10 Tips to buy Domain Names that Must Sell at a High Price

Buying domain names is a tricky business, majorly because of the impact a domain name has on a company’s future, and the insecurity in the market. A domain name can make or break a company’s projected future progress. Domain names represent a company in a virtual world, where most people will judge a book by its cover, and domain name acts as the title of the book. That’s how important a good domain name is for companies. Company names aren’t created around domain names. Rather, it’s the other way around. It often happens that after naming his company, the owner realizes that there’s no corresponding domain name available. In that case, he will want to buy it from the current owner. Sometimes, good domain themselves are so attractive that people want to but them and start a company or service around them. In either case, the price of a domain name goes up, making it a very lucrative business to buy domain names and sell them at a profit. Here, we will discuss some tips and best practices that you should have in mind before buying domain names.

Domain names have no fixed rules that define how much they should cost. They have nothing associated with them that can determine their value. If someone really wants to buy a domain name, then the seller can charge whatever he pleases. If we were to sell SmartEarningMethods.com (which we’re not!), we could price it for $1 million and no body can say a thing, except refusing to buy the domain. Of course, such a ridiculous sum won’t get you any customers, but you get the point. There are domains that have sold for such a large sum. Vibrator.com sold for $1 million, while toys.com sold for $1.25 million. But you can buy domain names for as low as $10, depending on a number of factors. So before deciding upon a domain name, here’s what you need to keep in mind.

1. Gather name ideas

The first thing you need to do is gather some domain name ideas. Most people will have a keyword in mind that they need to have in their domain names. Use a service such as Dot-o-mator to help you find a domain name using some keywords you have in mind. It will also check their availability for you. Additionally, you can check availability at GoDaddy. You’ll be able to see whether a domain is available, or for sale. If neither, you can still contact a domain owner and see if he is interested in selling.

2. Auction websites

Aside for looking for domain availability and contacting an owner, you can hit an auction website like Sedo, where you can find great domain names up for sale. Sedo is one of the largest domain marketplace on the web, but you can find other websites as well by Googling.

3. Sort out

Once you’ve got a list of domain names you are interested, it is time to sort them out. If they are available, then you’re lucky. Otherwise, you’ll need to categorize the pages on those domains. The type of pages will help determine how much it’s gonna cost.

There are many types of pages. There are ones that are already occupied by a service or a business. They may not be up for sale. These are the hardest kind to deal with, since it’ll take a lot of money to convince the business to give up their website. Then there are those that are being held up by someone to be sold later. These are the easiest, but not the cheapest. A page can also be under construction, whose owner will be likely to sell the domain name. Then there are dead pages, that have nothing on them. These might be cheapest, but it might be difficult to contact the owner.

Categorize the domain names accordingly, and start with one category at a time. It’ll make things a lot easier for you

4. Background checks

Now that you’re decided on a few domains, it’s time to perform background checks. This is one step you cannot miss, as it will have impact on your business, or the re-selling rate.

First of all, check what kind of website was hosted on the domain name. What sort of content there was, and what has the owner been doing. You can check a website’s archive at WayBack’s Archives. You can also visit DogPile to see what sort of webpages mention the said domain. This will give you more information about what was on that domain before. Stay away from a domain if it had malicious content, or some hate content or pornography. It won’t go well with you.

Next, you need to know whether or not a domain has been banned by AdSense. Go to AdSense Sandbox to check that out. You definitely don’t want your new domain to lack AdSense capability. You might not be able to re-sell it due to the lack of AdSense.

Also, Google for that website and its owner to find more information.

5. Contact the owners

Most websites will have a Contact Us page that lists the owners contact information. If you find this, then it’s really easy to contact the owner. But sometimes, there is not Contact Us page. In that case, you’ll need to use something like DomainTools to look up an owner’s information. It isn’t always easy to find the information you need. And sometimes, it might take weeks, or even months to contact the owner.

6. Withhold your most vital information

While contacting a domain owner, never make an offer at first. Just ask whether the domain is up for sale or not. The owner will respond with the details, and the price, which can then be negotiated. Also, it’s a bad idea to send in all of your information at once. This will raise the price for you. Try to mask your identity at first, and give out only the most significant pieces of information. Use a temporary email address if necessary, or create a new one that you’re not gonna use for another purpose.

7. Estimating a value

Although there is no rule index that decides how much a domain is worth exactly, there are some general specifiers. Usually, a one-word domain name is worth a lot. The more the words, the lesser the worth. Also, long words are worth less than short words. Usually, a 3-5 letter word is most expensive.

There are other factors as well. The domain name must be easy to remember. Take this blog’s domain name for example. SmartEarningMethods is easy to remember. Another thing that matters a lot is, whether a domain name has some natural traffic volume. Common words, such as college.com are something people can directly land at. SmartEarningMethods also is one such domain name, but the traffic that way is quite low, because it has three words.

Domain names that have words like ‘the’, ‘it’, ‘then’ etc are never good. They add unnecessary weight to the name, and also look unprofessional.

8. Bargaining

I am sure most of you know the rules for bargaining, so I don’t need to explain this point. What I do want to say is, if someone asks a price lower than your expectations, don’t say yes immediately! Otherwise, they’ll realize they went under the expected price. Always go under the asking price. And if the price is too high, you go way under. Those are the rules for bargaining.

9. Don’t use forums

Asking questions about a domain name on a forum will only invite more competition. Chances are, people who reach your thread are looking for information on a similar domain name. So don’t give away your ideas to someone.

10. Beware of copyrights

Finally, beware of using words or patents that are copyrighted. Never use names like ‘FacebookIndia’ or similar. These are copyrighted patents and Facebook’s lawyers might sue you and demand you hand over the domain to them.

 Those were some tips we had for you. If you have any more that are worth mentioning, do share them with us. Cheers 🙂