Domain Names, New and Old - Everybody Sells
What does a guy who is well known for “not selling domains” know about selling domain names? Well I might just know a thing or two. As the title of this post states: Everybody sells.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling cars, homes, financial instruments, religion.. everyone sells something. Some of us are hard-sell : Timeshares on Maui spring to mind. Some of us are soft-sell: Water in the desert for example. Make no mistake, the global economy functions on sales and whether you’re paparazzi or a politician, a plumber or a pastor, everyone sells something.
A few years back I was approached by a company and encouraged to place my domain names for sale through their marketplace. I was given a host of reasons why this was a good idea. “These names don’t make any money”.. “ Selling the names will actually improve my overall portfolio’s value”.. “Selective pruning is just prudent”. Shortly thereafter, a second domain marketplace called. They suggested I sell my names through ‘them’ and that I should cap my purchase prices at $5,000 because that was the limit of automated credit card processors in their scenario.. They even sent me a list of names that I should sell.. tens of thousands of them that don’t make enough to cover their renewals.. and If I could get $2,000-$5,000 each wouldn’t that be Fabulous?! The problem as I looked through my list was that many of the names they suggested I sell were pretty good. I’d pay more than 2-5k for many of these names if they were dropping at auction. I politely declined their offer.
Understanding the Ecosystem
Years ago before I began in the domain business, before I had built the grubstake in real-estate which I’d ultimately use to kick-start my move to the Caribbean, I worked for a glass manufacturer/distributor and sold crates of flat glass to assorted manufacturers. Glass (like domain names) is a commodity business. Everyone is going to need glass at some point, whether they know it or not. The guy who hired me was named Ralph. I watched Ralph in awe as he took orders and worked his calculator selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in glass, pushing buttons on his phone to get trucks moving and called on clients who seemed genuinely delighted to see him.
Ralph was a great salesman in the pure, honest and wholesome sense. He was a facilitator and he made things happen. The most important lesson Ralph ever taught me was never to sell your product too cheaply. We’d make sales calls and very convincing glass buyers would swear up and down that the maximum they could pay for a crate of glass was .75 cents a foot. They’d threaten to purchase the product elsewhere, they swore they had a lower offer, they’d beg and cajole using the carrot and the stick. Ralph would switch the conversation to a personal tack, disarm them with his personable manner and elegantly decline to sell.
On the drive to lunch I’d ask Ralph why he wouldn’t fill the order when we were making 20 or 30 percent margins on that ton of glass.. “Because they can easily afford to pay more” he’d reply.. “and once I sell that crate it’s gone, it will take 3 months before I get another crate.. somebody else will buy it because it’s a specialty size with low cut-loss”, and if I sell it at that price, next time he’ll ask for another nickel discount.. “
Ralph knew his customers, he knew their business and most importantly he intimately understood the ecosystem of the pond in which he lived. Ralph knew that if he discounted this glass then his competitor wouldn’t get the order and his competitor would have to sell something else at a discount, hurting Ralph’s margins on that other product which would potentially unravel Ralph’s other orders for the other product at ‘that’ price, forcing Ralph to compete against his competitor on yet other products he wasn’t as strong in - In the final analysis, there were a dozen good reasons not to take the order at that price.
I was a young sales-guy-in-training and this ran completely counter to my order-taking instinct, but as time wore on I came to respect and appreciate the eco system of our pond and Ralph’s logic. I could bust my hump running around town to sell ten crates of glass for 10% margin or I could put my feet up on my desk, sell just two crates at a 50% margin, making the same profit and still have another 8 crates to sell on another day!
“Good” Domain Names — more like Oil than Glass.
The domain name business is much simpler than the glass business. If you look at the names which people want, you’ll find that sales (and sales inquiries) occur for names which get some kind of traffic. I’m not talking about revenues from PPC. You can have poorly implemented domain names which make no money from the traffic that comes to them, that still get some trickle of type-in traffic. I am talking about a heartbeat folks.. Names which somebody will either type into their address bar because the string means something to them, or names which people look-up the whois record of, to see who owns it. Names which compell other human beings to take some form of action. Some domain sellers suspend this law of physics by baiting and switching — taking buyers who are looking for XX.com domain name because it has meaning, resonance, gravity, traffic and switching them into Y-Y.info domain name because it “feels similar” or costs one tenth / one-hundredth as much. Those plays notwithstanding, the fuel that drives the machine and makes the magic possible are good meaningful domain names with resonance, gravity and a heart-beat of some kind. Unlike glass which is made of sand, these meaningful gems which bring warm bodies through the turnstiles are of a finite quantity — more like oil.
As mentioned previously, I’ve spent the better part of the last decade sifting through expiring domain name lists and I’ve gotten pretty good at telling the good ones from the bad ones. I’ve also watched other people who do what I do, and learned how they interpret “good-ones” and “bad ones”.
