Domain Negotiation Tips

I don't know if there is a thread for this topic so I am starting one. There is much talk about finding end users. But how do you handle the situation where the end user contacts you so as to get top dollar without turning off the potential buyer at the same time?

There are many scenarios within this type of situation. For example, many domainers use average monthly type-in's, CPC/PPC rates, extension, length, local and global search volume, prior sales of similar name, etc., as indicators.

To start things off, suppose you own a short brandable dot com name that is also an acronym (not very popular mind you but definitely brand worthy) that gets about a dozen visitors per day. Who knows exactly why they came. PPC is ZERO to the parked page. Now, a little known company registers every other extension. Then someone contacts you (does not indicate in any way to be connected with that company) and tries to sell you a sob story as to why you should sell the domain at their low-ball offer. How do you handle this scenario. (As you can see, I had a lot of time on my hands today.)

=========== Answer 1 ===========

gets about a dozen visitors per day

• Archive.org
• Google looking for most likely suspects

a little known company registers every other extension

• Google every piece of info listed on their whois
• Determine their specific business
• Try to find their active site(s).

Then someone contacts you (does not indicate in any way to be connected with that company)

Find out if they are (google) using whatever info you have or if they are not, what are they up to.

tries to sell you a sob story

You are here to sell domains, not buy sob stories.

=========== Answer 2 ===========

• Archive.org
• Google looking for most likely suspects

• Google every piece of info listed on their whois
• Determine their specific business
• Try to find their active site(s).

Find out if they are (google) using whatever info you have or if they are not, what are they up to.


You are here to sell domains, not buy sob stories.

Very true. I will try to address each point:

Suppose they register an email address explicitly to back up their story. No trail. No whois based on the email (using a standard free service or an email at their ISP). First name only. You know or suspect they are using the sob story to manipulate you and you have good reason to believe it is the same company that registered the other extensions. Do you call them out? If they rejected your previous counter offers (for which you are glad they did), how much leeway do you have to up your price? Do you ignore the psychology and simply set your price or work them up as high as you can? If so, how do you recommend going about it?

This is a real life scenario. The offer began on sedo (via GoDaddy) which was rejected. The interested party contacted via parked paged later using whois info.

My belief is that a lot of companies think that if a domain is registered and for sale, it is from someone looking for a quick buck. They don't consider this entity as a legitimate business. Especially if they come across this domain via traditional or mainstream registrars. However, how do you establish and arrive at the best possible price?

=========== Answer 3 ===========

Do you ignore the psychology and simply set your price?

if you have recognized the game, then it's your move.

you can do nothing

or

you can respond

but act like you've been there before.... even if you haven't



=========== Answer 4 ===========

Decide your price or price range. Are you likely to get another offer in the future? Could they pick another name? Chances are you won't have perfect info to go on, so do your best based on the info you have. Looks like you are in a good position to start.

=========== Answer 5 ===========

Trust your gut feeling. If your instinct says that the sudden registration of all the TLD's and your receipt of that email have anything to do with each other, there is a very good chance that is the case. Personally, I doubt it's just a coincidence.

Quote them a high price and stick to it. If this is the case, they've gone to not just the time, but the expense to register all these names in other TLD's. They've not just "bought in" to the name, they've bought into it at the "table limit", in the sense that they actually could not have invested any more in trying to secure this brand in a non-adversarial manner. By that, I mean the next step up in cost would be to do a C&D/initiate UDRP.

In any case, you have what they want. They can't just "pick another domain" if they're this stuck on the name. So, if I were you, I wouldn't quote under $5,000. The sob story should not sway you.

Worst that can happen: They say no.

Best that can happen: They pay your price.

Just remember. It's YOUR domain. Therefore, it's YOUR price.

Buyer not responding after buying my domain at GoDaddy

Hi, I sold a domain from GoDaddy Auction, and its status is now, "Email Buyer". And the buyer has not been responding in my emails (I sent two emails asking for Namecheap credentials as the domain was bought there) and more than a week has passed. Any thoughts on this? How many days will you wait for the buyer to respond? Thanks.

=========== Answer 1 ===========

I also had an issue like this, but it was as a buyer not seller.

After waiting 1-2 week (I can't remember how long, its been a while), I contacted GoDaddy Support. I never got any reply from them, but after a couple of days, I had the domain in my account.

So you should try contacting GoDaddy Support maybe that will help.

Congratulation with the selling and lets hope the buyers has not run away from the deal.

Best regards,

M. Unal

=========== Answer 2 ===========

Thanks M. Unal.

I also had an issue like this, but it was as a buyer not seller.

After waiting 1-2 week (I can't remember how long, its been a while), I contacted GoDaddy Support. I never got any reply from them, but after a couple of days, I had the domain in my account.

