Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Do You Re-Sell a Domain Name?

Posted by Cliff on from the not-as-easy-as-it-sounds dept.

dclayman wonders: " I've never sold a domain before. I just received a $400 offer for a domain I own (radicaltrust), but I don't know if I should sell it or auction it off. If I auction it, what site should I use? I could really use the extra cash, and I was hoping to get some ideas and advice from other readers. So, what's the best way to go about selling a domain?" Of course, selling your domain is only half of the issue. What's the best way to go about smoothly transferring the domain, once it is sold?

15 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Use Sedo.com by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sedo.com will conduct the auction for you, and ensure the payment is collected before the domain is transferred. Not an owner, just a satisfied customer.

    --
    Comment of the year
  2. I've had experience with a few services... by celerityfm · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a buyer I've had good experience with buying "resold" domains both from Afternic.com and Network Solution's Certified Offer Service.

    Each service has it's own features- Network Solutions, erm, solution is really just a way to make a safe transaction on a domain sale to an independent buyer, it offers an escrow service and other protections. Afternic has a similar service but they also have a nice domain name listing service where you can auction your domain like eBay. There may be others, but these are the only 2 I've had experience with, albeit from the buying side.

    For your situation with this buyer I recommend to at least use Network Solutions' service to manage the transaction-- it offers protection to both you and the buyer, though there is a fee of course.

    By the way, Network Solutions service also offers free domain name appraisals (Afternic has one too but charges). I don't know how much to trust it because for your domain I received values ranging over $10,000 when I first queried it on down to the $500 range later on. It seems to take into account the number of queries for a domain name? I'm not sure, but try it and see what it says now. Also, if RadicalTrust is also the name of a product or service then that price could be higher (or possible lower) then the estimated value according to Network Solutions.

    If I were you I'd post it on Afternic.com for auction and tell your buyer about it. Your sure to incur some new offers from this /. article and an auction might be just the thing for your situation- if you're willing to pay the transaction fees of course :)

    Good luck!

    --
    ...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
    1. Re:I've had experience with a few services... by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Interesting

      seems like pure garbage to me. Unless the owners of sex.com, business.com, or slashdot.org are willing to sell for $16,000.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  3. Afternic.com by mr+micawber · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It worked for me... I got over $1k for a domain I wasn't using. They were expedient and fair, offering a reliable escrow service and good marketing.

    --

    The sacred and the propane
  4. Advertise it on Slashdot by mrmag00 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would advertise the domain on Slashdot. It has a far higher readership than other any site that might show up in something like a Google search for "How to sell a domain name", and its far more likely to get posted by the moderators compared to other sites like kuro5hin or digg.

  5. So you were sitting on it... by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, let me get this right... You had an asset of no value. Someone else would appreciate it, and goes to the effort of finding you and making a reasonable offer. And now you decide that it's worth trying to sell!? They want to make a mutual cooperative offer, and you want to turn it into an competitive situation? Why? If you think it's a fair price, sell it to them for that. If you think it's worth more, tell them what you think it's worth and ask them for that.

    The world would be a much nicer place if we weren't all trying to maximise profits all the time.

    1. Re:So you were sitting on it... by mozkill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, the world would be a nicer place for the scammers if we all played nice. Scammers whine when the average joe knows the game they are up to and tries to make a profit also. Its not fair that the "scammer" personality should make all the profits in this world.

      But I do agree, that guy should take the $400 and be done with it.

      --

      -- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
    2. Re:So you were sitting on it... by readams · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's nonsense. You're saying that everyone should just sell anything they own the first time they receive an offer without doing any due diligence, or verifying that the offer is even fair? If I walked up and offered you $10 for a painting you owned because I knew (but you didn't) that it was actually worth millions, would that be fair? But according to your claim, I should be perfectly justified to be insulted that you would even want to find out how much the painting is actually worth before selling it!

  6. I would go with a free service by Optic7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thanks for asking this question, as I've always wondered what is the best way as well, and I'm curious what the Slashdot crowd will have to say.

    Anyway, I would go with a free, commissions only service. The domain sale sites are already charging a commission on the sale, so it just seems like scumbaggery to also charge a "membership" fee on top of that. Not to mention that selling domain names is a total hit or miss thing - I've sold 2 out of maybe a dozen that I have put up for sale. For that reason I haven't tried afternic.com. I will try sedo.com now as mentioned above, since I checked and saw that it's free (commissions only). I have also heard of them before.

