
How to Acquire a Domain Name (That Someone Already Owns) - ebcase
http://blog.domai.nr/post/17910329952/buy-a-domain-that-someone-else-owns
======
rickdale
In my opinion this is a huge problem on the internet. I am all for freedom to
own domains, but it's coming to the point where more often or not the domain
name I search for has no content up and is just conveniently being parked. For
me, I guess the fact that the domain is parked tells me the owner is looking
for a pay day from it, rather than to create their own content rich site. Big
companies can force the little guy to submit to them and give them a domain,
but little guys can't do anything to little or big guys to get a domain. It's
a pretty messed up system.

I sold a domain once for $5,000(us) to the biggest equipment manufacturer in
the world. I wanted more, their proposal was to buy it for $3,000(us). I was
happy enough with the $5,000 after they told me they were going to sue and
take it from me...

~~~
sjtgraham
The domain system desperately needs reform. It's unconscionable that one can
simply park domains wholesale and wait for the bids to roll in. It's a huge
problem that people wanting to create value are held to ransom by parasites,
and there is little chance other than to pay through the nose.

~~~
dot
while I agree that it sucks, that would be really hard to change.

if parking pages were to become illegal, it wouldn't take long for parking
providers to turn in to "blog hosters" or whatever.

I see empty storefronts in prime areas of SF all the time... I guess the
owner's just looking for a big pay day.

sucks, but i don't think there's anything you can do.

~~~
larrys
"I see empty storefronts in prime areas of SF all the time... I guess the
owner's just looking for a big pay day."

Have you ever worked or owned commercial real estate? (I have).

They are looking for many things including what they feel is the right stable
tenant that can pay the rent, keep the property in good condition, and has a
good chance of staying in business.

Would you accept the first job offer from someone who offered you a job? If
you were out of a job for 1 year would you take a job that you felt was
beneath what your capabilities was?

Commercial real estate owners evaluate the market and what they can get for
the property and many other factors.

You are being simplistic if you reduce this to "just looking for a big
payday".

------
larrys
The title is "How to Acquire a Domain Name (That Someone Already Owns)"

But the article essentially deals only with how to contact the owner.

It doesn't deal at all with strategy or research required to acquire a domain
name at a fair price.

Acquiring a domain name is much more than contacting the owner. It's how you
contact the owner and what you say and even how you say it. And who you appear
to be and a host of other factors. It's what your initial offer is (and while
some will say don't make the first offer that is not always correct) and even
how long it takes you to reply to a counter or how that is handled.

There is much to the strategy (on both buy and sell side).

And even if you are using an intermediary to make offers on your behalf you
will have to use a strategy with them as well.

~~~
jsomethings
That was the purpose of linking to the Fred Wilson blog post comment. It
covers almost everything you just mentioned. This post is an outline for
others to handily reference.

------
dutchbrit
I've acquired 2 or 3 registered domains in my life, so not that much
experience. However, I get the feeling that people dare to ask more money when
they have time to think about it, ie. acquiring via email. When I acquired my
first domain, I didn't email, but simply called the person up. Worked like a
charm!

------
matt1
Quick pitch: I've been building a new domain search tool called Lean Domain
Search [1] that makes it really, really easy to find great available .com
domain names. You type in a word and it pairs it with 1,400 other words and
instantly shows you which are available (and I'm adding 100 results per week).
The number of _available_ search results is now almost at 700.

Unless you are dead-set on having a specific name, there's no reason you
should have to pay more than the $12 registration fee to pick up a decent
domain name for your next site.

I'd even go so far as to say that as word of Lean Domain Search spreads (it's
less than 5 weeks old), it will have a major impact on the premium domain name
market for this very reason. There's this perceived scarcity of good domain
names that simply doesn't exist. You just need a tool like LDS to show you.

[1] <http://www.leandomainsearch.com>

~~~
underwater
I used LDS recently when picking out a domain. It was good, but the results
often felt a SEO-like (e.g. "bestof<x>"). I found I was doing a lot of manual
work separating the wheat from the chaff.

I ended up creating a text file of base words, prefixes and suffixes (built
partially from LDS suggestions) which I fed through another site that combined
them into domains I could query in batches of 225.

I felt this was something your site could have easily automated by letting me
flag prefixes/suffixes I liked and allowing me to suggest multiple base words.

------
apenwarr
A simple solution for the vast majority of domain squatting: just charge a
"property tax" of $100/year per domain. That's not an outrageous amount for a
real user, but it makes the "buy a zillion domains and park them until the Big
One comes along" business model no longer mathematically sound.

