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Rick Schwartz

Swift Rank Investing in Hotel & Travel Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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31

As many people probably did after learning that Rick Schwartz sold SydneyHotels.com for $100k, I spent some time searching for city Hotels.com domain names to see who owns them and how many are developed. Just about all of the domain names I looked up are developed, which says to me that there is money in that business.

I was reading the comments on Rick’s Blog, and as is typical for Rick’s Blog, there was at least one negative comment alluding to the fact that the domain name has privacy guard and the owner’s info can’t be seen. For those of you who have any doubt about Rick’s sale, I can confirm that the buyer was in fact Swift Rank, and the company is an active domain buyer.

I’ve done some business with Swift Rank, having sold them some travel-related domain names last year. The company owns a considerable number of exact match geographical travel domain names in the car, hotel, restaurant, and travel verticals. Just about all of the company’s domain names are developed.

The company’s purchase of SydneyHotels.com probably isn’t their only   large recent acquisition. Swift Rank also owns the following great names, some of which were recent:

  • BostonHotels.com – Owned by Frank Schilling as of 6/21
  • LasVegasHotels.com
  • DelhiHotels.com
  • HongKongHotel.com
  • SaintKittsandNevisHotels.com
  • NewYorkRestaurants.com
  • SanFranciscoRestaurant.com

I would venture a guess that if you own any great City Hotels.com domain names (or other generic travel domain names), Swift Rank may be interested in discussing an acquisition.

Sun Sentinal Uses Rick Schwartz for DomainFest Publicity

Elliot Silver
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2

A friend of mine emailed me a Sun Sentinal article about today’s DomainFest one day power networking event, and the irony is that Rick Schwartz took center stage (Rick is the founder and principal of the competing Traffic conference). The article cites Rick’s sales of Candy.com ($3m) and iReport.com ($750k) and it discusses the DomainFest conference and upcoming auction that takes place this afternoon.

The article offers some good coverage of the domain industry, and it interviews Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky, DNJournal Publisher Ron Jackson, and “Domain King,” Rick Schwartz. Rick was very complementary about the Snapnames/Moniker auction, saying there is “a nice list of domains for grabs.”

After reviewing the domain names in the auction and hearing that Slots.com was sold for $5,500,000 this week at Snapnames (as reported by Rob Monster), I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two big deals completed during the auction or shortly thereafter. It’s clear that Moniker is working the phones in an effort to complete some large sales.

Domain Contracts Can Be Critical

Elliot Silver
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7

I had a situation last week where I wanted to close on a domain name, but the seller had concerns about the domain sales agreement I sent. Since I use a standard domain agreement I had created by a domain lawyer based in New York, I was a bit taken aback by his concerns. I thought about it for a few minutes and realized that I may have been the same way had someone random offered to buy a domain name I owned and then sent over a two page legal agreement for me to sign.

I explained to him the different sections of the agreement, which included a section discussing the cost and payment terms, a section where it states that the domain name isn’t encumbered and/or had no trademark issues, a confidentiality clause, and other standard contract sections. I even explained that when he buys a big ticket item like a car or television, and even when he checks off a box of terms and conditions when registering a domain name, he is signing a contract.

In the end, I opted to move forward without the agreement rather than kill the deal. I was able to determine he was the original registrant 12 years ago (only able to see Whois history dating back to 2001), and everything matched up. Since I paid via Escrow.com and it’s a generic name, there were no special details added to the standard agreement.

On deals where certain conditions need to be met, it’s very important that a contract is used to protect both buyer and seller from any legal troubles that may arise down the road. It’s important that both parties’ expectations are laid out in the agreement, along with the ramifications if terms aren’t met. Rick had a post about his Property.com deal this morning, and you can see why an agreement can be very important, especially when it involves more than a domain sale.

I recommend using a sales agreement on most deals that you do, especially because you can re-use a boiler plate agreement that you paid for once. A standard domain sales agreement is one tool that is good for you to have on hand, and it isn’t very expensive to have created for your business.

Rick is Right About Development

Elliot Silver
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11

When it comes to development, Rick made a good point yesterday. One of my biggest obstacles when it comes to development is myself. With domain sales down for me, I have been spreading myself thinly in an effort to build revenue generating businesses on my domain names.

