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Without reported domain name sales, we would all be operating in a blind fashion. This article covers the arguments for and against reporting domain name sales, as well as how to report domain name sales at the main venues.
Why Report Domain Name Sales?
Over the years there have been many discussions on the reasons to report sales, or not to report (see the list later in this article). Here are some arguments derived from those discussions, and elsewhere, in favour of reporting domain name sales.
Reasons Not to Report Domain Name Sales
However, good arguments can be made to not report your domain name sales:
You will find additional reasons, pro and con, in the many NamePros discussions on the topic, such as the following:
The most important place to report a sale is NameBio. That is because your sale will be placed within a huge database, currently including 4.1 million sales totalling $2.4 billion. The sales reported at NameBio can be readily searched via a powerful and user-friendly interface. Also, @Michael takes the business of curation of domain name sales seriously and professionally.
If you sell names in the range they cover, $2000 and up, it is also important to report the sale to DNJournal, edited by @Ron Jackson. Since 2003, DNJournal has been the must-read set of reports on domain name sales, and listing there will get your sale viewed by many. Note that DNJournal do not automatically pull sales from NameBio, so it is important to list both places.
It can help the community if you report sales here on NamePros. By reporting here, you can add details that are not part of the more concise NameBio or DnJournal record, such as where and when you acquired the name, whether it was an inbound or outbound sale, whether the price was buy-it-now or negotiated, etc.
If you wish, you can also report the sale at DNPric.es. Here is the link to the DNPric.es reporting form.
Some domain sales are also reported social media, mainly Twitter.
@TauseefKhan has a detailed list of where sales reports can be found.
Reporting Sales at NameBio
While NameBio automatically pulls results from a number of sites, including the Sedo and BuyDomains sales feeds, various domain auction sites, and many other sources, anyone can easily report their own domain names sales to NameBio.
Go to Report A Sale, fill in the form giving the domain name, price, date of sale, and the seller or venue, as well as your email for contact purposes. You must upload documentation showing proof of the sale.
It is important to make sure there is no non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or other restriction on reporting the sale.
Note that you can report the sale venue / seller as either the marketplace where the sale took place, or your own name or domain sales company or site.
The price should be reported as the gross price, prior to any commission deductions.
In terms of date of sale, don’t report a sale until it is clear the sale is complete and final. If the sale occurred within one week of the date you report it, use the reporting date. That will get the sale eligible for mention in the Daily Market Report. If you are reporting an older sale, use the actual date of the sale.
Note that lease-to-own sales are only reported after all payments complete, and the date should be given as the date of the final payment.
Of course, don’t report other people’s sales.
Although they pull sales under $100 from auction and a few other sites, privately reported sales must be $100 and up.
If you have other questions, read FAQs at the NameBio Report A Sale.
Reporting a Sale on NamePros
Unless there is something exceptional, such as a very large sale or name with special significance, you should not start a NamePros discussion thread just to report a single sale.
Rather, sales should be reported on the Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here. Here are a few guidelines:
I realize domain name investors may find it interesting to know that a name sold for $5000 and was acquired for $15, but, when buyers see such information, surely it can be a negative for our industry. What do others think about including acquisition price when it is very low?
The Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here thread has almost 25,000 reports, with considerably more than that total domain name sales. It has been viewed more than 5 million times!
Reporting a Sale to DNJournal
The DNJournal has been reporting a selection of significant domain name sales since 2003. You can read about the DNJournal sales verification process, and report the sale using DNJournal contact information here.
DNJournal normally report sales $2000 and up, and only report straight sales for currency, not business+name sales, or sales involving another form of compensation such as shares, dividends or other assets.
Finding Social Media Reported Sales
There is a service, UnreportedSales.com that consolidates domain name sales reported on social media, or in other ways, including NamePros, but are not listed on NameBio. Access to UnreportedSales is free, under a donation model.
