Home Blog Page 3

Todd Han Shares Dynadot Growth Chart

Dynadot is a domain registrar that is a preferred choice for numerous domain investors. I have been using Dynadot’s aftermarket and now have nearly three dozen non-.com domain names registered there. The Dynadot registrar platform is very fast, and it offers investor-focused features in an easy to use user interface. The registrar is now home to a reported 6 million domain names, and the company employs 150 people.

Todd Han, CEO of Dynadot, shared a chart showing the growth of the company since its founding in 2002:

Atom.com Early Payoff Option

One of the unique features at Atom.com is the ability to offer an early payoff option to Lease to Own (LTO) buyers. You can offer a discount that amounts to up to 15% of the remaining balance. The buyer can choose to accept the offer and pay this amount to get control of the domain name earlier.

Sellers have one opportunity to offer the early payoff discount to LTO buyers. The seller can choose the dollar amount discount to offer rather than a percentage of the balance. The buyer will then have the opportunity to accept the offer and pay off the balance owed minus to discount or continue to pay the monthly payment as agreed.

Don’t “Call domain broker”

When a user searches for a domain name at GoDaddy, and it is not listed for sale via its network, the Domain Broker Service offering is shown. To utilize DBS, a customer pays north of $100 and an additional 20% fee if a deal is reached.

If a customer pays to utilize a GoDaddy DBS broker, the broker will connect directly with the prospect to understand the budget and discuss the acquisition. It is during this initial conversation, I believe, the broker understands if the buyer intended to make an offer or if the DBS purchase was in error, believing the domain name could be bought for that amount. Assuming the buyer genuinely wants to use the DBS, the buyer and broker discuss budget and offer before connecting with the domain registrant.

While these discussions do not include the domain registrant, GoDaddy customers do have a dashboard where they can see their domain names that are subject to a DBS lead. DBS.GoDaddy.com will take GoDaddy customers to a dashboard with their DBS purchase inquiries as well as purchase inquiries that were made for their registered domain names.

Nice 10x on a .CO Auction Win

0

If you pick the right domain names and win the auction for the right amount, there is still plenty of money to be made from expired/deleted domain names. Adam Maysonet illustrated this by sharing the results of a recent sale he made on Afternic:

Adam bought Spend.CO for just shy of $1,000. Using the Whois History tool at DomainTools, it would appear that Adam won the domain name in a Sav.com drop catch auction. He then listed the domain name for sale for $12,995 on Afternic, and someone bought it.

Backpage.com Sells for $259,500 on DropCatch

2

A few days ago, I wrote about how the Backpage.com domain name expired and was in pending delete status. Prior to its expiry, Backpage.com had been seized by the US Department of Justice. Backpage.com wasn’t renewed, it fully deleted, and DropCatch.com caught the domain name and sent it to a three day auction.

The auction concluded this afternoon. After dozens of bids and backorders were placed, the auction closed with a high bid of $259,500. A screenshot of the final sale price was shared by Shane Cultra on X:

Be Mindful of TMs on .AI Expiry Auctions

Namecheap is now running the .AI expiry auctions following a deal with Identity Digital. It looks like the first swath of expired .AI domain names is hitting the auction block in the next few days.

There are some very good descriptive / generic .AI domain names coming up for auction. Among them are Server.ai, Point.ai, Food.ai, Rock.ai, Drill.ai, Shipping.ai and many more. These are empty vessel domain names, and I think they could each be turned into brands in multiple verticals.

In my opinion, these descriptive domain names are investible assets. In fact, I will probably be bidding on some of the descriptive terms, despite having a higher than usual annual renewal cost.

Recent Posts

Saved by the Down Button at NameJet

0
If you bid on auctions at NameJet, you're probably familiar with the up and down arrows in the control panel control panel buttons. These buttons...

Small Hurdle for Prospects When Afternic Self-Brokerage is Enabled

8
I enabled Afternic's self-brokerage option as soon as I heard it went live. I immediately tested it out with one of my own domain...

Self-Brokerage Available to 100k GoDaddy Customers

0
I am sure one of the most popular requests of GoDaddy is the ability to manage inbound purchase inquiries and offers for domain names...

LTO Usage Can Pose a Risk

4
Lease to Own deals have become much more normal in the domain space. LTO deals give buyers the opportunity to use a domain name...

Kicks.com Acquired by Dicks Sporting Goods

3
In early February, I noticed that Kicks.com changed hands. The valuable one word .com domain name had been owned by Reflex, and transferred to...