  • In the last two years, my company has built Lowell.com, Burbank.com, and Newburyport.com into full-fledged businesses, which require frequent updates, client meetings, sales calls, and time devoted to city research.
  • I have my domain blog, which I update every day with news, advice, and commentary. This takes a considerable amount of time, but it’s a good outlet to share and learn.
  • I am in the process of building out Torah.com into a fully operational website, which will have a whole host of features that one would expect to find on a website of this nature.
  • I have a bunch of mini sites, which don’t take a whole lot of time to manage, but they do take some time adding content, testing layouts, researching topics…etc.
  • I spend time acquiring good domain names and looking to make deals to sell other domain names.

I find myself going in circles sometimes because it’s not easy to manage all of this. Building businesses takes time and effort, and I am finding myself having less time to do the things I enjoy. There is a fine balance between spending the right amount of time building a solid business and spending too much time getting few things done.

I completely disagree with Rick about his belief regarding search engine traffic, and I can’t understand how his domain names would lose traffic with mini-sites, because one would imagine the type-in traffic would at least stay consistent, however, that’s a topic for another day.

If you are a domain investor, you need to figure out what you want to do with your domain names before you do it, especially if they may be difficult to re-sell quickly. If you are planning to develop them into a business, it might be best to focus on one and make it into the best business possible before you start another project. Staying focused on one project is difficult, especially when you are working alone.

Take it from me, buying and selling great domain names isn’t difficult. Building a business on a domain name is a completely different story, and while I don’t regret any decisions I’ve made, I am finding it much more difficult to gain traction with some of my projects, since I can’t always focus on one project at a time.

The Domain Name Matters for SEO

Elliot Silver
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5

I read Rick’s Blog this morning about search engine optimization specialists and spammers, and I agree that there is a lot of crap out there. I also know there are a lot of smart people who do this for a profession or a hobby, and a number of people helped me out when requested (THANKS!!).

One thing I took away from Rick’s article is that a company’s domain name is very important for SEO. Rick said, “Want the best SEO guy? Do a damn Google search!” He proceeded to search for the best SEO guy, and guess what returned #1? A listing for Mic Tienken, whose website resides on www.bestseoguyintheworld.com – a domain name with the keywords Rick searched.

Personally, I am less colloquial when I search, and I wanted to find the best SEO company. Guess who came back with the number one result… SEO Image, with a website not residing on SEOImage.com, but a website on www.bestseocompany.com, the exact search phrase I used.

If you want to improve your SEO rankings and do good SEO, it’s as easy as analyzing the obvious things on the professionals’ websites, and clearly the domain name matters for search engine optimization.

Negotiating to Sell a High Value Domain Name

Elliot Silver
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9

While I was away in Amsterdam, Rick Schwartz announced that the Candy.com deal is official and the deal has been signed, I wish Rick and the Melville Candy Company big congratulations on this industry moving deal. This isn’t the first major sale for Rick, who also sold iReport.com and Property.com.

One of the great things about Rick is his willingness to share insight into his domain sales, beginning with iReport.com and now with Candy.com via blog posts on Rick’s Blog. Although Rick is in a different position with his domain names than most of us,   both in terms of quality of his names and his financial status, we can still learn about domain negotiations from what he has posted.

Selling a domain name for a large sum of money isn’t easy, no matter what domain names you own. The buyer must be willing to pay the seller’s desired price, and the seller must be able to figure out how much the buyer can afford to pay for the domain name before naming his price (if he wants to maximize the sales price). The negotiation can be trying and time consuming depending on a number of factors, and some people might not have the experience necessary to turn a big deal into a huge deal.

I would like to share an idea for a new domain service – domain sales negotiations. The difference between selling a domain name for five figures, six figures, and seven figures is minimal and the negotiation is often the deciding factor. While most of us don’t have names as good as the quality of Rick’s, they don’t necessarily have to be in order to achieve a huge sale. If there was a negotiation service where we could seamlessly hand off a negotiation to an experienced negotiator, unbeknownst to the buyer, it could help us maximize our sales.

Someone with Rick’s experience could help reel in the big fish, as he is experienced, and he would be far enough away from the transaction to be able to turn down a significant offer, when the domain owner wouldn’t be able to do so. I think a domain negotiation service would be good for domain owners who lack the negotiation experience.

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