How to Acquire a Domain Name (That Someone Already Owns)
blog.domai.nr
blog.domai.nr
I sold a domain once for $5,000(us) to the biggest equipment manufacturer in the world. I wanted more, their proposal was to buy it for $3,000(us). I was happy enough with the $5,000 after they told me they were going to sue and take it from me...
For example, no matter how rare a baseball card is, there is almost always a few others of its kind. Same with comic books, and so on. Now, no matter how rare an antique piece of furniture is (let's say it's a one-off, hand-made piece), you can still replicate it with enough attention to detail to nearly fully mimic the original.
But, with a domain name, there's only one. And, you can't mimic it. (You can get the .co, but that's a whole other story.) Consequently, domain owners have a lopsided amount of haggling power.
How do you figure that?
You can get a name in a different gtld tld cctld etc.
It may not be as desirable as .com (because of course I'm assuming that is what you mean).
And why is there only "one". There is not only "one" name you can use for your business.
Especially if you are starting one. You are free to call yourself whatever you want.
My personal favorite "fallback" is to use .io or prepend "get."
But I would absolutely stay away from any cctld's like .io. If your site becomes popular you will end up having to purchase the .com assuming you even can do that. (Once publicity of your .io site gets out the price of the .com will go up if it's even possible to buy).
One side of the problem is that "only one of each exists", the other is that many entities might 'need' (more or less) this very name, regardless whether we talk about local (eg. 3 bookstores in one small town) or worldwide.
I imagine with system (resources on the internet) getting bigger and bigger single, nice, short and memorable domains will gradually become less important. I imagine factors like location aware, user aware, use of bookmarks, search, links attached to social profiles, NFC, qr, AI algorithms, you name it, will each play a role here.
There could be moment in time when everybody will accept change of 'paradigm' and accept that addressing resources is not the way it used to be, or that it is 'many ways lead to the content' . We could even use bare numbers for lots of stuff.
Also, this reminds me that people used to share domains back in 90's with a nice intro and screen split to two parts - you would choose which company/site you wanted to go. Sure its not the solution by any means, but I liked those sites, always getting some positive feeling that this was possible (people agreeing on sth). I have not seen such a site for a long time, though.
Art and people (sports, movie starts) are two I thought of instantly. And the insane, somewhat arbitrary (although it's always whatever someone is willing to pay) pricing of those makes domain market look clean and efficient.
An interesting question that then arises is what would be the equivalent of "character actor" in the domain world?
"unconscionable"?
It's a business model and it's legal. There is no requirement to use a domain name and there never has been one.
"people wanting to create value are held to ransom by parasites"
And what if the someone "wanting to create value" got to the name first and has their idea of a site is not as good as your idea of a site. The name would also not be available for you to use.
This idea that if people weren't parking names they would be available when you wanted the name is simply not true. Someone else could have registered the name and used it to put up 3 picture of their cat. Then you'd have to approach and buy it from them.
That said I can certainly understand the frustration that people feel in trying to obtain names for their startups (as I consult with these people).
It's a business model and it's legal. There is no requirement to use a domain name and there never has been one.
Notice that your response in no way addresses the grandparent's complaint. Being legal doesn't change the fact that parking domains makes you a bad person.
There are lots of things in this world that are technically legal to do, but make the world a worse place (domain squatting being a perfect example). There's also a type of individual that doesn't look beyond legality when determining right behavior. This is a good type of individual to be able to recognize, as it's a very good indicator of somebody with whom you never want to do business.
It is annoying when you need to buy the domain you want from a reseller and have to pay more than if it wasnt registered, but saying it makes the reseller a bad person is going way, way too far.
Domain squatting makes the Web suck. It does. You can throw around all the analogies you want, but speculative investment does not have the same effect. The domain name system was not designed to be used that way. If there were a special squatter registration that cost an exorbitant amount per domain, then maybe I'd say it's fine because they would have to make an actual calculated purchase to justify the obscene prices. But as it is, they're abusing a vestigial weak spot in the Web's infrastructure.
