muck Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Anyone know anything about buying URLs? Pros? Cons? I've found a four letter ".com" URL (no dashes, no numbers, etc) that is perfect for my firm. The seller is asking $4700 for it. Is this out of line? Are these "I know I'll never really get THAT much for it" prices, or "get 'em hooked and then jack 'em up" prices? Suggestions on how to minimize the all-in cost if I decide to go forward with this? Do I need a special type of attorney, or would a general corporate guy work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 (edited) If you buy a domain name, it should be yours until you release it or sell it. I've never heard of a dot com domain on a lease. That doesn't mean the practice doesn't exist, but it'd be dumb to let someone else own your corporate identity. They could play with the prices or yank it out from under you after all your customers rely on it. For a 4 letter .com domain name, I'd say that's not a terrible price. Depending on how obscure the acronym is, he might be willing to go way down. I remember at my old company, some guy asked for 5K for our company name... we put off buying it, and a few months later, the guy just let it expire, and I pounced on it for just the domain reg fee of like $12. Edited December 8, 2007 by AtomicCEO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 (edited) paying $4700 for something that costs $12 is not good business. fyi, I'll sell www.h8tank.com for $10,000. Edited December 8, 2007 by H8tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted December 8, 2007 Author Share Posted December 8, 2007 If you buy a domain name, it should be yours until you release it or sell it. I've never heard of a dot com domain on a lease. That doesn't mean the practice doesn't exist, but it'd be dumb to let someone else own your corporate identity. They could play with the prices or yank it out from under you after all your customers rely on it. For a 4 letter .com domain name, I'd say that's not a terrible price. Depending on how obscure the acronym is, he might be willing to go way down. I remember at my old company, some guy asked for 5K for our company name... we put off buying it, and a few months later, the guy just let it expire, and I pounced on it for just the domain reg fee of like $12. Thanks. I'd definately buy it, not lease it. Sorry if I wasn't more clear. The acronym is would be equivalent to "PDLC.com" if my company name were Payday Loan Company ... i.e., the first name of my business has two syllables and some want to make them into two separate words (just like payday / pay day). I just found it last night ... so, haven't done any digging as to how long the current owner has had it, so I don't know how much time would have to expire before it'd come up for $12 / yr again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keggerz Posted December 8, 2007 Share Posted December 8, 2007 Thanks. I'd definately buy it, not lease it. Sorry if I wasn't more clear. The acronym is would be equivalent to "PDLC.com" if my company name were Payday Loan Company ... i.e., the first name of my business has two syllables and some want to make them into two separate words (just like payday / pay day). I just found it last night ... so, haven't done any digging as to how long the current owner has had it, so I don't know how much time would have to expire before it'd come up for $12 / yr again. Whois search Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliaz Posted December 9, 2007 Share Posted December 9, 2007 people do this all the time. I've been trying to buy firefly.com for years and the dude who owns it keeps renewing it and i keep asking him to sell it to me for a reasonable price. He wants $5,000 for it. This is one of the reasons why the federal government had .gov developed. people were buying whitehouse.com, whitehouse.org, whitehouse.net etc. PM me if you need anything advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egret Posted December 9, 2007 Share Posted December 9, 2007 paying $4700 for something that costs $12 is not good business.fyi, I'll sell www.h8tank.com for $10,000. I'd sell egretworks for $5000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BiggieFries Posted December 9, 2007 Share Posted December 9, 2007 (edited) Muck, You don't need a lawyer or anything. If you have your mind set on this particular domain name, then make an offer to the current owner. Try an negotiate if you can. If he's not willing to budge, then try other TLDs (Top Level Domains [com, net, org ...]). Would muck.net or muck.biz work for you? Typically .biz are slightly more expensive than .com & .net. You could also try a place like Sedo.com that auctions off domain names. You might be able to find one you like for even cheaper than the one you're looking for. PM me if you need any help with this. Also, don't just go to one place to buy a domain name. Search around. Some places like Register.com or Networksolutions.com overcharge by as much as 3 times the price of a registrar like GoDaddy.com for the same domain name. This is, of course, if you plan on buying a name that's not already taken. I've never heard of a dot com domain on a lease. That doesn't mean the practice doesn't exist, but it'd be dumb to let someone else own your corporate identity. They could play with the prices or yank it out from under you after all your customers rely on it. ISMRC, leasing domain names is illegal with ICANN and the other net governing bodies. To get around this, the entity that owns the domain name "partners" with the entity that wants to use that domain name and they kind of go into business together. Edited December 9, 2007 by BiggieFries Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted December 9, 2007 Share Posted December 9, 2007 paying $4700 for something that costs $12 is not good business.fyi, I'll sell www.h8tank.com for $10,000. There is an inherent value to your customers of finding you at www.yourbusiness.com instead of www.yor-biz-nezz11.us. It projects an image of being a legitimate company, and makes it easier for people to find you. If you plan to have a lot of customers, a a large web presence, you give out your email address a lot, and you need to be taken seriously, paying the 5K or haggling with the current owner might be worth it. However... big bit of advice: .com, .org, .net, .biz, and .us names are regulated by US laws and it's a good idea to stick to those. I worked for a company in the television industry, and we bought a .tv domain thinking it was cool. Then we found out later that .tv is actually some obscure country code, and those guys DID jack up the price on us to like 9K when we went to renew after building up that domain as our home. We had no recourse, because that country made their own rules about their domains. We had to switch everything to a new domain and it was a pain. If you go to our old domain, there is a misleading link that has a misspelling of our company name, and if you follow it, it takes you to advertising (including porn). Awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted December 9, 2007 Author Share Posted December 9, 2007 Thanks, BF. Two other domains (much longer than the one mentioned above ... 14 letters and 18 letters respectively, vs four letters for the new one) ... are registrered at Godaddy.com (because they're cheaper). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted December 9, 2007 Share Posted December 9, 2007 Thanks, BF. No problem, BFF. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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