Selling a domain name

[Fermion]

I was contacted by some supposedly third party called DomainAgents because they have a client that wants to buy a domain name I own. I haven't responded yet because I wasn't sure if this was a scam.

It is a nice domain name, very short. I have had it since 1999. I use it for contact info and host some stuff from there so it would be a pain to move everything.

What do you think? Real or scam? ?Have any of you ever sold a domain name? What price would make you get off your butt and sell it?

 

[braumeister]

That happens to me several times a year (I have some fairly good domain names). In my experience, at least 75% of the offers are scams.

Enter "domain value" in your favorite search engine. There are a number of sites that will give you at least a rough idea what it might be worth to someone.

 

[Fermion]

That happens to me several times a year (I have some fairly good domain names). In my experience, at least 75% of the offers are scams.

Enter "domain value" in your favorite search engine. There are a number of sites that will give you at least a rough idea what it might be worth to someone.

Thanks. I put mine in and was told it was worth $550. That would not be enough to make me move all the links and crap plus change email.

Interestingly, I put in Apple.com and found it was worth $6,500,000!

 

[Onward]

Anybody know the best way to sell a domain name?

 

[braumeister]

In my experience, a domain name is always worth far more to the current owner than anyone is willing to pay for it. People have made serious offers to me for domains many times, but never enough to tempt me to sell.

 

[HillCountry]

I was contacted by some supposedly third party called DomainAgents because they have a client that wants to buy a domain name I own. I haven't responded yet because I wasn't sure if this was a scam.

It is a nice domain name, very short. I have had it since 1999. I use it for contact info and host some stuff from there so it would be a pain to move everything.

What do you think? Real or scam? ?Have any of you ever sold a domain name? What price would make you get off your butt and sell it?

Ask for an offer and go from there.

Check out similar sales from DNJournal, and make your decision.

Domains 3/4 letter and less have value between domainers. Age of the domains may or may not matter. I sell domain registered since 2002 for $15 on ebay.

Use service at escrow.com to protect you from scam.

BTW, those domain value services are all useless.

And good luck.

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Take a look at listing domain names on https://flippa.com/

 

[jetpack]

I've bought and sold domains. There are many low ballers out there. If you use the domain, it's probably not worth selling.

 

[Fermion]

I've bought and sold domains. There are many low ballers out there. If you use the domain, it's probably not worth selling.

Thanks. They have been pestering me for a few weeks and have now sent personal emails, so I just emailed back asking them what they are offering, mentioning I have a lot of links, files, contact info tied up in the domain.

I guess there could be that company with the million dollar idea that happens to rhyme with my domain name and they want to grab it

 

[Fermion]

Wow, that was fast. Already got a response that said their client's opening offer is $1500.

Is this a scam? $1500 isn't too far from an amount that would make me get off my butt.

 

[braumeister]

So this is where you start moaning and groaning about what an incredible hassle it would be for you to change to a different domain. Sounds like they really want it, so make them pay what it's worth (to them).

I also second the recommendation to use an escrow service.

 

[photoguy]

Thanks. I put mine in and was told it was worth $550. That would not be enough to make me move all the links and crap plus change email.

I think most of the domain name valuation sites are based on traffic not an analysis of the name itself. If you have a short url it might be worth significantly more than $500.

Can you figure out who is the end buyer (or the likely type of buyer)?

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

I've purchased a domain name before and used escrow.com mainly because I wanted to make sure I got my assets after doing the wire transfer. (I paid 40k for that one so didn't want to mess around!)

For the seller, there is little risk. You wait till the funds hit your account and then you initiate the domain transfer through your domain registrar's control panel.

 

[clifp]

In the woulda coulda didn't dept.

Back in early 1995, a colleague and I were given the task of registering various domains for Intel. In addition to normal variations of Intel we also grabbed pc.com which the company is still using today.

We also noticed that TV.com was available and debated about who should register it and decide the company didn't need it. But then somehow neither one of us registered for ourselves. Pretty sure that is multimillion dollar domain. (CBS owns it now)

 

[HillCountry]

In the woulda coulda didn't dept.

