How Do You Re-Sell a Domain Name?

dclayman wonders: " I've never sold a domain before. I just received a $400 offer for a domain I own (radicaltrust), but I don't know if I should sell it or auction it off. If I auction it, what site should I use? I could really use the extra cash, and I was hoping to get some ideas and advice from other readers. So, what's the best way to go about selling a domain?" Of course, selling your domain is only half of the issue. What's the best way to go about smoothly transferring the domain, once it is sold?

Use Sedo.com

[Blakey Rat]

Sedo.com will conduct the auction for you, and ensure the payment is collected before the domain is transferred. Not an owner, just a satisfied customer.

I've had experience with a few services...

[celerityfm]

As a buyer I've had good experience with buying "resold" domains both from Afternic.com [afternic.com] and Network Solution's Certified Offer Service [networksolutions.com].

Each service has it's own features- Network Solutions, erm, solution is really just a way to make a safe transaction on a domain sale to an independent buyer, it offers an escrow service and other protections. Afternic has a similar service but they also have a nice domain name listing service where you can auction your domain like eBay. There may be others, but these are the only 2 I've had experience with, albeit from the buying side.

For your situation with this buyer I recommend to at least use Network Solutions' service to manage the transaction-- it offers protection to both you and the buyer, though there is a fee of course.

By the way, Network Solutions service also offers free domain name appraisals (Afternic has one too but charges). I don't know how much to trust it because for your domain I received values ranging over $10,000 when I first queried it on down to the $500 range later on. It seems to take into account the number of queries for a domain name? I'm not sure, but try it and see what it says now [certifiedo...ervice.com]. Also, if RadicalTrust is also the name of a product or service then that price could be higher (or possible lower) then the estimated value according to Network Solutions.

If I were you I'd post it on Afternic.com for auction and tell your buyer about it. Your sure to incur some new offers from this /. article and an auction might be just the thing for your situation- if you're willing to pay the transaction fees of course :)

Good luck!

Re:Domain value (free computer appraising service)

[yincrash]

http://dnscoop.com/ [dnscoop.com]
i'm not sure how accurate it is, but it does appraising for free and tells you the factors involved.

Transition BEFORE you sell

[Stephen Samuel]

Don't wait until you've sold the domain to transition yourself away from that domain. Transition yourself NOW. That way you'll have a few {weeks,months} to clean up any leftover bits that result from people not getting the news that you've moved your email, etc to another domain.

The last thing you want to do is sell the domain and then realize that your other three domains are still locked to an email address on the old domain.

Sale and Appraisal

[nullchar]

For selling a domain, you should use an escrow service to protect both the buyer and seller. At some point, the domain must go through the transfer process and if the domain is in escrow, no one gets screwed by insufficient funding or a NACK'd transfer request. escrow.com is a generic place but to make it worth your while, $500 or more should be the selling price. Others have listed links to sedo, afternic, etc. that will do the same. Ensure that if the sale does not go through, you may still manage the domain, change nameservers, etc.

For an appraisal, you should go the human route. And get three of them if you think your name is worth $500 or more. Appraisals are VERY arbitrary. Any logs of traffic will be very beneficial to the appraisal process. Lots of hits means lots of cash for pure pay-per-click sites.

Some automated appraisers are:

http://leapfish.com/ [leapfish.com]
http://dnscoop.com/ [dnscoop.com]

Ignore the dollar amounts as they are bogus. But, you can use the information given (search engine query results, various rankings, etc) to make a stronger case for a high asking price.

It might be a good idea to check if other TLDs of the same domain are registered -- that is an easy indicator that the domain is at least somewhat valuable.

Four Factors To Determine Your Domain's Value

[1sockchuck]

Domain valuations are usually based on whether the domain has traffic or has attributes that will help it rank well in Google search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are some key factors in valuations:

1. Existing traffic - Domain parking services can convert visits into revenue.

2. Backlinks from other relevant sites in your niche. Google values these in their rankings.

3. Age of the Domain: Google's algorithm gives greater authority to established sites, so domains that have been on the web for a few years will generally fetch more in a sale than a newer site with equivalent traffic and backlinks.

4. PageRank, a Google scoring system developed by Larry Page. It's a 1 to 10 scale, the higher the better. This used to be more highly valued, but Google sometimes resets the PageRank when it figures out a domain has changed hands, diluting its value as a sales metric.

URL Trends [urltrends.com] is a service that provides a quick, free analysis of a domain's PageRank, backlinks and Alexa rank (which has some usefulness in assessing broader traffic trends). URL Trends shows that the submitter's domain, radicaltrust (we assume that means dot-com), has a PageRank of 0, and just one incoming link, but decent age (online since 2001, according to Archive.org). $400 seems like a pretty good offer. The buyer must be motivated by a specific need for that domain, and there's little in the stats to suggest you'd get more in an auction.