UnreportedSales has a clean search interface that allows search on the basis of name, venue, price, extension, length, etc. You can also sort the list according to various parameters, like price. A few days ago they added the ability to find names that had sold more than once.
Sales are reported right down to $9, although the majority of sales are in the $$$ and up range. A few of the sales are in the million dollar range.
Not all sales have complete information, for example venue does not appear for some sales. While there is, in most, but not all, cases, a hyperlinked source that allows you to assess the trustworthiness of the report, note that these sales have not gone through the verification process of sales that appear on NameBio or DNJournal.
Also, UnreportedSales list lease-to-own sales they find, whereas NameBio will not list them until payments are complete.
Some will, justifiably, complain about a service that takes sales, such as those in the NamePros thread, that were deliberately masked, and now makes them publicly viewable. Nevertheless, if trying to track down some additional comparator sales, you may well find this service a valuable tool.
You don’t report directly to them, but if you report your sales on Twitter, adding a tag to UnreportedSales will make sure they note the sale.
Even though UnreportedSales may provide some of the same benefits, I urge you to report sales to NameBio and/or DNJournal for reasons noted elsewhere.
Braden Pollock on Domain Name Sale Reporting
Braden Pollock is a successful seller at the high end of the domain market who regularly reports sales to NameBio and DNJournal. For example, in the DNJournal Top 100 sales of 2022, 7 of the listed sales are by his company, LegalBrandMarketing.
I reached out to @Braden Pollock to get his view on the question of reporting sales:
Final Thoughts
There has been a recent troubling trend to report domain name sales only on social media, especially Twitter. In meany cases sales are reported without key information, such as the full domain name or price.
Even when a sale is completely reported on social media, it has not passed through third party authentication by NameBio or DNJournal.
Also, sales listed only on social media are not part of any database, and therefore can not be used in trend analysis, and not easily found when searching for comparators. Therefore, several key advantages of sales reporting are missing.
You may find the NamePros Blog article Tips to Expand Domain Name Comparator Sales Pool helpful.
I welcome comments on whether you report your sales, or not, and why.
For those who report, where do you typically report sales?
Where do you usually find information on domain name sales?
How important is a source of domain name sales data for your success as an investor?
Update, Feb 2, 2023:
For completeness, I added the section on UnreportedSales.
My sincere thanks for NameBio and DNJournal for the outstanding service they render as gatekeepers of trusted domain name sales data. I also thank all of those who report domain name sales, making my various data analyses over the years possible, and providing us all with information to guide our domain decisions. Special thanks to @Braden Pollock for promptly responding to my request for comment.
Why Report Domain Name Sales?
Over the years there have been many discussions on the reasons to report sales, or not to report (see the list later in this article). Here are some arguments derived from those discussions, and elsewhere, in favour of reporting domain name sales.
- Investors need sales data to guide pricing and to provide comparators to use in negotiations.
- Seeing what has sold can help inform which domain names are worth acquiring.
- Sales, especially high-value sales, alert the business community that quality domain names are valuable assets.
- Reported sales help domainers in deciding what is a reasonable wholesale price.
- Analyses of reported sales data helps inform domain investing.
- Reported sales illustrate changing trends, sectors or extensions that are gaining or falling in value.
- As a broker or major seller, reporting your sales may help to establish your credentials and assist with future business.
- Seeing sales data can encourage domain investors, particularly when markets are down.
- It might help the buyer, drawing attention to a rebranding or new service.
There are benefits potentially to the buyer, especially if they are an end-user trying to launch a business or professional site. In effect, that creates additional advertising for their product or service launched on that website. Also, this may help stir up business for that particular web developer and web hosting service.
Reasons Not to Report Domain Name Sales
However, good arguments can be made to not report your domain name sales:
- Even if you are not prohibited from reporting a sale, some buyers may prefer if the price is not publicly reported. Potentially, reporting sales could hurt repeat business.
- Even if the buyer approves the sale being released, they may want it delayed, so their rebranding or startup is ready.
