Its been a little bit since I did a This And That type post and I have some things I’d like to share so here we go.
~GoDaddy
I had won some "test auctions" (domains I purchased as a test) at GoDaddy recently and one of the domains was reclaimed from the past owner. No bid deal as this happens BUT, GoDaddy’s automatic refund system SUCKS and doesn’t work. Every domain name that I have ever had reclaimed by the past owner, I had to discover that it happened and request a refund. The system is set up to automatically refund a winning bidder per say via GoDaddy but if the domain won is reclaimed, the auto refund doesn’t work for me for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s only me or not… but I recall having to request a refund each time a domain was reclaimed that I won at auction.
Just an FYI if you have ever won and paid for an auction that was reclaimed that you won…. check to make sure you got a refund! If you didn’t, contact GoDaddy ASAP and request one. I have a feeling that this often gets overlooked if the auto refund system isn’t working correctly and you will simply be out the money if you don’t request a refund.
~Comment
Since the DotWeekly redesign I have been playing around with different comment systems. I started using the Disqus plugin but I had two main problems with it.
1.) The comment box would override my footer until "reactions" would start coming in. It looked like crap and if no "reactions" would come in… it continued to look like crap
2.) Any domain name typed in the comment system would auto-hyperlink to the domain name. Clearly on a domain name site, a lot of people type domain names and having them all hyperlink just wasn’t going to work. Disqus did try to fix these issues but they couldn’t.
So, next up was Livefyre. I noticed yesterday that there was a problem and nobody could place a comment. It appears to be a javascript issue. The other problem with Livefyre is it appears that people do not like that they have to "log in" to comment. From a site owners standpoint… this highly cuts down on spam, but not everybody likes to sign in connecting with Facebook, Twitter, Google, OpenID etc. Livefyre has many other problems currently that don’t sit well with me like.. you can’t edit a comment! What? I know! Can’t login as a guess etc.
My main reason to switching to a new comment system was because the subscribe to comments plugin I was using with the standard WordPress CMS wasn’t working. I tried fixing it but it continued not to work and I wasn’t able to figure it out.
I think I may go back to the standard comment system and continue to mess around trying to fix the subscribe to comments system. (Update: I have went back to the standard comment system and I am trying a new subscribe to comments. Let me know what you think and if you have any problems please)
~Domain Sales
They are still struggling to years past! Look at DnJournal.com’s YTD and compare it even last year. Not only the "big" sales are hurting.. so are the ones that keep everybody going. ($500-$5,000). I have talked with a fair amount of portfolio holders that have about 1K-4K domain names and most are only seeing a small amount of sales per week/month. Most are only seeing about 1/4 and those are not good numbers for that size of portfolio.
For people with smaller portfolios like me (400 ish) the sales have even been smaller. There are times I go a month or MORE and not have a sale. I have been testing and trying but little has changed this. I still love domain names, but I am losing some faith in the domain name aftermarket on pure domain sales. Clearly the pure generic, category killer domains are always your best investments but my portfolio lacks them from getting into the game late and never having the funds needed to purchase them.
Judging the domain aftermarket is a hard task, because so many domain investors are in it, but there is a mix of end user sales. Picking those out in Afternic/Sedo sales can be a task but a lot are domain investors. Even so, sales reports coming out of Afternic (about 4 Million domains) and Sedo (11 Million + the last time I checked) are small.
Domain sales remains to be a Number Game! The more domains you have, the more offers and sales you will get…. but is your income more than the cost of renewals and purchases? A portfolio of 2-4K domains seems to be a sweet spot to average decent sales with about 1-3 a week!
I have been having serious doubts of continuing in domain investing and am considering to dropping down to about 50 domains, with most of them for development. Domain sales was once my main business but is no longer. If it wasn’t for DotWeekly, I would be in a different industry by now, that is a fact.
As always, this is only my own opinion and based on talking with many people!
~ Domain Name Sales Pages
I am thinking about offering a service that allows you to purchase a domain name sales page. All you would have to do is select from several templates, let me know the domain name and any link location you would like to send a visitor to and set DNS. I’m not sure the amount of need for this, but I figured I would ask because I think many would use it. This would mainly be for those that do not have hosting accounts, time or knowledge to play with code but wish to have something on there domain than a parking page… Domain forwarding lacks SE power to rank your domain, so a domain for sale page IMO is your best option than domain parking.
Not every domain is good for domain parking and some just want a clear message that a specific domain name is for sale. Those are the people/domains that may want or need a service like this. I would be manually doing the work and each domain will have Title, Meta and Keywords set… so each domain will rank fairly well in SE’s. Likely much better than a parking page.