Both business real-estate and domains suffer the same problem here IMO; people want to acquire wealth without effort. Singling out domainers is unfair - but criticising the same sort of activity everywhere is something that won't pull a complaint from me ...
For sure. But plenty of people (hidden behind corporations) have bought up 10s of store-fronts.
If domain names cost $500 per year to keep from the registry then this would find an equivalence in a piece of real-estate being taxed at around 40x the annual rent per year.
Buying real estate and buying domains takes effort.
If you think it's easy give it a try and see how easy it is.
It's not. Most of the people buying domains that they think might sell won't sell them ever for any price.
Those wealthy enough to be in real estate in my country have in many cases made more money sitting on their arses for a couple of years than I expect to make in my whole lifetime. You can literally sit on a piece of unwanted real estate if you have sufficient capital and wait to see if it accrues added "value". Sure you may have to pay some legal fees occasionally but all you really need do is be wealthy in the first place. You're buying a scarce resource that, provided you can take a long view and aren't forced to sell at a particular time, will almost certainly not decrease in value.
Now, domaining is the same. But here the scarcity is dubious as the registries can alter that whenever they want to print some more money for themselves. Buy-in is a lot less costly but predicting the upside appears to be concomitantly more difficult.
Most people domaining don't have sufficient capital to do it right or are to late to the market. But I don't see how this changes the underlying similarity. The same is true in real estate.
Bad person?
Well then in that case since you are being so absolute about that you might want to resolve the dns for a domain that you own that isn't going anywhere. Even to a parking page.
DNS server handling your query: localhost DNS server's address: 127.0.0.1#53
server can't find TWIDDLA.ORG: SERVFAIL
DNS server handling your query: localhost DNS server's address: 127.0.0.1#53
server can't find www.TWIDDLA.ORG: SERVFAIL
(query the server in the whois directly now):
nslookup
> server ASE-CONSULTING.COM
Default server: ASE-CONSULTING.COM
Address: 207.162.212.91#53
> www.twiddla.com
Server: ASE-CONSULTING.COM
Address: 207.162.212.91#53
www.twiddla.com canonical name = twiddla.com.
Name: twiddla.com
Address: 207.162.212.93
(ok it knows about the .com, what about the .org)
> www.twiddla.org
Server: ASE-CONSULTING.COM
Address: 207.162.212.91#53
server can't find www.twiddla.org: NXDOMAIN
Domain ID:D150745067-LROR
Domain Name:TWIDDLA.ORG
Created On:25-Jan-2008 10:00:15 UTC
Last Updated On:22-Aug-2011 12:22:43 UTC
Expiration Date:25-Jan-2017 10:00:15 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Omnis Network LLC (R101-LROR)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:OMNIS-1210584221
I'm sure that's an oversight on your part? And you feel totally entitled to that domain name since you own twiddla.com and of course nobody could possibly want the .org could they?
Typically this is said by those that wished they had gotten in a bit earlier...
As for getting domain names: it doesn't matter what product or project I come up with it takes me 15 minutes to come up with a reasonably good domain name. I really don't see the 'shortage' as being anywhere near as bad as it is.
What you'd like to see is that you could take away domain names from their current registrants because you will be a 'better steward' of them. But who will stop that domain name being taken away from you? What do you propose will be a good standard for being developed? Should there be a time limit? Will you have to pay fair value for the domain? Should it go back to the registry and be re-registrable immediately and how will you make sure that only 'good persons' will get those domains?
Really, you make a pretty heavy accusation and I fail to see what you could do to either improve the situation or how you would avoid being a 'bad person' yourself if you had a good domain name you registered in the past that you currently have no use for.
I'm openly confirming here that I have upwards of 500 domains registered and have developed only a small fraction of those, but at the same time when I registered them I fully intended to use them in one way or another, the lack of time and hands to carry out all my wild ideas is what prompted me to put the larger chunk of them up for sale.
