discuss The Sad Growing Trend of Sharing Among Domainers.

[jideofor]

I have noticed a trend with so much disbelief in what some domainers have turned this once data-driven industry into.

Every domainer owes their credit to one fundamental fact: They got into domaining when they SAW what others were sharing with sales reports through a community like NamePros.

I personally started here because of the sales report shared here. LungioMike Helped me when I started with all his shared sales. I was motivated to give it a try because of his reports and those from others here. I also believe that this is the same for ALL domainers...

On Twitter, I am seeing a growing trend among domainers, spearheaded by two or three BIG sellers. To give you an idea of this effect, a new guy who has less than a year in the domain industry has also joined the train of blurring out what he sold.

Don't get me wrong. I can't tell you what to do with your domain sales but I feel it is wrong to share what will not benefit anyone or the domain community in general. It would be prudent to keep the sales TOTALLY private and not bring it to the public, instead of uploading screenshots and blurring out the name sold.

I also noticed that a very top domainer ( for the first time in many years) has not shared his sales for months since 2023. I have a feeling that this new trend might be the reason he is keeping his sales off. I reached out to him once because I love visiting his blog just to read about his sales. He said there had been no sales and somehow, I found that hard to believe. It has been over 7 months and I have not read anything from him on his blog with respect to his sales. I just feel he might have chosen to keep his sale completely private because of this trend. It has never happened since I started following up on him.

Whenever I see this current trend, one thing I ask myself is: If the guys that started before you never shared their sales reports, would have had the motivation to start domaining?

You upload a sale with only the price and the domain name that is sold is erased. Now imagine this is what was done at the beginning, completely cutting you off any possible learning opportunity, how would that benefit you? Sometimes we need to think back to fix up.

 

[NorthernDomains]

Domaining is not a fraternity. There are still thousands of valuable pages filled with information for anyone who wants to learn.

The times they are a-changin' my friend-Bob Dylan.

 

[Lox]

Sometimes we need to think back to fix up.

Multiple cases - no fix on horizon:

Sold dot com name
Reported
After, "someone" (I know who is ...) reg. dot org, dot net, dot io etc ... listed @ AN, SH, DAN
After ..."someone" goes avalanche w spamming dot com buyer
(if the domain name is not yet developed ... the "fixers" continue w renewing name ... in a hope ... one day ...)

... keep the sales TOTALLY private and not bring it to the public, instead of uploading screenshots and blurring out the name sold.

Agree

 

[SixFigures.ltd]

Well, it's up to anyone to share or not their deals but I still agree with your point, I wouldn't dive in such niche without noticing other sellers income, but after all these godaddy tricked auctions would you still believe that you've found profitable niche, I would doubt that, auction owners make believe a lot to suck you into it. Imo of course.

 

[bmugford]

People can share what they want, but the blurred screenshots are kind of annoying. I have seen some people mocking the practice on Twitter.

I only started reporting some sales in the last year, and usually report the domain and price.

There are various reasons not to report sales, but if you choose to report them it is kind of useless to not include the domain sold.

Brad

 

[karmaco]

There are plenty of reasons not to share and most everyone I converse with doesn’t share sales publicly.

No one is obligated to motivate other domainers. Most take that “motivation“ as a cheat sheet and simply copycat. “I will go register that name you sold in dot io” then the buyer gets innundated by losers.

If someone redacts but says in the fashion niche 5 year hold that is value added beyond nothing. But most of the redactions are just folks who like to brag.

 

[Samer]

The worst are the NDAs.
I wonder how much money it is to “buy your silence”

I think a big part of it stems down from culture; it’s why DNJournal.com, NameBio and even Namepros are invaluable priceless resources.

 

[bmugford]

The worst are the NDAs.
I wonder how much money it is to “buy your silence”

I think a big part of it stems down from culture; which is why DNJournal.com, NameBio and even Namepros are invaluable priceless resources.

I have been in this field for a long time. In general, the NDA thing is a load of crap.

They are not common, especially on the typical sales most domain investors are making.

If you are selling domains for six or seven figures, maybe.

No one is demanding a NDA for a $X,XXX sale.

Yet, I still see domain investors mention "NDA" far too often as if they are some common thing for low dollar sales.

