Would you use this classifieds service for domain names? | Hacker News Reader

Would you use this classifieds service for domain names?

domains.wiffin.com

7 pointserikwiffin24 comments

After this thread earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652952 I decided that it would be fun to put together a "domain name classifieds". There's a few things I'd add, but I wanted to get some feedback first, see if I was even heading in the right direction.

Haven't bought a domain for it yet, maybe I'll find one on my own site if this takes off ;)

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The site looks like a parked domain/spam. I navigated away the first time I loaded the page.

You might want to differentiate the design a bit (not sure how).

The search function could stand to give more results. It said 'rivetinggames' in the little list oin the side so I typed in rivet and got nothing. I typed in 'rivetinggames' and got it. What if I would looking for a domain with the word 'money' in to the title? I'd like to be able to type in 'money' and see all the possiblities.

The search function is a mysql fulltext. Obvious drawbacks to searching for words inside of words, so I added a "tags" parameter. from the looks of things, if you had searched "riveting" you would have found something.

Obviously this is not a great solution, but I don't know of too many better options. :/

You could create use a function to generate lists of substrings, and places them under tags. Then you could wieght the tags, giving user generated ones highest prioity and higher priority to tags that more fully match the domain. You could then organize the results by the value of matched tags.

I've changed the fulltext to allow for a wildcard after the actual query. It's not perfect. "cool" wont match "imcool.com", but hopefully people will use the tags category to their advantage.

Haven't bought a domain for it yet, maybe I'll find one on my own site if this takes off ;)

I put on my two excess domains, and I tried to put in that I'd give them away for a $10 donation to a worthy non-profit. (Some guy in the domain swap thread asked for the same, and I thought it was a good idea.)

Instead, it converted that to $0. Maybe have a comment field?

Also, how can I edit listings after the fact?

Edit: http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/ is pretty good for protecting emails from getting harvested.

I'll add a comments field. I haven't implemented editing yet. I was looking to show off a very unfinished product to the audience who inspired it before making it a really viable service. Mailhide sounds like a good idea.

Thanks for the pointers.

You can now edit and delete your listings. Also, I've implemented mailhide.

Another thought: put a better title on this news item, please.

Actually, I thought it was good question to ask, certainly better than the dozens of "review my startup" posts I frequently see here.

It is, but a 3 or 4 word description along with it would be nice.

"Would you use this classifieds service for domain names?" sounds about right

I can't answer your question if you don't give me any information about what it would cost. Also you need a fuzzier search engine (proteo shows up but not when I search for prote)

Right now, as a service to the Hackernews community, I wouldn't consider charging anything. If this really takes off (unlikely) then I'd consider setting up a service where people can pay each other through the site, with my holding the money in escrow until both parties agree the transfer has gone through. In that case I'd have to figure out how much that would be worth.

The search function is a mysql fulltext. Obvious drawbacks to searching for words inside of words, so I added a "tags" parameter. Obviously this is not a great solution, but I don't know of too many better options. :/

Yikes! Are you really showing everyone's email address?? You have to fix that immediately!

I've implemented http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/ that should fix the worst of things.

Do you know about http://sedo.com?

yes, all my domains are also listed there. But from what I remember, sedo had a lower bound on how much you could sell a domain for, and takes a cut of the sale. Right now this is more of a craigslist knockoff, but tailored for domains.

Cool, good luck!

A lot of suggestions were made as to how this could be better. I've implemented most of them if you want to check it out.

Where's your about page?

Hacked it together in a few hours last night, didn't bother to set up an about page. In retrospect... probably a good idea.

I've added one here: http://domains.wiffin.com/about.php

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