I'm sure I'm a 'bad person' in your book ;)
It's like the difference between an old person getting lost and wandering into somebody's kitchen and a thug busting in with a gun and demanding money. Technically they're both invading the kitchen, but there is an important qualitative difference both in their actions and the effects they have on people.
(BTW, I accidentally downvoted you when I was trying to scroll. Sorry about that. Although I disagree with you, I do appreciate hearing your point of view.)
"greedy"
"screwing somebody over"
"leech money from unsuspecting visitors"
"morally questionable"
"thug busting in with a gun and demanding money"
So let me get this straight.
You think there is a similarity in some way shape or form to an illegal act like a thug invading someone's kitchen and someone who legally registered a domain name (even with the intent to sell it) a totally legal capitalistic move (which is similar to buying real estate in order to resell it or buying something off craigslist and reselling it on ebay for higher money) and breaking the law?
The law is very clearly defined with regards to filing a UDRP or a federal cybersquatting lawsuit in order to recover a domain name. Outside of the specific areas that are covered (by those) there has never been any intent to prevent anyone from registering a domain name who intends to profit from selling those domain names. Any more than there has ever been a law to prevent anyone from buying anything in order to resell at a higher price (providing it doesn't break any laws.)
Nobody is claiming it's illegal†; we're saying it's bad. You can repeat that the law is on your side till the cows come home, but it won't make a difference because nobody is arguing that. I agree that it's legal, but that doesn't mean it isn't harmful to the Web at large. Some forms of predatory lending are legal (and even more were legal in the past), but they are nonetheless seen as a slimy business. Nobody other than a prosecutor cares if a loan shark can legally justify what he does — people dislike loan sharks because they take advantage of others and act in a way that is generally harmful to society, not because the law happens to be against them at some particular point in time.
And to be clear, I am not trying to attack you or Jacques personally here. I know that even if you weren't doing it, there are plenty of others who still would. Regardless, I feel very strongly that this industry hurts the Web as a whole. It functions in a way that's reminiscent of a protection racket, or the kind of corruption that's endemic in the Chinese government.
† Granted, in the "thug with a gun" analogy, that act was illegal, but the point was that a confused old lady trespassing is also illegal. It's not the binary state of legal or illegal that makes the big difference there, but the ill intent and the harm done. The people being robbed wouldn't feel better if the thug with a gun were working for a loan shark who happened to be operating under a legal technicality.
if parking pages were to become illegal, it wouldn't take long for parking providers to turn in to "blog hosters" or whatever.
I see empty storefronts in prime areas of SF all the time... I guess the owner's just looking for a big pay day.
sucks, but i don't think there's anything you can do.
Have you ever worked or owned commercial real estate? (I have).
They are looking for many things including what they feel is the right stable tenant that can pay the rent, keep the property in good condition, and has a good chance of staying in business.
Would you accept the first job offer from someone who offered you a job? If you were out of a job for 1 year would you take a job that you felt was beneath what your capabilities was?
Commercial real estate owners evaluate the market and what they can get for the property and many other factors.
You are being simplistic if you reduce this to "just looking for a big payday".
I know YC funded http://www.co2stats.com/ to "Green Certify" a website. "Fair trade" labels work for selling some higher-end products. I would probably lend my attention to advertisers and advertising networks that have some sort of "scum-free" label.
I don't see any solution in terms of mandates. Ignoring the difficulty (near-impossibility?) of adding certain mandates to registration, it would probably introduce bigger problems than it solved.
I do agree it's a problem though. Sometimes, it's actually pretty disgusting. I wanted to make a forum for people with an extremely rare type (300 US cases per year) of cancer that I had about a year back. The domain name that was the name of the disease was owned by a guy parking it. He wanted about 10k for it. The sad thing I don't think that is a crazy offer in the case of the domain name's present value from parking clicks. Medical terms are valuable...
...On the other hand, from a patient perspective, half those links were to websites peddling really bad and sometimes dangerous advice, in addition to the usual "Vitamin C will cure cancer" garage.
