Domain Name Appraisal - New what to do? Someone wants to buy from me.

[duckxtales]

hi all,

Right now i have a domain name of a famous person currently have his fan site on it. He approached me to buy it out because i rank first for his name. I'm guessing he wants to develop it further and use it to sell his concert tickets or whatnot. The traffic on the site currently so far is only a couple of hundred of hits a day and sometimes even less than 50 at times. Now the problem here is that he contacted me and put out on the table that they also need a webmaster to run the site thats after I give it back to him. The thing here is if i just give it back to him freely and they screw me over I just lost out on a valuable domain name. I acquired the site for about $1000 at that time from afternic.

what should i do? where or how can i come up with a correct appraisal price?

[HuskyPup]

If they are that famous they could possibly get it for nothing if you're not careful!

Get them to put in writing precisely what they are offering for the name and what they are offering you afterwards to "run" the site...if anything.

You will need to contact a lawyer to ensure what you want and they specify is achievable to both parties' satisfaction.

I can tell you that running well-known band sites is not as easy as it may seem since these artists nearly always want the latest gismos, gadgets, widgets, bells and whistles...yesterday...you are warned:-)

[duckxtales]

thanks for the feedback.. well they aren't tat well known and the person i spoke with was his agent and he seemed really nice about it seeing that i was once a fan. i was thinking of just charging them the amount i paid for it and all the hosting fees for the past 8 years i had it for.

Well as for the development of the site, assuming they want to go with me i would have to handle the domain name situation first. I'm not sure if the relationship would go sour if i wanted them to purchase it off of me, but it seems that would be the best way to make my time and effort worth it thats if they screw me over after getting the site and not have me finish it up.

This singer isnt that famous, just in his country and was a hit in the US for a short amount of time. What would and estimated value of such a domain be? Should I get it appraised and show them how much its worth and let them decide how much they want to pay me? Or just pick a price and see how things go?

[Demaestro]

Make up a contract. Without it you have no protection.

As far as appraisals it is hard to come up with a value when you have no income from it.

What is it worth to you? Could you move the site to a new domain?

What is it worth to him? How long would it take him to achieve your rankings?

Then most importantly... what is his budget?

Once you know these things you can come to a decision on what it is worth.

Then factor in, will you get paid work from this? If yes perhaps it is worth coming down in price if you are out of his budget.

I wouldn't waste money on an appraisal.

[wlongacre]

You didn't say if you are making an income from the site. If so you should factor that into the price.

Also if you are so inclined, you should view this as an opportunity to make some money. You've got a site that has a rank of #1, that alone makes the site worth a good deal more than what your costs have been. Not to mention the many hours of personal time you devoted. I think you may be sitting on a site that should bring 10k$ or more. If I were in this situation I would start with a high figure like 25k$ and negotiate the price.

No matter what the price you choose, make sure you document all aspects of the deal (in writing) and use an escrow account to transfer funds.

Best of luck.

[duckxtales]

not really familar with contracts. what should the contract have on it? as for the site it barely gets any major traffic and doesnt really make any income via a fan site, but a dedicated site then yes. cuz it comes up first on the search results.

[Demaestro]

IANAL (but I am taking a couple first year classes)

Contracts are simple, and don't have to be in legal speak or done by a lawyer... although those are easier to enforce. Basically it has to be a meeting of the minds and each person must receive something under the contract.

The contract can be something simple.

List the 2 people who are agreeing to the contract.

List what you expect to get from him.

List what he expects to get from you.

List the terms and the time frames.

Something like:

I agree to give the domain name (www.example.com), and the html/php code that powers the website as is appears online on the date of #*$!/xx/xx

In exchange for the domain and the supporting code, Mr X agrees to pay me $#*$!x.xx

In consideration of the sale Mr X agrees to provide me with XX hours of work every month, for the next XX months. The work will be related to the content/SEO/development of the above mentioned website, for which I will be paid $xx.xx per hour.

Keep it simple but don't omit anything... then at the end put.....

Any new terms or changes to this contract must be added and agreed to in writing by both parties.

[Demaestro]

Also you should have a remedy in the contract if he doesn't provide you with the promised work, and who is responsible for hosting.

....

Mr X assumes all fees and responsibilities relating to hosting of the website.

If Mr. X fails to provide the hours of work during any of the given months Mr X will pay to me a flat fee of $xx.xx per month that is remaining on the work contract and will be freed of any further obligations to assign me work. This will free me of any obligations to continue working on the website in any capacity.

[buckworks]

If you are making income because you have appropriated someone else's name, you might be on very shaky legal ground.

I urge you to get knowledgeable legal advice, and don't get greedy or you could lose everything.

I'd also suggest that you treat the possibility of ongoing employment as an issue to be dealt with separately, not as a "bundle". See what your lawyer says about that, though.

a site that has a rank of #1, that alone makes the site worth a good deal more than what your costs have been

Do not get get delusions of grandeur over this. It would be an easy prospect for any competent webmaster to get top rankings for the person's own name once they had the domain name to work with.

[duckxtales]

the thing is i wasnt making any income from the fan site at all. it was just something i wanted to do myself as a fan. from their responses seems like they just want the site as if they had it already. i was lucky enough to buy it up at the right time almost a decade ago where most people didnt know much about domain names.

[Webwork]

You could easily get nothing, by losing control via a domain arbitration @ WIPO/NAF or worse, find yourself being sued. I suggest that you "happily recoup your initial investment" and move on to other endeavors.

[Demaestro]

You could easily get nothing, by losing control via a domain arbitration @ WIPO/NAF or worse, find yourself being sued.

This is true, but if you do have a fan site up then you should be ok. Typically the squatter title is for people who don't develop the site.

If you have a fan site up and haven't been asking for money to hand over the domain then you are operating it in good faith and you should be fine.

[Webwork]

doesnt really make any income

The difference between a site that "doesn't even attempt to make any income" (a pure fan site) and a site that "doesn't really make any income" (a site that attempts to make coin but isn't very good at it) is the difference between fair likelihood of immunity from suit and reasonable probability of getting sued, hit with a judgment and being bankrupted.

YMMV.