~~~
EdiX
Who gets to collect the tax?

~~~
apenwarr
Any organization that's sufficiently large they don't care about the small
incremental income. That is, anybody who's not a domain registrar.

I'm not a U.S. citizen, but the U.S. federal government would fit the bill
just fine, and would be the obvious (though inevitably controversial) group to
do it for .com, .net, and .org, ie. the problematic ones.

------
iends
What about domains that are not business specific, but personal? For example,
there is a squatter who registered a huge number of firstnamelastname.com --
one of which is my real name. He's been reregistering it for the past 8 years.

I created a fake email several years ago and made up some cover story about
how I was looking to create an online persona to blog with and listed 5-6
domains of these domains. The squatter wanted 10k for my firstnamelastname.com
when I offered less than he wanted (like 1k) for one of the domains I really
didn't want, he just said no and stopped responding. I even cited a post where
he paid $80 for the domain...

I've been afraid to interact with the guy using my real name and the domain I
actually want because I don't want to show any interest in the domain in hopes
he just lets it expire.

((The guy has also had several domains seized by ICANN))

------
Timothee
One option that was left out is to wait for it to drop and buy it then. You
can use a service to try to catch it when it drops but you then enter into a
bidding match, or you can just wait for it to be completely released.
Obviously more risky and maybe not worth the risk but I've done it recently.

The domain I wanted was 4-5 weeks away from expiring, so I read a bit on the
services to catch it when it drops and some sounded a bit fishy (some claim
they put fake bids to pump the price up…). So I took a chance and waited the
whole expiration process and was lucky enough to get it for just the price of
a domain.

Granted, it wasn't one of these unique four-letter domains so there was a
decent chance there'd be little interest, and I would have survived without it
(I had bought a good back-up name), but it's still an option for the cheap and
patient…

~~~
phillmv
The issue comes down to economics.

Parked domains are an investment, and I suspect this is the kind of business
that is only profitable on the long tail - you only flip some exceedingly
small percentage of your total inventory on a given year, but you can't tell
ahead of time which ones are going to be the winners.

So… unless these are all manually managed (which I find unlikely, doesn't
GoDaddy have a whole panel dedicated to parking?) I find this scenario to be
extremely unlikely.

Someone who has actually parked domains can probably shed some more light on
the business model involved.

~~~
larrys
"Someone who has actually parked domains can probably shed some more light on
the business model involved."

...you answered your question perfectly:

"I suspect this is the kind of business that is only profitable on the long
tail - you only flip some exceedingly small percentage of your total inventory
on a given year, but you can't tell ahead of time which ones are going to be
the winners."

Exactly.

That said much of this also has to do with who owns the name, whether they
need the money (what you are offering) and a host of other factors to numerous
to mention.

As a general rule though I would rather be making an offer to buy a name off
someone who owns a vast inventory of names than someone who owns only a few.
Why? Because they know that if they pass up your offer they might wait another
7 years to sell that name. So essentially you just have to clear a certain
point based on their experience and the names is yours.

Unless of course that person who owns only a few names needs money in which
case (well you get my point) I'd rather have that person be the seller.

From my experience I've seen all sorts of things happen. I just helped a
startup get a great name for a few hundred dollars that was worth much more
simply because the owner didn't even google to see that they obviously would
need the name.

------
tnorthcutt
Direct link to the comment on the avc.com post mentioned in this post:

[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-
domain-...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-domain-
name.html#dsq-comment-body-193649096)

~~~
silentific
That comment is perfect. I'm a developer that loves buying domain names that
strike a chord. I'll get to that idea one day! I get approached a few times a
year and the author touched on a lot of feeling a seller goes through when
being approached via email. I've ignored a few requests because I can tell the
prospective buyer is not serious. I'd be much more likely to "think" about a
serious offer in an initial email.

------
there
Domain owners behind WHOIS privacy are not necessarily unreachable. The
privacy service has to offer some way of contacting those domain owners by
proxy, so you may just have to fill out a web form behind a CAPTCHA to get
your message across.

I did this for a domain a few weeks ago that was using OpenSRS' WHOIS privacy
(via <http://contactprivacy.com>) and while it took 2 weeks for the owner to
get back to me, he responded by putting the domain up on Sedo so I could make
an offer on it.

------
opendomain
When I want to buy a domain, I use Who.Is to find the owner and send a
certified FAIR value through Escrow.Com

Unfortunately, when people contact me to obtain a domain I have, I get very
lowball offers - to which I do not respond.