In my 6 years of scanning expiring domain name lists I’ve found that only 7-12% of all names that expire mean anything to more than one person.. The rest are such poor made-up quality that they have no resonance or gravity and they will likely never be looked up on whois, or typed into the browser by anyone other than the name’s registrant. This other 88-93% of names are meaningful to the sole distinctive entity that registered them. They include odd/trademarked strings, made up words, disjoined phrases. They are the trees in the forest, falling, that nobody is there to hear. The successful people I see at domain shows who spank my wallet pocket with their bidder’s paddle seem to share my viewpoint of what constitutes a good name.
Domains Expire Every Day
In the past, the average daily-list of expiring domain names was reflective of the broader registered namespace. If 20,000 names expired, that would mirror a random sampling of 20,000 names from the registry zone file. Today, quality expiring names are even scarcer due to registrar/auction-house name withholding. Additionally, the high renewal rates and exhaustion of the name-space mean that a diminishing percentage of ‘all names’ meet this meaningful , resonant criteria. Today it’s 7-12% of names that fall into my “good bucket”.. in 5 years as more made up schlock gets added to the zone-file mix, it will be 5-7% of all names registered that have meaning.
To put this in perspective, the types of names which constitute my theoretical “best 7-12%” of all names registered include all 2 and 3 character names, nearly all 4 letters, any search-term no matter how far down the long-tail. It includes zip codes and popular screen-names, first/last name combos that are popular/less popular, pretty much anything that means anything to anybody and a second or third person. It includes the best .info’s .us names (even .mobi’s)… All the “good ones” amount to just 7-12% of all names registered. The rest is an ever circulating torrent of backfill which expires and gets replaced in a grand water like cycle, with new garbage.. A never ending boulevard of broken dreams to come.
If you’ve read this far and you buy into my viewpoint, or just suspend your disbelief and follow my thought process, you will see why blanket-selling names that mean something for $2500-5,000 is not as sustainable as it may seem. Businesses will think nothing of spending $10,000 or $15,000 for a one month, one-time insertion into a trade publication, or for 2 months employment of a junior staff member.. yet the meaningful domain name which quietly keeps on giving and can itself be resold at a profit is somehow worth whatever you can get, simply because it hasn’t generated any PPC revenue yet? I believe a great deal of overall portfolio value is lost as large scale sellers accidentally burn the furniture, selling names with even 30 uniques a month but no PPC revenue, I see it as destroying long-term portfolio value in the name of short-term EBITDA.
A Hundred Million Bucks Ain’t What it Used to Be.
Forget the correction in commodities and the rise in stocks this last week, the bottom line is that papering over problems with more paper, and bailing-out ‘the troubled’ will only hasten the demise of the currency doing the papering. If a credit expansion renews and continues at all cost, then warm up your wheelbarrows folks.. you’ll need one per name.
The supply of meaningful and generic domain names is tight as a drum today. In an effort to increase revenues for itself and to simultaneously ease that demand, ICANN plans to start entertaining proposals for new namespaces in about a year’s time. I predict this will do little to quell the desire for meaningful .com, net and CC TLD names. Corporate IT departments overwhelmed by the task of managing existing .com typos simply won’t be up to the challenge of managing a corporate GTLD such as .COKE or .IBM. Even with the help of a presently absent killer app from the likes of Godaddy, Enom or Tucows such sideshows will be an uphill push in a recession year. If my hunch is correct then .web .blog and other new .extensions will come to pass and they will marginalize the .info, .us, .eu, .asia and .mobi namespaces just as those namespaces relegated .ws and .cc to obscurity before them. I predict that .com and other established namespaces will continue to thrive with some very minor marginalization at the fringes . The failure of former would-be contenders such as .travel, .biz and .pro to satiate demand for coveted names, shows us that adding more skim milk to the mix will not stop the cream from rising, and that cream is .com.
I suppose all this brings me back to my first point.. With 6+ billion would-be “sellers” on our planet and just 10 to 18 million “meaningful” domain names across “all extensions” good enough to do the selling, this might just be the right time to put your feet on your desk and triple your prices - or to not sell at all.
Some would argue that not selling anything may be a bit extreme.. and that may be. Fortune favors the bold after all. But we live in unprecedented times, amid an unprecedented sea-change. In the future, fortune could well favor those who didn’t sell their good domain names too cheaply, or too boldly.
Nice to hear from you again. Did you see Rick’s latest blog entry and this comment?:
“I hope you all realize what is going on here. The message should be loud and clear. Rick has been warning everybody all year to help him mount a defense against what is coming. Very few are paying attention, and very few are helping him build the fort to protect against the coming invaders. So, rather than waste is time blogging to people who don’t listen, he is leaving us to fend for ourselves and he will use his new found time to mount his own defense (probably by developing some of his domains and selling others). We have lost our visionary and a big industry voice.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! Rick stops blogging, Frank stops blogging, Yahoo kills arbitrage, Ask/Google, Snowe Bill.