So you should try contacting GoDaddy Support maybe that will help.

Congratulation with the selling and lets hope the buyers has not run away from the deal.

Best regards,

M. Unal

Also if the domain is not registered to GoDaddy, for example Namecheap. How does GoDaddy know that I've transferred/pushed the domain? And when will I receive the payment? (It's my first sell in GoDaddy)

Thanks!

=========== Answer 3 ===========

I had a similar situation, where someone was trying to sell a domain they did not own. If you fail to get a response from the seller, dispute it with GoDaddy within 15 days or they will release your funds to the seller, even if they didn't transfer the domain. Their system is majorly flawed, and I almost lost out on mid $$$. The fake seller finally got in touch with me, but was playing dumb to get past that 15 day window so they would receive the funds. It took GD about a week to finally refund my money, but the entire experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

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http://help.godaddy.com/article/909

If the domain name is not currently registered with Go Daddy, we hold the buyer's funds for 20 days before releasing them to the seller. This provides time to move the domain name to the buyer. If the buyer does not receive the domain name, they have 15 days after the seller accepts the offer to file a dispute. If there is no open dispute, on the 20th day after the seller accepts the offer, we close the transaction and send the net proceeds to the seller. If contested, we might withhold the funds.

=========== Answer 4 ===========

wiztechie, this must be resolved by now but to answer your point, most likely the emails you sent the buyer thru the EMAIL BUYER link on GD were falling in his junk folder, that happens ALL the time since buyer and seller don't normally know each other and cannot expect mail from a specific address, but the record you emailed the buyer asking for his Namecheap acct # stays w/GD, BUT....next time, before you send messages thru GD's IM, copy the text, date it and save it in case the other guy files a dispute that you never gave him the name, emails sent thru EMAIL SELLER/BUYER links have the buyer's or seller's addresses as the sender and not Go Daddy's, they'd save so much trouble if they made the sender's address Go Daddy, this has happened to me so many times on both sides, I'm so used to it

I have no idea how it ended in your case but it was the other party (buyer) who was required to file a dispute within 14 days of END OF AUCTION TIME and not within 14 days of when his payment cleared, if he didn't file a dispute you'd get paid regardless unless you volunteered and told them he never answered in which case Auction Disputes at GD can simply contact him, if/when the guy is heard from eventually, you simply tell GD you tried thru their IM and he never answered, the records are there. What pisses me off about GD is they changed the system from 30 days from end of auction time to just 14 days w/o any notice, I bought a name right after, I wasn't getting it and they told me to eat the loss cuz I had complained like 25 days after and the rules had changed, they did the same when they increased the GD Auctions commission from 5% to 10% and they did not tell clients, I got caught again right after the change selling a name cheap and they took 10% all of a sudden, had I known I would've demanded a higher price

As far as GD corroborating the transfer of registrants has taken place before paying you (the seller) it mostly depends on what the buyer would've asked you to do, some buyers demand a transfer to GD, others are OK w/a push to their Namecheap acct, so I'd say that unless a dispute is filed within 14 days of END OF AUCTION TIME (remember that) the seller gets paid (I'm not even sure they ck the WHOIS when the domain is not at GD before paying the seller), if the seller is asked to transfer the domain later by GD and he doesn't, then he gets banned for a while I guess even when the buyer did not file within the deadline. And if the buyer is the one who doesn't pay, likewise. But they're rather easy on the seller when he sells a name he doesn't own (by mistake or even deliberately), I think the penalty is just $10 and maybe a temporary ban. But a buyer who doesn't pay for a name does get banned

=========== Answer 5 ===========

How to Raise the dispute on GD? I recently won a domain but the seller is not responding me (even after telling him my GD a/c details ) and it seems like he's waiting for the 14 days window to run away with my money. Its already been 9 days since I won the auction and paid instantly. Please tell me HOW to file the dispute at GD

=========== Answer 6 ===========

I may be late for the case you raised here based on the date of post, but for next time, around 10 days after auction ends email auctions@godaddy.com , you may or may not get an incident #, if you don't then resend 12-24 hrs later, but this time to support@godaddy.com and here you will get a ticket #. That way you've logged the incident and complied w/the rule of disputing within 14 days. If the seller does not push the domain to you then they'll refund you and fine/ban the seller.

