Domainr Blog

How to Acquire a Domain Name (That Someone Already Owns)

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:14:00 -0500

Background: We created Domainr almost four years ago, and since then many people have contacted us asking how to buy domain names that other people already own. We’ve not yet been through that process ourselves, so we asked our friend Julian Shapiro, founder of NameLayer, to write a guest post describing how it works — here’s Julian’s advice:

1) Direct Contact

If there are no contact details on the domain’s site, perform a WHOIS lookup using DomainTools.com. You’ll either be presented with the domain owner’s contact information, or you’ll be stone-walled by a “Privacy Protection” service. If the former, contact the owner using the fantastic advice recounted in the first comment on this blog post by Fred Wilson. If the latter, you can pay for a Whois History report at DomainTools, which will give you all the WHOIS records DomainTools has stored for the domain in question. Your goal is to find a point in time where the domain’s owner had not yet set up Privacy Protection, and therefore momentarily had his or her contact details publicized to some extent. You can then proceed to contact the owner, using the guidance from Fred’s blog post.

Pros

Direct contact means you can offer a non-standard payment. For example, if you get the owner’s email address through WHOIS, you can search for their email on Facebook, read their profile details, and get a sense for who they are and how you can appeal to them. (If it’s someone in the tech industry, you might offer shares in your company like Mint did or advertise their name in the footer of your site like Firefox did in the early days.)

You can bypass the major aftermarkets (Sedo and Afternic). When you’ve come close to finalizing a price with the owner, mention using Escrow.com instead. Sedo and Afternic charge around 20%, while Escrow’s fees are much more reasonable. (Escrow.com is what NameLayer uses for all its $2,000+ sales, and we’ve never had any issues with them.) This way the owner will ultimately keep so much more of the sale price, that it’s as if they’re being paid an extra 15% on top of the offer. It also hides the final sale price from public records, which for some people is incredibly important. Although Sedo (the largest domain aftermarket) might give you the option to hide the sale price, they’ll charge you to do it. Ultimately, using Escrow.com is a huge win that might tip the owner in favor of your lower offer.

Cons

If it’s a domain that receives a lot of offers, your email may just get lost in the noise. If you’re worried about your email going unnoticed, then consider using a brokerage service (discussed below), which will make your inquiry stand out. Brokerage programs require that the acquirer pay up-front fees, and brokers handle the transferring and escrow processes. It’s a huge bonus for the domain owner and they’ll consequently pay more attention to brokerage emails.

2) Brokerages

Use DomainTools.com to do a WHOIS lookup — it’ll tell you which registrar the domain is using. Visit that registrar’s website and search for their “Brokerage/Buy/Offer” service. The trick here is to always use the brokerage service of the registrar with which the domain is registered — this way the registrar knows how to contact the domain’s owner, even if the owner is using Privacy Protection. If for example you were to use GoDaddy’s service to contact the owner of a domain registered with Network Solutions (which has their own brokerage), GoDaddy might not be any more effective at getting in touch with owner than you yourself.

Pros

See Cons in the previous section.

The corresponding registrar actually knows the domain owner’s contact details.

You hide your identity as the buyer. (Then again, you could also just create a random @yahoo or @gmail email address for the sake of making a Direct Contact.)

Cons

You’ll pay a fee to use the service.

The buyer will see your formal approach as a sign that you have money to spend. They’ll wind up haggling harder and you will pay more on average.

3) Legal Claim

If you believe you’re legally entitled to the ownership of a domain because it infringes on a trademark that you registered prior to the domain’s registration, or because they are misrepresenting themselves as you, or for a few other reasons, consider exploring the UDRP. Read through both of those links thoroughly before you proceed with this option, as it will cost you time, energy and money, and you might not win.

Pros

You’ll pay nothing besides the UDRP fees in order to acquire the domain.

If the UDRP decision ends in your favor, you’re almost guaranteed to acquire the domain.

Cons

If the UDRP decision is not in your favor, the owner will have largely “proven” the validity of their ownership and will accordingly be stubborn when haggling with you for it, because they know that you won’t be able to easily fall back on legal action.

4) Aftermarket Bidding

If the domain in question is listed on Sedo or Afternic, then you can simply place a bid. The only advice I can offer here is to first inform yourself of the reality of domain name analysis, research past sales with similar keywords, and get a feel for the domain name aftermarket’s trends.

Pros

All bids are contractually binding, so the owner is less likely to back out.

The haggling process is systematized and straightforward.

The aftermarket in question will handle the entire transaction process.

Cons

You can’t offer non-standard payment.

You can’t easily use the power of written persuasion to talk them down to a lower price.

Julian is the founder of NameLayer.com, a domain name portfolio for tech entrepreneurs. You can follow him at @Shapiro.

Domainr's new development environment -- Installing GCC 4.2, Ruby 1.9.3 & gem dependencies on Mac OS X Lion

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:05:01 -0500

We’re almost done with Domainr’s infrastructural overhaul: we’re moving from Python & Django on App Engine to Ruby 1.9.3 and Rails 3.1 — we’ll discuss the reasons for this in a later post.

We ran into a few development environment hiccups while working on the port, so Cameron made this gist to automate setting up our general dependencies. The last mile just connects our Ruby application server to Nginx’s reverse proxy. Here are some highlights:

Use the --with-gcc=clang flag in order to install Ruby 1.9.3 via RVM on Mac OS X Lion.
You may need gcc-4.2 (not to be confused with XCode 4.2) for database drivers or gems that don’t build properly under clang/llvm, so he’s included a homebrew formula to download, compile and install it.

Here’s the gist:

Looking for a GoDaddy alternative?

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:11:24 -0500

If so, definitely give Kevin Cheng’s thorough post about his quest a read. Domainr supports most of the registrars he investigated, but let us know if there are any you’d like us to add.

.tv = Serious Revenue for Tuvalu

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:32:03 -0500

The Guardian:

“Tuvalu’s GDP is so tiny — about US$37 million — that a line item on the budget measures sales of national stamps and coins to collectors… Royalties from the sale of the domain name, which by last year was used by about 110,000 Web sites, could reap Tuvalu US$40 million in a decade. Such funds largely paid for the 2002 tar-sealing and lighting of the roads on Funafuti.”

Via 101domain

Decommissioning Domainr's RSS Feeds

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 20:28:29 -0400

We will be decommissioning Domainr’s RSS feeds on Monday, November 14th, 2011 — email us at ping+rss@domai.nr if you need them for some reason.

'Round the Tubes

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:34:00 -0400

Domainr has gotten some nice write-ups around the web recently—here are a few that we’ve noticed and appreciate!

Geno Prussakov’s case study on Domainr’s utility for finding available short domains, as well as its affiliate revenue model.
Zach Browne’s post about finding the perfect domain name.

Domainr API Apps

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 09:34:00 -0400

We’re glad to see Domainr’s API getting some use — here are some example apps utilizing it:

iOS

Quick Domain Check (iPad, iPhone)
Domainster

Android

Exygy Domains

Domainr for iPhone

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:15:00 -0400

Domainr for iPhone is now available in the App Store!

Huge props to our good friend Sahil Desai, who built the app in his spare time because he wanted an easy way to search for domains from his iPhone. In fact, he reached out to us back in 2009 about building the app, which prompted Randy to build out Domainr’s API for this exact sort of use. Thank you, @Sahil!

We’ve also made the app’s source available on github, in case anybody wants to hack on it. Let us know what you’re finding with it in our forum.

IDN ccTLD support

Sat, 08 May 2010 06:22:00 -0400

Via @domainr: “Domainr supports all three new TLDs: http://domai.nr/about/tlds#idn”

Props to @rr for pushing out the update!

Domainr for Android

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:49:00 -0400

Hey Android users,

Our compatriots at Exygy have whipped up a neat little app* that uses Domainr’s API for doing domain search. Check it out! (or use barcode scanner to snap this QR code)

the app is called, “Exygy Domains” in the Android Marketplace.

Short Domain Search

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:05:00 -0500

Domainr’s search results now show vowel-stripped “shortened domains,” which have become quite popular recently thanks to services like Bitly and Awe.sm.

Domainr does its best to show whether or not it’s possible to register a domain, but many NICs and Registrars have their own rules for things like minimum # of characters in a domain, etc. If you encounter an error in Domainr’s search results, please let us know in the forum and we’ll get it fixed asap.

Enjoy!

Affiliate Programs Need Unit Tests

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:19:00 -0400

Kelly over at Hunch has done some investigative digging into one of their affiliate relationships that was mysteriously not converting. Domainr and Hunch share an affiliate-based business model, where both are search sites trying to help people find what they’re looking for:

“We signed up to the Best Buy affiliate program through Commission Junction, and tested Best Buy links in several topics for which we already had a history of strong post-click conversions. While CJ’s reporting platform showed nearly the same ad impressions and affiliate clicks for BestBuy as we tracked internally, CJ reported not just a lower post-click conversion rate than we had historically seen, but actually zero. Several more days went by, clicks were still flowing to Best Buy, but they reported zero resulting sales.”

“We decided to test this by buying some merchandise ourselves. Two of our employees, on two different days, followed Hunch affiliate links to Best Buy and then bought something. CJ still showed no sales activity. Houston, we have a problem.”

Long story short, Kelly uncovered a huge snafu with Best Buy’s affiliate service, and Hunch promptly discontinued their relationship with them. While we’ve yet to do this digging through Domainr’s logs, we’re curious what we’d uncover. And more broadly, Kelly highlights the inherent need for trust in the system:

“Bottom line: for cpa-driven affiliate relationships to work, there has to be trust and reliability in the system for accurate post-click reporting and payments. So it’s disheartening when even a big brand like Best Buy can have such a complete failure in their affiliate model, as we experienced above.”

“One implication of all this: I would gladly pay a 3rd party to conduct “real transaction” audits on the sites with whom I have an affiliate relationship. I’m not talking about click matching, but actually buying a low-priced physical good from time to time (and perhaps then returning it later for a refund). This approach couldn’t be efficiently scaled to take representative frequent samples for a given affiliate, but still, at low volume it could potentially identify the most egregious offenders. Because as we found out with Best Buy, where there was smoke, there was fire.”

We agree wholeheartedly. Thanks for posting about your research, Kelly!

Welcome, Smashing Visitors!

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:54:00 -0400

The folks at Smashing Mag very kindly mention Domainr in their post about finding, registering and managing domains:

The popular Domainr service comes as easy and clean as it gets. They call themselves a “domain name search engine” and solely focus on the domain search experience. Searching for a domain name is very intuitive and fast indeed. If you found a name you can choose from a list of registrars where you can register the respective domain.

Apart from the standard .COM, .NET & .ORG domains, Domainr’s strength is surely the ability to find domain hacks with exotic country code top-level domain extensions e.g. burri.to (.TO - Tonga), lifestrea.ms (.MS - Montserrat) or cli.gs (South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands).

Domainr makes the domain search process fun and is probably the easiest tool to find creative domain names in 2009.

We’re deeply honored—thanks for the kind words!

Registering a .nr domain

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:36:00 -0400

Occasionally we hear questions from folks about Domainr’s .nr domain, inquiring about the .nr registrar’s scary registration process. It’s definitely one of the sketchiest-looking webapps we’ve ever come across, but the process worked for us, and Cameron’s described it over on Get Satisfaction. Here’s a summary:

go through the process on Cenpac’s web site
wire them the $
email them that you’ve wired the $
you should hear back from them (we did) in < 24 hours

Domainr and Design

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:19:00 -0400

We recently heard from a Domainr user via email, inquiring about a design technique used to create Domainr’s look and feel. If you’re curious about that sort of thing, take a look at Randy’s writeup:

ydnar.com: CSS Images, Sprites, and iPhone Webkit

Web Worker Daily on domains

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:45:00 -0400

WWD has some great advice for folks searching for domains for their projects, and we concur:

“I think that you can take the “get a dot-com at all costs” mentality too far, so you may want to consider alternatives to .com.”

Keep Registries and Registrars Separate

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:41:00 -0400

CircleID:

“Since 1999, when Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) and ICANN agreed on the separation of NSI’s combined registry and registrar functions, the market as grown from about 5 million to over 100 million domain names in the generic TLDs. The registrar companies grew from a solitary one to over 900 (500 active) strong, and retail prices of registrations plummeted from $35.00 per year to an average between $10.00 and $12.00 per year.”

Seems like a no brainer to me, then George Kirikos drops more wisdom in the comments:

“The solution is to reframe the issue from the point of view of maximizing consumer benefits through tenders, and ignoring both the registrars and the registries. Indeed, reframed in this manner, the strongest case can be made that there should be no new gTLDs, at least until such time as a proper economic study determines that they would add value for consumers that exceed the negative externalities.”

Agreed.

Announcing the Domainr API

Sun, 24 May 2009 10:57:00 -0400

Hey developers: check out Domainr’s new API, which lets you embed domain search directly in your site. Here’s what it currently returns:

domain possibility: send a string, and Domainr returns domain hack permutations
domain availability: whether or not domains are already registered
registration: direct links to registrars so your users can register domains

You can choose the super-simple HTML forms API, or the fancier JSON API.

Domain Hacks Are Short Domains

Sun, 24 May 2009 09:38:00 -0400

@domainr:

“Domain hacks are the original short URLs. They’re as resistant to link-rot as the rest, except they cost money.”

Lately URL shorteners have been making headlines, and some of the coverage is definitely exciting. This is just a friendly reminder that domain hacks can be inherently short, and you should totally consider one for your site/service if you’ve got links to track. And for the tracking side, we recommend awe.sm

Use Domainr to help name your stuff

Tue, 05 May 2009 11:19:00 -0400

Smashing Magazine’s running a really, really great piece about choosing domain names. It’s way more than that though—they’re talking about name selection and iteration in a very insightful and strategic way. “Meta,” even. Some key takeaways:

domains can be discoverable or brandable
names can be assembled in a number of different ways: compounded, blended, phrased, tweaked, affixed, or even made up
be mindful of their linguistic essence: what they mean, and how they sound

Domainr’s a perfect tool for helping you name things, which is why we built it in the first place.