- On social media, and on NamePros, critics may seize on what they perceive as questionable sales, and try to unfairly tarnish reputations.
- If you are profiting from a niche, sharing sales data may increase competition.
- Some unethical sellers may chase the companies who have been recent buyers, spamming them.
- After a sale, you may also find that you, the seller, receives unsolicited spam about names.
- It may simply be the case that you don’t like attention drawn to you and your sales.
- Some view reporting of sales as ‘showing off.’
You will find additional reasons, pro and con, in the many NamePros discussions on the topic, such as the following:
- Sharing or Not Sharing Domain Sales
- Should You Report Domain Name Sales?
- What Percent of Domain Sales Go Unreported?
- Finding Reported Domain Sales
- Why Reporting Domain Name Sales Matter?
The most important place to report a sale is NameBio. That is because your sale will be placed within a huge database, currently including 4.1 million sales totalling $2.4 billion. The sales reported at NameBio can be readily searched via a powerful and user-friendly interface. Also, @Michael takes the business of curation of domain name sales seriously and professionally.
If you sell names in the range they cover, $2000 and up, it is also important to report the sale to DNJournal, edited by @Ron Jackson. Since 2003, DNJournal has been the must-read set of reports on domain name sales, and listing there will get your sale viewed by many. Note that DNJournal do not automatically pull sales from NameBio, so it is important to list both places.
It can help the community if you report sales here on NamePros. By reporting here, you can add details that are not part of the more concise NameBio or DnJournal record, such as where and when you acquired the name, whether it was an inbound or outbound sale, whether the price was buy-it-now or negotiated, etc.
If you wish, you can also report the sale at DNPric.es. Here is the link to the DNPric.es reporting form.
Some domain sales are also reported social media, mainly Twitter.
@TauseefKhan has a detailed list of where sales reports can be found.
Reporting Sales at NameBio
While NameBio automatically pulls results from a number of sites, including the Sedo and BuyDomains sales feeds, various domain auction sites, and many other sources, anyone can easily report their own domain names sales to NameBio.
Go to Report A Sale, fill in the form giving the domain name, price, date of sale, and the seller or venue, as well as your email for contact purposes. You must upload documentation showing proof of the sale.
It is important to make sure there is no non-disclosure agreement (NDA) or other restriction on reporting the sale.
Note that you can report the sale venue / seller as either the marketplace where the sale took place, or your own name or domain sales company or site.
The price should be reported as the gross price, prior to any commission deductions.
In terms of date of sale, don’t report a sale until it is clear the sale is complete and final. If the sale occurred within one week of the date you report it, use the reporting date. That will get the sale eligible for mention in the Daily Market Report. If you are reporting an older sale, use the actual date of the sale.
Note that lease-to-own sales are only reported after all payments complete, and the date should be given as the date of the final payment.
Of course, don’t report other people’s sales.
Although they pull sales under $100 from auction and a few other sites, privately reported sales must be $100 and up.
If you have other questions, read FAQs at the NameBio Report A Sale.
Reporting a Sale on NamePros
Unless there is something exceptional, such as a very large sale or name with special significance, you should not start a NamePros discussion thread just to report a single sale.
Rather, sales should be reported on the Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here. Here are a few guidelines:
- Report only your own sales, not sales you read or heard about.
- As title notes, these should be completed sales. Wait until the name has transferred and you have been paid.
- You may wish to mask the name, for example by showing it in an image or by adding slashes, if you do not want the information to appear in searches.
- As a minimum, include the domain name, price, and approximate date of the sale. Normally the venue is listed.
- It is optional, but those reporting sales are encouraged to include other information, such as the hold time, whether inbound or outbound, etc.
- You are permitted to report sales individually, one per post, or to include several sales in a single post. Make sure required information is included, however.
I realize domain name investors may find it interesting to know that a name sold for $5000 and was acquired for $15, but, when buyers see such information, surely it can be a negative for our industry. What do others think about including acquisition price when it is very low?
