How to stay safe when selling.us

[domainitrix]

Hi all,

I am a 1week old newbie domainer. I have 4 parts question to ask.

1) I've just registered my first.us name today and realized that I cannot have privacy on it like other extensions. When selling later, I would have inquiries from people (my cell# and my address is up there on whois look up for the world to see). Any ideas on how to stay as private as I can within legal parameters? Get a P.O. Box, get a short term cell#?

2) Is Estibot pretty accurate in .us estimates? Is there any rough formula for
realistic seller's price: i.e) estibot's estimate =1/5 of the real market price for .us. ..., etc

3) If I want to get the best price out of my .us name ( which estibot estimates at about $ 7000) where would be the best place to get that selling price. Who has that market cornered ( with buyers) and shaves off least amount of $ commission.

4) Some of u might laugh at this but.., because this is my 1st "huge" priced domain name( all others are$20,$40 or reg fees), I've reg all other extensions available. .biz .tv and .mobi they vary in prices. Is it a good thing if I sell them off one at a time? If so, start selling low $ extensions 1st or high?

Gee this is getting lengthy. I thank you in advance for any advice you can give.

 

[estibot.com]

Hi Domainitrix, some thoughts regarding your questions:
1) I just enter my real details in the whois and try not to worry about it. As long as you don't reg questionable names and stay on the level when doing domaining business, there probably isn't too much to worry about. This is just my view, but I'm not a very paranoid person. You may elect to be more careful about privacy, and in that case a p.o. box and an anonymous phone number with voice mail such as privatephone.com (I haven't used them so can't vouch for them but such services are available). Then you can enter your business name (e.g. domainitrix domains) as the registrant, p.o.box as the address and private phone number as contact phone. Just make sure you're reachable through your whois data.

2) The .us market is sluggish, and while there is much potential in it, there is not enough past sales data to allow me to program estibot to arrive at a good algorithm for .us domains. The generally low appraisals reflect the current slow market. Estibot is just a tool that gives you a rough idea of the relative value of your names, and you should only use it as a pointer to help you start your own valuation. I've found that it does help to spot the jewels in the rough quite reliably, but it does make some mistakes, too. I use it for .us domains myself. Any time it says higher than reg fee for a .us domain, I'll take a closer look at the domain and do some further research. Please PM me your .us domain that it says is worth 7,000 and I'll give you my thoughts. It's rare to see it valuate a .us that high.

I've found that the current algorithm somewhat undervalues the top domain names, but is pretty good for the lower end names.

3) I sell my domains through SEDO mostly. A good option if you feel you have a great name is to submit it to the auctions, Domain Tools or Moniker. You can sell a domain for a good reseller price there. If you want top dollar, you'll need to find an end user. That can be laborious.

4) Get a second opinion in the Appraisals section of the NamePros forums. Don't make purchase or sale decisions on an EstiBot appraisal alone, as it says in the disclaimer. It's rare to find an amazingly good name with several main tld's available. Chances are, your name is not valuable enough to justify regging it across the board. it's hard to justify regging .biz or .tv unless the name is really really good. If you do sell them, it's good to sell them as a package. However, often a buyer just wants one tld. Usually it's .com, but if that's taken, they may want some other tld. It would be rare for someone to want .us, .tv and .biz. That's not a very good combination. If all those three were available, I'd reg .us and consider .tv also if the name was suitable for that extension. Some like .biz better than .us, but the debate is ongoing and it really does depend on the name.

And regarding your question whether there is a rule for the pricing, the saying that a domain is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it - it's true. Domains have some intrinsic value, but the actual dollar value depends on the motivation of both buyer and seller, so no one can really give your domain an absolute appraisal. Not estibot, not any human, not any paid appraisal service. A rough appraisal is possible. Estibot can often give you a rough idea, but it does make mistakes. An experienced domainer can give you a pretty reliable ballpark valuation, but even they can be wrong sometimes.

Hope this helps a bit-
Josh

 

[domainitrix]

Josh,

Thank you so much for your thoughful advice. All points noted with many thanks.
And I will refer back to your points many times over again in the future as well.

I do realize now how different establshments ( Estibot Vs. Premium Domain) have
huge differences in their scoring systems. I am charting all of the scores and the pricing for now.., trying to see what the patterns might be on all of my domains.
And things of similar or same name ( diff extensions) that are on the market to see what realistic expectation s/b on my part.

Out of all the extensions I've reg with same name.., My sacred cow is .mobi so, it will be a long term thing.

Your reply is good enough to be made into a book. Thank youUUUU!