DNS: “We May Have the Perfect Alternative For You”

dotlink-imgThis afternoon, I received an email from DomainNameSales.com that said, “We may have the perfect alternative  for you to [Redacted].com.” The brief email continues, “Many great names, including those ending in .LINK, are available now!” Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry operates the .Link domain registry, and the company began selling .Link domain names today. It is one of the first “generic” new gTLD domain extensions that has been introduced.

The redacted domain name was one that I had inquired about back in 2006 directly to the owner. The owner of the domain name had entered my email into the DNS offer management system, and when a DNS broker followed up last year, I expressed surprise about receiving the inquiry. As a result, my lead was sent to the dismiss folder because I was obviously not going to move forward to purchase this domain name.

I believe I received today’s email because the owner of the domain name signed up for the Uniregistry affiliate program and my lead was considered a dead lead. As sort of a last ditch effort to make money from the dismissed lead, I was emailed about the opportunity to buy the keyword .Link domain name, which is not currently registered.

I think this tactic is pretty clever. Although the purchase rate will probably be small, it presents a  revenue opportunity to the premium domain owner and to Uniregistry. The domain owner would receive a percentage of the sale and  continue to receive income for as long as the domain name is renewed.

Taking this one step further, if a buyer decides to purchase a .Link or .whatever domain name and later realizes that the .com is important for his or her business, they will most likely come back to inquire about the .com. This “dead” lead could turn into an active lead because they now have a greater vested interest in the keyword and want to upgrade to .com. On the other hand, they may opt to continue renewing the .Link and create a small revenue stream for the owner of the .com.

My only concern with this email is that someone could opt out to receive any emails from DomainNameSales. However, since these emails are only being sent to old leads that are considered dead, there isn’t much risk in that.

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

17 COMMENTS

  1. If the original .com owner initiated this because he’s trying to generate the affiliate commission on a $9.98 purchase then that is fine.

    But if this is DNS taking your old leads and trying to monetize their new gTLDS through their new domain registrar then I would not be OK with that and would take my domains to another platform. If I own domain ABC123.com I don’t want them to buy ABC123.link because the majority of people are not going to upgrade, they are going to accept the cheaper substitute. People are cheap by nature. And yes ‘whole pie’ is growing, but that incremental slice of the growth is going into whose pocket?

    The domain parking rev share has dropped significantly and the broker commissions have gone up… it was a good program to start but DNS is slowly taking back the benefits of what brought people there in the first place. There’s a saying about pigs and hogs.

  2. .link is definitely one of better conceived ones imo. When you consider it’s an uphill battle to come up with both appealing and short new extensions to begin with, Frank Schilling is to be commended for trying to bring some real value to the mix and for not just trying to crowd the world with more garbage with this one. Frankly (no pun intended, lol) .link actually reminds me of .web and I could see myself wanting and regging a few even if not immediately, as in right now, because I’m very preoccupied with other things right now. Also note my situation is different from most of you folks as although I have a lot more domains than Elliot has indicated he has, I am still not a domainer like most of you folks, but really more of an end user. Ergo, I may not jump on this right this moment, but I definitely wanted to say something positive about “.link” because all things considered (like me considering .com and EMD’s to rule now and for a while, and hoping .us also even eventually takes a place at that level 🙂 ), I nonetheless like this “.link” among all these oncoming horses.

  3. “I believe I received today’s email because the owner of the domain name signed up for the Uniregistry affiliate program and my lead was considered a dead lead. As sort of a last ditch effort to make money from the dismissed lead, I was emailed about the opportunity to buy the keyword .Link domain name, which is not currently registered.”

    I sure hope this is an opt-in, otherwise using an owner’s leads on an unrelated domain to pitch your own product is just flat out spam.

    I also received the same email today but it was regarding a domain that I had never inquired on. It arrived, poorly formatted, to my email address but was addressed to another party.

    Brad

  4. You know, Elliot, on a side note I really do get the sense that eliminating the like and dislike buttons put a huge damper on people’s interest in posting and participating here, and it appears to have dropped off a lot since then. That’s my strong and honest impression at least. So if it was about “protecting” the one Raider suggested then, which I also agreed it seemed like it could be that at the time, I really doubt it was worth it…

    • So you Elliott can stick it on your big fat fridge!

      When a commentator begins with ‘of note’ it specifies that the sentence is relating to the subject and could be of interest to the reader!

      It’s basic grammar, I don’t understand why you have to question the immaterial in life.

    • Yes, I understand “of note” indicates that you think it’s something notable. I don’t think any new gTLD hand registration should be considered notable unless the buyer has plans for a major website that would make people more aware of the extension or bring some other type of notoriety to an extension.

      I can’t speak for Morgan, but I would hate for someone to make a buying decision based on one domain name that I hand registered.

      I question everything, and I was questioning why you think Morgan’s purchase is notable rather than asking a question about the grammar you used.

    • I question everything too Elliot, more so; I critique observations, opinions and literature, in my case the domain industry.

      My post is my post (and it’s up to you if you want to delete it, I respect that), it’s a mere pointer on a domainer of note, that has bought into the .link domain extensions whether for investment (as your business name suggests) or development (as your business name doesn’t suggest).

      “I don’t think any new gTLD hand registration should be considered notable unless the buyer has plans for a major website that would make people more aware of the extension or bring some other type of notoriety to an extension.”

      Your comment above has contradicted your very own business domain name DomainInvesting.com – So what are these gTLD purchases if they are not INVESTMENTS? Why should they have to be built out to be credible? It’s a good idea for the right name, but why not sell. Good Domainers INVEST and sell.

      I feel as if I have hit nerve mentioning the start-up/domain entrepreneur Morgan Linton?

      “I can’t speak for Morgan, but I would hate for someone to make a buying decision based on one domain name that I hand registered.”

      We’re all grown ups here, if you can’t make up your own mind then move on.

      PS. it’s early days into the new gTLD’s, without question we will start seeing major websites being developed.
      It’s part of the progressive nature of the Internet!

    • I wouldn’t delete your comment because it’s your opinion, and I think it’s healthy to discuss things here.

      My only point is that I don’t think it is “notable” that Morgan or I (or any other domain investor) hand registered a particular domain name without knowing anything else about that purchase. It would be notable if Morgan or someone else paid a significant amount of money to acquire one of them, but to me, a hand registration isn’t any more notable than me spending $2.00 on a scratch off lottery ticket.

      Conceptually I agree with the grown up comments, but I get emails quite frequently that are along the lines of “I see you bought Lilac.com the other day. I bought LilacFlowerPlant.holdings and would sell it to you for $500.” As much as that doesn’t make any sense to me, people often see me buy something and try to emulate it when they shouldn’t.

      Again, you are always welcome to comment freely here and disagree with me, just like I can disagree with you 🙂

    • “It would be notable if Morgan or someone else paid a significant amount of money to acquire one of them, but to me, a hand registration isn’t any more notable than me spending $2.00 on a scratch off lottery ticket.”

      I’ve seen some trash aged domains bought for good money via auction, likewise I’ve noted some good hand registered .com’s domains that have been strategically acquired.

      End of the day, it’s just a post-it note on a blog. Make of it what you will.

      Cheers.

  5. It must be a really poor keyword as domain incite have suggested that another company that they feel is also owned by Frank has had all the decent Uniregistry domains transferred over to it by Uniregistry to sell at a premium.

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