The writing is on the wall.
Fast forward to 2010 and do a “Where are They Now” on the domainers of yesteryear. Some will have cashed out and be wealthy and happily retired. Some will have developed domains into businesses worth millions or maybe even billions. Most, however, will be EMPLOYEES working for a BOSS, wasting their hours thinking about the good old days and wondering what went wrong.”
Posted by: Robert Pearl | March 21, 2008 at 12:09 AM
***FS*** That is so ironic.. I actually hadn’t seen Rick’s post or that he’d stopped blogging. He has probably found as I have that blogging is a great responsibility to readers.. and a great deal of work. I plan to continue to post albeit less frequently on the day to day points. I am not worried about the Snowe bill, as it is unlikely to pass without ammendment.. Too many folks are opposed to this proposal which was hastily written. The senator’s staff did not think through all the ramifications and potentials for misuse. You don’t control an industry by chasing it out of the USA .. at worst, that is what this law would do. It strengthens foreign (Canadian, British, Australian, Chinese, Russian, Brazilian and Indian) companies who are uneffected by US law. That said it is important to keep America strong and competitive.. and to that end, to have laws which are balanced and commonsensical. This bill is neither and so good American individuals and co’s will do as they always have, working to explain that to well minded lawmakers. I believe they have an extremely good chance of effecting those positive changes. That said, if we apathetically ignore issues like this, sleepwalking through life, then yes, we risk the entire domain name industry leaving America. That would clearly be the wrong direction. So, get up, brush off the dust and make something happen by writing your lawmakers and supporting the Internet Commerce Association.
On your other points, Yahoo (nor Google) has killed arbitrage.. they have made it harder. All marketing of websites and business is a form of arbitrage and I can assure you that the keyword-to-keyword variety is alive and well.. Garbitrage (untargetted traffic dumping) is dying and so it should, but even that is a slow death.
If you want to look for this industry’s next visionary.. head to your nearest mirror and look in the eye’s of the person in it. You have the power to make a difference in this industry, each and every one of you. There are no Gods in the domain industry, just hard working people who think they can make a difference and lazy apathetic people who want the answer served on a silver platter.. I encourage all of you to be the former as it is the latter who will be working for “the Boss” in five years time.
Very well said.
Excellent story line and a great read! I’d recommend writing a book, but it would take away from the freshness that’s present in a blog format. If I were in your shoes, and you probably don’t have any shoes on at Seven Mile beach, I would take a more exciting spin within the domain industry, like co-authoring a movie script with key players about your rises to success and the real launching of this industry. But, what do I know, I am cynical ex-hippie writing code for the man.
(About the .bz domains – I caught a drop of several key words, couldn’t pass it up – got 300+ com’s for sale, but not for sale now. I’m more of the farmer and silo mentality, only take them to market when the price is really soaring.)
Thanks for the lengthy post and response Frank. You must have some time on your hands with the public holiday down there for Good Friday. I take it you’re not posting from a tent with all the other campers along SMB this weekend! LOL
I’ve escaped to the U.S. for the break.
***FS*** I am.. just my tent is a bit bigger… and more permanent.
Great article Frank! Gives all of us ‘long tail chasers’ hope for a more lucrative future….when the rest of the world finally ‘gets it’!
Cheers, Bob
I really enjoyed your post - I totally understand your stance re: not selling unless the price is right but you have the luxury of great success (hard earned I know) Bottom feeder dealers like me sell / flip to finance new (hopefully better) domain purchases.
If a domain isn’t paying it’s way in ppc I give it 3 -6 months to get a decent end user offer, if it doesn’t get one in that timespan I flip it regardless.
Just another perspective, Great to see you’re back to making the occasional post ! Seriously, it’s great to have a domain expert blogging and giving his advice to the rest of us - bottom feeders included.
regards
andy
http://www.UrlAcademy.com
***FS*** Sell if you have to make money .. Nothing wrong with making money, but know what you’re selling and understand the value proposition of letting the good ones slip away, then price accordingly. Thanks for the kind compliment.
Maybe it’s good that you don’t post more often because you hit a home run with this one. It definitely counters all the other “doom and gloom” posts that I’ve been reading and your words ring very true.
First time subscribed to the blog; thanks for the insightful post.
I thought it was a smart move by dotzup when they listed their portfolio, but they seemed to have stopped. Perhaps that validates your position.
Brilliant post Frank. I agree. Grand Slam. A must read for every domainer. The market will evolve for sure. But a solid .com can only go up in price. Mainstreet corporate will eventually grow comfortable with the true value of domains in the next few years.
