Should you sell your domain
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Sean Stafford April 28, 2009
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Sean Stafford |
This article originally appeared on:
http://www.domaingraduate.com/domaining/should-you-sell-your-domain-name/
Sean Stafford, Director of Product Development for DNZoom Inc., is
actively involved in the domainer community and has helped guide the
implementation of the new domain name aggregation product, DNZoom.
Previously he worked for ModernGigabyte LLC. Sean was able to take the
experience he gained with hosting service aggregation and apply it to
the domain name registration and aftermarket, giving domainers the
first truly agnostic, centralized system for domain organization and
mass portfolio management. His current projects include managing his
own domain portfolio, development of future products in the online
domainer community.
Use Sean Staffords knowledge to turn your dead domains into profitable
parking business with his new ebook Domaining-Tapping The Online Mines
Http://www.domaingraduate.com |
Sean Stafford
has written 1 articles for DomainInformer. |
View all articles by Sean Stafford... |
These days I do very little selling. I don‘t
like to, nor do I need to. I have come to the conclusion that the
longer I hold something the more it is going to be worth. Just look at
three-letter .com’s, .net‘s, .org‘s, .us‘s, and .biz‘s. There are zero left “out in the wild” to be registered. (Three letter domains I am talking about here, not three-character domains such as ww.8cz.com or the like, though all three-character .com‘s
have been registered as well). These three-letter domains always go
for, well, let’s just say “much more than the registration fee,”
regardless of the extension, but how do we sell a domain if we want?
As the value of good generic names keeps
increasing, there is very little reason to sell your domains names at
this stage at the game. Yet, people do. You would do well to learn one
thing concerning the domain name market very early: PATIENCE. If you
are eager to spend money then there will be sharks salivating and
lining up, happy to take it from you. The point is, that you don‘t want to spend money just to spend it, you need to make sure the buys you are making are quality buys.
However, if you do come to a time and place that you want to sell your domain, you need to keep a few things in mind.
If you are going to make a business out of
domains and you are going to open your own company, you need to make
enough to pay any taxes that may be incurred. This is a big area of
debate and I’m not a tax expert, so consult your tax advisor.
You obviously need to make enough to cover
the original purchase price, but you may also need to factor in other
expenses such as renewal fees, how much PayPal, escrow fees (sedo or
other escrow company) are going to take from you when you make the
domain sale.
Can your domain names make more money if you
wait a bit longer for a different person who may want this more? Is
there a big enough market to where other people would be willing to buy
this name so they had an “edge” on the competition? Or are you selling
to a “reseller” (a person just as yourself who is buying the name to
hold and resell later).
Is it really the “right” time to sell your
domain, if you wait will the product/service/etc become more widely
known or will the domain bring in more traffic? (E.g. HybridRVs.com).
Do you really even “need” to sell or do you just want to? You may need money for other ventures, but if you don‘t, then what is the point?
Is it an offer that you just cannot refuse?
I have had offers on domain names that I
could not refuse before, it’s not common but it happens. I had just
registered about 20 .us domain names and shortly thereafter a guy got a
hold of me and offered $500 off the bat for one of them. Considering
that I just registered the domain name, and the mere fact that the .us
market has really not picked up, it was probably a good decision to
sell. I sold him the domain for $500 total. That sale paid for the
purchase of the other 19 .us‘s and also the renewal fee for them along with some money to spare.
In a case like the above, unless what you
just registered is a true gem, there is probably no reason to decline
the offer. But before you sell make sure a transaction will even be
worth your time. If the same guy came to me and said he would have
given me $40 for the domain name (and that would be as high as he would
go), then there would have been very little reason for me to sell.
Remember, your time is worth money too.
However, if you are a “time” person, then these are the types of sales
you need to target and you need to target them over and over again
until you reach a healthy base with domain name parking revenue. Once
you become a “money” person, these types of things are not worth your
time at all in the slightest. Remember, you want to become a money
person as soon as possible.
So if you decide to keep your domain names
or not which is completely up to you. Just be sure to make a well
thought out decision. |