YUFL.com

Got an offer for Yufl.com on Sedo.com and decided to put the name to auction. Current bid is $60.  Auction ends on December 10.  Domain is registered at GoDaddy to April 2008. 

.In Domains

One of the most under-rated domain extensions is .in.  .in is the country extension for India.

Here’s a few facts about India:

• Population of India is 1.2 billion. It is expected to become the most populous nation in the world by 2025.
• Recent economic growth of 8% per year.
• Rapidly growing middle class that will increasingly be able to afford and use computers.
• Huge high tech industry including out-sourcing by companyies based in the United States and other industrialized countries. The high tech city of Bangalore now rivals Silicon Valley in California.

Note that anyone can own a .in domain – you don’t require a presence in India.

A few of the domains that I own are:

mfn.in
mox.in
nft.in
nsh.in
tnh.in

PayPal and Domaining

A frequent question among beginning domainers is the use of PayPal and whether accepting PayPal makes you vulnerable to fraud.  The fear is that people will pay for and receive your domain and then dispute the tranaction to get a refund.  Here’s my understanding of how it works. 

Section 11 of the PayPal user agreement describes PayPal’s policy on chargebacks.  It states that:  “A Chargeback is covered if it was due to non-receipt of merchandise, or an unauthorized payment. A Reversal is covered if it was due to an unauthorized payment. The Seller Protection Policy does not cover Claims for Significantly Not as Described or for non-receipt of merchandise, or sales of intangible goods, services, or licenses for digital content.”  Clearly domains are intangible goods and therefor not covered by the PayPal Buyer protection policy.  Nevertheless buyers in some countries may be able to do a credit card chargeback if their PayPal payment was funded by a credit card. 

Here’s a few tips for protecting yourself:

- know your buyer.  If you are dealing in an domain name forum like NamePro’s or anther forum where there is a buyer feedback – look at the feedback and if you don’t feel right about a transaction its ok to pass. 

- require that payment be from the seller’s cash balance.  Your buyer can’t do a credit card chargeback if he doesn’t use a credit card.  Also saves on fees if your money is paid to a personal account. 

- For higher dollar amount Escrow.com is a good alternative.  But their $25 minimum fee makes it too expensive for smaller dollar transactions.  One platform I’ve used for smaller amounts is TDNam.  Cost is only $5 for transactions under $100 and I’ve been told by TDNam that if you delivery the domain they absorb the risk of chargebacks.  Of course both buyer and seller have to both be members of TDNam which is $4.99/year. 

My personal experience with PayPal has been good.  I’ve done hundreds of transactions and have not yet had a chargeback. 

10 Tips for Protecting your Domain Name Investments

How would feel about losing a domain name worth $44,000?  Someone held the domain name Fleming.com and let the domain expire.  The domain name went for auction at SnapNames and was sold for $44,261.  The previous owner’s share of this beauty?  Zero, zippo, nadda.  The proceeds were entirely split between SnapNames and the former registar.  This little drama occurs hundreds of times every day causing domain owners to collectively lose millions of dollars. 

A different type of loss occurs when an account is hyjacked – somehow, someone discovers an account password gets into your account and steals your names.  This article consists of 10 tips for guarding your domain name investment. 

1. Use a password for each registrar account which is unique to each account, kept secure and impossible for someone else to guess – passwords like ‘pass’ are definitely a bad idea.
2. If you own a name make sure the whois lists you as the domain owner. Whois should not list an employee, web developer or web host. And there is no reason for you to share your password or allow someone else to log in to domain registration account. There have been cases where employees, developers and web hosts have decided to keep an employer’s or client’s domain name – don’t be a victim.
3. Make sure your domains are locked. Each domain registrar has slightly different procedures for accomplishing this but if the domain is locked it means that transfer requests to a different request are automatically rejected until you unlock the domain.
4. Keep your contact information up-to-date including a working e-mail address that you check regularly. This will enable you to receive renewal notices and any notifications from your registrar about activity in your account. ICANN rules require you to maintain up-to-date contact information on your domains.
5. Don’t use free e-mail address. Free e-mail addresses may expire if you don’t log on for a period. This will enable a potential hyjacker to take over your e-mail address.
6. Maintain records of your domains and their expiry dates so you are not dependent on receiving an expiry notice from your registrar.
7. Consolidate your domain names at a single registrar. This limits the number of accounts that have to monitor. 
8. Beware of ‘phishing’ scams.  Make sure that e-mails – are really from your registar – and not an attempt to defraud you.  One sure fire tip – your registrar will never e-mail you asking you for your log-in name and password.  When in doubt about an e-mail call the registrar’s Tech Support or log in to your account using a known web link.  Don’t depend on a link in an e-mail which could be fraudulent.
9. Avoid trademarked domains. If your name contains Microsoft, Mastercard or any trademarked word you are inviting legal action that will result in you losing your domain name.
10. Consider how your domain name will be sold should you die or become unable to maintain your domain names. Without a plan in place your domain name will expire and will be taken from you and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

4 Letter .com’s Buyout!

Dyyo.com shows a list of only 265 domains remaining.  People have continued to buy domains since the last update.  I checked a few of the domains and most are now registered.  We are likely to see a full buy-out of 4 letter .com’s in the next update.  Good news for all of us that have been investing in 4 letter .com domains. 

Of course there is always tasting going on in the 4 character market and drops of tasted domains may mean the buy-out does not last the first time around.  But the trend toward a buy-out has been going on for a long time here and it will hold if not today – very soon. 

