What's The Best Strategy For Buying A Parked Domain?...

**Magnus** · November 21st, 2011, 2:43 PM

So I've identified a domain that I'm after.

I 'm happy to pay a few thousand dollars for it (man, I hope they person who owns it isn't on this forum!).

Rather jump right in I thought I'd seek just a little advice before I contact the person.

The domain is parked; but it doesn't have a 'for sale' anywhere on it. Managed to do a little digging (thank you Wayback Machine!) and have at least one email address that I can attempt contact through (but can also do it through the privacy email thing too I think).

I was going to follow this guy's strategy on buying a domain - does it make sense?

Out of interest, the domain is [word1][word2].com, and would like to get it for long-term branding (i.e. if all goes well, then I really don't want to end up buying it down the line for a large sum - regretting that I didn't "snap-it-up" back then).

If I can't get it then I'll probably settle for buying a new domain such as [word1][word2]ACADEMY.com or [word1][word2]INTITUTE.com etc.

Should I just ask if it's for sale ...or send an offer of say 25% of what I'm really willing to pay in my first email?

Appreciate any insights that anyone can offer.

Magnus

EDIT: Out of interest, the phrase of the domain gets around 3500 searches a month in google, but it's nothing high-paying like loans, making money, etc. - fairly generic.

**Magnus** · November 21st, 2011, 4:59 PM

I've done a search of this forum but not found anything that really answers my question(s) - unless I'm missing the obvious (which has been known to happen ...a lot!).

**WannaBeGeekster** · November 21st, 2011, 5:24 PM

Just go for it. I would take his advice. Do you have any idea what the domain is worth? Or what it is worth in your eyes? First thing I would do is set a budget for yourself. Nothing like a little greed to get in the way of some good old fashioned common sense. From there I would ask him if it is for sale, using the private email address from his whois record. From there if you do not get a response then I would consider using the contact info from the old site. Although what most likely happened is the site was left to expire and someone picked it up on the cheap. The previous owner probably has no clue who owns it now. Worth a shot though. Worst case scenario you tip off the previous owner that his domain was pilfered from him.

I have never found a reasonable person on the other end of a parked domain yet. Even with some pretty decent 4 digit offers on some relatively non-commercial sounding domains.

-WBG

**grynge** · November 21st, 2011, 5:54 PM

How long before it runs out of reg?
What has been its ownership history? eg 1 owner 1 year dropped a new owner 2 years dropped?
If so wait for the existing reg to run out, I notice they pick it up for a year and if it hasn't got traffic or making money they drop them.

**KenW3** · November 21st, 2011, 6:35 PM

I have domains parked for future use, sitting there aging, that do not have for sale signs. It's difficult to know the owner's intentions, but if privacy is enabled, it is possible he is avoiding contact. He's not a domainer, as the experienced ones would have email contact info in a WhoIs similar to ThisDomainForSale @ SLD.TLD without you even having to go to the site.

I read your linked article. I assume one through four are no longer a consideration, number five suggesting 'contact the owners' is a problem, and I agree with six, 'Don't make an offer'. You need to know who you are talking to first, and that the person is the same one who owns the domain. Number seven says there are no comparables to go by, so the author does not know about NameBio.com

Valuation is more of an art than a science. The more you sound like an expert, the more likely a seller (you are in direct contact with) will accede to your suggested valuation (unless they're experienced themselves). If you find them, the first thing to do, if a seller is interested in a sale, is ask them to remove the privacy. Then write to the email and addresses shown, call the phone number(s), search for info on the seller, and figure out who you're dealing with (if possible) before any further discussion.

**crabfoot** · November 21st, 2011, 6:55 PM

One thing that guy you referred to is "Absolutely Spot On" with - don't communicate using an email address that is associated with other domains. IF you want to look "pro" (some people think free email addresses are tacky) register a cheap domain to a free email address, and set up an email associated with that cheap domain. Then, if the guy makes checks on you, there's only one domain he can associate you with, and it won't show up as associated with other domains on your hosting if you play your cards right.

