Sunday Updates and Tips

I hope you’re reading this from somewhere cool because it has been crazy hot for the last few days. I try to stay in the air conditioning as much as possible, and when I spend time outdoors on the weekend, it can be brutal when the temps go above 95. Anyway, on to some Sunday updates and tips.

  • I was a bidder in a NameJet auction for a brandable domain name that sold for over $3,000, and it had five bidders with $1,000+ bids.  I performed a search on the    USPTO  website to make sure it was usable should I win the auction, and I saw one live trademark for the exact term that covered how the domain name would logically be used. If you buy brandable names, you should always check the USPTO first.
  • There are hundreds of dog walking services that advertise on DogWalker.com. Each listing has a link to its own website, and for the first time, there is an advertiser that uses a .CO domain name. Interestingly, the .CO is their brand and not a descriptive term. It’s interesting because they could have used a .net or .org (or something else) but chose the .CO instead. The matching .com is owned by a veterinarian in a different area.
  • With the above update in mind, it would be interesting if some of the new gTLD registries partnered with directories and organizations to offer discounts to companies using the TLD. For instance, it would be neat if .Dog worked out a deal with DogWalker.com so that dog walking services that had a .Dog domain name could get a $10 discount on listings and the .Dog Registry would pay me a bounty for every discount given.
  • It was great to read about the two RDNH decisions reported by Mike this week. It’s too bad a RDNH finding isn’t anything more than a slap on the wrist since the domain owner needs to pay an attorney thousands of dollars to defend a name that shouldn’t have had a UDRP filed against it in the first place.
  • I think the next best thing is the name and shame approach from Andrew in his “Fire your UDRP lawyer” posts. Perhaps some egg on the face will create some buzz to prevent this. I think Rick mastered that approach with his SaveMe.com UDRP reports.
  • I am beginning to have an affinity for lease deals. It can be a solid way of generating revenue with your domain names, and instead of getting one lump sum, you’ll get consistent revenue throughout the year. Further, instead of making the leasee pay for the name all up front (which can be difficult for an expensive name) a lease can be a nice alternative. Do any companies in the domain space offer lease administration services?
Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

17 COMMENTS

  1. so if i get what you’re saying… if a guy is at bat and gets hit by a pitch he is awarded first base… and he’s got a wooden leg… he can take off that leg and leave it on first base and get a really long lead.

  2. Think so, not sure. Just know about them. I can tell you they have been around for a really long time too. I can remember browsing through their inventory as early as probably 2005 or 2006 maybe.

      • Looks like it can be done. http://leasethis.com/?cmd=Page_Faq_Domain

        Just list the domain with their service (like listing with Sedo or anywhere else) and then tell the lessee to go there to lease it as they are your management company. Just be sure to set the price of the lease and any other details up how you want them on the listing and don’t forget to consider the commission/management fee.

        Again I’ve never used them, this is just the impression I got from some quick reading.

        Interesting that they refer to the tenant as “the advertiser”. I guess that’s essentially what the tenant is leasing, an exclusive advertisig deal on your domain which they can put what they want on the domain (hopefully a few limits can be set on that).

        • Potential drawback might be when tenant goes to lease this perhaps they will find a cheaper lease deal on another domain they are happy with. If domain is special enough shouldn’t be too much an issue.

      • Ammar owns LeaseThis.com. He talked about it in this interview (http://www.domainsherpa.com/ammar-kubba-thoughtconvergence-interview/) and on April 30, 2012 said, “Well, primarily, the three main businesses are TrafficZ, AfterMarket, and DomainTools. Those are the three main businesses under Thought Convergence. And then we have other divisions – some of which are legal entities and some aren’t. But we have LeaseThis.com, which as I told you, we’re going to be folding into After Market.”

  3. I knew it was owned by one of the big companies but couldn’t remember which, so didn’t want to say and get it wrong. But yea now I remember.

  4. I’m surprised no one mentioned Zenscrow.com. It looks like they specialize in domain name leasing. I thought they were fairly popular.

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