It seems the "NDA" angle often comes up when people are pushed on their domain sale claims. It can be a convenient excuse.

Brad

 

[Lox]

The worst are the NDAs.
I wonder how much money it is to “buy your silence”

For NDA price goes up. I rather want to have showcase option ... for the next client/prospect vs NDA. Some of co need to hide the $ investment (read strategy) for a x period of time (tm / patent reg. process, competitors, entering a to b - new sector, etc)

1 to 2 yr + 20% (sold 104 com; 9 6fig, 26 5fig, 63 4fig, 6 3fig)
3 to 4 yr + 25% (sold 43 com; 17 6fig, 11 5fig, 15 4fig)
5 yr + 30% (sold 1 com 6fig, 1 io 5fig, 2 xyz 5fig, 1 net 4fig)
Indefinitely + 40% (sold 6 com; 5 6fig, 1 5fig)

(those are b2b sales (direct f2f & via brand agencies, only 1 via sedo.)

Regards

 

[Armageddon]

Dont belive anyting fly
Personal i stop to show my sales unless are below 100 $

 

[BaileyUK]

I still get requests to buy similar domains to those I sold over ten+ years ago. always cr*p. If a seller sees a good domain sale, they think you as the seller must like that Niche. Why open yourself up to loads of spam

 

[DomainNature]

I sold recently my first domain, after almost 4 years of domaining, but I will not post anything at the moment, maybe later.
In general some reported sales are good, because we can see there are still sales in this hard times and this brings hope.
Still there is a long way until you can say that this field is profitable and worth the hassle and invested hard work money into them.

 

[biggie]

Every domainer owes their credit to one fundamental fact: They got into domaining when they SAW what others were sharing with sales reports through a community like NamePros.

Hi

the above statement is not true, for every domainer.

i started by coincidence and didn't have any prior notions, ideas or previous information about domain sales.

also, namepros didn't exist at the time.

so, if that's true for me, then it could be true for others who started same time or before me.

still, if/when someone is willing to share, then i'll take what details they divulge.

as a practice, i don't post in the "NP report your sales thread", but within a conversation that's relative, i might reveal some sales info.

some don't reveal because they don't want other domainers going after similar names or a fear that domainers will try to spam the buyer of the name, with similar names they own.
because before privacy, that was a real concern.

on other hand, you have some who may report a lot of high dollar sales, then they may get questioned by the "status quo" as to the legitimacy of them.
this puts them in situation where they have to prove something, that they could have kept to themselves.

i say,
to those that do share, it's appreciated by those who get something from it,
and to those that don't, that's cool too, because it's your prerogative to keep your sales private.


imo....

 

[Armageddon]

I sold recently my first domain, after almost 4 years of domaining, but I will not post anything at the moment, maybe later.
In general some reported sales are good, because we can see there are still sales in this hard times and this brings hope.
Still there is a long way until you can say that this field is profitable and worth the hassle and invested hard work money into them.

Same as me
I start in 2010 and first sold 2014

 

[Kingslayer]

I don't share my sales for a number of reasons.

I believe a sale should only be shared by a buyer (if they wish it to go public).

Another example why a person should not share their sales would be Swetha, she shares her sales and she gets hate for it, success = jealously, jealously = people trying to dismiss your achievements and blacken your name, so is it worth it?

I also believe if you know where gold is buried, you don't tell everyone else where to dig, so if you are finding areas where to invest, why would you tell other people about it? What would you get for doing that other than 'potentially' less money?

 

[phaethon]

Another example why a person should not share their sales would be Swetha, she shares her sales and she gets hate for it, success = jealously, jealously = people trying to dismiss your achievements and blacken your name, so is it worth it?

I don't think that's a successful example. Swetha is sort of XYZ brand ambassador.
There has not been a single person here with the same success or even with 5% of her success.

 

[BaileyUK]

I think with good success over a number of years/sales with a certain keywords. There's a sense of helping-out the community with explaining why the keyword has worked for you. I have done this several times. Quite often these keywords are linked to simple advancements in day-to-day technology. They were always on the horizon. There's nothing really to guard against if you feel you got in the niche early and secured some good domains. I think it more helpful to explain the logic behind your thinking rather than just a particular name and sale price.

Sure I wouldn't do it at the outset of securing my own domains. There's also the criticisers who see no current value, or very little because it is not mainstream at the time, even though my sales say otherwise.

