Domain name(s)

[JJSmitches]

I was contacted by a person offering $100 for a domain name I have registered. I have not done anything with the domain during the time I have had it registered. I also have the .net and .org domains registered.

I am curious if anyone here has sold a domain and how that works exactly.

In the past I have looked up info on domain name values through different sites that estimate values of domains based on questions you answer. Does anyone know of a site that gives value estimates that are "fair/accurate?"

One other thing...In 2005 I thought I had a sweet domain name so I checked the availability and found it to be free. I couldn't get a hold of my wife during lunch so I waited till I went home to ask if it was cool that I register the name. The next day the thing was gone! It really pisses me off to think I either had horrible luck or I was jacked by the company I used to check the availability. The date created for the domain whois record is the same day I searched (Valentine's day 2005). Has anyone else had this happen? A domain you search and is available is gone later that day or the next day?

[Chevy]

Jason,
there are whole forums on this as you can imagine. There are formulae for figuring out what a domain name is worth, but it's still like anything else: it's worth what someone is willing to pay for it. For established sites a good rule of thumb is a site is worth 10-20 times monthly revenue that is generates, but this depends on whether it's content driven or just a typo that generates hits.

I suggest if you aren't going to develop the domain name and want the revenue, rather than sell it for the $100, list it on a domain name auction (there are lots of these), and let the guy who emailed you know it's listed on the auction. Start it at $100 so you'll get at least that from him presumably, and see if it's worth more on the open market.

Also i think you were just unlucky on the Valentine's Day domain swipe. If the search engines did this as regular practice they would be out of business very quickly!

Good luck!
Paul

[vyking67]

i too have registered a number of domain name to do nothing with them in hopes that down the road i would make something of them or sell them in the future....

the value for a domain name that is not a active site is usually and i mean usually based on the total number of characters used and the commonality of the name..

i.e. www.dogtraining.com (http://www.dogtraining.com) is worth more that www.dog-training.com (http://www.dog-training.com) or a .org .net for that matter...

but www.dogs.com (http://www.dogs.com) is worth even more because it has less character and therefore most regard that as easier to remember and is more part of public domain ..

most auction sites that sell domain names start the bid at $1000 no matter what the name is ... they also take a pretty good chunk...

if you sell it directly to a individual .. just make them paypal you the money .. and then you send them you admin login and passwords and they can now go to the domain host and change the whois information as well as the passwords... this is how i have done it in the past with out any problems.