World New Network had squatted a domain that we were interested in (a gobbledegook web 2.0 name, mind you), and they wanted 80k under the idea that this website was an important part of their news operation. If this was an English word it might make sense, but it was far from it so the whole game reeked of extortion (in the casual, not legal, sense).
Problem is, people feel entitled to own the .com name just because they have an idea that they think can change the world. If the idea can change the world, then the tld should not matter (or even the domain name should not matter).
But the article essentially deals only with how to contact the owner.
It doesn't deal at all with strategy or research required to acquire a domain name at a fair price.
Acquiring a domain name is much more than contacting the owner. It's how you contact the owner and what you say and even how you say it. And who you appear to be and a host of other factors. It's what your initial offer is (and while some will say don't make the first offer that is not always correct) and even how long it takes you to reply to a counter or how that is handled.
There is much to the strategy (on both buy and sell side).
And even if you are using an intermediary to make offers on your behalf you will have to use a strategy with them as well.
Unless you are dead-set on having a specific name, there's no reason you should have to pay more than the $12 registration fee to pick up a decent domain name for your next site.
I'd even go so far as to say that as word of Lean Domain Search spreads (it's less than 5 weeks old), it will have a major impact on the premium domain name market for this very reason. There's this perceived scarcity of good domain names that simply doesn't exist. You just need a tool like LDS to show you.
I ended up creating a text file of base words, prefixes and suffixes (built partially from LDS suggestions) which I fed through another site that combined them into domains I could query in batches of 225.
I felt this was something your site could have easily automated by letting me flag prefixes/suffixes I liked and allowing me to suggest multiple base words.
That said selling names to startups is only one channel for domain names. So I wouldn't say the impact is going to "major".
Also mainstream name buyers tend to search through premium domains at godaddy or type in a name and may see a for sale page that leads to buydomains etc.
I'm not a U.S. citizen, but the U.S. federal government would fit the bill just fine, and would be the obvious (though inevitably controversial) group to do it for .com, .net, and .org, ie. the problematic ones.
I created a fake email several years ago and made up some cover story about how I was looking to create an online persona to blog with and listed 5-6 domains of these domains. The squatter wanted 10k for my firstnamelastname.com when I offered less than he wanted (like 1k) for one of the domains I really didn't want, he just said no and stopped responding. I even cited a post where he paid $80 for the domain...
I've been afraid to interact with the guy using my real name and the domain I actually want because I don't want to show any interest in the domain in hopes he just lets it expire.
((The guy has also had several domains seized by ICANN))
The domain I wanted was 4-5 weeks away from expiring, so I read a bit on the services to catch it when it drops and some sounded a bit fishy (some claim they put fake bids to pump the price up…). So I took a chance and waited the whole expiration process and was lucky enough to get it for just the price of a domain.
Granted, it wasn't one of these unique four-letter domains so there was a decent chance there'd be little interest, and I would have survived without it (I had bought a good back-up name), but it's still an option for the cheap and patient…
Parked domains are an investment, and I suspect this is the kind of business that is only profitable on the long tail - you only flip some exceedingly small percentage of your total inventory on a given year, but you can't tell ahead of time which ones are going to be the winners.
So… unless these are all manually managed (which I find unlikely, doesn't GoDaddy have a whole panel dedicated to parking?) I find this scenario to be extremely unlikely.
Someone who has actually parked domains can probably shed some more light on the business model involved.
...you answered your question perfectly:
"I suspect this is the kind of business that is only profitable on the long tail - you only flip some exceedingly small percentage of your total inventory on a given year, but you can't tell ahead of time which ones are going to be the winners."
Exactly.
That said much of this also has to do with who owns the name, whether they need the money (what you are offering) and a host of other factors to numerous to mention.
As a general rule though I would rather be making an offer to buy a name off someone who owns a vast inventory of names than someone who owns only a few. Why? Because they know that if they pass up your offer they might wait another 7 years to sell that name. So essentially you just have to clear a certain point based on their experience and the names is yours.
Unless of course that person who owns only a few names needs money in which case (well you get my point) I'd rather have that person be the seller.