If you are selling and marketing a domain, I think a domain for sale landing page looks MUCH better than a domain parking page loaded with "ads"!
The fee to use the service will be small, but something like $5/Domain for 1 year. Discounts for larger amounts etc.
I wouldn’t be looking to become rich with the service and it will take some work on my end, but I do see a need for it. Vurd.com, Drawo.com are two examples of domains I am using this method on and just playing around with the templates. I will have several templates to choose from that are custom built.
If you would be interested in something like this, let me know. It would take me about a week to launch the service as I basically have most of it set up already.
So that is the end of this round of This And That! Thank you for being a DotWeekly reader!
Ms Domainer
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Thanks for switching to this comment format!
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Jamie Zoch
No problem Ms D! I’m sure others will be happy with it also. Simple to use, now I hope that the comment notification system works the way it should.
RH
You are 100 % correct on aftermarket sales. Now maybe the thing like anything else is that prices come down over time.
Buying a name for $8 to $69 and selling for $200 to $400 is a great return but many seem not interested in selling to an end user at that price. Its still a great ROI, most domainers need to wake up IMO and realize they are not Frank Schilling or the Castello Brothers, they do not own xx,xxx and xxx,xxx domains.
As far as blogging and the business of domaining, there are probably too many domain blogs. I think there is a need for a mashable type site with a more than one domainer working to build a site that covers domaining and other areas of internet/social marketing. Maybe then ad sales could improve.
BullS
“I am losing some faith in the domain name aftermarket”
You see, on my previous post, I wrote why I DO NOT buy recycled domains??
Why spend $500+ in auction when I have my “creativity” domain crystal ball and hand reg at 99cent.
FYI, I got a couple of domains in the FTD auction and getting lots of inquiries .
Anyway,you do what pleases you as this is a free country!!
Tony
Maybe I’m just going through a hot streak but I have 5,000+ domains and have sold ten over the past two months for a total of $60,000+.
My portfolio is 95% dotcom and 90% of those are keyword rich domains. The rest are branded and in dotnet, dotorg and dotTV.
Jamie Zoch
Congrats Tony! $20K to the good over renewals (approx)in two months. That is a good thing. Keep it up!
Trico
“The system is set up to automatically refund a winning bidder per say via GoDaddy but if the domain won is reclaimed, the auto refund doesn’t work for me for some reason.”
Jamie,
What time period are you referring to?
The refund is automatic but not instant.
It can take 6 days from the day the domain was reclaimed before the refund kicks in.
I’ve had 2 GoDaddy auction domains reclaimed this week. I just received a refund for the first domain today acknowledged in an email from GoDaddy and verified in another email from PayPal.
Jamie Zoch
@Trico,
Hard to say on the time period because there isn’t anything that indicates “when” the domain was reclaimed. I never got an email or notification of any sort. I won the domain on the 18th, so my guess is it was renewed right around that time frame. The only reason I figured out it was reclaimed, was because I won two domains on the 18th and only got one last night.
Trico
Jamie,
If a domain is reclaimed you certainly should have received an email from GoDaddy with the Subject line: Your Auction Has Ended.
You can also tell that a domain was reclaimed by logging into your GoDaddy auctions account. Go to the “Bidding List” section and select “Didn’t Win” from the drop down menu.
The reclaimed domain will now be listed there.
Update: the second domain I had reclaimed on me happened soon after the auction ended. I received email notice from GoDaddy.
That was 2 days ago.
I just received a refund today.
I suspect GoDaddy processes refunds in batches so how long you have to wait depends on your timing.
But 6 days should be the longest you’d have to wait.
Jamie Zoch
@Trico,
I didn’t get any notification. After not getting the domain last night, I checked the Didn’t Win bin and it was in there. That told me that it was reclaimed.
I had to contact my rep today to request the refund and he did it for me. It could be something with my account but I don’t get any notifications and I have to personally request a refund each time it happens.
Liam Mackay
You might wann check out http://intensedebate.com/ for commenting system,
Bobby
It’s definitely a numbers game and the sales page idea is a good one for ‘keyword rich’ domain names.
I have a comparable number of domains in my portfolio (approx. 500) and they’re almost all dot coms that were hand-reg’d.
Since moving from parking to sales pages the offers have increased but I’m turning them down as too low and my wife continues to remind me of a story about “Bob’s Rugs” that Rick Latona once told.
Oh, the irony.