What is the best service to help me negotiate for an already owned domain name? | Hacker News Reader

What is the best service to help me negotiate for an already owned domain name?

7 pointsjerrya10 comments

I would like to approach a person about a domain name they own. Godaddy offers to help me approach them, but they really offer very little. What other services offer a useful, reasonably priced, domain negotiation service?

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Network Solutions has a certified offer service that favors buyers but it just emails the whois address. Nothing special really.

Sedo, Moniker and few other places will help you and broker (assuming it's worthwhile).

There are a handful of experienced domainers who broker as well, also domain lawyers do this stuff.

The biggest issue is what ballpark you're operating in. If your budget is <1000, it's not worth bothering with anyone else. Between 1-5k, maybe some individuals will help out/lawyer. As that number gets higher, more people would be willing. Other big factor is expectations, having a 100,000$ budget for sex.com is all but a waste of time too. So the domain and budget need to be approximately in tune.

If you want some specific help on the domain you're trying to acquire I may be able to help you out some (free advice), contact info is in my profile.

I've always preferred the personal touch. Find the whois info, and hopefully there'll be contact info in there.

Failing that, go to the website (assuming there's one on it), and see if there's contact details on it somewhere.

If that still doesn't work, Sedo are fairly good at ferreting out information.

I'd always try to make the actual buyout overtures myself, as you get a better feel for the person that way, and you never know when the connection might come in useful in the future.

I'll try and get a mate of mine who's a domainer to respond to this with his thoughts.

"... I would like to approach a person about a domain name they own. ..."

As an experiment I'd like you to open a nix console, type in whois* domain name and see who owns the domain and who the domain is registered with. Is it with GoDaddy? If it is GD are using their superior market knowledge against you.

Wishlist for startup ~ one that allows searches w/o selling info & negotiates for domains & makes the transfer stress free & transparent.

I think the easiest way would be to do it yourself if it is possible to obtain the owner's info. More personal and you get a feeling for the situation. I would be willing to bet that a personal email or call would be far more effective in triggering a saleswish than just some professional calling.

A good number of the domains I search for are godaddy parked pages. There's a link to a service godaddy operates that can buy the domain. Is this the service you're talking about?

Definitely do it yourself. You want to know about the person or company who wants to purchase the domain. It makes a world of difference (re: how to negotiate).

I just want to thank everyone for answering my question (and not just pointing at the n00b and laughing.)

Sedo.

Do it yourself. Write a personal email, tell them your story, and give them a serious (but below your max) offer. If you can find the name of the owner, do some research about him/her, and see if you can find some commonalities just to get a conversation going (like going to the same school, hobbies, interests, etc).

Then wait and see

As someone on the receiving end of these, I hear about 'my startup', 'my school project', etc. all day long. I don't care. It's all about the money. More than likely it's owned by someone with a lot of domains, if that's the case, they are almost certainly in the same boat.

tl;dr: the dollar figure is all that matters, your story makes me vomit in my mouth a little as an excuse to lowball.

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