There's a newsagent at the end of my street that sells anonymous pay as you go Mastercards if you really want to hide your butt -

**Magnus** · November 21st, 2011, 8:21 PM

@WBG

It definitely not a monetizing type name where I would try to rank it for the phrase itself or anything like that; it's more of a branding thing. The price I'd be willing to pay is a (kind-of) gut-feeling where I'm thinking that any more than x-amount and I'd prefer just to get the same name but with an addition at the end like 'goup' or 'foundation' or such. I'd never thought about it being stolen - I think KenW3 touched on that issue...

@grynge

The wayback machine shows that it was registered back in 1998 and spent a couple of years not doing much (a token site related to what the name is about). It then changed to an adult site (it can be viewed as that if you want - but you wouldn't think of it like that if you heard the name) a couple of years after that. As far as I can make out it was an adult site for around 10 years - and it's now been parked (not with adult content though - just generic) for a couple of years. Searching around it seems that the owner of the domain also owns other (adult and non-adult) domains and he was at one point selling them all (going by the wayback machine where I see on the site I'm after that there was a link to an ebay auction for it!) Also, of the other domains he had, there were a couple of real nice ones that I'm certain would be $xx,xxx (from my limited knowledge anyway). So if he's the guy who owns it currently - he knows what he's doing.

@KenW3

Is getting them to remove the privacy so that I can confirm ownership a standard thing to do? Would using Escrow give me the safety I would like to have if I managed to get somewhere with it?

@crabfoot

Man, that's a solid piece of advice. I just googled a couple of my own email addresses that I thought I could use - but they're coming up everywhere for various things that I forgot I did/registered/bought/etc. Thanks for bringing that up!

Cheers guys - fantastic replies (I'm continually surprised by this forum - such knowledge!!).

I'm going to figure out an email address to contact him from (I'm sure I've got one lying around in my bundle of "abandoned project" domains that isn't linked to any other domains I have).

I'll probably initiate contact soon - but not with an offer (as Ken suggested).

**Magnus** · November 21st, 2011, 8:39 PM

Okay, so I've been snooping around wayback/google/etc some more and have managed to deduce that the domain I'm after had a page on it showing that the domain itself was for sale (and a number of others) back around 2008.

When I look check the other domains some of them have privacy ...but some don't.

The ones that don't all seem to be registered to the same person (full name, email, phones, etc. given).

So, it seems I now have a solid name and email to contact, but the guy seems to know what he's doing.

**WannaBeGeekster** · November 21st, 2011, 9:32 PM

So, it seems I now have a solid name and email to contact, but the guy seems to know what he's doing.

So if he sold it, he should know who he sold it to, but he probably wouldn't give that information up to you. I would maybe ask him to forward a message that you might be interested if the price was right.

-WBG

**Clinton** · November 22nd, 2011, 9:39 AM

Some tips to find current owner.

1. Use info that is not blocked by the privacy reg. So, for example, the nameservers will be available. If they are custom nameservers you could do a search in Google: site:domaintools.com + "ns1.custom.com". You may get lucky and find there are just one or two domains using those name servers and you could go track down details for those other domains.

2. Go to his source code, it may have the account number he's been allocated at the parking service he uses.

3. Go to his source code and you may find Google Analytics code. You could plug that code into a reverse GA lookup service such as reverseinternet or eWHOIS to find his other sites.

4. People often duplicate strings of text from their privacy page, their copyright notice etc., across multiple sites in their portfolio. Try searching for strings taken from there.

5. Use services like push2check to find neighbour IPs. It's possible that they point to other sites he owns and those sites may have clues as to his identity.

6. Try contacting his hosting company/privacy service/parking service to forward an email.

7. Look at his backlinks. A blogroll backlink, sitewide or backlink from a social networking profile may suggest his identity or at least someone who knows him.