Renting Domain Names

Has anyone done this? Any third party companies that do it best?

[maherphil]

Hi,

I'm looking for input on renting domain names out. Ideallly I'm looking for a company that I can list my domains as easily as parking them at a sedo or something.

I've been researching this space and I can't seem to find the 900 pound gorrila that everyone would use. It seems odd that the godaddy's of the world haven't incorporated this into their offering.

Anyone know a trusted site that can handle all the payments and technical issues of renting and take a cut from the monthly rental fee?

I'd like to be able to list my domains and have this company handle just about everything else.

[Webwork]

The world isn't quite ready for renting domains, so you don't see many domain rental agencies.

The world might be ready for revenue sharing models for the right domain.

Rented domains can be damaged by the developer, at least vis-a-vis the search engines.

Rented domains become brand. Someone labors to develop a brand then what? The rent goes up? It's one thing to move your storefront down the street. It's another to loose your web address.

It's a model that doesn't have much uptake but that doesn't mean you can't be a trailblazer.

[gpmgroup]

I think you'll find there is a lot of resistance too from end users (renters) most want to "buy" from the registry.
The only reason to consider letting would not being able to [afford] to buy. Domain names on the whole are not that expensive [yet?].

In actual fact you really rent your names from the registry. So you would really be sub letting :)

[maherphil]

thx webwork, your words makes tons of sense, I hadn't thought of the abuse case of someone spamming on your domain and such if u had rented it to them...opens up a whole can of worms.

That said, it seems like a great model for the future of domaining in a way that the owner of the domain can retain ownership and still monetize the domain's intrinsic brand value.

I found this an interesting read:
[gigalaw.com...]

[gpmgroup]

It seems a logical step but there just isn't a market for it. Maybe there will be in the future, but at the moment

1) The cost of domains is still very cheap when compared to other business costs or setting up a bricks and mortar company even when compared with leasing a building.

2) There is still too much choice available at a reasonable cost even if you can not get an exact match.

3) If a buyer can not afford to buy the name he is more likely to get finance to spread the cost in the future.

4) Domains are different from advertising campaigns. Advertising in tradtional media has a huge spike of interest which quickly diminishes in a matter of days. Domain names are visible for much much longer.

5) From the renters point of view someone else may rent the name after you, one of your competitors maybe and benefit from the residual traffic from your campaign.

6) The name in the WHOIS is responsible for the content. Sure you can indemnify yourself but does this scale?

[Kirby]

There is a market for licensing a website and doing a rev share.