Domain Name Sales Can Help and Can Hurt

There’s an active Twitter discussion going on regarding the reporting of domain name sales. I have made my feelings clear regarding the reporting of my own domain name sales. Beyond a couple sales I shared years ago, I do not share my sales, and I don’t really see that changing unless a buyer specifically requests this as a part of a deal.

Rick Schwartz mentioned that he is publishing an article about non-disclosure agreements, and I am looking forward to reading his thoughts:

I replied to Rick via Twitter, but there’s only so much I can share in a tweet, so I wanted to share it here and expand on it:

With few exceptions, almost every time I publish a domain name sale article which has a price, people regularly comment about how cheap the domain name was. Unless someone reports a seven figure sale for a one word .com, a high six figure sale for a two word .com, or a great sale price for an average domain name, I often see comments that are critical of the seller. I shared links to several articles I published with solid sales closed by Dave Evanson, where many of the comments were critical of the sale price. Why would someone want to share private sales data that could potentially hamper their business and then see criticism for underselling their domain name.

Looking at the issue from a broader perspective, there are some domain name sales that may harm the investment landscape more than they help. Domain names are notoriously illiquid. I have a name that I received multiple six figure offers in the past, but if I tried to sell it today, those offers may not materialize. If I really need to sell a domain name to fund something, I may have to take much less than it is worth. Those kinds of sales records could be harmful to the industry.

Domain investors should realize that more domain name sale reports might be harmful. There are definitely many great sales that go unreported, but there are also plenty of “steals” that would not be helpful to sellers if they were reported.

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

39 COMMENTS

  1. IDK how this is even a debate.
    People do things for their reasons, not yours.

    So, they aren’t helping in ways you like…
    Maybe they’re helping in a way they like?

    Look,
    Years ago, I submitted NEW TOP LEVEL Domains to some of the better parking companies. One where they would select which domains. I had a list of domains that got MILLIONS of searches. Legitimate type-in traffic amounting to 1000’s a month..

    NONE were accepted. These domains get double digit CTR from ANY position.

    The industry has NOT worked for some of us. Do what I want. Don’t micromanage me.

    • “These domains get double digit CTR from ANY position.”

      I think you are very mixed up on this. PPC co’s can monetise type if traffic, they can’t monetise “google search volumes”. They probably did not see your domains as having actual traffic.

  2. I sense that the main reason why you don’t want the sales to be published is because…………….oh…it hurts my feelings when other people criticize!!
    Huh– who gives a F what other people think….I am not going to have sex with them or marry them, so why do I give a shit what they think .
    Life is all about confronting shitful of “criticisms” from shitfut assholes people.

  3. This is nonsense! PPC companies take all domains unless there are trademark infringement’s or something truly disgusting.

    This stuff is made up. PPC companies want traffic they don’t care what form it comes in unless it’s illegal or an infringement or something else that’s not palatable.

    Now it is possible that some PPC companies don’t wanna have anything to do with GTLD’s because they are crap and they don’t want their reputations to be soiled or dilute good traffic.

    • Oh then, I must be a liar. Either that or you’re wrong…

      Unless of course, ‘because they’re crap’. In that case. Point proven. Which is EXACTLY why you don’t get the data.

      Too bad you whine and cry about “wanting that data” all over. If I showed you the data, you wouldn’t believe it. Just like you don’t believe me here. I don’t deal with TIME WASTERS. Put up, your getlaid.com vs my getlaid.guide.

      Spend $1k to have someone develop it if you need to.

      Skin or quit asking. Why? Because you ask for data RHETORICALLY. You’re a HIT N’ RUN TIME WASTER.

      You don’t WANT the truth. It doesn’t suit you. Stick to “ngtld are trash (but I own some apps!)” – as that’s what suits YOU.

      • It is a fact that parking co’s won’t turn down domains with traffic, your domains *do not have traffic* and that would be why you tried several parking co’s and they all turned you down.

        If your names can’t be monetized that is on you, not the fault of parking co’s, not the fault of Rick Schwartz. Stop blaming others for your own poor judgement. You need to start from scratch here, maybe look at DnAcademy.

        • I don’t talk to you. Told you before. You chase your tail, to say the least. You lie. You’re a Moderator pet snowflake.

          But since I just did remind you. I’ll leave you with this: DnAcademy wouldn’t publish the ONLY comment I ever made on his website.

          https://lifesavings.online/ctr-matters/

          Take your DnAcademy propaganda and shove it. 0 respect for the man. This whole industry MODERATES to SUIT them. REAP what you sow.

          That’s right. He can’t have my POWERFUL words on HIS site. Think about it. I think you’re frauds. IRONIC, no? So either TIME will tell (sales and investment realization), or we’re going to get to the ROOT of why NEW domains are better.