New domainers tend to fall for 'what is hot' they mostly lack the foresight to invest in what is just warming-up I'm focusing on Words here, not Extensions

 

[J.R.]

I noticed the posting of alleged domain sales on X/Twitter with blacked out domain or blacked out price really became popular around 2021 when the crypto bubble was inflating.

It got so bad that people were posting alleged offers. In reality, these offers were exposed as nothing more than attempts to market their domains to other clueless domainers.

Fortunately, others started to push back against these unvetted and unconfirmed alleged offers. These common braggarts couldn't confirm the actual sale and never sent these fake sales to DN Journal or Namebio.

I don't know why anyone would delude themselves that real, vetted sales would be reported with regularity. As others mentioned, we are competitors and it is extremely hard to find gems in 2023; let alone a full niche to milk for sales.

Be grateful with the less than 10% of vetted sales that are published, because in the near future I see even less being reported as many make their money in silence.

And with so many having an entitlement mindset to the sacrifices and hard work of others, maybe the shadow domainers are on to something.

 

[BaileyUK]

There is far too much of the 'tell me everything in 60 seconds' mindset here on Namepros today. Yes it's easy to understand why. Better access to mobile communications in developing Countries, new entrants seeking instant profits, those seeing sales data without understanding the how and why etc etc.

It's unfortunate that so many view the sales data with a 'Anyone can do that' mentality and approach. I do miss the early times when everyone approached domain boards with enquiring minds and specific questions, mostly to fill in the blanks and not as an instant answer to everything.

I ignore so many posts these days purely because it's not worth getting drawn into debate about the fundamentals

 

[.X.]

Usually ... the only time i shared anything in domaining .. is if i was being paid for it...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for your well-written initial post @jideofor.

I respect the right of each domainer to share sales or not to share sales. For those who do report, I would far prefer that it be to NameBio, or the official reporting sales here at NamePros, rather than through social media.

As people have pointed out, a sale without a domain name or a price seems pretty pointless.

It is definitely unwise to report mere offers or uncompleted sales, and it is not a good idea to report sales that are on still-open lease-to-own. Definitely many of these will never finish, and you may jeopardize your sale even.

I think reported sales can help in a few ways:

• provide pricing comparators
• show what sectors/niches are resulting in sales
• indicate the types of names that are selling

Because for the most part the brandable place sales go unreported, we have a rather skewed picture. Also, the fact that Sedo are (for $2000+) in, while Afternic and Dan mainly not in, there are no doubt some bias in retail picture too. Ideally, I wish the major marketplaces all reported sales.

I agree with @biggie that while some may enter domaining as a result of learning about some major sales, there are many different reasons people take up domains, and that is not true for all of us.

Thanks for the good discussion, everyone.

-Bob

 

[john888]

Sharing your sales means nothing without sharing your expenses like any other business.

 

[biggie]

Sharing your sales means nothing without sharing your expenses like any other business.

Hi

in some close relationships and in some cases,
the original cost (expense) of the domain may be disclosed, as well as the sale price and even how long the owner held it before selling.

imo...

 

[winst]

This is just my opinion:

• The market is not as active in 2022 and 2023. I've had a few small sales here and there and they are just not that exciting.
• It's been 30 years, and many early investors have retired or gone or doing something else.
• Domaining was boring and many moved to cryptos and made and lost a lot of money. Now AI is hot but what else is new?
• This industry has gone through many different trends: keywords, exact matches, short names, 3 characters, 4 characters, Chinese premiums, parking, brandables, leasing, gTLD...

It's not that people don't want to share. We are all just waiting for the next big idea to drop.

 

[jideofor]

Multiple cases - no fix on horizon:

Sold dot com name
Reported
After, "someone" (I know who is ...) reg. dot org, dot net, dot io etc ... listed @ AN, SH, DAN
After ..."someone" goes avalanche w spamming dot com buyer
(if the domain name is not yet developed ... the "fixers" continue w renewing name ... in a hope ... one day ...)



Agree

Oh, I see the bolded as a good reason. I didn't think about it in that direction because I do not indulge in such an attitude. In that case, wouldn't be best to not publicize it? I mean, it would be best to keep everything private. I would prefer it that way though.