Verified Domains to Provide Domain Name Background Checks

Bill Hartzer emailed me to announce the launch of Verified Domains, a business that was created to provide “extensive background checks on domains.” The purpose of the business is to give domain buyers reassurances about the history of domain names that are being considered for acquisition.

Verified Domains launched today, and I have not had an opportunity to explore the website fully, so I asked Bill to share more information about how Verified Domains works. Here’s what Bill had to say about how it works and why people would want to use Verified Domains:

Verified Domains provides extensive background checks on domains. Check out a domain’s past and get a guarantee that the domain name is clean and ready for commerce.

Verified Domains has several different levels of service, depending on how extensive the background check and due diligence is done, and how much of a “guarantee” is included.

The Verified level gets you over 15 manual reviews of various data points, and includes a $5,000 Buy Back Guarantee. Manual reviews include data points like:
Whois History Review
Review of Former Site Topic
Email Blacklist Check
Limited Search Engine Reputation Review
DNS Health Check

The Verified Plus level gets you all of the checks included in the Verified level, but includes more data points and a $25,000 Buy Back Guarantee.

The Verified Premium level includes the Verified and Verified Plus checks, but also includes more extensive checks of whois data and search engine reputation issues. There are over 45 different manual reviews of various data points done, and it includes a $50,000 Buy Back Guarantee.

The Buy Back Guarantee essentially says that if Verified Domains verified the domain as being “clean” and ready for commerce, and a problem is found within 30 days of the verification, Verified Domains will reimburse the cost of the domain name: they’ll buy the domain.

For domainers, a report from Verified Domains could be used to “close the deal”, giving some assurance to buyers that there aren’t any problems with the domain. Adding a report could allow you to ask more for the domain, as it’s a Verified Domain. Discounts are available for multiple domains and entire domain portfolios.

For resellers, Verified Domains will work with you to integrate into your platform and provide a referral fee.

Verified Domains is a product and service from Globe Runner, a digital marketing and SEO agency based in Dallas Texas.

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
  1. Ron, that’s a good question.

    Basically, if there’s an issue that we missed on a domain that we verified, we’ll fix the issue or buy the domain, up to $50,000. We have spent a lot of time putting the guarantee in place, and am confident in the way it is set up.

  2. That is a great idea for a service. I am not sure they will be able to get enough business to make an entire company out of it, but at least it is something useful and new in the industry.

  3. Great idea, but they cannot make enough money to keep the business alive for long.

    Newbies won’t pay for it and experienced domainers are able to do a comprehensive background check by their own.

    Good luck, anyway.

  4. >> experienced domainers are able to do a comprehensive background check by their own.
    Mike, that’s exactly why I started the service. Lots of domainers don’t know how to do a comprehensive background check on a domain, let alone look at all the links to a domain and decide if the domain has bad links, good links, or if the domain is banned or has a manual penalty from Google. I know some very experienced SEOs who have bought domains and then found out later that the site had a penalty so they had to ditch the domain and buy another one.

    >> they cannot make enough money to keep the business alive for long
    Well, guess we’ll see about that… no one ever thought of doing a vehicle history report before CarFax came along.

    >> one of the most interesting parts of this story
    Thanks for mentioning, Eric. I wouldn’t have launched this on another TLD, I personally think that verified.domains is THE best URL for this.

    • I think that because your company is only dealing with domainers, or at least people at companies who are somewhat familiar with domains, having a gTLD is not a problem. I don’t think it will confuse anybody. Plus, Verifieddomains.com looks bad because of the 2 “d”s in a row. and it is long.

  5. Eric, the ultimately goal, however, is not actually to sell this to domainers. Hopefully brand owners, business owners and anyone who buys a domain on the aftermarket could use the service.

    I like the fact that verified.domains breaks up those two DDs, would rather use that than the hyphenated version.

  6. At a bulk wholesale price, your service might be of interest to domain brokers. For example, in 2014 I bought GameReviews.com through a domain broker for $7,000. I am guessing the made a $700 (10%) commission on it. If they paid you a small amount of that commission, they could have offered the domain for sale as “verified.” They could have made the verification part of the closing, so they would only pay it if the domain sale went through, not just for listing it for sale.

    • That’s the plan, Eric. I’ve built in “bulk wholesale pricing” and am offering that option. That way those domains can be sold as “verified” domains, like you mentioned. I could also see the asking price of the domain higher if it’s verified rather than not being verified.

  7. Many large brands are already working with CSC, MarkMonitor, and the like who could provide or are already providing this service to those big brands. If they are not, verification is a service those existing players in the marketplace could outsource to Verified. They could mark it up and make a profit when selling the domain ‘assurance’ service to the big brands.

  8. I think you guys should’ve acquired VerifiedDomains.com as well to show your seriousness/long-term goals with this endeavor. Show us the idea is worth the few hundred/couple grand to you to secure all angles of your brand. It’s the first addressed I typed in.

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