advice Webmaster for 25 years, never sold a domain - Questions...

[jkrew]

So I own about 10 domains that I have had for 18 to 21 years and I think I should sell them and move on to new ventures. Most of these domains are tied to businesses that I am no longer interested in running.

I could use some advice on how to think about these sales.

Here is my oldest: www pixmatrix com at 21 years. Is this worth much? How would you go about selling? Does the age and short catchy spelling help its value?

Here is probably my most valuable, a full blown 18 year old price comparison search engine with infinite keyword landing pages: finderscheapers com - Used to have millions of visitors, now much less. It also comes with ca,co.uk,de,be,info,mobi, org, etc.... I ran this full time for many years and there is so, much, code.... I can't imagine how it would change hands, not with the complexity involved. (it takes three servers to run)

Here is a fun speculative one I picked up a long time ago: oilspill co

And just for grins because it is interesting.... If you look at the wayback machine, this used to be a central hub for over 2,000 ISBN domains that yielded about $40K in yearly revenue in 2008 & 2009 when I was getting .info names for .99 cents. isbn-book-search com


So like the title says, I have never sold a domain. I usually just let them lapse. My interests have moved away from being a webmaster and I feel like I should sell everything and move on.

How would you sell? Is there potential for > $10K sales? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[forge]

I would suggest you sell them to individuals who specifically look for old websites, albeit defunct ones in many cases, those who know how to profit from the remnants (backlinks mainly I would imagine).

Otherwise what you have are brandable names, but unfortunately you might be looking at pennies on the dollar (or much less) and struggle to find "investors" other than those who have the expertise to capitalize on the history, as suggested above.

These types of names are the same as those often fetching hefty sums on GoDaddy expired auctions; there was a time when private sellers could capitalize in a similar manner, but then GoDaddy killed this option when they put the hurt on Public Auctions at the expense of their own customers.

 

[jkrew]

I would suggest you sell them to individuals who specifically look for old websites, albeit defunct ones in many cases, those who know how to profit from the remnants (backlinks mainly I would imagine).

Otherwise what you have are brandable names, but unfortunately you might be looking at pennies on the dollar (or much less) and struggle to find "investors" other than those who have the expertise to capitalize on the history, as suggested above.

I was brainstorming with a friend a minute ago. My price comparison website isn't dead, but someone would need to maintain the directory structure for the deep links. Eons ago I had teams of people wrangling for high quality back links. Not sure how many remain, but for instance, I remember an edu link where a professor linked to a textbook page inside his online syllabus. That was always good for some sales every semester, lol.

 

[forge]

Not sure how many remain, but for instance, I remember an edu link where a professor linked to a textbook page inside his online syllabus. That was always good for some sales every semester, lol.

That's pretty wild. I never would've imagined such a thing.

Also, there are several new or revamped domain name marketplaces that might be worth a try. Atom, for one. I don't know enough about this space to make any other recommendations. These are basically everywhere on this forum, so dig in.

 

[DNabc]

pixmatrix is DR19, ok but nothing amazing.
finderscheapers is DR17
isbn-book-search is DR7
I have hundreds of names with higher DR and they only sell well to the right buyer, and finding one is time consuming. 10k sales from these will not be trivial, I do wish you good fortune.