BTW: Did you see Kellogg could have picked up eggo.com for $100,000 and instead brought a UDRP (which they correctly lost since the registrant was running a completely unrelated and legitimate business on the domain).
I expect the no-doubt angry registrant will pump the price 5 fold. $100,000 would have been a value purchase given Kellogg’s obvious interest in the domain. But they thought they the price was highway robbery because they did not understand the value and tried to steal it with the UDRP instead.
Great post Frank - something of a contrarian view in immediate times perhaps?
Nice to see you believe that longtail terms have some inherent value - that’s where I’m thinking I should be fishing. That and .co.uk too.
Regards
John
Hey Frank,
Great post! I agree with you. Another thing, this time of economic turmoil is great for all of us that hold fast and continue on the path of buying meaningful and valuable names while everyone else is offloading names on the cheap. No one can say they “never had a chance” like the good old 1995-2005 years to buy great names.
I really appreciate the stuff you write
John
http://unplain.com
***FS*** I don’t see anyone offloading great names cheaply this time. Not yet anyway.. I bought LastNames.com for five figures over the last few days.. That wasn’t cheap. In fact the cheapest name anyone has offered me all year was Autograph.com and they already had an offer of $55,000. Again, that’s not cheap, it’s just the cheapest name I’ve been offered. If there was real turmoil at our level you”d expect to see Autograph.com going for 10k and even that isn’t cheap.. 4-6k is cheap.. See where I’m going. Prices are fairly robust.
Great post Frank! Thanks for giving us your perspective.
Well that just happened to be one of the better blog posts in recent months. Much respect to you sir for that excellent summary of the current situation. It will force me to rethink my pricing. I sold a few solid domains in the past few years for $x,xxx that I now believe should be $xx,xxx or higher. One name in particular was amazing and I certainly regret selling it. As a former retailer (now doaminer) I see very well your point on holding out for the higher margins. Somehow that never translated to domains for me until I read your post.
Thank you.
From the “lamest” Domain purchaser in the Industry.
This is my first post to a domain related blog so I figured I’d post on Franks since his past comments regarding my domain purchases have been so kind:
Last November
***FS*** I don’t care if you acquired them from the Pope and he blessed them as he sold them to you.. These names are lame at best and make the hair on my arm stand-down…
****FS*** Zzzzzzz .. zzzzz .. zzzzz These names are a total yawnfest.. Honestly feels like a 1999 press-release/play-book. Go out and register names from available pool the sell via PR! I can’t believe this got picked up by CNN Money… Next!
Ok, so kind comments aside. I’ve been reading this blog and Conceptualist.com for a year or so.I’m one of those people who have bought into the value and vision of the domain industry from the outside business world. Last week I took my start-up directory development Company(Elysium Internet, Inc.) public, with my lame domains in tow.
After reading this post and many other’s I think this industry while it offers unbelievable upside potential from here,from a business perspective it has some very major problems.
In my quest for other domains the pope would not bless, I’ve come across several domains that have been offered to be me for literally millions of dollars less than supposed phone bids at Moniker Auctions because they didn’t hit the “Reserves”. The advertised bids were literally several million more than the prices I could buy the domains for only a few months later.
I may be a newcomer to this industry (about two years)but a few people falsely manipulating prices to the trade publications (unless they already know about it), the new investor’s at the auctions and other not knowing suckers is not all that different than what Enron did only a few short years ago.
These types of activities explain more clearly, to me anyway, why the Wall Street and VC community have been slow to recognize what to me is the largest opportunity of my generation. While Franks concerns are interesting, I think these types of activities are of far greater concern for me relating to the future of this emerging industry.
Anyway, even after the insults I still find Franks thoughts very educational and look forward to his next post.
And why is SecuritiesAttorney.net such a lame name anyway. I bought it for a Securities Attorney Directory????
Frank inspired me to purchase the name for my new up and coming blog http://www.LameNames.info
Best Regards,
Scott
***FS*** You are living proof that you don’t have to be a master name picker to become a public market billionaire. And clearly you understand the potential that domain names represent and can successfully leverage that dynamic into your enterprise (seriously, good for you). That might just be more than you need to thrive. But if you get some names that get traffic .. really good names that are obviously good to others (can be compound phrases.. don’t have to be million dollar category killers).. and if the market turns really bad or sentiment turns against your firm, or the shorts start to circle, you still get a do-over because your names can actually be sold for value. You can point out that there is real burn-down value in those names. If times get tough, that can be your savior.
Frank.
You are both a visionary and a mentor. Your words resonate with the masses, and we cannot thank you enough for your inspiration.