          You’ll know, or you’ll stay blind. It’s up to you.

          Put up or shut up now. SKIN. Show me your domains, I’ll wreck your .com analytics too, provided I can find a suitable matching domain for whatever GARBAGE you own.

          Otherwise, https://outofmy.life

        • Not sure what you are talking about here.

          Only thing I can say is you don’t seem to understand what type in traffic actually is and seem to blaming others at every opportunity. Need to get educated as to why those parking co’s all rejected you.

        • NO. It’s YOU who doesn’t seem to *UNDERSTAND* They DID get DIRECT traffic! I SAID THAT in the first place!

          As evidenced by the EXACT domains (with the dot) being typed INTO GOOGLE Search. I put my OWN site up and added analytics.

          From the time I reg’d it. While having 0 backlinks! IMPRESSIONS/HITS for exact match in Google SERPS INCLUDING the DOT, the whole domain across the dot is #1 source of traffic!

          100’s of DIRECT visits. Put it together man! USE your brain. I have the data, you don’t.

          NOW I’m being called a liar! Well this was a long time ago, that I submitted domains! I moved on.

          Now I know even MORE. And I challenge ANYONE to put up their .com to something I come and we will SEE the hard stats.

          Once and for all.

          You’ve LOST the way FOOLS! ALL you see are $$$DOLLAR$$$ signs TODAY. Good NEW domains WRECK you in SERPS, 2-10x EASIER.

          FOREVER no one believes this. These are SO easy to bring traffic to.

          NOT GIVING up data because some A-HOLE provokes it out with SLANDER & BULLY-TACTICS!

          “This stuff is made up”. Really? Let’s prove it. SKIN.

        • NONE of you know what *YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT* (to use your words).

          https://lifesavings.online/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/pp3.png

          I am not posting this domain. Take it for what it’s worth here. The #1 source of traffic this month is the EXACT WHOLE domain (span the dot). This one had just 36 IMPRESSIONS in regard to the WHOLE DOMAIN.

          If you knew something you might imagine there are TYPINS TOO! Which BTW, doesn’t need to be the only SOURCE of traffic, duh. If my CTR wrecks in context, I might find that building BACKLINKS for these domains becomes exceedingly profitable too!

          This is ALL over your heads, apparently.

          No, the site doesn’t RANK well, as you can see. That’s because CONTENT is lacking.

          If you knew a DAMN thing, you’d know this is NOT a .com and this is NOT the type of data you want to put your garbage .coms against in REAL battle.

        • This MF’r Rick S. Best friend, Frank Schilling RIPPED domains from me. I had LOTS of time and data tied up. LOTS. THEFT by way of IRRATIONAL, exorbitant (excuse me, “materiel”) PRICE increases as SOON as my sites started TAKING off.

          Let these LIARS and THIEVES go lock themselves up in private conferences and fool more NOOBS.

          Against me, they will get WRECKED. Which is why I’m not well liked.

          The LIAR and the FRAUD.

          If you don’t take my offer, don’t reply to me again.

        • I would help a lot more than I do… I’d be nicer.

          One problem, which you DON’T know.

          For some time, you would jump in and lie, spout bs, bash ntld, pump .com here and there, everywhere, it didn’t matter.

          The moderators WOULDN’T let me respond. If you LIED, and I called out out SNOOPY, they WOULDN’T publish it.

          Now that all these blogs have NEW sponsors like Donuts, Radix and what not -things changed a bit.

          You only begin to see what we’ve endured. This industry should be ashamed.

          Now I’m given the ability to RETORT because it looks good for your SPONSORS. You got fk’d cookie. The voices and data you needed LEFT the building.

          This is one of the better blogs, which is why I tend to post more.

    • Before you even try it asking we get appraisals or whatever…

      That’s NOT what I’m talking about. We both know WHY domains have value. I happen to invest in something with UNREALIZED value.

      I’m here to prove why your investments are going down and mine, going up. That’s what domain investing is about! Today won’t mean ANYTHING if you’re left holding the bag tomorrow. And you will be. So, want to see WHY?

    • He ain’t gonna go for it guys..

      The KING! High up on his throne. He’ll have to watch his .com castle crumble around him. No room for escape. Keep you in the dark all the while: *nothing’s wrong*. “This stuff is made up.”.

      And YOU believe him? Do not.

      He doesn’t even know what he’d be getting into. I’d write terms for him, we could agree, Im sure. Simple stuff. It wouldn’t take much on his part.

      Behold, he’d rather keep accusing us of being liars without risking anything himself. Hit and run suits him perfectly.

      Eliot, you know what? He’s old and and entitled. He demands we SPOON FEED him! I won’t oblige.