The Report Completed Domain Name Sales Here thread has almost 25,000 reports, with considerably more than that total domain name sales. It has been viewed more than 5 million times!
Reporting a Sale to DNJournal
The DNJournal has been reporting a selection of significant domain name sales since 2003. You can read about the DNJournal sales verification process, and report the sale using DNJournal contact information here.
DNJournal normally report sales $2000 and up, and only report straight sales for currency, not business+name sales, or sales involving another form of compensation such as shares, dividends or other assets.
Finding Social Media Reported Sales
There is a service, UnreportedSales.com that consolidates domain name sales reported on social media, or in other ways, including NamePros, but are not listed on NameBio. Access to UnreportedSales is free, under a donation model.
UnreportedSales has a clean search interface that allows search on the basis of name, venue, price, extension, length, etc. You can also sort the list according to various parameters, like price. A few days ago they added the ability to find names that had sold more than once.
Sales are reported right down to $9, although the majority of sales are in the $$$ and up range. A few of the sales are in the million dollar range.
Not all sales have complete information, for example venue does not appear for some sales. While there is, in most, but not all, cases, a hyperlinked source that allows you to assess the trustworthiness of the report, note that these sales have not gone through the verification process of sales that appear on NameBio or DNJournal.
Also, UnreportedSales list lease-to-own sales they find, whereas NameBio will not list them until payments are complete.
Some will, justifiably, complain about a service that takes sales, such as those in the NamePros thread, that were deliberately masked, and now makes them publicly viewable. Nevertheless, if trying to track down some additional comparator sales, you may well find this service a valuable tool.
You don’t report directly to them, but if you report your sales on Twitter, adding a tag to UnreportedSales will make sure they note the sale.
Even though UnreportedSales may provide some of the same benefits, I urge you to report sales to NameBio and/or DNJournal for reasons noted elsewhere.
Braden Pollock on Domain Name Sale Reporting
Braden Pollock is a successful seller at the high end of the domain market who regularly reports sales to NameBio and DNJournal. For example, in the DNJournal Top 100 sales of 2022, 7 of the listed sales are by his company, LegalBrandMarketing.
I reached out to @Braden Pollock to get his view on the question of reporting sales:
He went on to add regarding wholesale transaction information on NameBio:The value of reporting sales is to create a database of comparable sales. There's certainly an argument to be made that all domains are snowflakes so it's difficult to compare one to another. And I'll admit that the biggest issue is that reported wholesale deals skews the data - which has an opposite effect on the objective.
As an investor, I want to see what prices names are wholesaling for. NameBio is an awesome tool for that, by they way. I just wish there was a way to limit access to expiry and wholesale sales data via a paid service. One that the general public won't be privy to.
But at the end of the day, I'd much rather have the DNJournal Top 100 to refer to a buyer than nothing at all.
Final Thoughts
There has been a recent troubling trend to report domain name sales only on social media, especially Twitter. In meany cases sales are reported without key information, such as the full domain name or price.
Even when a sale is completely reported on social media, it has not passed through third party authentication by NameBio or DNJournal.
Also, sales listed only on social media are not part of any database, and therefore can not be used in trend analysis, and not easily found when searching for comparators. Therefore, several key advantages of sales reporting are missing.
You may find the NamePros Blog article Tips to Expand Domain Name Comparator Sales Pool helpful.
I welcome comments on whether you report your sales, or not, and why.
For those who report, where do you typically report sales?
Where do you usually find information on domain name sales?
How important is a source of domain name sales data for your success as an investor?
Update, Feb 2, 2023:
For completeness, I added the section on UnreportedSales.
My sincere thanks for NameBio and DNJournal for the outstanding service they render as gatekeepers of trusted domain name sales data. I also thank all of those who report domain name sales, making my various data analyses over the years possible, and providing us all with information to guide our domain decisions. Special thanks to @Braden Pollock for promptly responding to my request for comment.
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