Selling Domain Names

any recommendations?

[cnvi]

Forgive me if this has been asked here in the past.. I looked through some of the archives but didnt find an answer to my question.

Which services have you used in the past to sell domains with success?

Any recommendations for services with low/fair commission rates?

[edited by: Webwork at 2:22 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2008]

[buckworks]

There's a reason you didn't find an answer in the archives: we don't allow discussion of specific services in this forum.

People can give advice about general issues to keep in mind, but not name specific services.

[Webwork]

My standard answer is that it's not the service that sells the domain but the domain that sells itself. Unless you are getting regular email inquiries the odds of finding a buyer are slim. If you are getting such inquiries then the issue is to set a price.

My advice is to park the domains. Most parking services offer landers with an optional message about the domain being for sale. Also, by parking the domains, you can also develop traffic stats which may be helpful to selling the domain.

You can list your domains all over creation these days but, if you read the stats for the auction sites, you will see that ~<1% of their inventory - or 1 in 100 domains or less - sell in the course of a year.

I wouldn't recommend any domain auction service over the other. We've had such votes in the past and we're not going to revisit the issue. The names are easy to find: Sedo, Afternic, etc. There are many domain forums that allow you to list domains for sale. There are also an endless stream of "live auctions".

The issue isn't the venue, it's the domains. Good domains sell themselves. All it takes is an email address in the WhoIs. Anyone else who buys a domain, other than an enduser, will offer 1/10 to 1/100th of the possible enduser value IF the domain has some curb appeal or commercial traffic.

Park 'em and see what happens.

[Insomniak]

Many domain marketplaces cater to domainers and not end users, therefore it may be easier to find a buyer but at a much lower rate (they will want to at least double their money in selling to an end user).

Parking and waiting for people to come to you can work, especially with a valuable name but doing the leg work and chasing after an end user yourself could result in a better payoff.