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No Reply on a Follow-Up? Check LinkedIn

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Some deals take a very long time to finalize. I have had acquisition and sale negotiations that have gone on for years. Some deals get done and others die on the vine. If you don’t receive a response to an email you sent to a contact at a company, it is a good idea to check LinkedIn to see if they still work there.

I have been involved in many long term negotiations to buy domain names. Oftentimes, the domain name is not being used, so I follow-up every year or so to inquire if anything has changed. If the person with whom I am communicating has left the company, usually there will be some sort of email deliverability notice indicating an email address doesn’t function. This is not always the case. Here’s one such example.

Bodis “Unable to Monetize Adult Classified Domain Traffic”

If you have adult-related domain names monetized with pay per click links at Bodis, you may consider changing where you point them. According to an email from the parking service, the company’s upstream advertising provider will no longer allow the monetization of domain names classified as adult. I suspect this may impact other parking services as well.

Here’s the email I received from Bodis with more information about the situation:

Replying to Inquiries with a Text Message

For most of my highest value domain names, I send prospective buyers to an Embrace.com inquiry form. These domain names are generally unpriced, allowing me to assess market and business conditions at the time of the inquiry. On the form I use, I require a name and email address, but I also request a phone number.

I try to reply to purchase inquiries in a timely fashion. I think it makes sense to negotiate a deal when the buyer is most interested. I use a stock email reply that is individually crafted for each domain name. This makes it easy to reply to inquiries no matter where I am or what I am doing.

Change I Made to Reduce Tirekicking

Last year, I had a bit of a curt exchange with someone who wanted to buy one of my one word .com domain names. His offer was very low, and I think I told him he would need a time machine to buy this domain name for his 3 figure offer. He didn’t love that reply and told me I should provide more information about my expectations on the landing page if I don’t want to waste time.

As much as I think prospective buyers should do their research before buying a great domain name in the same way real estate buyers should know the market, this guy was probably more right than wrong. My landing page did not include any information about the value of the domain name nor did it link to a good resource to educate visitors about its value. You can visit Uppercut.com to see a landing page I use that has not been modified.

Google Change May Impact Expiry Domain Market

Millions of dollars are spent each year acquiring expired and expiring domain names at auctions. Domain name registrants let their domain names expire, and people – including domain investors – will bid on them when they are offered for sale via auction or drop catching platform.

There is a segment of domain name buyers who seek out expired domain names for SEO purposes. They may either try to build a website on an expired domain name to capitalize on traffic from inbound links, or they may choose to redirect the domain name to another website for the “SEO juice” given off by these expired domain names.

Igor Gabrielan Shares Story About Registering .AI Domain Names in 2011

From what I’ve read on Namepros and elsewhere, I believe Igor Gabrielan must hold one of the largest portfolios of good .AI domain names. I think his portfolio of domain names can be found at ai-names.com, which links to an aged thread on the PR.ai forum. I don’t know if that list is current, but it is quite lengthy and contains some strong domain names like Apps.ai, Assistants.ai, Competition.ai, Library.ai….etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever communicated with Igor, and I don’t know much about him. He shared a story about what it was like to register .AI domain names back in 2011, and I thought it was pretty interesting.