    I have also used tdnam.com in the past. It is free (commissions only) if you have your domains registered through godaddy.com. I sold two domains there with no problems whatsoever. It has an automatic escrow service, so you wait until they receive the money from the buyer and tell you that it's ok to start the transfer of ownership. They were fairly low-priced domains, selling for $50 and $200, but I didn't haggle or wait for other offers - I just took the first offer that came along.

  7. Re:Domain value by pla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Shameless plug: I sell domains and hosting services and offer a appraisal service

    Not looking for insider secrets or anything, but in general, on what basis do you appraise a domain?

    Obviously a popular word (like the infamous "sex.com" domain) might fetch a good penny, but for most of them, the value would seem to depend entirely on having a buyer before-the-fact. Unlike jewelry, domains don't count as fungible.

  8. One more cool thing about TDNAM by Optic7 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That I forgot to mention in my other post. If you click on "recent sales" on the left menu on tdnam.com, you will see a log of the top-priced sales in the last month (I believe). You will see that someone recently sold enjoydiary.com for $1805. Crazy - I've seen even crazier sales listed there, and I have a pretty good feeling that those are not bogus, because one of my domain sales was listed there (although way at the bottom at $200) after the sale completed. I've also seen current sales with offers of over $5000.

  9. Re:Domain value (free computer appraising service) by yincrash · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://dnscoop.com/
    i'm not sure how accurate it is, but it does appraising for free and tells you the factors involved.

  10. Transition BEFORE you sell by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 3, Informative
    Don't wait until you've sold the domain to transition yourself away from that domain. Transition yourself NOW. That way you'll have a few {weeks,months} to clean up any leftover bits that result from people not getting the news that you've moved your email, etc to another domain.

    The last thing you want to do is sell the domain and then realize that your other three domains are still locked to an email address on the old domain.

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  11. Sale and Appraisal by nullchar · · Score: 2, Informative
    For selling a domain, you should use an escrow service to protect both the buyer and seller. At some point, the domain must go through the transfer process and if the domain is in escrow, no one gets screwed by insufficient funding or a NACK'd transfer request. escrow.com is a generic place but to make it worth your while, $500 or more should be the selling price. Others have listed links to sedo, afternic, etc. that will do the same. Ensure that if the sale does not go through, you may still manage the domain, change nameservers, etc.

    For an appraisal, you should go the human route. And get three of them if you think your name is worth $500 or more. Appraisals are VERY arbitrary. Any logs of traffic will be very beneficial to the appraisal process. Lots of hits means lots of cash for pure pay-per-click sites.

    Some automated appraisers are:

    http://leapfish.com/
    http://dnscoop.com/

    Ignore the dollar amounts as they are bogus. But, you can use the information given (search engine query results, various rankings, etc) to make a stronger case for a high asking price.

    It might be a good idea to check if other TLDs of the same domain are registered -- that is an easy indicator that the domain is at least somewhat valuable.

  12. Four Factors To Determine Your Domain's Value by 1sockchuck · · Score: 2, Informative
    Domain valuations are usually based on whether the domain has traffic or has attributes that will help it rank well in Google search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are some key factors in valuations:

    1. Existing traffic - Domain parking services can convert visits into revenue.

    2. Backlinks from other relevant sites in your niche. Google values these in their rankings.

    3. Age of the Domain: Google's algorithm gives greater authority to established sites, so domains that have been on the web for a few years will generally fetch more in a sale than a newer site with equivalent traffic and backlinks.

    4. PageRank, a Google scoring system developed by Larry Page. It's a 1 to 10 scale, the higher the better. This used to be more highly valued, but Google sometimes resets the PageRank when it figures out a domain has changed hands, diluting its value as a sales metric.

    URL Trends is a service that provides a quick, free analysis of a domain's PageRank, backlinks and Alexa rank (which has some usefulness in assessing broader traffic trends). URL Trends shows that the submitter's domain, radicaltrust (we assume that means dot-com), has a PageRank of 0, and just one incoming link, but decent age (online since 2001, according to Archive.org). $400 seems like a pretty good offer. The buyer must be motivated by a specific need for that domain, and there's little in the stats to suggest you'd get more in an auction.