Disconnect Between Buyers & Sellers

“This domain name can be developed into a great website!” This popular phrase amongst sellers is laughable to many buyers and developers who would argue that ANY domain name can be used for a great website. What some sellers don’t realize is the actual time and cost of building a profitable website. This can cause a disconnect between domain sellers and buyers.

For many buyers who plan to develop their domain purchases, the right domain name is essential, but contingent upon the price. When buying a domain name for a specific project, the buyer knows his overall budget (based on expected returns). In the budget, he allocates funds based on the approximate cost of the project, the cost of marketing, the cost of technical management, hosting, and other incremental costs. He also knows what he can afford to spend on the domain name. Most of the time, a buyer is willing to spend a bit more than he really wants on the right domain name, but there is a limit to the overage.

Developers typically think differently than domain investors. Developers believe that if they build a great website, visitors will find it no matter what the domain name is. Domain investors believe visitors will find the website more easily (and more quickly), and they will be able to recall the website much quicker if it has a memorable generic domain name. Both lines of thought are accurate, which can make bridging the gap more difficult.

In my opinion, the time to spend the money on a generic domain name is if you have a “category killer” product or service, and owning the domain name of that category will instantly make you the industry leader. If you are building a city directory for example, you want to spend the extra money and buy the city .com name rather than a “brandable” domain name. It gives you instant credibility when speaking with potential advertisers, and Google loves targeted domain names!

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

2 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah it is hilarious how dilemmas such as this one start looking ridiculously pointless compared to the world news. The next section of the cold-war, the actual real war that erupts, Russia-China gas offer axis… Nevertheless here we are with this social media difficulties, – may we ever see the earth has changed? I’m not indicating what you come up with is irrelevant, Iam declaring a certain amount of detachment is balanced. Thanks, Sarah

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

Spaceship SellerHub to Launch for All on April 29

2
Last week, Spaceship's new SellerHub opened for third party beta testing. Participants were limited to larger portfolio operators. Yesterday, CEO Richard Kirkendall announced the...

Atom.com Brings Expert Review Process in House

1
For as long as I’ve known the platform, Atom.com has relied on an “Expert Review Process” to evaluate domain names submitted by prospective sellers....

Google Change Should Reinforce .com Dominance

2
Google has operated its search engine on many different domain names. Of course, Google.com is the company’s primary domain name and the one that...

Don’t Delay Registering Trending Domain Names

4
I regularly see people discuss the possibility of domain registrar front running. In fact, I've written about this topic before. By and large, I...

ICA Webinar on Transfer Lock Changes

4
Transfer lock policies can differ at each domain registrar. Depending on the situation and domain name status, some locks are required by ICANN and...