I also offer people to use my domains for Free as part of my project
OpenDomain, but most people insist that they must own the domain. I guess they
do not get that we are "Open Source for domains".

~~~
ohgodthecat
Open source for domains means nothing to me, what are you to domains? I have
no way of linking open source in my mind to the concept of domains.

I tried to look what OpenDomain was so I search and I find some business
solutions .com which I assume isn't your project so I look and I find your
twitter[1] (I'm assuming) which has the same slogan you used, so I go to the
website and what do I find? Just some default filler content for whatever
template your purchased.

Owning the domain for a project or a company is key as that is a great part of
their identity that they have to build up (especially for online
applications). Maybe if your project "OpenDomain" gets some backing and is
alive for many years and actually says what it does then maybe people won't
have to own their domains but as of now your complaint of people not getting
it is moot.

[1]: <http://twitter.com/#!/opendomain>

------
hessenwolf
This is comment can sit at the bottom of the page or wherever. This page is
full of misinformation and spam. Ignore all of it.

------
paulschreiber
Has anyone had any experience acquiring a name that's being squatted on? Our
nonprofit has the .org for a domain; a squatter has the .com. We'd like to get
it from them so we don't have confused users.

Should we write them first? Have our lawyer write nicely? Sternly? Or just
skip this and go straight to UDRP?

------
bdr
I got a voicemail last week from an LA area number. It was a cute-sounding
girl saying, "Hi, my name is Kayla, I'm taking a marketing class, and for one
of my projects I wanted to use your domain xxx dot yyy, so I was wondering if
you would sell it to me. Ok, please call me back!"

Not suspicious at all!

~~~
there
That instantly reminded me of <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW8j3x3GzxY>

------
tucson
To "get a feel for the domain name aftermarket’s trends" -> check out
<http://www.dnsaleprice.com/SalePrice.aspx>

------
pitdesi
Related: Great comment in an avc post-
[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-
domain-...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-domain-
name.html#comment-193649096)

I'll repost the good part here, since it isn't attributed anyway:

The Art Of Negotiating A Domain Name Purchase

I see so much bad advice about how to approach someone to buy their domain...
"contact them and say I see you're not using xxxxx.com, I have a little
project I'd like to use it for... would you be willing to let it go?" etc.
etc. etc. HORRIBLE ADVICE.

People that are sitting on domain names don't keep paying the registration
fees every year for fun, even if they aren't using the name. They know it has
value. So don't insult their intelligence making them think they should do you
a favor by letting you have their unused domain.

Many Domain Owners Think They're Sitting On A Lottery Ticket

Many domain owners think that one day someone is going to come along and give
them millions for their .Com no matter what it is. The fact is, domains are
only worth what someone is ready to hand you a check for. (A tip to all you
wannabe speculators.) I've seen many GREAT domains never get sold, so always
keep that in mind. Anyway, because domain owners have this thinking, they are
very reluctant to NAME A PRICE. So forcing them to start by naming a price
isn't something they want to do, because they're hoping YOU offer some
ridiculously high price that they will then counter to go much higher.

Because of this, you MUST start out on first contact with an offer (more on
this in a second). The approach of "would you be willing to sell xxxxx.com? If
so, how much?" isn't going to cut it; one of the main reasons is that domain
owners of decent domains get TONS of emails all the time asking them that, and
when they've replied in the past with a price or try to start negotiations so
many people are only willing to pay $100 or some insulting price.

So what do most domain owners do? IGNORE YOU. That's right. So if you've ever
contacted a domain owner after looking them up with a Whois search and they
didn't reply, it's not because they didn't your email (which makes you think
that follow-up fax or phone call will do the trick; HINT: it won't.) It's
because they think you're like everyone else that thinks they can buy the
domain for $100 or so.

Here's how you get their attention and get the ball rolling...

Rule #1: You must start out by making an offer in your initial email.

Rule #2: This offer must be high enough to get their attention and make them
at least THINK.

NOTE: Rule #2's amount will depend on how great the domain is.

The two magic price points I have found that work the best (they depend on how
valuable the domain is) is either $1,000 or $2,500.

If it's a great domain then $5K-$10K is usually the starting point. These
amounts are enough to get anyone's attention. I've bought many $100K+ value
domains for $15K-$20K by starting with a $5K or $7K offer.

By starting with at least something that gets their attention they will take
you seriously. This is the first step or you have no chance to make a deal.

In most cases for decent 2 words domains, the $1K to $2.5K opener works best.

* TIP: Always know your seller if possible. Do a Whois on who owns the domain, visit the domain in their email address or do some Google searches, etc. You'll often find a struggling Web designer is sitting on a great domain. $1,000 cash to that person is a lot of money. So this also goes into the process of deciding what to open the offer with.

