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Not All “Generic” Domain Names are Generic

Elliot Silver
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10

When I first started buying domain names in around 2003, I didn’t understand the legalities of registering domain names that contained trademarks. In fact, I registered a few domain names that were infringing on the marks of other companies. After getting a cease and desist letter from one company and giving the registration fee domain name to them, I decided I didn’t want to take a chance with this type of name.

In going through my portfolio to try and sell some names to end users, I realized that I have a few names that aren’t as generic as I once thought.

I own a number of city-keyword domain names, and I started looking through them to sell a few to end user buyers. I own quite a few cityMortgage.com and cityMortgages.com domain names. One is a city in Texas with somewhere around 100,000 people, and I am sure many of the city’s homeowners have mortgages, and there are a number of companies offering mortgages in this city.

In doing some research, I found that there is a bank in Maryland that uses the Texas city name + Bank (I don’t want to draw attention to the name I own, so I am leaving the bank name out). Without getting into legalities since I am not a legal expert, it would probably be okay to sell this City Mortgages.com name to a mortgage company in Texas, but if I pitched it to the Bank in Maryland, they could very well claim trademark infringement. I suppose they could do that anyway, but having an email from me offering to sell the name would make their case stronger.

Point of this post is that when you do reach out to end users to sell generic domain names, you need to be sure that the domain name is actually generic. I almost sent this bank an email assuming they were located in the city rather than using the name as their trademark, and had I not seen the Maryland area code on the site, I probably would have sent it.

There are many generic terms that are used by companies to form distinctive trademarks, and there is a whole lot of gray area, so use caution.

Some Sunday Updates

Elliot Silver
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10

Hope you’re having a nice Sunday. I am off for a long bike ride today… just a couple weeks until my 5 Boro Bike Tour, and my wife and I are just a few hundred dollars away from our goal for the Ronald McDonald House.

Lowell.com was finally relaunched a few days ago, and a number of bugs have been fixed and/or are being fixed. One thing I did to find errors was put out a request on Twitter and Facebook. I got quite a lot of feedback from people who are interested in the site (including the information that my current logo was liked and another logo wasn’t favored). In addition, a number of people have signed up to post articles.

Here is some information about the new Lowell.com website so you can be inspired or be helped with your own development projects:

  • People can sign up and post articles, events, and/or comments. This will add content to the site and hopefully increase traffic and pageviews. It’s also helpful to people in the community who are now more easily able to promote their news and events to an audience of over 10,000 visitors per month.
  • My developer used a plugin called “The Events Calendar” which is fantastic! The only issue I am having now is that events seem to fall off the home page before they start. I’ve checked the server clock and WordPress clock on site, and all are working fine. This is something I need to fix.
  • I also need to fix the Yet Another Related Post Plugin, as it’s not showing up on Pages.
  • Advertisers will be able to sign up for business listings in the same way dog walkers can on DogWalker.com. Listings will automatically renew in a year, and their Paypal account will auto-pay in a year. This is so I don’t need a representative in the area.
  • Banners, hotel listings, and restaurant listings will all be manually managed by me. The Lowell Courtyard by Marriott. has agreed to continue with a monthly banner, and the Radisson Hotel signed up last week, so things are off to a pretty good start (no, I didn’t offer them a discount rate or freebie to get them on site).
  • I am using Adsense in the top banner spot and one of the side banners, although these can easily be replaced by local advertisers if/when they are interested. The Adsense banners are earning somewhere around $5/day right now despite the fact that traffic has gone done in the last few weeks.
  • This is obvious, but make sure you test your newly developed websites with all commonly used Internet browsers. Make sure you test all parts of the site, especially if you use different plugins.
  • One of the nicest thing about this site is that I can now basically replicate the platform on Newburyport.com for relatively little expense since I paid for the foundation with Lowell.com’s development. Since Newburyport is about 45 minutes from Lowell and is a tourist locale in the summer, I think these two sites will work well together. The only issue is the time commitment required to run another site like this… I might finally have to relent and hire someone full time to work with me.
  • I ran into some major issues with hosting, the htaccess file, and assorted other related bugs. Ultimately, things worked out after quite a bit of time troubleshooting with Liquid Web and my developer, but it was still a challenge none the less. I think this is probably the biggest hurdle I faced since I am not really knowledgeable about these technical issues.
  • As with most of my other development projects, I used Six One Five Design for the development work. Mike is still working on a few things, but I think it’s nearly finished.

Free Domain Sales Agreement?

Elliot Silver
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3

I’ve seen a few posts on domain forums where people are asking for a free boiler plate domain sales agreement to use. In my opinion, if you feel you need to use a sales agreement in the first place, you should probably contact a domain attorney or other local IP lawyer and pay for one. It’s likely the cost will be less than you think since most will be able to customize a standard agreement based on your needs.

So why do I think you should have a custom agreement drafted? The primary reason is that different countries and even states have different regulations when it comes to contracts and possibly even the parameters of your sale. In addition, your sale may have special circumstances (using Escrow.com, paying via wire transfer, Paypal payment) or it may have other non-standard issues that need to be considered.

If you use a boiler plate agreement and run into troubles, it would probably be fairly easy for an opposing lawyer to pick that apart, which could cause complications for you. If you have an issue with an agreement that you purchased from a lawyer, you should at least have support from that lawyer to help fend off any dispute.

At least in my opinion, if you are concerned enough about a domain sale that you want to use a sales agreement/contract (I recommend using one unless there’s a good reason not to use one), you should pay the few hundred dollars to have it created for you and specially tailored for your company’s needs. It would be a shame to have a false sense of security to save a couple hundred dollars.

