information How many clicks does it take to get to the owner of a domain name?

[DomaHub]

Read the original medium article here.

What is the average number of hoops users must jump through before they are able to contact the owner of a desired domain name?

Let’s find out.

TL;DR: it can take upwards of 10 extra clicks for customers to contact you when trying to purchase your domain name.

Don’t lose potential sales by hiding away your contact information. Create a landing page today and reduce friction in your purchase funnel.

Let’s first make a few assumptions and set the scenario:

• A user stumbles onto your domain name parked page
• The domain landing page does not have a contact form
• The user is interested in reaching out to the owner (to buy or make an offer)
• The user is not a domainer (i.e. does not have WHOIS query websites bookmarked)

With those assumptions, let’s jump right in and start counting.


Click #1 — Google
The first click goes straight to none other than Google.com.

Because the user is not a power user nor a domainer, they will have to look up a WHOIS query website to find your contact information.

We are assuming that the average internet user will not have a WHOIS website bookmarked out of convenience.

We’ll be counting the amount of clicks it takes to find the contact information for each of these WHOIS query websites.

Click #2–4*— WHOIS Query Website

As you can see, three of the seven websites only had a single extra click before being presented the contact information.

Another three had reCAPTCHA forms tied to their queries. For those of you reading who are unfamiliar with reCAPTCHA forms, it’s basically Google’s method of preventing spam and bots from abusing these forms and services. However, that security does come at a slight cost of usability.

*Our testing added up to seven extra clicks if the reCAPTCHA forms required us to solve a challenge.


Click #3–7+ — Copy + paste
Now that the user has your contact information, they need to actually get in contact with you.

1. One click to copy that email address. +1
2. Then another click to open their favorite email application. +1
3. Then a final click to compose an email and paste in the domain owner email address. +1

Are you still with us? How many clicks are we currently at? In the best case scenario (no CAPTCHA forms, and using the best WHOIS website) we are at an additional five clicks.

In the worst case scenario (with multiple CAPTCHA challenges and a not so efficient WHOIS website) we are looking at an additional fourteen clicks.


A few extra clicks? So what? Is it a big deal?
Now you may be wondering, what’s five or so more clicks going to do? How can five clicks possibly hurt my profits? It’s no big deal!

Well, a lot of people seem to disagree…

• How friction destroys the customer experience
• Amazon’s friction-killing tactics to make products more seamless
• Friction kills the customer experience
• What is customer friction and why is it important?
• and a sample Google search

Friction is the enemy. We need to provide a seamless user experience to our customers to ensure that they don’t get cold feet and leave halfway through.

 

[Hypersot]

If a non-domainer wants to buy a domain name, all they have to do is click the 'contact' banner.

Why do you assume that someone that wants a domain necessarily knows how to use a whois service? Until I got involved with domains I had no idea what a whois was.

You want someone to buy your domain or contact you regarding your domain? setup a proper lander page.

 

[DomaHub]

If a non-domainer wants to buy a domain name, all they have to do is click the 'contact' banner.

Why do you assume that someone that wants a domain necessarily knows how to use a whois service? Until I got involved with domains I had no idea what a whois was.

You want someone to buy your domain or contact you regarding your domain? setup a proper lander page.

Ah, that was an assumption I had forgotten to put in the list. Sorry about that. Let's assume that a domain name does not have a landing page with a contact form on it.

I edited the initial post to include the following -

• The domain landing page does not have a contact form

 

[namelancer]

Making four unfounded assumptions is to engage in a highly disagreeable behavior with the 'The Four Agreements' : P

 

[snowbird]

The world may never know.

 

[DomaHub]

https://www.godaddy.com/Domain-Investing/Whois-Masking-what-is-changing/td-p/88329

Looks like GoDaddy is preventing automated WHOIS information gathering...very interesting. Here's a quote from the above article--

Important to note – If you are concerned about potential buyers of your domain not being able to find your information they can still see it after filling out a captcha. This change only impacts automated requests to cut back on spammers which gather the information in bulk.

 

[biggie]

how many licks does it take, to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

well, doesn't matter, cuz when you get there, you can enjoy the fruits of that labor

so, it's the same thing, same feeling of accomplishment, when a user has to click thru, to get to me.

why, you ask would they do this for me?

cuz....my names are so delicious



imo....

 

[werty]

LOL. Most people can't wait to get to the center by licking which is why they bite the pop. Joking aside, 1 click for me because they are all parked showing its for sale. Although that is to get to the marketplace where its listed for sale and not directly to me. I am not interested in dealing directly with buyers anymore and prefer to pay a commission than deal directly. I do receive cold emails from time to time from my whois info and thats fine as well in most cases. But sometimes I tell them to purchase at the marketplace even if it costs me 20% more. After all, I have them priced with this in mind so it doesnt really matter for me.