Ging

I posted this as part of my Introuduction thread but maybe posting might provoke more discussion.

I am amazed at how many premium one word domains are owned by individuals that do nothing with them and just park them. I don't want to go into specific domain names but to give an example :

A .co.uk domain has been owned by the same individual for the last 7 years that I am aware of . It was for sale 7 years ago at £21K. Then disappeared off sale for years and has been parked for the last 6 years (no contact details). The revenue on it probably is in the low hundreds a year. After tracking down the owner via companies house (Domain regged to company, own by another company, registrant director of other company etc) and talking to him I find the domain is for sale at a price that , in my opinion , could never be realised . A figure in the £xx,xxx.

I would be the perfect buyer for the domain as an end user and the value to my business would be nearer to £x,xxx. What makes it even more nuts is the parked pages they are on list my business at the top !

I've found the same situation with other domains that are parked for years and the owners just 'disappear' . Anyone else got stories ?

retired_member3

There are loads of cases like that. I can only assume people are sitting on them as an investment and not aware of parking revenue.

365

Domain owners often get a bad wrap for this and are often accused of being greedy etc.. but it cuts both ways. I've been approached on more than one occasion by people masquerading as a member of the public with £100 to spend but when you start to dig they're actually representing an often large business.

I got a letter last year from someone trying to buy jester .co.uk off me it was on plain paper with a private London address. I decided to do some digging and it turns out that the chap is a director of a company with a £23 Million turnover who are launching an entertainment (DVD rental etc..) business. I found his number and rang him for a chat and at first he played it as though he was looking at starting a small business and had a budget of £1000 so I confronted him and said I knew who he was and could we start having serious discussion at which point he saw his arse, calling me greedy etc..

The worst case is my business partner, who was contacted by a woman claiming to want to buy his domain nuts .co.uk for her boyfriend as a birthday present. She pestered him for weeks and kept pleading poverty and she eventually got the domain for low £**** as you'll see if you visit the site it was a big lie and in truth deception. I know you could argue that no one forced him to sell and that's true but it's still a poor way to act and for that reason I don't give a rats arse how greedy someone thinks I am, if I own the name then it's mine to ask what I please.

I often see people say that a domain is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, well that's only true if you're trying to sell it quickly, the real truth is it's only worth what someone is willing to sell it for. It's easy to say something is only worth £**** when you don't own it but I wonder what some of these people that accuse us of being greedy would be asking if the glove was on the other hand.

rob

Would the value of the name to your business exceed £21,000 over 7 years?

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I am rob who runs hey. Subscribe to get my .UK sales list - its where the deals are!

Ging

Absolutely not and probably not to anyone else either. It is a very specific dictionary word. It would'nt add any more value to the business apart from a 'vanity issue' on having the domain name.

I am assuming that it's not been actively marketing as it was very difficult tracking down the current owner.

Ging

I was upfront with the owner and said we were an end user and we had a price in mind we thought it was worth to our company. Asked what he had in mind for it and he came in with the high end figure I ended the discussion pretty much straight away as it was obvious that there was going to be no room for negotiation.

I'm not questioning 'greed' issue just the fact there are some domain owners that hold quality domain names with no real intention of using them or selling. I'm not talking about the mainstream, I'm talking about the elite domain owners that sit behind offshore companies and multiple company facade's.

Thanks for the input.The number of times I've had ' I'm buying the domain for my daughter/son as a present so can't afford much' line

rob

vanity is worth something

Do I get my house glazed by Windows.co.uk or by SmithGlazing.co.uk ?

The other aspect is people who hold lots of good names may only 'need' to sell a single name every so often to keep things ticking over.

Likewise, 'use' of a name can be problematic for numerous reasons and is quite often the reason behind either bland search boxes or 404 errors on some decent names.

Obviously its hard without knowing the exact name to see what the situation is, but it could be any number of valid reasons.

__________________
Eat more chips! Dont let salad win!
I am rob who runs hey. Subscribe to get my .UK sales list - its where the deals are!

Ging

I don't want to divulge the domain but to give you an idea why it's so daft , googlin it , the no 1 returned link after two sponsored links is Wikipedia.

The current owner of this domain does not need the money, trust me

stevebrowne

But that is entirely their right. When the time comes they will either trade or sell, or even forget to renew (although not often!)

Much of the world's fine art is locked away in private collections, and this frustrates people, much as a good generic URL left unused does amongst domainers. But that's the way it is.

If you want to buy something there is only one of in the whole world, then the seller holds all the cards. You either want it badly enough to pay for it, or you have to pass on it. In your case, it isn't worth the £21k quoted, so fair enough. The seller has to decide whether to reduce that to get a guaranteed good sale, or he/she sits on it until someone else wants it, or it becomes redundant.

But some end users need to waken up (not you - you have decided the value of that domain to your business). They are quite happy to pay £50k for a single page of advertising which is tomorrow's chip wrappers, but don't want to pay a few hundred/thousand quid on a generic domain name. Madness.

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Some good domains, some bad domains.