If you're the seller next time and it's the buyer who doesn't pay then there's really no need for filing a complaint since their system won't allow your domain to be pushed to the buyer's account (it's now all automated if the domain is w/GD, buyer doesn't have to approve pushes to his account anymore, seller doesn't have to approve pushing the name out, names are moved automatically)

I hope the case you mentioned below ended well (like I said before: many times the seller/buyer simply does not get the email coming from the other side thru GD's messaging system ("EMAIL BUYER/SELLER" link) due to spam filter, falls in junk, etc - the sender is usually unknown to the other party, and it is the seller's/buyer's email address that appears as the sender and not Go Daddy's)

How to Raise the dispute on GD? I recently won a domain but the seller is not responding me (even after telling him my GD a/c details ) and it seems like he's waiting for the 14 days window to run away with my money. Its already been 9 days since I won the auction and paid instantly. Please tell me HOW to file the dispute at GD

A customer whines about JaguarPC

Hi all looking to move hosts been with JaguarPC for 6 years or so now i think, they are really annoying me right now, with websites not loading, slow load times etc, anyone got a good heads up on some cheap reseller Hosting elsewhere? Not looking for much, just to host my own websites which are all wordpress sites. Was paying $15 per month i think with Jag pc.

=========== Answer 1 ===========

Heard many good things about mddhosting.com and hawkhost.com at WHT. I personally have 2 shared accounts with hawkhost.com for nearly 2 years and it's been great except both of them have a 25 concurrent connections limit on mysql which made me move some of my high-traffic sites to VPS. Not sure how good their reseller plans are though.

Ever regretted not hand-regging a name?

Hand registering names is fun. I found many valuable names this way. Not sure why people drop them but they do..it's weird

There were quite a few names that I thought would do great but hesitated and never reg them when I had the chance. However, when I checked them again, they were gone, and became someone else's, I would regret it very much and became upset...

I'll list a few that I missed: jetscout.com, imlovely.com, deardata.com.....Was I being too selective? After I have found out that other people regged them, I immediately believe they are such great names...but when I had the chance and I had the options to own or not own them, I hesitated....it's weird why human *rationale* works this way...

JETSCOUT.COM - potentially $xx,xxx for end user in the jets market? And really great brandable name as well, with inspirational meanings such as youth, powerful, speed, etc.
IMLOVELY.COM - $xxx at least, probably $x,xxx for someone like me who has a dress / gown store.
DEARDATA.COM - very nice data niche name, easily $xxx - $xxxx for end users like me.

I was like, pulling my hair all over the place....I was the actual end user. How came I myself didn't reg them when I found them AVAILABLE?! I want to kill myself..

So did you ever regret finding a name available but not registering it? Mind share a few...

=========== Answer 1 ===========

Your logic is completely flawed. One other person speculating on the same domain and getting it at reg fee does not imply it's valuable. Let's see domain sales for those prices then you can talk about how you regret it but until then you shouldn't be regretting anything. Personally I think your valuations are way off the mark.

=========== Answer 2 ===========

Did I regret about it? Oh boy, you can read this if I did

=========== Answer 3 ===========

I did not hand reg Holland.ca because the country is really the Netherlands....aarrgh. I was such a newbie back then.

=========== Answer 4 ===========

Yes, and it sold years later for low five figs. It was available but I waited a few days to pull the trigger, then it was gone.

Adwords vs. Facebook ads: Which, in your experience, has had better results?

I have a client (business: laser hair removal) who spends 3K on Adwords a month. His click through is not great ,
and his conversions (those who fill out his contact form) is 4% tops (usually around 1%).

The ads have been rewritten a number of times, with different offers, etc. No real improvement.

I'm thinking that perhaps Facebook ads, which not only geo targets, but also targets for the kind
of person reading the ad (and also allows for graphics in ad), might be a better investment for him.

Any thoughts (from experience)?

Thank you in advance.

=========== Answer 1 ===========

I have a client (business: laser hair removal) who spends 3K on Adwords a month. His click through is not great ,
and his conversions (those who fill out his contact form) is 4% tops (usually around 1%).

The ads have been rewritten a number of times, with different offers, etc. No real improvement.

I'm thinking that perhaps Facebook ads, which not only geo targets, but also targets for the kind
of person reading the ad (and also allows for graphics in ad), might be a better investment for him.

Any thoughts (from experience)?

Thank you in advance.

I have used both for bankruptcy leads in Miami. What I found was that I could target specific demographics better in facebook. For example a major hospital was laying off 1000 plus employees. I went on to facebook ads and set up a filter to find members who listed this hospital as their employer and who were in 25 miles of my office. It ended up that there were 990 members that matched. I then ran a campaign incorporating this layoff as a pay per impression campaign for a month. My recollection is that these 900 members saw my ads about 400,000 times that month. It cost me $67 dollars for the entire campaign and I picked up 3 new clients which is the lowest cost of acquisition I have ever had. With regard to Adwords, I don't like competing for google search, I go for the ads that show up when a gmail user is looking at their email. It is cheaper and many times I get higher click through rate. Just my two cents.

=========== Answer 2 ===========

your "client" is getting poor advice, if you haven't told him to buy traffic names in that niche' and forward to his website.


with a budget of $3k a month, i'm sure they could acquire some quality domains.


spending money for fb ads only helps "fb"


imo...