      I’d like everyone else to see WHO THE LIAR is, though. I really would. “Made up”, it is not.

  4. I would say ‘so what’ if people criticize a reported sale, especially for someone who runs a prominent domain blog and is out there. I think some criticism should be expected but it goes with the territory. A little criticism never hurt anyone and is probably a good thing. If someone has made a sale that means they are satisfied with the price, whether it’s just ok or they are ecstatic who knows, but they accepted the price so who cares what anyone else thinks, it was right for them and time to move on and keep working. As to reporting a domain sale being harmful, I mean, maybe, but lots of people seem to report their sales. Imagine if no sales were reported at all, how would that be? Probably worse for all of us. What is strange is someone who reports on other domain sales and often writes how they like to see other sales and sales reports, and auction results, yet never reports any of their own sales. Sometimes an NDA is part of a sale sure, so be it. Everyone is entitled to report or not, and have their own opinion, but personally I really respect those domain owners who report all or most of their sales and give ‘everyone’ an idea what’s going on in this market. The benefits far outweigh anything that can be harmful imo.

  5. let’s take it to the extreme. Imagine if no domain sales were reported at all. Talk about stunting your growth.

    What would your domains be worth then? Here’s the answer, a lot less than they are now!

    • The flip side though is imagine if all sales were reported. Imagine if a buyer could easily find all those one word .com’s that have sold for $10k-50k that people are asking 6-7 figures for.

  6. They would also then find six figure, seven figure and eight figure one word .com sales as comparables. There is a lot of sales data out there to allow buyers to make their case when offering on a domain, usually to why it’s worth less than asking price, and you can also find data to support the opposite. And in the end it’s the seller who gets to decide yes or no. Much of the time a buyer is either willing or not willing to go to a certain price level, regardless of any data or cases made for a higher price. And sales prices from years ago can’t really be used to negotiate today, at least not to someone who’s seasoned.

  7. This is a no-brainer the size of Manhattan.

    Good sales help, bad sales hurt.

    Do not report bad sales, they only hurt. The one time I had a sale be reported at DNJ, it was deliberate, because I felt it would help. The two times my own purchases were reported on DNJ without my even knowing about it, I was quite unhappy about it, and it came up later when someone surprised me by indicating they knew what I’d paid from DNJ, in a negotiation for sale of one of them.

    With some people in the industry, the consequences of bad sales are doubtless by design. I.e., they are culpable and complicit.

    Like so-called “financial planners” and “financial advisors” who have no fiduciary duty to you at all, contrary to what you were led to believe about their intentions, and are only in it for themselves. Their interest is best served by creating “churn” in your portfolio and generating commissions and fees themselves, not in you getting optimum value. Their interest lies in making the public think the kinds of prices being reported for bad sales are really good – resulting in public perception of the value of domains for both investors and end-user holders going down, down, down. They are your enemy, while parading around like your friends.

  8. This is a no-brainer the size of Manhattan.

    Good sales help, bad sales hurt.

    Do not report bad sales, they only hurt. The one time I had a sale be reported at DNJ, it was deliberate, because I felt it would help. The two times my own purchases were reported on DNJ without my even knowing about it, I was quite unhappy about it, and it came up later when someone surprised me by indicating they knew what I’d paid from DNJ, in a negotiation for sale of one of them.

    With some people in the industry, the consequences of bad sales are doubtless by design. I.e., they are culpable and complicit.

    Like so-called “financial planners” and “financial advisors” who have no fiduciary duty to you at all, contrary to what you were led to believe about their intentions, and are only in it for themselves. Their interest is best served by creating “churn” in your portfolio and generating commissions and fees themselves, not in you getting optimum value. Their interest lies in making the public think the kinds of prices being reported for bad sales are really good – resulting in public perception of the value of domains for both investors and end-user holders going down, down, down. They are your enemy, while parading around like your friends.

    • Do not report bad sales, they only hurt.

      ////////////////////////

      That is funny John, but it is what a lot of people seem to do. They talk about the importance of reporting sales, you know for transparency etc but it seems to be one way street where the “good sales” are in fully view and the “bad sales” get hidden.

      That isn’t transparency, it is just hot air, sales pitch, puff. For example if I point out to a buyer some strong sales on Dnjournal, they’ll just go and pick out the weak sales and the “providing comparable sales” becomes a bit of nonsense.

      • No. Domain names are not like residential real estate sales. You are seldom going to see a piece of residential real estate in good condition sell for anything significantly worse than what it’s really worth, and comparable sales in real estate have real meaning and significance – real comparability.