Hi Frank, Your occasional post approach seems to be working out for you. They’ve all come across as well thought out and as usual creatively written. I’d definitely buy a copy of the book. =)
Here’s what I heard:
1. No need to sell out too quick or too cheap.
2. Meaningful domain names are like oil; limited in supply.
3. Good domains have heartbeats. (Think Longtail)
4. 100M isn’t what it used to be.
5. .com is God. (net/ccTLD/info/mobi = angels)
6. Believe in your names, but don’t trick yourself.
7. Fortune favors the bold.
Looking forward to your next post. Enjoy the sun!
Great post. I have always thought that if the domain names at the very least pays for it’s renewal fee then it’s worth holding onto.
And I agree that you shouldn’t just dump domains that aren’t performing very well. In the end domains are like land. There is a finite amount of land just like there is a finite amount of .com’s. New land may be created in the form of new extensions, but who cares about those TLD’s.
Frank - It was an honor to hear your thoughts at the “Town Hall” presentation and meet you at DomainFest. Thanks for your insightful comments in this excellent blog post. Only those who have shaped today’s domain community are able to see the big picture and anticipate the changes which are certain to come. You mentioned having been offered some domain names. How does one get a message to you or your staff in a less public forum? I have just 2 brief questions for you or someone in your organization. Thanks again for all you do to encourage all of us who continue to aspire to domain success!
Dear Frank I have tried to open a dialogue with you, to purchase a name from you. I have made what I thought are good offers on some of your names but dont get a reply. Some names I would even be willing to save up for if only I knew the price. Im going down the development route so willing to pay above market price but can not get any dialogue going. Of course its your right but it feels slightly off putting when you hear nothing. Would you sell xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx $30,000 for the pair.
I appreciate that you must get 1000s of offers and are very busy but I feel I have to push a little to get your attention.
Gxxxxxxx
***FS*** I think I remember seeing your email on this - really don’t want to sell these names, but thanks sincerely for the offer. [I have removed your name and domain names per your request but can’t remove this comment]
My reflections in a forum:
……….
- first mention of .mobi in positive terms by Frank. Not bad for a guy that “would own a negative number of .mobi names if (he) could”
***FS*** I still do not want to own them.. just illustrating that the best ones: flowers, shopping, health, maps are part of that top tranche of names described in my post.. I probably had a chance to look at (and buy) more than a million names that would fit my top 7-12% criteria over the past decade and have only registered 300k or so ..
- oil and domains comparison…well…much as I like this business, I think oil cannot be compared to domains, for a myriad of reasons (lack of real competitors, tradition, market inertia, extremely powerful multinational companies interested in perpetuating oil dependency, international and straightforward/easily understandable value of oil as a commodity, well established markets, well established suppliers, extreme international economic dependency…and many more)
***FS*** Oil (energy) makes the world run.. Domains with type in traffic (the ones which fall into the top-tranche I describe in my post) make the Internet run.
Perhaps you could compare oil to gold… but oil to domains? What would happen if the world run out of oil right now? What would happen if it would run out of domains? Totally different outcomes for totally different, not comparable (today) items.
- I don’t support Frank’s policy of not selling to such an extreme, nor the policy of Sarid of holding “99%” of one’s portfolio in just one extension. Diversification and liquidity are pillars of a good invesment strategy. Particlularly in the times we are facing, selling at least a part of your portfolio to ensure you can afford renewals is a good idea, imo.
***FS*** Wholesale selling and selling-cheap is a road that may lead to regret.
“Frank doesn’t need it” some will say. But I would reply: “have you seen the size of the potential economic mess we are in? How does even the wealthiest person know that he won’t need liquidity? Probably, Frank’s wealth is in domains, real estate, and some kind of paper backed investment. None of those investments are safe right now. The only sure thing right now is that there is not a “100% safe” investment you can hold for the months or years coming.
***FS*** Buy gold.
In any case, and for the small domainer, I would recommend to sell 20% of your domains in times like these, if you are cash poor, to ensure liquidity that may be necessary for a variety of things (some essential) in the coming months.
- still no mention of website development, populating the Internet with quality content, having a solid business plan…
I don’t know…maybe I am too hard or expect too much. Frank has written interesting posts, has always been a source of good domain-related information and gave me a voice in his blog, something I’ll always be thankful to him for. But sometimes his silence on certain issues leaves me wondering: “apart from buy and hold, what’s the strategy? Is there any?”
***FS*** I think this fear/rush to develop sites is overdone .. You don’t need to develop and now is exactly the wrong time. Better to wait till the political economic mess truly hits the fan before spending money. PPC will always be here.. it’s not going away. Lastly re long term plans: never tell Google exactly what you’re doing by speaking about it publicly.
wow, did you actually say “(even .mobi’s)…”?