Back in early 1995, a colleague and I were given the task of registering various domains for Intel. In addition to normal variations of Intel we also grabbed pc.com which the company is still using today.

We also noticed that TV.com was available and debated about who should register it and decide the company didn't need it. But then somehow neither one of us registered for ourselves. Pretty sure that is multimillion dollar domain. (CBS owns it now)

You sure about the date?

Domain Name: PC.COM
Registrar: CSC CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.corporatedomains.com
Referral URL: http://www.cscglobal.com
Name Server: NS1.INTEL.COM
Name Server: NS4.INTEL.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 23-dec-2009
Creation Date: 02-dec-1996
Expiration Date: 01-dec-2015

 

[clifp]

I could be off by a year. But it says the TV.com was registered in May of 1996, so I think it was 1995.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I have used escrow.com a few times with good results.

 

[Fermion]

Interesting. I declined the $1500 offer because of the time and hassle of moving links, contacts. They just countered with $3000.

The negotiation site does say it uses escrow.com and the buyer pays the fees.

We are in the highest tax bracket, so I guess this would be 1099'd and I would get $2000 after all is said and done.

Hmmm....decisions decisions.

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Now you can counter at 5k and they split the different at 4k and everyone is happy!

 

[Fermion]

Ok, update. I straight up declined the $3000 offer three days ago and thought it was over, but today they have countered with a last effort of $5000.

I think I am willing to do the deal at $5000. I would net around $3400 after taxes. The domainagents website says they use escrow.com and the buyer pays the fees.

One big concern I have (and why I declined $2000 and $3000) is that I use email linked to this domain for everything. As soon as I sell the domain, they could theoretically grab my email address. (like if it was bob@mydomain.com, and I sold mydomain.com, they could start up bob@mydomain.com and start receiving my emails).

Obviously I can start transferring important financial contact info off of my domain email but there are going to be things I forget or contacts I have not had in several years.

Would you worry significantly about this and would it be worth $3400 to you to take the risk of some emails being intercepted?

 

[MichaelB]

Would you worry significantly about this and would it be worth $3400 to you to take the risk of some emails being intercepted?

I'd do it for less. I get other people's mail (email and snailmail) all the time, mostly from Ireland & England, so a few namesakes across the pond. I registered multiple variations of my name on Gmail years ago. For sure one plays professional football. Invoices, photos, invites, even correspondence from an attorney.

As long as your financial email addresses are updated there should be no problem. That, and all the girlfriends...

 

[ERD50]

Tell them you'll take the $5,000, but they need to keep your address in an 'auto-forward', or 'vacation' mode for 18 months. Since you are using an escrow service, have them put an added $1,000 in to be returned to them at the end of 18 months if they kept the email alive (else you have no leverage with them).

They seem to want your domain, so I think they'll go along with this reasonable request.

-ERD50

 

[HillCountry]

I am not selling my last name dotcom for less than $500K. Though it can easily worth $100K to any domainers today.


[FONT=&quot]So don’t use personalized email address if you think some day you might want to sell the domain for a couple of K.

[/FONT]

 

[braumeister]

I think that as soon as you change your MX records, your email should shift to wherever you move it. Within 24 hours, it will be as if nothing happened. But I would archive everything anyway, just to be on the safe side.

 

[PaddyMac]

Are you doing any sort of contract? It would be very easy to include a clause to ask them to set up a forwarding for your old email. I would open 2 new emails at your new domain, the second to accept the forwarded emails. That way you can see who is still using it, and also, you can kill if off once it is just spam (with no need to ask them to remove the forwarder). Forwarding costs no money and takes up no space on their server.

Starting over with a new email gives you the chance to get rid of spammers. I now have a few different emails for different segments (adding social media, shopping, lists, personal, clients, etc.) so that I don't have to inform all my contacts when I find I have to kill off one email because of spammers.