        Great domain names are frequently going to sell far below what they are worth – for all kinds of reasons almost all of which are bad. Predatory people are shrewd, clever and conniving enough to convince someone their domain is worth far less than it is, so they get a cheap sale. That distorts the market. People on the other side of such deals do not have the saavvy and wherewithal to realize they are being deceived or how valuable their domains really are. Or people just take advantage of someone else’s lack of knowledge without even having to deceive them. People are experiencing financial hardship, and the choice is between keeping themselves under a roof in real property vs. getting some cash for digital real estate to pay bills. The list goes on. So NO – bad sales generally speaking are so false and dishonest with respect to the real value of domain names that they only hurt – hurt in a way that is illegitimate, and only benefits all the various levels of predators. Including the predators who pretend to be friends in the industry.

        And domain “comparables” almost always have no basis in reality either, but belong in The Twilight Zone along with automated “appraisals.” One of the other biggest ways in which the “real estate” analogy not only breaks down, but remains fixated on comparing domains to residential real estate instead what they really are analogous to – commercial real estate, the kind of real estate by which fortunes are made and grown and can potentially keep growing and expanding indefinitely.

  9. PS – And that “public perception” they want being diminished *most especially* includes domain investors themselves.

  10. Can the same be said for expired auction reports? A number of times my reported auction purchases on NameBio have scuppered re-sales.

    • That’s basically the same thing I mentioned above about two domains for which I was the buyer which wound up being mentioned on DNJ. It can most definitely be a problem these days.

  11. A couple of notes.

    A PPC company will throw you out for spamming for example.

    Coincidentally the first extension that I blocked was .online

    Why??

    Someone was spamming me with .online worthless domains all day long. Probably this turkey here posting today.

    So are you the Spammer? I don’t believe in coincidences! I’m going to assume you are!!!

    Google or any PPC company will throw your ass out the door in a heartbeat for spamming no matter how much traffic you have.

    It also cost them money to host domains that are worthless and has worthless traffic if any at all.

    • Your self-proclaimed ‘KING’ whom you have on a pedestal claimed ‘nGTLD are DEAD’ while posting MISLEADING evidence.

      Imagine the irony, as nGTLD RISE.

      You can’t make a bigger mistake on EARTH. ‘DEAD’ was a WILD claim, to say the least. Nice choice word. THE IRONY!

      You fall for PUBLICITY. He’s a PUBLICITY stunt artist.

      When it come to what is MEANINGFUL in regards to domains, he’s ignorant.

      You want data, but given the data, you’re SPITEFUL. 95% of you don’t even *UNDERSTAND* data.

      You’ve LOST the way. Focused on the MONEY at the table. NO regard to what is happening AROUND you.

      Married to .com.

    • None of you have respect for webdevs. That’s WHY NONE want to work with you ever!

      The same niche group of ‘domainers’ warning that our new domains could rise in cost (MOON) are the VERY ONES RIGHT HERE that INFLICTED IT! The IRONY!

      And SILENT. LIARS. FRAUDS! Worthless. No help.

      It’s time to PUT up. NEW domains vs your garbage .com in practice. EVERYTHING else is just your FANTASY.

      Traffic EMDs. Put up or stay OUT of my way.

      • In the other thread it became apparent that you haven’t actually made a profit from new tlds, so what would you be “putting up” exactly?

  12. Ok sure, don’t report bad sales then if you think it will hurt the industry. Question is, why did you make a bad sale in the first place? Sellers might not always get the price they want in a sale, if you accept lower there is probably a good reason for it, otherwise why accept? Everyone needs cash flow at times, and maybe you take less because you can put those funds towards a better investment, who knows.

    But I think the domain sellers industry is better off when people have good or great sales and report them at least most of the time.

  13. If people want to know.see what a domain may be listed for sale at, go look at the sales page,

    If people want to know what a domain sold for, that should be entirely at the discretion of the buyer.

    When selling, I generally wouldn’t consider reporting the data in specific terms, nor have I ever seen a need to

    Announcing “just a sold our 4th brandable domain in July – 12k of sales and still a week to go – best month of 2020 yet !” might happen, but little of that could be linked to actual domain names outside of the end-client or our staff – especially as one of those was a quick-flip that never even got to advertise/list :p

    (and yes I realise the sales volume and size are tiny compared to many here, so it’s not at “boast about it” levels, and of course certain data could be extrapolated from dns/registrar changes etc)

    Just like Walmart dont make public what you paid for your groceries, and the dealer doesn’t make public what you paid for your 2nd-hand car, and Barclays dont make public how much in your Trading account etc – that data is *private* [ with limited exceptions ]

    Discussing on an industry form that the average I’ve seen on short IDN domains has been $360, with 1-char Korean versions selling best is one thing, but saying whateverblah.tld sold for X is inappropriate IMHO and possibly not even legal without the buyers permission.

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