Hello Mr.Shilling, That was an interesting read. As someone who is very new to domaining I found this particularly helpful. I look at the history of past domain sales from just a few years ago and watch how time increased their value. So one can only assume as the internet becomes more and more prominent worldwide and important to business the value of this “land” increases. I am poor so of course I have to sell if a sales comes along but patience is a virtue and having that insight & vision can perhaps save you from waking up one morning holding your head and saying “Damn, I just sold Manhattan for $24.00″
Lots of Wah-Wah on Rick’s blog. (hope he’s OK) I work in the film industry. Anytime we get threats from the powers that be. We start major campaigns early. People power and the influential are important. To me it seems everybody is running around freaking out about this but no one is really organizing the campaign this needs. Asking some people to write letters isn’t going to do the trick alone. I’ll bet you half if not most of the senators have not got a clue as to what this business is all about. Like any other political campain, this needs manpower, money, and media. I don’t think it needs alot of money to make it happen. But it does need people that know the biz to educate these senators on how once again the big conclomerates ar going to swallow up the small business man. So there’s big corporate for this bill and now you have to get big corporate hitters that are against this bill to help out. No grassroots. I wrote my senator B. Boxer. You think she got back to me? No she didn’t. So where’s these big domain companies i.e Oversee, GoDaddy, Sedo? they should be up there enlightning these people as to who we are. Where are Google and Yahoo heads? Anybody finding them? Media circulation can come via the net and news media. We can all converge to Traffic Conventions. Why can’t we converge on the senate in numbers? Maybe somebody needs to invite these senators to an emergency town hall meeting at the next Traffic Convention in Miami. There’s your numbers. Let them see what it’s all about. I think there are a couple of things that are slowing business down. 1. Negative media frenzy about the economy. 2. Negative media frenzy in some of these blogs.
Great post.
You are a champion
Frank, thanks for your topic. I’m not a professional domainer with thousands of names, but I’ve been reading your blog among others since I am considering selling a few domains I’ve owned for awhile. I’ve owned the domain typo.com for over 12 years, and I’ve had offers that run the gamut. Besides various dollar amounts, I often get stories from people explaining in detail why I should give it to them for free. Or I get offers that I’ve refused, only to get lectured about how appraisals don’t mean anything and how I’m stupid not to sell it to them for what they offer since I ‘don’t use it for anything’. I really appreciate your perspective!
Hello Frank,
So glad to see you back in the fold. The atmosphere in the domaining field reminds me of a Buffalo Springfield tune that says = ” Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep……”
Domainers are rushing to the exits, as the big boys say come to mamma! We Domainers or Lease Holders, hold the keys to the power of the world wide web. To my knowledge there has never been a time in history when people could own and control letters of the alphabet. Hold on! The best is yet to come.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider
[…] you haven’t seen it yet, Frank Schilling wrote an excellent post over at SevenMile.com. Make sure you take some time to read […]
[…] you haven’t seen it yet, Frank Schilling wrote an excellent post by at SevenMile.com. form certain you take some duration to read […]
Hi Frank,
Another nice post, I visit your blog fairly often and always get a good read. I am based here in the Scotland where there arent many domainers and its good to hear the points that you make. I recently sold trustfundmanger(s).com - This week for $15K not a bad sale for a three word .com but it’s not exactly going to make me rich. I earn well from ppc around £150 per day from around 15 names and the other 200 sit get traffic but no hits.
Where do you think the way forward for us are with names like googleher.com & googlehim.com - I own both and get good daily traffic but nobody will buy them because they are scared of Google Inc.
Regards,
Robbie
———————————————
Love to chat more please email me robbie.ferguson@yahoo.com - I dont have any domain kings in scotland so love to drop you an email and chat more get some value advice on my portfolio. I hope to hear from you.
Warm Regards & Best Wishes,
Robbie Ferguson
robbie.ferguson@yahoo.com
Frank,
You really do write eloquently.
Perhaps once you have finally bought enough domains, (if that day every comes?) you would consider writing a book? For mainstream publication?
I expect the public would find it a facinating read, and you obviously have the talent in the writing department. And speaking of selling, you might sell a few more copies than you would think.
just a thought,
best regards
mark
I decided to skip reading all of my rss feeds today to read this post (linked to from http://availabledomainnames.com/2008/im-taking-a-short-break/ ). I’m glad I did. It was written like a book and was very easy to follow. I keep selling names too cheaply and I get the guilty feeling afterwards. I promise to “never do it again” but then I get that urge to sell and I drop prices. Thanks for giving me one more thing to think about before I make that decision again.
“They are the trees in the forest, falling, that nobody is there to hear.” - FS
Frank its nice to see that you are not freaking like so many others who apparently think every small domainer that makes $1000 annually should spend 1/3 of that to join the ICA and if not they will lose all their domains.
