Delete Your Sold/Expired DNS Domain Names or Risk Suspension

After selling a domain name, it’s very important for you to remove sale listings for that domain name at aftermarket venues. It is especially important to do this if you have BIN prices on some of the domain names that could potentially permit someone else to agree to buy a domain name you no longer have the right to own.

I received a message from DomainNameSales.com that was sent to clients reminding them to delete domain names they no longer own. The company raised the potential for account suspension (both parking and sales) for those clients who do not delete domain names from their account when they no longer own them.

Here’s part of the email:

Dear Partners. We have had several occurrences this year of sales-platform clients, agreeing to sell domain names that they have previously sold, or no longer own.  

If you have domain names for sale through our syndication channel or on our platform and you represent that you own them, and that subsequently turns out to be untrue, we will have to immediately suspend your DNS parking and sales account.

Good stewardship of your portfolio, truth, honestly and trust are the basis of our relationship. We value the partners who live up to those ideals but can not support those who unduly create administrative burdens for us through poor stewardship of their domain name portfolios or who are too preoccupied to check whether they still own the names which they agree to sell.

 Please take this opportunity to clean your account and only identify names which you own as for sale.  

I would be upset if I agreed to purchase a domain name and later found out that the listing was no longer valid. It would be especially annoying if I sent my payment for the domain name before learning that I wasn’t able to buy it.

I don’t know if there is any legal risk for keeping listings up when the person who listed it no longer owns the domain name, but it is good to go through your portfolio at various platforms and make sure old listings are removed. The threat of an account suspension should serve as a good warning.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. I got this email as well today, seemed way overboard to me but meh. As if they couldn’t just delete it from your account as part of the closing.

  2. I got the same email as well. Now what I understand from this is to check your entire portfolio with DNS if any domain is still listed which has been not under your control any more, reason could be expiration or drop than you must remove from DNS. Because once the domain is sold you can mark as “SOLD” and still keep at their platform. That won’t be harmful IMO.

  3. All exchanges have dealt with this problem for a long time.

    The key issue isn’t having domains listed for sale that aren’t for sale — it appears that people were actually negotiating and agreeing to sell a domain they no longer owned.

    Although the exchanges would like inactive inventory removed, it’s a whole other issue when someone agrees to sell a domain they no longer have.

    This why Sedo added a step in the counteroffer process that shows the current whois record. That way you can verify you still own the domain.

    • I went through my portfolio and found a number of names I sold but totally forgot about deleting because they were privately sold off of DNS.

      If I received 50 inquiries a day, I might negotiate as if I still owned those names, especially if I had a portfolio of thousands of names. Fortunately, my portfolio is around 300-400 names, so I don’t really run into this issue. I also don’t have BIN prices on DNS, so it’s not like I am selling those names passively via DNS.

    • Okay so if DNS implements to show current WHOIS record like Sedo which can minimize this issue. Hopefully they will come up with this or something better in near future as I see frequent changes for betterment in their platform which is always a good sign.

  4. Sedo is automatically removing domains that show changed ownership on whois. That would help. The idea mentioned above to automatically verify whois on the negotiation page is a good one. Perhaps if the whois does not match there could be an extra step to confirm ownership.

    DNS sometimes shows domains previously sold through their system when providing a list of active domains. I then have to check the domain page which either no longer exists or says “sold”. Errors happen on all sides.

  5. It’s good they’re emphasizing this; it’s still a huge problem at Sedo, despite their best efforts to keep things updated. There’s a domain I ran across a few nights ago that linked directly to a Sedo BIN page in DomainTools, but I doubt it’s current, because it also appeared in a sales list in 2013 for the exact same price. I’m pretty sure somebody bought it, but the WhoIS details still shows Huge Domains, “this domain is for sale.” It was a good deal for whoever purchased it, but annoying for the rest of us who were tempted by a sales link that’s likely outdated.

  6. A domain I let expire 6 months earlier got a $500 offer on Sedo. I used a Godaddy coupon to register it again for $1 and accepted the Sedo offer. Of course the buyer never paid. Waste of a dollar because I just let it expire again when it came up for renewal.

  7. This seems like something that could be improved through the use of technology. First, any domain that was dropped (or was going through redemption process) should immediately be removed from any aftermarket service. That’s such an obvious step, I can’t see why it’s not done. Even GoDaddy commonly retains premium for sale listings, after a domain has already dropped.

    Second, any change in the whois ownership or registrar should probably trigger a verification email (do you still own this domain name?).

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