When I am in acquisition mode, I almost always use DomainTools to do my Whois searches to find contact information for domain owners. One advatage of using DomainTools is that I can see if a particular domain name is listed for sale on an aftermarket platform like Sedo, Afternic, or Aftermarket.com.
Here’s what it looks like when a domain name is listed for sale:
This graphic tells me two things. First and most importantly, the domain name is listed for sale by the owner, so I know that I can buy it for the right price. Second, it tells me I can inquire about the domain name using one of the platforms instead of negotiating directly with the owner. This allows me to stay anonymous throughout the negotiations. It’s very helpful to see a domain name listed for sale via DomainTools.
With Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic parking platform, domain owners can choose to display a bright orange banner announcing that the domain name may be for sale via DomainNameSales.com. It’s not necessarily for sale, but if you see the banner, it’s a good indication that the domain owner is willing to sell for the right price.
If you haven’t seen the banner for some reason, here is an example:
As of right now, it doesn’t seem that names listed on Domain Name Sales are listed on DomainTools, and I think that should change. This would likely increase sales volume, as it is another way to let people know a domain name is for sale without having to visit the landing page.
One issue would be that some people parking on Internet Traffic that utilize the sales banner are only passively interested in selling their domain names, and the likely wouldn’t want their names listed. I am sure this can be easily addressed, perhaps with a check box offering the listing on DomainTools and perhaps other venues.
I think if Domain Name Sales and DomainTools hook up, it will benefit domain owners who would like to sell their domain names.
All IT users are high end domainers, and not wholesalers, in most cases 80% of offers would most likely be lowballs, and if anyone use has a good working knowledge of domaintools, wants a domain, usually typing in the URL, and coming to the direct sale parking page, would provide them all contact points to inquire about the domain.
I would say there are probably fewer lowballs from DomainTools since domain investors know what lowballs are and the likelihood of lowball offers being ignored. I would imagine there’s a higher rate of lowball offers from people who visit the landing page.
Just an observation based on my experience with landing page offers.
Frank’s owned and operated are on the Domain Tools feed . See http://whois.domaintools.com/edition.com for an example. I’d guess that just the reason the names that are not owned and operated are not showing up is because Frank doesn’t have total control of that inventory being on/off the platform and can’t guarantee those links would be updated.
One other issue I thought about is that on some listings, the owner negotiates on their own, and there’s no commission paid. That would mean DomainTools would generate leads for free, so there’s technical work to set this up but no guarantee of any revenue.
Even in the case of no commissions, to the extent that IT clients see value through increased inquiries and/or sales velocity, then there is value created for IT as these clients are motivated to keep their names parked there. When there is value created, there is usually a way to make a business relationship work.
Do you think you’ll be listing the Domain Name Sales names on DomainTools? It might be beneficial to hook up with Voodoo too for that matter 🙂
We’d love to. A big reason we are hiring the Marketing Director is to focus Susan’s time more fully on partners and clients. Vern, Voodoo, or any other domain sales platforms should reach out directly to susan at domaintools dot com. DT gets over 500K visits a day to our whois pages and a lot of those people are looking to buy domains. We can also integrate partners into our new Marketplace: marketplace.domaintools.com