From my experience I've seen all sorts of things happen. I just helped a startup get a great name for a few hundred dollars that was worth much more simply because the owner didn't even google to see that they obviously would need the name.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/04/finding-and-buying-a-domain-...
I did this for a domain a few weeks ago that was using OpenSRS' WHOIS privacy (via http://contactprivacy.com) and while it took 2 weeks for the owner to get back to me, he responded by putting the domain up on Sedo so I could make an offer on it.
Unfortunately, when people contact me to obtain a domain I have, I get very lowball offers - to which I do not respond.
I also offer people to use my domains for Free as part of my project OpenDomain, but most people insist that they must own the domain. I guess they do not get that we are "Open Source for domains".
I tried to look what OpenDomain was so I search and I find some business solutions .com which I assume isn't your project so I look and I find your twitter[1] (I'm assuming) which has the same slogan you used, so I go to the website and what do I find? Just some default filler content for whatever template your purchased.
Owning the domain for a project or a company is key as that is a great part of their identity that they have to build up (especially for online applications). Maybe if your project "OpenDomain" gets some backing and is alive for many years and actually says what it does then maybe people won't have to own their domains but as of now your complaint of people not getting it is moot.
Should we write them first? Have our lawyer write nicely? Sternly? Or just skip this and go straight to UDRP?
Not suspicious at all!
I'll repost the good part here, since it isn't attributed anyway:
The Art Of Negotiating A Domain Name Purchase
I see so much bad advice about how to approach someone to buy their domain... "contact them and say I see you're not using xxxxx.com, I have a little project I'd like to use it for... would you be willing to let it go?" etc. etc. etc. HORRIBLE ADVICE.
People that are sitting on domain names don't keep paying the registration fees every year for fun, even if they aren't using the name. They know it has value. So don't insult their intelligence making them think they should do you a favor by letting you have their unused domain.
Many Domain Owners Think They're Sitting On A Lottery Ticket
Many domain owners think that one day someone is going to come along and give them millions for their .Com no matter what it is. The fact is, domains are only worth what someone is ready to hand you a check for. (A tip to all you wannabe speculators.) I've seen many GREAT domains never get sold, so always keep that in mind. Anyway, because domain owners have this thinking, they are very reluctant to NAME A PRICE. So forcing them to start by naming a price isn't something they want to do, because they're hoping YOU offer some ridiculously high price that they will then counter to go much higher.
Because of this, you MUST start out on first contact with an offer (more on this in a second). The approach of "would you be willing to sell xxxxx.com? If so, how much?" isn't going to cut it; one of the main reasons is that domain owners of decent domains get TONS of emails all the time asking them that, and when they've replied in the past with a price or try to start negotiations so many people are only willing to pay $100 or some insulting price.
So what do most domain owners do? IGNORE YOU. That's right. So if you've ever contacted a domain owner after looking them up with a Whois search and they didn't reply, it's not because they didn't your email (which makes you think that follow-up fax or phone call will do the trick; HINT: it won't.) It's because they think you're like everyone else that thinks they can buy the domain for $100 or so.
Here's how you get their attention and get the ball rolling...
Rule #1: You must start out by making an offer in your initial email.
Rule #2: This offer must be high enough to get their attention and make them at least THINK.
NOTE: Rule #2's amount will depend on how great the domain is.
The two magic price points I have found that work the best (they depend on how valuable the domain is) is either $1,000 or $2,500.
If it's a great domain then $5K-$10K is usually the starting point. These amounts are enough to get anyone's attention. I've bought many $100K+ value domains for $15K-$20K by starting with a $5K or $7K offer.
By starting with at least something that gets their attention they will take you seriously. This is the first step or you have no chance to make a deal.
In most cases for decent 2 words domains, the $1K to $2.5K opener works best.
* TIP: Always know your seller if possible. Do a Whois on who owns the domain, visit the domain in their email address or do some Google searches, etc. You'll often find a struggling Web designer is sitting on a great domain. $1,000 cash to that person is a lot of money. So this also goes into the process of deciding what to open the offer with.
