rfg
New Member
- Impact
- 9
I hope I'm in the Right Place.
I just now joined the NamePros forums and I am looking for some advice. I am absolutely not a domainer, by any stretch of the imagination. But I have this one domain name, monkeys.com, that I personally have owned, continuously, since 1995, and I've been meaning to sell it for the past several years, but somehow that task keep slipping off the bottom of my TO-DO list. Now however I need to get serious about it. so I'm here now, and asking for some good advice for how to proceed. Any suggestions or words of wisdom from experienced domainers would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, the story is this, in a nutshell. I registered monkeys.com way back in 1995 to use as my personal and personal business domain (for my one-person consulting business). It never got a hell of a lot of traffic and I never really "promoted" it in any formal sense. In the early 2000's (e.g. 2002-2003) I ran an popular anti-spam (DNS based) blocking list that became known as the monkeys.com list. But I had to terminate that back in 2003 because some nasty spammers DDoS'ed the bejesus out of me, so I had no choice.
Anyway, for the past few years I've been meaning to sell the thing (but like I said, that task has repeatedly been put on the back burner) and as a result, I long ago transitioned over to using a different domain name as my personal/business domain, and monkeys.com has been just sort of lying fallow since about 4 years ago. At that time I had gotten 2 formal appraisals that both said the thing was worth well over one hundred grand (USD) but I have no idea whatsoever what the thing might be worth today. I have just now looked at a listing of recent sales (for the past couple of weeks) over on a site called dnjournal and i see that the domain walrus.com fetched fifty five grand, so I'm thinking that monkeys.com ought to fetch at least that and perhaps even way more, but there are a couple of wrinkles.
Firstly, if I try to work with some broker, then I really want to only work with one that is incorporated in the U.S. if anything goes sideways, I really do not want to have to try to sue some broker who is incorporated in Signapore or in the Cayman islands. (Because I am new at this, I don't trust anybody not to try to take advantage of me, or try to screw me.) Second, for tax reasons, I'd really greatly prefer to sell this thing in two installments... one this year and one next year. I understand fully that this may hugely complicate matters, but splitting the payment across two years really would help me massively.
Today, I very nearly hit SUBMIT on Sedo's web site to sign up for their brokerage service, but thank god, before I did, I read the fine print. It appears that if one does that then one is contractually giving Sedo the exclusive rights to broker the domain, apparently in pertetuity. (So I guess that they can take their own sweet time selling the thing.) Well, screw that! Maybe Sedo used to the #1 and the only game in town for premium domains, but it appears to me that they have plenty of competition these days.
So, I am left with finding a different broker and/or trying to sell the thing myself. This is where any advice would be appreciated, specifically from experienced domainers. If you were in my shoes, how would you proceed? What should I do first? Should I pay for a new and current appraisal? If so, from whom? Should I try selling monkeys.com myself or should I get a broker, and if so, which one?
Thanks in advance for all responses.
P.S. I don't have a hard and fast deadline, but I do want to try to get a sale completed within the next 30-45 days, tops. And I am really busy doing other things, so I just don't have time to put tens of hours into trying to promote and/or sell this thing. I can invest a little time into this, but not bloody much.
I just now joined the NamePros forums and I am looking for some advice. I am absolutely not a domainer, by any stretch of the imagination. But I have this one domain name, monkeys.com, that I personally have owned, continuously, since 1995, and I've been meaning to sell it for the past several years, but somehow that task keep slipping off the bottom of my TO-DO list. Now however I need to get serious about it. so I'm here now, and asking for some good advice for how to proceed. Any suggestions or words of wisdom from experienced domainers would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, the story is this, in a nutshell. I registered monkeys.com way back in 1995 to use as my personal and personal business domain (for my one-person consulting business). It never got a hell of a lot of traffic and I never really "promoted" it in any formal sense. In the early 2000's (e.g. 2002-2003) I ran an popular anti-spam (DNS based) blocking list that became known as the monkeys.com list. But I had to terminate that back in 2003 because some nasty spammers DDoS'ed the bejesus out of me, so I had no choice.
Anyway, for the past few years I've been meaning to sell the thing (but like I said, that task has repeatedly been put on the back burner) and as a result, I long ago transitioned over to using a different domain name as my personal/business domain, and monkeys.com has been just sort of lying fallow since about 4 years ago. At that time I had gotten 2 formal appraisals that both said the thing was worth well over one hundred grand (USD) but I have no idea whatsoever what the thing might be worth today. I have just now looked at a listing of recent sales (for the past couple of weeks) over on a site called dnjournal and i see that the domain walrus.com fetched fifty five grand, so I'm thinking that monkeys.com ought to fetch at least that and perhaps even way more, but there are a couple of wrinkles.
Firstly, if I try to work with some broker, then I really want to only work with one that is incorporated in the U.S. if anything goes sideways, I really do not want to have to try to sue some broker who is incorporated in Signapore or in the Cayman islands. (Because I am new at this, I don't trust anybody not to try to take advantage of me, or try to screw me.) Second, for tax reasons, I'd really greatly prefer to sell this thing in two installments... one this year and one next year. I understand fully that this may hugely complicate matters, but splitting the payment across two years really would help me massively.
Today, I very nearly hit SUBMIT on Sedo's web site to sign up for their brokerage service, but thank god, before I did, I read the fine print. It appears that if one does that then one is contractually giving Sedo the exclusive rights to broker the domain, apparently in pertetuity. (So I guess that they can take their own sweet time selling the thing.) Well, screw that! Maybe Sedo used to the #1 and the only game in town for premium domains, but it appears to me that they have plenty of competition these days.
So, I am left with finding a different broker and/or trying to sell the thing myself. This is where any advice would be appreciated, specifically from experienced domainers. If you were in my shoes, how would you proceed? What should I do first? Should I pay for a new and current appraisal? If so, from whom? Should I try selling monkeys.com myself or should I get a broker, and if so, which one?
Thanks in advance for all responses.
P.S. I don't have a hard and fast deadline, but I do want to try to get a sale completed within the next 30-45 days, tops. And I am really busy doing other things, so I just don't have time to put tens of hours into trying to promote and/or sell this thing. I can invest a little time into this, but not bloody much.
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