=========== Answer 3 ===========

You can target adwords locally just like facebook. IMO I would think that adwords traffic is more targeted and higher quality.

=========== Answer 4 ===========

You can target adwords locally just like facebook. IMO I would think that adwords traffic is more targeted and higher quality.

This should turn out to be a doozy of a thread.

Something I have not given too much thought to (FB vs. Big G).

=========== Answer 5 ===========

This should turn out to be a doozy of a thread.

Something I have not given too much thought to (FB vs. Big G).

i still don't have fb account, but i use g daily...and i am not alone

=========== Answer 6 ===========

i still don't have fb account, but i use g daily...and i am not alone

+1 for you.

You are spot on. I do have an FB account. But, I can not even recall the last time I used it. Been on google several times this a.m.

=========== Answer 7 ===========

i still don't have fb account, but i use g daily...and i am not alone

The latest new is; If you don't have a Facebook account, your INSANE.

I KID YOU NOT.


http://news.yahoo.com/psychopath-you...062946089.html

=========== Answer 8 ===========

your "client" is getting poor advice, if you haven't told him to buy traffic names in that niche' and forward to his website.


with a budget of $3k a month, i'm sure they could acquire some quality domains.


spending money for fb ads only helps "fb"


imo...

3k will get you a $36.000 domain every year. In 10 years you would own $360.000 worth of names. You will make far more than wasting 3K a month at Google, and assuming you paid market value, You could sell the names for at least as much as you paid for them.

In ten years you just got 360K worth of traffic free. Send Google a thankyou note for making them so valuable.

=========== Answer 9 ===========

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies. I had forgotten I posted this -- just now received word I had responses!

biggedon and ilovedomains: forgive my ignorance, but are you both referring to buying keyword niche domains (ie LaserHairRemoval.com) and
then building a landing page on it, (and then doing seo) for free targeted traffic (and forget about Adwords)?

=========== Answer 10 ===========

I'm thinking that perhaps Facebook ads, which not only geo targets, but also targets for the kind of person reading the ad (and also allows for graphics in ad)

Assuming that the landing page is set up to convert, Facebook ads have been working well for a few of my clients just because of the extra targeting features it has. It's worth a shot, imo.

=========== Answer 11 ===========

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies. I had forgotten I posted this -- just now received word I had responses!

biggedon and ilovedomains: forgive my ignorance, but are you both referring to buying keyword niche domains (ie LaserHairRemoval.com) and
then building a landing page on it, (and then doing seo) for free targeted traffic (and forget about Adwords)?

i would buy names like these in .com laserhairremoval , hair removal, remove hair and point them all to your clients website.

no seo needed if all have type-in traffic, if no traffic...don't buy.

the greatest benefit is that you remove the cost of adwords, and the dependency on fb and big G for eyes.


additionally, you'll now "own" a larger share of traffic for that market, rather than renting it at fluctuating prices.



you can send me a cut of those fee's later

=========== Answer 12 ===========

If your client only wants local traffic, you would have to stick to geo targeted names. Is it a clinic in a local area or a business that sells products nationally?

If its just local traffic you want, you probably wouln't find enough names to get the traffic you need.

=========== Answer 13 ===========

ilovedomains , yes thanks, it is only local traffic the client is looking for. He already owns the best
domain for his local market.... but I will look into others as well.

Tia Wood , biggedon , thanks for your responses.

=========== Answer 14 ===========

Linkedin.com also has an advertising program, would be good if you want to reach professionals in different industries.

A Not so Clever Scammer

 It's routine for anybody with a desirable domain to get offers from "startups" and "charities" that really "need the domain" for the starving orphans but clearly "cannot afford to pay much". Nothing new here.

But today I got one that was so clumsy and inept it made me laugh out loud, and I just wanted to share.

The domain in question is AgriculturaOrganica dot com. It's spanish for "organic agriculture". Now I haven't seriously appraised this domain yet myself; but, given the quantity of organic produce in supermarkets, consumers' interest in eating healthy, and the number of Spanish-speaking countries worldwide with sizable chunks of their economies devoted to agriculture ... I imagine this domain is worth something.

Well, I've had my $10 offers, my $30 offers, and today I got a really generous $130. But what kills me is the justification:

"we are free charity to help patients in spain with various illness eg cancer"

Even if this scammer might imagine me believing the charity nonsense, what on earth does the spanish equivalent of OrganicAgriculture.com have to do with cancer treatment? Surely the owner of a domain can at least be assumed to know the meaning of the domain he owns!

I don't really mind the scam lowball offers, since they often turn into legitimate win-win transactions later on. No, I don't even mind this one. I'm not complaining; I'm celebrating the ridiculousness.