

Ask HN: What is your domain name purchasing experience? - modzilla

The process for purchasing domain names (that are not immediately available) is generally a large black box to me. I am curious about both positive and negative personal experiences with domain name purchases – especially non-standard purchases such back-ordered names, domain drops, etc.
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MalcolmDiggs
I've had good and bad experiences:

Good example: Domain is already owned, but the owner is in the business of
buying and selling domains (you can usually tell these domains because when
you visit them, they redirect to sales/contact-us page). I make an offer, he
counter-offers, we're good.

Another good example: Domain is already owned and listed on a marketplace like
Sedo.com. I purchase for the buy-it-now price, sedo takes care of the escrow
and name-transfer, we're good.

Bad example: Domain is owned by some random person who bought it years ago and
isn't really sure what it's worth. I check the Whois listing and email the
contact address there. I might hear nothing back at all. If I do, I make an
offer, their counter-offer might be an order-of-magnitude higher, or they're
not interested in selling at all. Nothing you can really do in that situation.

Another bad example: The domain has not been renewed by its original owner,
several folks have tried to backorder it, so the registrar puts it up for
auction. This is worst case scenario. There is no option for tactful
negotiation, just unbridled bidding against everyone else who wants the
domain. I've never come close to winning such an auction, and I've tried
several times.

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ohashi
For all the malice directed at domainers, I find it infinitely easier dealing
with them and getting them to sell than the random one off in general. By
volume they are more realistic, some of the biggest companies have prices
listed up front. Sometimes you just want to buy it and move on to more
important things.

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dawson
I've purchased two £30-50k domain names through Sedo and one £300k two-letter
domain name through a domainer – all experiences were pleasant and I felt the
negotiations and price were fair.

More recently I purchased a .com for £7.5k for a new startup and the general
consensus is the domain is worth a lot more than I paid for it - I have
already had three speculative offers but I'm keeping it :) I also purchased
the .co.uk for a very low price from the original owner who replied
immediately and was very pleasant.

I tend to use an alias or third-party to purchase the .co.uk/TLD if I already
own the .com as the seller will often bump the price.

I've had a couple of bad experiences, for example trying to purchase nihil.com
and the seller wanted $65k – which it isn't worth imo, this was five years
ago. I enquired again using a different alias a few months ago and they're now
asking for $132k – meh.

There are some obvious techniques to not over paying, but all in all, it's
timing and luck I feel.

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Someone1234
Maybe I misunderstand, but my experience is that purchasing a normal vanilla
domain name is very easy and very user friendly. The only common issue I have
seen is annoying upsell (e.g. "we've dropped an $99 SSL package into your
basket, remove it if you don't want it!").

Buying already occupied domains is always a huge hassle. No two ways about it,
and a lot of the sites which sell/resell them are scummy as heck. I try and
stay away from that as a general rule.

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modzilla
I guess my question did not emphasize the "non-standard" enough. I have
purchased many domain names that fall in the $10~$20/year price range without
any problem.

I am most curious about complex domain name purchases and the experiences
people have had - things that work and things that have not worked.

