I received a bunch of emails over the weekend asking me about my last post forwarding to a non-working domain name – ClownPenis.Fart. If you aren’t familiar, ClownPenis.Fart was the humorous domain name in an old Saturday Night Live skit. No – my blog was not hacked. I posted an update on Twitter but should have posted one here, too, since many people aren’t active on Twitter:

I received several emails about my article forwarding to ClownPenis.Fart. Yes, this is intentional. It became apparent that Chad was trolling domain investors with his “fund,” so I decided to have a bit of fun in return. Here’s more about ClownPenis.Fart: https://t.co/hViKIBU7DT

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) January 18, 2021

Kevin McKim shared the sad news that domain investor John Yeomans reportedly passed away:

So, so, sad to hear of the passing of our old time domainer friend John Yeomans, Johnny ‘Net’ (3rd) on rt. He sold a lot of .nets. We’ve often wondered where he was as he went dark a few years ago. 😥 RIP Johnny! #domainer #domains pic.twitter.com/KasotMvOos

— Kevin McKim (@KevinMcKim) January 16, 2021

I would say at least once a month in a negotiation with a prospective buyer or seller, a domain name appraisal is used by the other party to justify an offer or counter my purchase price. The appraisals are almost always from free automated appraisal services like GoDaddy and Estibot. While I think there is some value to those tools, I do think it is quite easy for someone to present them as authoritative when that is not the case.

Nat Cohen, who has sold some of the top domain names and has likely netted more income from domain names than almost everyone else, likely deals with this issue much more than I do given his portfolio size. He recently shared a rebuttal that others might find useful when a prospective buyer mentions the appraised value in a negotiation: