information A Guide to Brandable Domains, With BrandBucket's Michael Krell

michaeljkrell said:

To those questioning my integrity and the integrity of BrandBucket, I will repeat that no names associated with myself, Margot or any Brand Ambassadors receive any special treatment in any search results or category listings.These names are also not disproportionately suggested to potential buyers if they contact us directly about helping them choose a name. All these names are treated exactly the same as every other name on the marketplace. Neither Margot or myself handle sales inquiries and when our sales staff is asked by the buyer for suggestions, they do not see who owns the domains when searching through the inventory.

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Yes, some of us question the integrity, but you're missing the point if you think special treatment in search results / categories is our only concern. This is an unproven speculative concern that derives from a time when your ambassador told sellers to focus on domain categories and tags, not logo's. This is something that the average seller has no access to that could could skew search results / categories.

If you focus on the operative words, our concern is the special treatment you and your insiders receive. It is an issue of Tomato, Zomato. You say we don't receive special treatment by X, I say you receive special treatment by Y. Saying you don't receive special treatment for X does not negate that you receive special treatment Y. You are a master of words. Please don't be short with them.

We have real concerns, we would like real answers to. Thank you very much Michael for your time, I understand a lot has been presented. Your time is valuable as a director, and I don't expect answers immediately. I'm sure DTD BrandBucket tasks take precedent over PR and Policy concerns. I continually urge you to take a closer look at what is being presented to you.

London555 said:

We'd like to buy a portfolio of a min of 50 to 500 BB published names - no more that 8 letters and at least 6 mo. left on reg. Send us a note please.

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I have domains that meet your criteria if you're interested. You'll have to message me, since I can't PM you for some reason. The domains have been removed from BrandBucket so you can list them elsewhere or relist them (fee's have been paid) if you would like.

^ If I resell the domains, yes, my listing fee's are longer wasted. This is the benefit of having a strong marketplace without integrity questions. If BrandBucket loses integrity, then resellers will become less interested in the fact the domain is brandbucket invested. Was it as easy to get a domain on BrandBucket when the voting system was around? No. That was the sell point. It was an exclusive inventory. When listing fee's were no longer free, sellers seemed OK investing into the system because reseller value included the $10 fee + value of domain with sale which was way more than the avg $20 - $50 range we see today .

The BB experience thread contains many examples of sellers congratulating others for reporting their sales. The invested community unselfishly see's sales as a sign of Marketplace Success, and not that a tagrted buyer chose ExampleZo over ExampleZa. When we are all invested, and a reseller market ensues, a 10% sell through rate is good for all. If none of my 100 BB domains sell, then I can easily sell a few of these sought after domains to a BB seller who was fortunate enough to make BB sales that year. BrandBuckets biggest seller doesnt buy these domains, he wil approve your domains for listing fee's and focuses on only buying new domains since, well why should he pay listing fees if he doesnt have to. Sure, he makes enough sales, where he should, but I have no idea what he does and doesn't do. The benefit of being able to resell of these domains allows me to renew the ones that didn't. Is there a reason a reseller should by my BrandBucket published domain? Is there a chance it will never sell, and the new buyer will have to keep passing it off or renew for years? Yes. Is it possible the accepted a bad domain just like they rejected a good domain? Sure, it is. Brandable domains are suggestive. The point of having equally distributed sales is to ensure a fair playing field for all.

If none of my 100 BB domains sell, I can sell 24 BB domains at current BB published value, $30 varies by remaining reg time and quality/keyword of domain. The resale value shows, there is still some value to a BrandBucket domain. If the average acceptance rate is 25%, then one could either buy (a) 4 domains + listing fee (b) BB accepted domain + listing fee (c) BrandBucket published domain. Come to find sales are not distributed equally, and there are several sellers receiving free listing fee's and other advantages similar to MK. What got me most as a newcomer was seeing Michael Krell would report several sales every month on the BB experience thread. He was the owner of HandReg blog, was experiencing great BB success, so like other noobs that come before us today, I too wanted to be like Mike. After analyzing the data that's leaked out, I want to be a whistle blower like Michael Burry to hopefully prevent a bubble - a bubble does not hurt insiders not invested in listing fee's as it would hurt outsiders who are invested in listing fees. IMO,

The below video's are clips from The Big Short. Granted, the video is talking about mortgage default bonds (the USA real estate bubble of 2008) It explains what happens when you allow people to invest in an unstable industry.

In this example: The rating agency S&P was forced to give the bonds a good rating, or else the banks would take their business to a competitor for rating. It is important for rating agencies to have integrity because of the trickle down investing that follows.

How does this apply to domains if:
Rating Agency: BrandBucket
Bonds: Domains
Banks: Domain Investors:
Trickled down investors affected most: Noobs, who have done nothing wrong but want more BB domains to emulate BB's biggest sellers success.


Just how listing fee's are designed to pay for the time of BB, we have domain purchases and renewal fees to pay for every year BrandBucket fails to sell our domain. All bonds need to be graded with integrity or else:


The jenga collapse will not be overnight. If done done with proper growth and integrity, there will be no bubble bursting. IMO, the bubble will burst if the size of the marketplace total published domains X renewal fee becomes disproportionate to amount of total sales. Several other factors will of course come into play, but if continued, the system is designed for the rich to get richer, and the poorer to make just enough to hope for a lucky day. Just as Michael doesn't buy BrandBucket domains from resellers, he waits for them to drop, and publish himself without listing fee. He can afford to do this because (a) he has a continual and unfair access to privy data such as dropped BB domains (b) he makes enough sales marginally to not have to worry about a bad month that effects our investing strategy. We have to wait for sales, and then we can begin publishing the hundreds of BrandBucket approved domains some of us have. We waste months of renewal time having the domain sit without marketplace, just to afford a listing fee. Why does BrandBucket care about a listing fee when they set up a system that is more expensive for these outsiders to compete with in the first place? Other leading marketplaces, some not open to all sellers, adopt these practices as industry standard because BB was able to get away with it for so long.


When sellers begin losing trust in the marketplace, they begin evaluating which domains have they lowest chance of yielding a BrandBucket return, and they begin to sell off domains. They put these domains in a stew, and say, "This stew was good enough to be sold on BrandBucket's menu. There's still good meat in there, but I'm either too full and/or would rather trade my stew for your bread. Our head chef won't buy our meat because hes too busy buying fresh fish for the same price."

I have heard, but never tested, you can pay $5 listing fee's at BrandRoot if you provide a high quality logo, and they don't charge you a logo fee. @Brandroot, if this is true, thank you for allowing for a fair option and changing these industry standards. Namerific does similar things with completely free listing fee's but in my eyes, being nonexclusive they are a completely different marketplace than an exclusive marketplaces like BrandRoot and BrandBucket. For instance NR has domains like Magical/Weed.com (not mine) and GoldenTequila.com (mine). I had to pay a $5 listing fee for GoldenTequila, I'm fine with it because not only did they design a concept logo and include it on their marketplace, I can sell it on all the other nonexclusive marketplaces or even WHOIS request. I think it's wrong for buyers to go around marketplaces, and buy domains via WHOIS but we all do it. If we have a client looking for a marketplace domain, as a domainer, we know we can trade and/or buy the domain at reseller price. It's the benefit of being a domainer active in the community. Domainers know that if they email the domain owner, they can get the domain for less than marketplace by trusting paypal or using escrow to handle the transaction and/or quick sale under asking price. It's wrong, but we know it happens with all marketplaces. Endusers are seperated from domainers. Want a domain at a great price? Become and/or hire a domainer. I think the reason marketplace have these requirements is to prevent anything like Domaining.com tried to pull with their recent promotion BrandRoot explained in below paragraph. Back to the point Domains like Magical Weed and Golden Tequilla are obviously not the typical cookie cutter domains you see at BR and BB. I could be wrong about BrandRoot but I've never seen any booze or buds on BrandBucket. I will detail this further in a new thread later this month, but the point is every marketplace has it's niche. We, a community of sellers and marketplaces aligned, can all benefit if we found a way to work together. granted BrandRoot doesn't accept all sellers but they have their reasons...

I don't know who caught the recent Domaining.com story about the email email that first promoted BrandRoot for selling them a great CVCV for a great price, then two days later, sent out an email bashing them for not honoring the sale, and that they contacted the domain owner and the CVCV can be now found on their marketplace. Sounds grilly to me, but it's not my place to get involved in a marketplace vs marketplace issue. I can only speculate. There's a NamePros thread that explains it more in detail. As a cynical outsider, I wondered if the domaining.com guy had noticed a CVCV.com for a great price, and as any domainer would to try to steal a domain for a great price by going around the marketplace, and attempt the buyer to sell it to them for less. Perhaps the new owner was shocked to find their CVCV listed on BR when it was not their domain. The whole thing confused me because I thought BR required forwarding through URL. I understand how this mistake could have occurred using NS. For instance, when I bought an expired domain from Namesilo, I had to manually change the nameservers so my domain is automatically forwarded to the old nameservers still included with the transfer. BR was pretty quick to delist my domain when I mistakenly made a bulk nameserver change that effected a BR published domain, so yeah. Anyways, this is a grilling for another day.

The industry is changing people. More data, more fun @Dnbolt

We have a certain name there on BrandBucket sitting for well over a year-we recently asked how many visits to the name there were and they couldn't or wouldn't tell us tell us. Great interview James but I wish you had asked Mr Krell how many "inside" ( re director /owners names) sell vs the retail listing domainer names that they charge a listing fee to without telling the domain owner any metrics whatsoever.

pablohc86 said:

Brandable it shuld be the most undervalued niche at the moment.
If a name is purely brandable (because generic names can be great brandable) they are the least liquid category and you may hold it for long with no sale.
You need to develop your nose for good brandable before jump in.
Thanks for the interview, i'm really surspised to see 6 months as an extimated time for an average sale.

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This kind of info can be quite misleading.

What MK is effectively saying is that six months is an average for the names sold, not average for the names listed, because the latter would mean 50% sale ratio, while in reality it is around 3.8%.

For the former, given that BB is not that old and it is constantly growing at fast pace, 6 months is not anything surprising. You could open your own marketplace and after one year boast 6 months average sale period.

Justin Matmor said:

Michael said in an interview he only buys expired domains.

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Michael is often short on words. This may have been his strategy at one point, but it's not part of his new don't worry about the logo's, buy better names pitch. He may or may not have mentioned this, I don't know which interview you speak of. What he meant is he buys expired auction domains, such as GoDaddy CloseOut domains. These domains are not you're normal $1.49 - $9.99 hand regged domains. They cost AT MINIMUM $11 + Renewal Fee, so close to $20 per domain.

If you want to mimic his success, as a domainer, follow @Zandibot Subscribe to his blog, and follow closely to what he says. It's because of people like him that inspired me to become opensource and share nearly everything I know about domains back to the community and new brandable sellers like yourself. The hopes with this logic, is you will one day return the favor and teach me something. It's how we evolve as a community. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

JimJammy said:

You know very well they have an affiliate program. I remember you went mental because an affiliate had one of your names listed on their site! https://www.namepros.com/threads/brandbucket-experience.793278/page-90

https://www.brandbucket.com/affiliates-details/ <-- though I think they are no longer with commission junction. They best thing to do would be to email Michael if you want to be an affiliate.

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I don't think @London555 and @kandyan are talking about an affiliate program.

I think they're saying that if a buyer visits BB through one of my listed names but ends up buying one of the suggested names instead, I should be credited and rewarded as an active part of the sale.

And I think it would be totally fair and makes complete sense.

That has nothing to do with the affiliate program.

More positioned advertising for Brand Bucket to try and scrub away recent negative sentiment.

No domain investor should ever list a domain with BB. Most organic sales that are made by BB go to BB or Mr. Krell himself.

When someone is looking for a brandable and they come across your domain through type-in, what exactly did BB do - nothing. Except for taking a 30% cut for no reason at all, unless you count having a 'landing page' as some kind of miracle service that justifies handing over 30% of a $4k sale that could have been a $8k sale of pure profit if you negotiated for yourself.

I also forgot the $400 logo fee that you just dished out, when you could have gotten that same logo on Fiverr or Freelancer for $20 - $30.

Let's also consider the 'almost' sale... where someone could type-in your domain and be presented with a list of 'similar domains' (typically Krell domains). The visitor may stop and second guess their desire for your domain and will go with another listed on the BB marketplace. - You just lost a sale because you are listed on BB.

Nice article, but the title should be changed to, "How To Pick A Domain I Will Gladly Take 30% Of, With BrandBucket's Michael Krell"

James Iles said:

a newbie like me

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To your own credit; from reading your past posts, subject matter, I think you are more knowledgable than to refer to yourself as a 'newbie'.

The article is good for newcomers to the brand game, brandables are great, but having Krell educate the masses on brandables is like having Dicker talking about how to build niche websites.

To each his or her own, but there is a veil of promotion that is shrouded in featured posts - as any good marketer would have it.

However, in a community forum format such as this, I think it's important for anyone who does come across the content to know that the same person who is touting brandables is speaking from a preferred position where they have advanced placement in a heavily marketed marketplace.

Mr. Deleted said:

Agreed, though some "keyword" names like Hotels.com have become brands, just like Travelocity. So, while selling names like Zomatos is great, I still think they should also own Tomatos.com, as some will be typing that in if they hear it on the radio.

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I think this a good conversation to have since 'brandable' domains as a business model is something fairly new.

The interesting thing with Hotels.com is that they emphasize the dot com in all of their marketing. Something different than what Windows (Microsoft) or Apple are doing. So, yes, a generic keyword can be a brandable when you include the extension. There can only be one Hotels.com. And the fact that they also stress 'the obvious choice for hotels' (using the character of Capt. Obvious in their commercials) is brilliant. If they would only promote their business as simply 'Hotels', it would lose all of the brand because 'hotels' is just too generic. No one can claim a broad generic as their brand, but they can when including the extension. So in this case, yes, a generic keyword domain + extension can become a unique brand. Good example!

disaac81 said:

I am all for selling on a fair platform but seeing the dominance of numbers from insiders is not helping anyone else. But at the end of the day, those sellers who sell 2 names a month, if that is enough for them then good luck.

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Exactly, it's realizations like this that will start a movement. Feedback people, they need feedback. I know a lot of you are nervous this will effect your acceptance rating. I plead to those to shy to speak up, The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Has any other seller made in one year what MK has made in one month besides those who may have sold a premium domain in the XX,XXX - XXX,XXX level.

disaac81 said:

Added to that, BB rejects names that would have been approved if your name was someone else, I have seen certain members names approved when rejected ones are even better \ similar,

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As of now, this is just a theory. Brandable domains are very subjective to a plethora of details. @Dnbolt and I have agreed to work together to conduct a study on BrandBucket rejections. We would appreciate the support of BrandBucket to open up their full database of 400,000 proposed rejections so we can fully audit the data. I urge BrandBucket if they aren't willing to relinquish the data, to hire a data scientist of their own to audit your data to account for any discrepancies that may have occurred through the process in fine tuning your approval system.

To anybody who wish to have their rejections analyzed, stay tuned for further instructions on how to submit your domains. In exchange for your cooperation, we will provide you with additional data you may not have known about your rejected domains, with possible endusers to target.

Keith DeBoer said:

Grilled, you are the Cesar Chavez of domaining.

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Keith, dude, thank you. It's a tireless battle that's rooted from me feeling that I got ripped off of $1,000+ for somebody to write a few descriptions for my domains and not successfully sell them. Yes, if they had more time, they might have sold but they left me no choice but to remove my domains. It's one thing for them to ignore my concerns because running a marketplace takes A LOT of work, and frankly it's unfair for MK to battle me because I spend an unhealthy amount of time glued to the screen digging through the crumbs of data that have leaked out. They have a full time job to run the marketplace. I hope to have a full time job, like Michael, as a BrandBucket seller, but I soon realized the system would not be a viable long term solution as a volume domainer trying to compete with Michael. So here I am speaking up, and I urge all of you too.

If nott noticed already, I have a similar condition to Michael Burry so I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the support @Keith DeBoer. I sincerely apologize to anybody I may have offended during my crusade for a better industry. I followed in the footsteps of certain domainers I shouldn't have, and I now know that is no excuse for some of my posts. Listen to others advice, but question it, and decide for yourself what type of domainer you want to be.

I strive to be like @Zandibot. I know I promote him a lot, but I feel he deserves it. He is the real master of the HandReg. Michael Krell, can you imagine what you could accomplish if you teamed up with somebody like Ali?! He would turn your former blog, HandReg.com into a very valuable domain :D

Ok, it's 9:00 AM. I'm going to try and get some rest now. It's been a long night for me...

Tom K said:

Can we really call any 'brandable' domains as 'keyword' domains?

Keyword domains are domains with a targeted word in them with the goal of enhancing SEO for that particular keyword (since 'keyword' is a term related to SEO). Windows.com is not targeting windows, nor is apple.com selling apples. My understanding is that when it comes to 'brandable' domains these are 'dictionary word' domains meant to be representative or metaphoric in nature of the products/services represented.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

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Yes, it is the connotation rather than the definition that makes these brand names tick.

It is difficult to separate the literal meaning of a word from it's associations at times, but it is the associations that you cannot deny. For example, just because the dictionary says this word means a and b, a and b do not create any feelings, where as an association to an experience does (think of the word sky, it makes you think of memories, blue skies, clearness, the sun, happiness etc).

The experience within each of us bonds to the brand stronger than any other characteristic.

Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions, @James Iles. If anyone else has any other questions, feel free to PM or email me.

Brandables cover a huge spectrum, and if we don't accept it, we aren't saying it is a bad names by any means, it just doesn't fit in our marketplace; no shame in that. While Margot and myself obviously shape what is and is not accepted, we aren't the only ones who are looking at each name. 5-6 people in total look at every name that is submitted to get as many eyes on each name as possible. If we miss something, let us know, and we would be happy to take another look.

To those questioning my integrity and the integrity of BrandBucket, I will repeat that no names associated with myself, Margot or any Brand Ambassadors receive any special treatment in any search results or category listings.These names are also not disproportionately suggested to potential buyers if they contact us directly about helping them choose a name. All these names are treated exactly the same as every other name on the marketplace. Neither Margot or myself handle sales inquiries and when our sales staff is asked by the buyer for suggestions, they do not see who owns the domains when searching through the inventory.

To think what makes a great brandable domain, it is better to think what makes a great brand name. Whether that be a corporate name or a product name.

Relevance is key to most names, be it literal or associative. Generally associative meanings create a stronger attachment with the audience, since it is asking them to think, and attaches to their memories.

Anything with a personal attachment will create a stronger brand.

Remember descriptive names are good and well as long as they are not restrictive.

@DomainVP - this isn't an advertising piece for BrandBucket. I initiated contact with Michael a few weeks ago because I wanted to learn about brandable names, and because of the past success of BrandBucket, I think he's in the best position to give advice to a newbie like me.

These were questions I had about brandable names, and Michael's answers were so good & thorough that we turned it into a published interview.

DomainVP said:

More positioned advertising for Brand Bucket to try and scrub away recent negative sentiment.

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Agreed. They can't dodge the negative sentiment forever. The industry is slowly changing for the better.

James Iles said:

@DomainVP - this isn't an advertising piece for BrandBucket. I initiated contact with Michael a few weeks ago because I wanted to learn about brandable names, and because of the past success of BrandBucket, I think he's in the best position to give advice to a newbie like me.

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Thank you James for taking the time to write this. I appreciate your time.

DomainVP said:

The article is good for newcomers to the brand game, brandables are great, but having Krell educate the masses on brandables is like having Dicker talking about how to build niche websites.

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I don't know much about Adam Dicker or the quality of his work, so I can't compare him to Michael Krell. However, I will say that the current system is rigged, and more people are starting to open their eyes to this. I will continue breaking this industry down until the monopoly is broken up and we can all once again domain in harmony.

michaeljkrell said:

Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions, @James Iles. If anyone else has any other questions, feel free to PM or email me.

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Michael, I know you must be tired of seeing my comments. I will continue to troll every PR article that's done to combat the recent negative sentiment surrounding the future of BrandBucket until BrandBucket starts playing fair or you clear the air once and for all.

This does not mean you have to stop listing your domains with BB or resign as managing director. I believe the two can coexist, but BrandBucket will have to start playing fair. Let's stop this game of insiders vs outsiders before this gets any more out of hand.

I have many other questions for you. I would love the opportunity to interview you. Would you sitting down with me for a live podcast? We can agree to discuss to written questions so you will have ample time to prepare your answers.

I would like to know if any BB member currently receives free listings?

michaeljkrell said:

While Margot and myself obviously shape what is and is not accepted, we aren't the only ones who are looking at each name. 5-6 people in total look at every name that is submitted to get as many eyes on each name as possible.

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How many of your domains have been rejected by these 5-6 people? In the TLDInvestors, all things BrandBucket interview, you stated when you weren't BrandBucket managing director, you submitted 50 domains and only 10 were accepted.

At a 20% acceptance rate, your 4,940 domains equate to 24,700 total domains submitted. I ASSUME all of your domains are submitted.

On top of it all, you set the pricing. Of nearly 2,000 submitted domains, I have never had a domain approved at $4,000. Your last domain published, Up/The/Gut, published at $4,495 Great Logo BTW!

@michaeljkrell Do you REALLY not see how some can find this system rigged? We want to work with you not against you.

BrandBucket isn't stupid. They aren't going to let their marketplace blow up in their face. If you don't like the way they operate, don't do business with them. I don't know enough about how they are giving preferential treatment to some users or themselves. Maybe you are right about that. Where's this leaked data, by the way?

I don't see how "giving loans to anybody with a credit score and a pulse" is similar to what BrandBucket is doing. They receive entries, and then they decide what to accept based on what they think will sell. They aren't just accepting any domain. If they see that sales are going down, they will adjust their criteria for acceptance (to be more strict), right? It's your choice to hand register a domain. It's your choice to submit it to BrandBucket. If it's actually a good name, it might get accepted and even sell there. Nobody can guarantee that though. You might get unlucky and hardly ever sell anything because brandables are so subjective.

"We have to wait for sales, and then we can begin publishing the hundreds of BrandBucket approved domains some of us have."
If you didn't have the money to PUBLISH all the domains that you submitted to BrandBucket (and that got accepted), why did you buy them in the first place?? Bit off more than you can chew, if you ask me.

I might be wrong about all that. I didn't really understand your argument about it being like a bubble Looks like other people did though so that's good :p
By the way, if you really want to spread ideas or push a movement, short and to the point works much better than this, imo People only have so much time and attention in their day. Most can't sit and read these really long rants that are sometimes hard to follow. You just need undeniable facts and a short, persuasive message.
I guess saying that "makes [me] a hypocrite" given how long this post was.

Recons.Com said:

This kind of info can be quite misleading.

What MK is effectively saying is that six months is an average for the names sold, not average for the names listed, because the latter would mean 50% sale ratio, while in reality it is around 3.8%.

For the former, given that BB is not that old and it is constantly growing at fast pace, 6 months is not anything surprising. You could open your own marketplace and after one year boast 6 months average sale period.