There’s been a lot of speculation about an increase in prices once the buy-out occurs.  It will be interesting to see.  It partly depends on who did the buy-out.  If its predominately long term investors who are not willing to sell until the right offer comes along then prices will move up a notch.   If its short-term investors trying to do a quick flip we may see some cheap domains very quickly – as these domains appear in places like EBay. 

For my part I was not involved in the buy-out.  The list of remaining domains over the last month has consisted of very low quality letter combinations.  All of these domains have been tasted for traffic multiple times so you know there is not sufficient parking income to pay for registration fee. 

10 Tips For Buying Domains on EBay

There are bargains to be had buying domain names on EBay.  I buy a few every week and bid on lots more.  Here’s a few tips for a successful domain buying experience on EBay. 

1. Know the Value of What Are Buying

There are lots of resources on the internet to check the value of domains. If you are buying 3 character domains 3character.com provides a price guide each month. Another great source of historical price data is EBay itself. At EBay.com click on Buy tab. In the search box type in ‘domain names’ and click on the Search button. The brings up the following navigation:

Computers & Networking > Other Hardware & Services > Domain Names > .com

Click on the Domain Names link to get a list of all domain names. Now click on the Advanced Search link. Then next page click on the checkbox near the top that says “Completed Listings Only” and ensure that the ‘In this Category’ pick list reads ‘Domain Names’. Now scroll to the bottom and click on the ‘Search’ button. You should now see a listing of recent selling items. The items in red are those which failed to sell and the green items are those which did sell.

2. Check Buyer Feedback

After each EBay transaction both the buyer and seller are invited to rate the performance of the other. This provides a valuable rating tool that allows you be comfortable that the seller will carry out their oblgations after you pay them for a domain. On the far right of each EBay listing is a section that says “Meet the Seller”. To the right of the sellers name is a number in brackets – this indicates the number of unique feedbacks by other buyer or sellers. Below this is the percentage of positive feedbacks. Personally I look for unique feedbacks of at least 10 and percent positive feedback of 100% or at the least in the high 90’s. You can click on the feedback number to see the individual comments of other EBay’ers who have bought or sold with your potential seller.

Of course you can never eliminate the risk that seller will not perform but knowing your seller you can signficantly limit the risk. I have done hundreds of purchases on EBay and my losses from non-perfoming sellers – less than a dollar.

3. Double check the domain extension

If you want a .com domain make sure that check that its what you are buying. A few times I’ve read through the domain description too quickly and ended up buying a .net domain or .info domain when I thought I was buying a .com domain. Ouch!

4. Check for handling charges

A few domain sellers charge a handling charge for transferring the domain to you. Read the EBay listing carefully to see if there is a handling charge. If there is a handling charge deduct this amount from the maximum that you are willing to pay for the domain.

5. Check the Registar

If you have a favourite registrar where you want all your domains to be located make sure that the domain is already at that registrar. Or if you are willing to accept a domain at a different registrar – ensure that registrar offers a free push. Among the registrars offering a free push of a domain to a new account are GoDaddy, Moniker, ENom, Fabulous, Dotster, DynaDot, DomainSite and NameCheap.com. If its a different registrar make a quick check of the web site to ensure that a free push is offered.

6. Check the Expiry Date

Once you buy a name you will be responsible for any renewals. Some sellers place names on EBay which are about to expire. You may still decide to buy but you need to be aware of the upcoming renewal fee. Best place to check both the registrar and the expiry date is a whois checker like Whois.sc or very often the registrar and expiry date are listed in the item description.

7. If it looks to be good to be true…

If you see an extremely valuable domain being offered for pennies on the dollar be cautious – fraud does happen on EBay – you don’t want to be the next victim. A couple of things you can do. One is simply to forget the listing on the theory that it simply is too good to be true. Alternatively you could contact the owner of the domain using the whois information and confirm that the owner is for selling on EBay. Or you can is contact the seller via their EBay listing and ask if they will accept payment via Escrow.com – see suggestion below.

8. For large amounts

If you are not comfortable paying the anticipated price because of the potential for fraud an option is paying through Escrow.com. You will need to contact the seller to confirm that they will accept payment via Escrow.com and to discuss who will pay the escrow charges. Normally the escrow charges are either paid by the buyer or split between the buyer and seller. If the buyer won’t accept escrow – move on to the next domain – there’s lots of opportunities to buy.

9. Use sniping software

Sniping software is used on EBay to automatically place bids just a few seconds before an auction ends. The advantage of sniping software is that you avoid bidding early which would tend to drive up the price of the domain. By using sniping software you get to bid in the final seconds of the auction without having to be at your computer when the auction ends. The sniping software that I use is Auction Defender.com. A free trial version of the program is available. Cost of the program is $14.95 with a charge of $9.95 per year after the first year if you want to continue to receive support and upgrades.

10. Be selective on the auctions you bid on

While there are a few gems there are also a lot of junk domains listed on EBay. Domains that are poor names, the wrong extension or just overpriced. You will be a lot better off buying focusing on quality rather than attempting to every domain on the list.

These suggestions may seem complex but after a few days of reviewing EBay listings you’ll be bidding like a pro.

4 Letter .com’s Registration

Dyyo.com publishes statistics daily about 4 letter .com’s.  For September 4 letter .com’s continued their rapid registration.  The graph from Dyyo.com shows the rapid decline in the number of available 4 letter .com’s:

At this point all 4 letter .com’s beginning with A, B, C, D and E have now been registered. Further every one of the remaining domains contains at least one of the following lower quality letters – Q, X or Z. It now seems likely that all 4 letter .com’s will be gone by the end of the year. Good news for anyone buying 4 letter .com domains.