:

1)           List and park your domains with Afternic and use Afternic’s “for sale” link on your parked page

2)           Domains must be listed and parked for at least 14 days before being sold in order to qualify

3)           The domain must be sold through Afternic.

Once it is sold through Afternic, if the above criteria is met, you will receive 5% cashback on the sales fee. You can visit Afternic for more details about the program and to sign up.

How I Find Out Who Is Emailing Me to Buy a Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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29

Knowing who you are negotiating with is very important when it comes to domain name sales. Although someone would probably be happy to sell a domain name for the price he or she asks, I am sure you would likely be disappointed to learn that a huge company bought it without revealing themselves, even the price you received was the highest they were willing to pay.

In light of yesterday’s article about Facebook buying a domain name apparently in a covert manner, I want to give you a few strategies I use to try and find out who is inquiring about my domain names, assuming it’s not a poor college student working on a thesis or a work at home mom wanting to start a website with no budget.

First thing I do is some research on the name of the person who sent the email. Oftentimes, the buyer uses a fake name, so the signed name doesn’t always help. You can use sites like LinkedIn and Facebook to do your due diligence and see where the person works if they use their real information. You should also review the Whois information for the domain name from which the email is sent if it’s not a public service like GMail, AOL, or Hotmail.

The next thing you can search is the IP address from which the email came. This generally isn’t very helpful because there is limited information available, but you can compare it to other IP ranges on past emails for the same domain name. If you have received emails from different people at the same IP, you can at least know they are connected.

If this fails, you can search other domain registrations, the US Patent and Trademark Office, and general Google searches for the term used in the domain name. This may reveal who would be interested in buying the name so you can narrow it down.

One very good way to find out who is inquiring is to ask for a phone number. Whether you are comfortable negotiating on the phone or not is up to you, but you can research the phone number ownership on a site like WhitePages.com. Additionally, if it’s a small or medium sized business and the owner gives you his or her number, you might get a match when searching Google, and the business filings with phone number is listed.

Finally, the most important thing is to price domain names at what you want to sell them for and don’t go below a number you are comfortable with unless necessary. You should also not back out of a deal you make if you find out the buyer is a big company. Not only does that create a legal liability, but it also is unethical.

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