The key here is not to insult someone with a lowball offer, but offer enough to make them know you're a serious buyer.
So here's a sample initial contact email to send... (and I'll explain the rest of the language I use)...
Subject Line: Whatever.com ($2,500?)
Hi,
I see you are the owner of Whatever.com. I'm in the process of trying to find a domain name for a client I am building a web site for and think your name could be a good fit. I am contacting different domain owners as we have it in the budget to buy a cool name and Whatever.com is on the list we came up with.
Would you be interested in selling it for $2,500?
Let me know and I can have the funds wired to you next day or PayPal'd to you. Just let me know your PayPal address.
Thanks for your time.
-YOUR NAME -------------------------
Let's breakdown why I used that language...
1. You've positioned yourself as not the future 'owner' of the domain. You're just managing a budget for a project. This helps because as they will usually counter with a higher amount, you'll play the "sorry, I just don't have it in the budget to go that high" to work towards a price you want. You'll also be able to play the "let me see if the client can approve a budget increase to accommodate that price" etc. etc. This also allows you to play Good Cop, Bad Cop in a way. You're just someone trying to get the deal done to do your job (build the site). You're also presenting yourself as someone LESS EMOTIONALLY INVESTED IN THE NAME -- which will potentially keep the price down. (Trust me, it works very well.)
2. You mention that you're contacting several domain owners (i.e. making multiple offers). You're playing up SCARCITY, one of the most powerful emotions when it comes to sales. For all this person knows they could reply and say "okay, I'll sell it" but you may come back and say, "sorry someone replied to our email first and now we have a domain."
3. By closing with the "we'll pay you right away" it makes the offer more REAL. Many of these domain owners get offers that people back out of and have no intention to actually pay. And you're also ASSUMING THE SALE by saying, "what's your PayPal address?" :-)
Again, all of these things are very, very powerful and I have tweaked this initial contact email over the years.
ADDITIONAL TIPS
Let's say you initially offer $2,500 on a great name and the owner counters with, "I couldn't sell it for that, I've had higher offers. I would never sell it for anything less than $10K."
FIrst, you must IGNORE anything they say. You'll get the "I've turned down higher offers" response a lot. In the example response about $10K above, unless you would love to have it for $10K, just reply with something like this... "While I do think your name is possibly worth $10K to someone, we just don't have the budget for that much, sorry. I could probably get something more like $5K-$7K approved, but even that's pushing it. Anyway, thanks for your time."
That's it. Cut them off. Trust me, they'll come back to you 90% of the time. Sometimes you just have to be a little PATIENT and you'll save a fortune. Remember to always play up the SCARCITY. "That's just too much for our budget... looks like we'll just go with an alternative name that we've been negotiating for a lot less, even though we preferred your name. Thanks for your time and at least trying to work something out." That's NOT what they want to read from you. ;-)
There are THOUSANDS of amazing domain deals out there waiting to happen. I, personally, buy domains all the time this way. In fact, this is probably a good time to negotiate some deals as many people need the cash more than in recent years.
FINAL TIP: It's not uncommon to settle on a final price that is 30% of what their original asking price was. Keep that in mind as a general rule of thumb. I've had many deals for great names where someone "really wanted $60,000" and we closed the sale around $20K.
90%! Simply not correct. Not even close.
And this:
"If it's a great domain then $5K-$10K is usually the starting point. These amounts are enough to get anyone's attention. I've bought many $100K+ value domains for $15K-$20K by starting with a $5K or $7K offer."
Bullshit artist. By "100k+" names does he mean he bought many names he sold for 100k+ for 15 to 20k? Or that he values them at 100k+ (when he tries to sell them).
"Let me know and I can have the funds wired to you next day or PayPal'd to you. Just let me know your PayPal address."
Wrong advice when writing to many sellers. Sounds like you know the business. If you are trying to buy a domain from someone else in the business they will wonder why you are offering to buy it to them (and then know you have to mark up the domain as well).
