Worthy names changing hands privately

When you own a valuable domain name, the question of wether to use it for a given project, park it for future use, rent it to a third party or sell it eventually needs to be properly addressed.

Most domainers agree it’s best to launch a value-added and contextually-relevant web destination for every single domain name in their portfolio but with only 24h in a day, that might be hard to do with a more sizeable group of names.

So the next best option for busy domainers might be to use their domains as pay-per-click landers. DomainSponsor (for Google ads) and DotzUp (for Yahoo! ads) do a good job at that but it’s also possible to whip up your very own landing page. Like any kind of web design, it’s time consuming but if you do it right, the PPC revenues could be worth your while.

If landers aren’t bringing in enough money, you can always look to rent your domains to interested parties. For instance, any medical condition followed by a .com might be a worthy natural visitor generator for pharmaceutical companies. When such deals are inked, it’s usually for several years which bring you significant recurring revenues. And best of all, you remain the owner for the rented domain name!

In the last resort, domainers will look to sell their domain names. The most valuable ones stand to bring in the most revenue but from an emotional standpoint, they’re the hardest to part with.

Selling domain names you’ve owned for a while isn’t easy because evaluating the fair value can be tricky. Furthermore, some domains might become more valuable in the future, for all sorts of reasons so selling them early at a discounted price might sound good in the short term but prove to be a profoundly frustrating sell in the long term.

Newbie domainers like to evaluate past domain name transactions to put a price on their own but web sites such as DNJournal, DN Sale Price and Sold Names might not tell the whole story. They do a good job at keeping the score for publicly announced transactions but since most valuable domains change hand privately nowadays, it’s increasingly hard to know the real value “on the street” for domain names.

At the end of the day, many domainers simply go with their gut feeling to match a name with its fair price. Even if the price sounds right to the sellers’ ears, prospective buyers will always attempt to get the name for next to nothing, offering ridiculous amounts like 100$ or 1,000$ (depending on the name) and eventually settle closer to the fair price, which might be multiples higher than the initial offering.

Domainers with good negotiation skills, especially over the phone, will likely get more for their domains than those who attempt to hide and negotiate poorly. Domaining has become a business and selling names is just one more part of a bigger ensemble.

What smart domainers need to keep in mind is that once they sell a valuable domain, they might never have the money to buy it back as the new owner will likely develop it and therefore add significant value to it. As a rule of thumb, remember that if you sell a name, it’s because you -really- want to. There’s no “undo” in a domain name sale.

Finally, don’t be surprised if the buyer requests that you keep the transaction private, usually in exchange for a premium. That’s the way the most valuable domain name sales happen. It mainly has to do with rich companies not wanting to set precedents of paying top dollars for domains and then, having to pay even more for their next similar purchases. This logic might also extend to entire industries, like banking which is known to keep transaction details as private as possible.

Good luck with making the most of your domain name portfolio!

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