I mean if the people such as yourself,Rick,Sahar,Adam Dicker,Kevin Ham, along with companies such as Verisign,Google,Yahoo,Sedo,Parked,OVERSEE,NameMedia,Demand Media,Enom, Godaddy etc… Cannot raise $5,000,000 min then that is pretty disheartening IMO. I mean I see nothing in blogs or forums about how much these people are putting up, just hey little domainer give $300 or lose your domains with the SNOWE Bill. This industry really needs organization and a plan that is real and looks for long term solutions that
benefit everyone.
just out of curiosity, are you talking about elequa? it sounded like that when i read the first paragraph of this post.
***FS*** not at all
“Autograph.com and they already had an offer of $55,000. Again, that’s not cheap, it’s just the cheapest name I’ve been offered. If there was real turmoil at our level you”d expect to see Autograph.com going for 10k and even that isn’t cheap.. 4-6k is cheap.. See where I’m going. Prices are fairly robust.”
For a name to sell at 5k that was previously worth 50k, well that would be a complete “2001 style meltdown”. Personally I think prices generally are a lot lower than the end of last year by around 30% of so. Some really good examples like Traffic selling 50% of the value of the last auction and a couple of names that had been sold in the past getting much lower bids than what they previously sold for, eg the bidding on cd.com and freehoroscope.com/freehoroscopes.com.
***FS*** As usual, you and I wholely agree Snoop. We’re not going back to 2001 prices in domain names.. not even adjusted for inflation which would double them.
Frank a truly outstanding post … I would say more but it looks like its all been said already. Gonna miss your blog posts …
Hello all lease holders,
Make no mistake, any form of advertising that takes away the power of advertising dollars from any source is under seige. There is a saying in the public speaking industry. There are things you speak of on stage and then there are things you speak of behind the stage.
Don’t be fooled by any statements you may hear, about a companies stance. Look for answers in whose payroll they are on. Lets look at the financial truths. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, any media company Etc Etc. Etc. , fear losing control of eyeballs.
Should we run and crap our pants in fear? I don’t think so! But we all as collective lease holders need to support I.C.A. not to mention our rights as Lease Holders. Lease Holders, who have a right to run our businesses, in a democratic and free country. This is not to be looked at as defeat, but opportunity to expose the truth, which in the end will win out if we will it so.
_____________
The Contact Group/Jeff Schneider
Thank you for this post, the story about Ralph and the glass was great !
This post should be good fodder for all the .mobi and 4 letter fanboys (and girls) out there.
frank dont despair. please, after driving around like a mad man buying useless domains and printing your posts and going through them with a toothpick from my taxi
rest assured that you have helped me out.
Honestly very few get the net, i sometimes park right next to the library to steal wifi and you go in there and its like a beehive… so many people clattering at the keyboards. OUr dispatcher happens to be sadly addicted to drugs, when shes paying her storage fees for her stuff cause she was kicked out, she borrows my laptop and smoothly enters all her data and pays everything on time…
wow, excuse me but a crackhead gets on a laptop, whips out her creditcard and bada bing bada boom.
People dont listen, they dont want to do the hardwork which pays off in the long run. I sleep like a baby knowing that you own all those domains and not some fortune 500 bs company that would be run by cluesless idiots. You get it and i hope you unload those names one day for BILLIONS cause you deserver it. I would rather you own zimbambe.com than someone else apart from me.
Give me 3 years and i am sure we can come to terms and you can gently hand me all those african domains.
We are here now and ready to take them over
hahahahha … talk about wishful thinking.
Hi FS
In my opinion, the markets needs fresh liquidity, more stalls in the European marketplace will open up many further opportunities for individual domainers and a consolidation of the markets for the leading pioneers of the domaining industry, The EU markets will ultimately be larger than the U.S. and will offer a currency spread.
The European registrations are reasonably high but with very little return on ppc and very few builds outs, However, the culture is changing rapidly and now is the time to develop the platforms and grow with the cultural and linguistic movement to the online market.
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Paris June 19-20 will interesting to watch
Empedocles
Hi Mr.Frank,
I have just recently started domaining (about 2-3 months back) and currently have 19 domains.Even though iam a complete newbie in this field but I believe that there is so much potential in this field even in new registered ones specially for the likes of me(bottom feeder).I live in that part of the world where internet and www is not given much importance and so no one knows much about domains and their values.I find you and other domaining icons like Kevin Ham,Rick and Sahar very inspirational and respect you guys a lot.I get so much excited and motivated after reading your views and posts.I was just wondering could you become my mentor or guide in this field?I know you do not have much time but just a couple of words from you from time to time will surely help me a lot.I would also like you to see my brief portfolio but only if you give me permission as i do not want to sound like a seller or spammer to you.In fact I do not want to sell my domains right now.Please tell me your email so you can check my portfolio confidentially and advise me if iam taking the right approach and if these domains have any value.I read many domaining forums for research but your guidance will be so much special to me.Thanks in advance.