The key here is not to insult someone with a lowball offer, but offer enough
to make them know you're a serious buyer.

So here's a sample initial contact email to send... (and I'll explain the rest
of the language I use)...

Subject Line: Whatever.com ($2,500?)

Hi,

I see you are the owner of Whatever.com. I'm in the process of trying to find
a domain name for a client I am building a web site for and think your name
could be a good fit. I am contacting different domain owners as we have it in
the budget to buy a cool name and Whatever.com is on the list we came up with.

Would you be interested in selling it for $2,500?

Let me know and I can have the funds wired to you next day or PayPal'd to you.
Just let me know your PayPal address.

Thanks for your time.

-YOUR NAME \-------------------------

Let's breakdown why I used that language...

1\. You've positioned yourself as not the future 'owner' of the domain. You're
just managing a budget for a project. This helps because as they will usually
counter with a higher amount, you'll play the "sorry, I just don't have it in
the budget to go that high" to work towards a price you want. You'll also be
able to play the "let me see if the client can approve a budget increase to
accommodate that price" etc. etc. This also allows you to play Good Cop, Bad
Cop in a way. You're just someone trying to get the deal done to do your job
(build the site). You're also presenting yourself as someone LESS EMOTIONALLY
INVESTED IN THE NAME -- which will potentially keep the price down. (Trust me,
it works very well.)

2\. You mention that you're contacting several domain owners (i.e. making
multiple offers). You're playing up SCARCITY, one of the most powerful
emotions when it comes to sales. For all this person knows they could reply
and say "okay, I'll sell it" but you may come back and say, "sorry someone
replied to our email first and now we have a domain."

3\. By closing with the "we'll pay you right away" it makes the offer more
REAL. Many of these domain owners get offers that people back out of and have
no intention to actually pay. And you're also ASSUMING THE SALE by saying,
"what's your PayPal address?" :-)

Again, all of these things are very, very powerful and I have tweaked this
initial contact email over the years.

ADDITIONAL TIPS

Let's say you initially offer $2,500 on a great name and the owner counters
with, "I couldn't sell it for that, I've had higher offers. I would never sell
it for anything less than $10K."

FIrst, you must IGNORE anything they say. You'll get the "I've turned down
higher offers" response a lot. In the example response about $10K above,
unless you would love to have it for $10K, just reply with something like
this... "While I do think your name is possibly worth $10K to someone, we just
don't have the budget for that much, sorry. I could probably get something
more like $5K-$7K approved, but even that's pushing it. Anyway, thanks for
your time."

That's it. Cut them off. Trust me, they'll come back to you 90% of the time.
Sometimes you just have to be a little PATIENT and you'll save a fortune.
Remember to always play up the SCARCITY. "That's just too much for our
budget... looks like we'll just go with an alternative name that we've been
negotiating for a lot less, even though we preferred your name. Thanks for
your time and at least trying to work something out." That's NOT what they
want to read from you. ;-)

There are THOUSANDS of amazing domain deals out there waiting to happen. I,
personally, buy domains all the time this way. In fact, this is probably a
good time to negotiate some deals as many people need the cash more than in
recent years.

FINAL TIP: It's not uncommon to settle on a final price that is 30% of what
their original asking price was. Keep that in mind as a general rule of thumb.
I've had many deals for great names where someone "really wanted $60,000" and
we closed the sale around $20K.

~~~
hessenwolf
They give a course on negotiation to people being promoted to upper management
in the multinational I work for. The first rule is that if you quote first,
you lose, because you are setting your worst case.

I strongly suspect all of what is written in your comment is aimed at boosting
the market for domain names, because you own lots. There are so many good
domain names available (<http://blog.nametoolkit.com/domain-names-taken>),
that the only reason you would buy one in the secondary market is because you
are already trading under that name in real life.

What famous site do we know of that bought its domain in the secondary market?

~~~
eru
> They give a course on negotiation to people being promoted to upper
> management in the multinational I work for. The first rule is that if you
> quote first, you lose, because you are setting your worst case.

See <http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F1997R/Windsor/lawdip.html> for a contrasting
opinion. Lawyers like to go first in all negotiations. They call it
"Controlling the Document".

------
wilfra
If you want to buy a domain somebody owns, just get the email address from the
WHOIS and send them a quick note, 'are you interested in selling this
domain?'. Response rate from this is > 80%. Payment always via Escrow.com
(PayPal does not provide protection for domains) and you're set.

As to the discussion of whether domain parking should be allowed, think of it
like real estate. Those who own vast tracts of land may develop it, they may
sell it or they may just sit on it for the rest of their life and pass it to
their heirs. Premium domains are exactly the same.