Another tip: Don't play dirty. I caught someone trying to initiate a transfer on one of my domains without my knowledge. Naturally, it failed. Out of spite, I snapped up the .net and .org counterparts, which were still available. If it weren't for that dick move, I probably would have pointed out that they were there for the taking.
I thought this was standard practice ever since the slashdot.com debacle.
If Slashdot had owned the .com, it wouldn't have happened.
An Australian example is crikey.com.au, who for years were troubled by people referring to them as crikey.com -- in print media, on TV, even in Hansard.
So you are saying that if someone wrote to you from a corporate address at General Electric ge.com you wouldn't reply to an inquiry if they didn't make an offer?
And taking that one step further that person who is a serious buyer could be masking their identity behind a gmail account.
I think it's a mistake not to reply to an email. Even if just to say "not for sale make offer" or whatever you want to say.
Many times brokers (who have valid buyers with money) are inquiring. If they don't get a response they will move on.
Just my perspective I'm a big believer in always responding.
NO. DON'T DO THIS.
Always use an escrow service. I didn't and I got scammed by no one else but a fellow startup founder. The amount wasn't great, $400, but that left an awful aftertaste that is hard to describe.
That said I've had people wire me money (but I've got a traceable reputation etc.)
I won't take credit cards or paypal (when selling) because of the potential for chargebacks.
However, I will point out one thing I disagree with.
" The fact is, domains are only worth what someone is ready to hand you a check for. (A tip to all you wannabe speculators.) I've seen many GREAT domains never get sold, so always keep that in mind."
Almost. A lot of those truly valuable names have type in traffic which can be monetized (those landing pages full of links you always see) and can actually make decent money. So when your offer doesn't line up with the expected income stream of the domain over time, it doesn't matter how long I wait to sell it. It earns money every day, every month, every year.
Of course, most domains don't earn anything or get any real type in traffic.
It's also funny to watch the evolving arms race of owners vs buyers and the tactics used. It's constantly changing and people are improving on both sides. If a bunch of people start using this exact template, domainers are going to look at this and try and take you for more. Figure out this exact play (it's not all that unique). Domainers holding really good stuff know how to wait indefinitely for a buyer. Some of these guys have been doing it for over a decade. One lost sale may not fit into their business model of getting super high prices when they own 5000, 50000 or 500000 names.
This is very true.
Also: one domain sold for the right price makes up for a decade of fees for 100's or even thousands of domains.
1) Create a Gmail account for some common name (Joe Smith) and email from that account first, asking for the price.
2) If you get a response, proceed from there. If no response, create another Gmail account for a common name, and email with a concrete offer.
No real name of person making offer: ditto.
Joe Smith from randomemail at gmail.com which I can't google for: ditto.
In other words, if you start by playing games you likely are not serious anyway and there is no point wasting time.
An email from a real person (sorry to all the Joe Smiths in the world) with an established reputation accompanied by a non-insulting offer will always get a response, even if it is a polite 'sorry, not interested'.
My point is - even if you get no response for the first email, since you didn't send it from your real address, you can always send a second one, and you can send it "as youself", and make an offer right away - as soon as you get an idea of what kind of seller you're dealing with.
Sad, but I totally see a case for hiding your identity or going through another entity - brokerage, low-cost lawyers, etc.
I strongly suspect all of what is written in your comment is aimed at boosting the market for domain names, because you own lots. There are so many good domain names available (http://blog.nametoolkit.com/domain-names-taken), that the only reason you would buy one in the secondary market is because you are already trading under that name in real life.
What famous site do we know of that bought its domain in the secondary market?
See http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F1997R/Windsor/lawdip.html for a contrasting opinion. Lawyers like to go first in all negotiations. They call it "Controlling the Document".
As to the discussion of whether domain parking should be allowed, think of it like real estate. Those who own vast tracts of land may develop it, they may sell it or they may just sit on it for the rest of their life and pass it to their heirs. Premium domains are exactly the same.