Looking forward from hearing from you.
Frank, great post. In the same vein, any comments on NameMedia and their “business model” of selling all of their assets until none remain?
I can’t imagine smart money investing in that IPO…half of revenue is non-recurring and can never be recovered! Talk about limited upside…
***FS*** Very well said .. Its a faustian bargain trading cash (which ultimately gets spent on salaries and ‘the machine’) for valuable names .. The names have been going up faster than the cash and many a smart domainer has bought good names from NameMedia cheaply.. I suspect they (NAME) think they’ve found a sustainable sweet-spot and can sell in perpetuity without eroding their core, but if you’re selling names that get even 30 unique a month, eventually the valuable marrow of their portfolio will get sucked away.. I guess it depends on how successful they are at replenishing.. I haven’t had any real insight into that end of things there. Clearly they are making a ton of revenue selling their names (20+ mil last year)..
The worst-case fear for industry participants is that NAME burns the furniture selling too aggressively so they can get higher EBITDA in the name of a big IPO pop. Staff backfills the good-names with crap from the drop and longer tail search terms without the same search resonance. The founders parachute out on the back of said IPO.. new management/investors move-in and essentially become bag holding patsys that can’t sustain the name-sales from before the IPO, ebitda falls, and we (the industry) get tarred with the brush of their model when the stock tanks and investors run from our space saying; “Those domain name investing companies are no good” - lumping the entire industry in with NAME’s fate. That’s a worst case scenario.
[…] Sells unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptGlass (like domain names) is a […]
” The Snowe Reverse Hyjacking Bill ”
In our opinion the Snowe Bill absolutely encourages and facilitates Reverse domain hijacking. In fact the best definition of this Bill is ” The Snowe Reverse Hijacking Bill ”
___________
Jeff Schneider/ The Contact Group
USeBiz.com or UseBiz.com
Frank,
IMHO, this is one of the best blogposts ever. Your highlight a fundamental point of economics - limited supply and ever increasing demand - usually leads to greater and greater prices. Most of the current sellers are bound to regret their actions down the line, for sure. This point is quite unique to .com domain names and you drive it home with your insight and authority. Thx.
Hello Frank,
Thanks for this post. It seems to be the answer to my comment on your last post about Traffic about the sale of DogRule.com. Curiously enough, the domain went through the whole Sedo Auction ending on Saturday and did not garner another bid.
The bidder hasn’t paid yet but presumably will. When the money comes through, the domain will be gone.
But finally I agree with your analogy: DogRule.com is a strong enough topical name that it’s worth more than a single month’s small storefront rent in any middle-sized or larger city.
I shouldn’t be selling it, but rather developing it.
No worries. I still have another two hundred domain names to work on (only about two dozen of them are as topical and of clear commercial value as DogRule.com). But they are one of a kind short, sweet and brandable .com’s.
There is a danger in this business though - the Snowe Bill is its current name - but actually the Snowe bill is only a single incident. One danger is either that the internet is transformed and domains become irrelevant (horses and cars). The second danger is that domain holding is outlawed in favor of corporate ownership (Snowe bill). The second version is exactly what happened to the North American Indians. Their lands were taken away from them for a song and/or they were slaughtered on the spot.
Glad to see you are taking steps to protect yourself and your holdings.
***FS*** The Snowe Bill only affects American companies.. That is precisely why it won’t pass in its present form.. You will see every name compnay move to Toronto, or London or Mexico City. Laws won’t stop the value of names and naming.. technology will and that won’t happen in the next 30 years or more IMO
Is there really any way TO contact you Frank, besides on here? I know your a really busy guy and probably dont have time for a newbie like myself. But I figured I would take the initiative and ask anyway. Through out the last few months Ive had at least 10 people tell me to come and read your blog. You have some very informative posts but still, what am I supposed to do with these questions I have? “Go see Frank, go talk to Frank” lol. Wheres Frank?!?!?!
***FS*** Sorry hun.. If I stop to hold everybody’s hand I’ll be spent. Lots of info on the forums.. Take the time to read what’s there.. So much more free info exists than when I began.. back then there was nothing. And Google makes it easy to find.. Good luck.. Sincerely.
The most undiscussed subject in the domain industry is that somebody has the greatest strategic domain portfolio ever created. What is the Value of the greatest strategic domain Portfolio Ever Created. I think we should look for it and everyone come out of the closet, and let the world know who the leaders of the domain industry really are. May the best strategic speculator win.
TDC?
Yes, I guess nobody here has ever hear of them!
[…] example, a recent post on SevenMile.com discussed why you should not necessarily sell domains at todays prices. Frank is incredibly […]
[…] Schilling, commenting on this domain few days ago on his blog, had this to say: I bought LastNames.com for five figures over the last few days.. That wasn’t […]