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nice catch!
my bad interpretation. Now i agree with you and 6 monhts is an average on the average
i was thinking the average among all the names listed like you said

James Iles said:

Keyword names can be a couple of things. They can be made up of 1 or more real words. Some examples include Slack, Windows, Apple, and DraftKings. The other form of keyword brandables contain a real dictionary words at its base with an ending attached. Examples include, Spotify, Feedly, and Bitly.

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Can we really call any 'brandable' domains as 'keyword' domains?

Keyword domains are domains with a targeted word in them with the goal of enhancing SEO for that particular keyword (since 'keyword' is a term related to SEO). Windows.com is not targeting windows, nor is apple.com selling apples. My understanding is that when it comes to 'brandable' domains these are 'dictionary word' domains meant to be representative or metaphoric in nature of the products/services represented.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Tom K said:

No one can claim a broad generic as their brand, but they can when including the extension.

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Sorry, in reviewing what I wrote, I should clarify. Obviously Apple and Windows are broad generics. But they are used as symbolic, or metaphoric, brand names, not as literal keywords. I meant that when a generic name is used literally, e.g.: homes, booking, recipes, etc. Then in most cases (if not all) the extension becomes part of the brand in order to make it unique and stand out.

I also believe Michael has his own perception of what is a brandable that he is trying to use to shape the market and turn his perception into reality.

What is true is that many companies will name themselves successfully with brands that Michael would have rejected. Many do name themselves with City+Business and there is nothing wrong with that, not all businesses have an ambition to go nationwide or global. Now, I understand that those might not be suitable for Brand marketplace, as it would get flooded with those names (1000 biggest cities + 500 popular business words, you already get supply of half a million).

Many don't care about radio test, as they know their clients or their advertising media is different. Many will look for meanings in other languages. Many like plurals, while MK seem to reject most of them outright.

BR, in comparison, is much more open minded about brands.

BB is making money from your good names too. I don't believe it is conspiracy, it is more like "in the eyes of beholder", but unfortunately with very narrow tunnel vision.

One example, I'd share, MK/BB rejected M/y/r/t/l/e/s

Name that means a popular flowering tree, name that is part of top 10 touristic destination in the US (Myrtle Beach) and can be fantastic for any business there or just for wide range of businesses anywere from gardening to design. I get regular $xxxx offers for this name in my mailbox from people willing to get it, while Michael will tell you it is not a "brandable". I got it at GD expiring and there were many people bidding for it and I probably could have gotten 15-20 BB grade brandables for what it costed me.

michaeljkrell said:

Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions, @James Iles. If anyone else has any other questions, feel free to PM or email me.

Brandables cover a huge spectrum, and if we don't accept it, we aren't saying it is a bad names by any means, it just doesn't fit in our marketplace; no shame in that. While Margot and myself obviously shape what is and is not accepted, we aren't the only ones who are looking at each name. 5-6 people in total look at every name that is submitted to get as many eyes on each name as possible. If we miss something, let us know, and we would be happy to take another look.

To those questioning my integrity and the integrity of BrandBucket, I will repeat that no names associated with myself, Margot or any Brand Ambassadors receive any special treatment in any search results or category listings.These names are also not disproportionately suggested to potential buyers if they contact us directly about helping them choose a name. All these names are treated exactly the same as every other name on the marketplace. Neither Margot or myself handle sales inquiries and when our sales staff is asked by the buyer for suggestions, they do not see who owns the domains when searching through the inventory.

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Mr Krell-James has great interviews but in this case there are other questions to be answered publicly not in a PM. BrandBucket reported ( correct me if im wrong) $2.5million in sales last year-you ( BB) now have over 27,000 names on the site and you're telling us that a name averages a sale in 6 months? So with that in mind BB sold under 4% approx. of all names listed at an avg of $3000 as you stated above. And you still -although asked MANY times here on NP what the ratio of inside sales to "insider" sales is. I'm sure you're a very honest guy so no one is questioning your integrity but your numbers don't add up-if they do please simply state how many of the new names sold within a 6 month period with what is now over 27,000 names on your site and again the ratio of "insider" names sold to those of retail domainer names sold. Thank you.