Things to Look for When Finding End User Buyers

Elliot Silver
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18

I’ve discussed at length methods I’ve used to sell domain names to end users. Sometimes my efforts are successful and pay off, and other times, they do not. Here are a few things I’ve learned which may help you the next time you try and sell a great domain name to an end user buyer:

Many competing companies: In industries where there is a lot of competition, having a good domain name can make a company stand out from its peers. Whether it’s because of the SEO or because the company wants to “own the brand,” there will always be at least one company that wants the category defining domain name, even if the category is somewhat small. As long as there are many competitors, at least one company will want your exact match keyword .com domain name.

Small and large companies within target: I have found that there should be a good mix of small and large companies in a vertical to best sell a non-ultra premium, but category defining, domain name.   It’s difficult to get to the decision maker with a huge corporation, but it’s quicker with smaller companies – especially when it comes to decision making.   Boiled down, it would be tough to sell a soda domain name when you are only pitching Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper…etc rather than an industry with a mix of companies.

Generic domain names are owned by companies: One thing I noticed when I made the successful end user sale I wrote about was that many of these companies didn’t use their brand names in their website urls. They used descriptive terms such as their area + their industry. When I saw that and had an industry keyword, I knew at least one company would want it, and I was right.

Companies selling that product or service: If you have the exact match domain name of a product or service, it’s likely one of the companies would want to buy it. Although a lot of companies aren’t completely knowledgeable about SEO and/or Internet marketing, many will recognize that this particular type of name would have value to them. It’s your job to convince them of this.

High profit margin on product or service: Similar to above, if that product or service is profitable, it’s more likely they will be interested in the domain name. If a company makes $1 profit per customer and they don’t sell many of these products (and it isn’t considered a loss leader) they probably won’t (or can’t afford to) spend a lot of money for the related domain name. If a new customer will net them big bucks, they can and will be able to justify a higher expenditure.

Own the same domain name in another extension: If a company owns the exact same domain name as you, just in a subpar extension (.net, .info maybe .org), it’s likely they would have wanted the .com if they could have bought it. Maybe the .com wasn’t for sale and the company didn’t know how to inquire about it or maybe they couldn’t afford the .com in the aftermarket when they bought the other extension. Whatever the case is, you know they like this term, and will probably want the .com. Just be cautious if the other extension is developed and there is a potential that the term isn’t generic enough. They may use your solicitation email as a sign of bad faith in a UDRP proceeding.

What else do you look for when selling domain names to end users?

Domain Suggestions Tool

Elliot Silver
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4

I was using NameTumbler.com, a website operated by WhyPark that allows you to enter specific target keywords and choose from drop down lists of other keywords, forming potential domain names. I thought this tool was neat, and it helped me locate some city keyword domain names related to a couple of websites I operate.

The one downside to this tool is that it doesn’t simply provide a list of available to register domain names. You need to cut and paste the list into the bulk domain registration tool at your registrar (they have it linked to Godaddy). The downside was that I twice erased my list of available names, as every time I searched a new term, the entire page refreshed (including the Godaddy search page), eliminating the available names I had kept in that list.

I did some searching to see what other tools I could find to help find potentially valuable domain names, and I found the Domain Suggestions Tool at Name.com, which is more comprehensive than the other tool I was using. With Name.com, you can enter your search term, and it provides a list of related recommended terms. It also lets you know which names are available to register, and you can easily register them and see what other extensions are available to register.

Not only does it look for English terms, but it also does searches for IDN domain names, too. For example, I could purchase 犬の散歩.com, which is the Japanese term for “dog walking.” I don’t have an international audience on my website, but that would be pretty cool if I did.

In addition to the Name.com recommendations, the search tool also provides Google Keyword Suggestions as well based on similar keywords and keyword phrases found frequently in Google. Using the tool, I was able to hand register CatSitters.org, which I think is a nice complement to my site, CatSitter.com. There are a number of organizations for walkers and sitters, and as my business grows, that could be a way to expand it.

If you are looking to invest in hand registered domain names, these two tools can be helpful to you.

Second Hong Kong Geodomain For Sale

Elliot Silver
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8

Kwun Tong Hong Kong

Last week, I completed the sale of WanChai.com, a Hong Kong geodomain name, and I am now looking to sell KwunTong.com. Kwun Tong is a highly populated urban area in Hong Kong, which has seen remarkable growth over the last several years. Although the population of the Kwun Tong district is much higher than that of Wan Chai, my asking price for KwunTong.com is $15,000 USD, and the domain name is registered at Moniker. Email me if you are interested in buying the name, or post something in the comment section.

Kwun Tong is more of a residential area of Hong Kong, and there are all types of homes, apartments, and condominiums in the area. In addition, there are many services and industrial facilities in Kwun Tong. Kwun Tong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with a population of 564,700 people.

One of the most well known areas of Kwun Tong is Yue Man Square, which is home to a variety of shops and stores. According to the KwunTong.org website, Yue Man Square in Kwun Tong is home to “shops selling jewellery, trendy clothing, CDs, mobile phones, electrical appliances , etc.”

Here are a few links to websites with information about Kwun Tong, Hong Kong:

Many of the common domain extensions with KwunTong are taken, and related IDN names are taken as well. I think owning the .com makes sense in this case since many foreigners who do business in the area will look for hotels, restaurants, and things to do, and the .com makes sense, especially for English speakers.

Photo Sources:

#1 Wikipedia

#2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/chan_miri/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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