Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

I get the usual dosage of domainer spam, on a daily basis. These are individual domains being offered, based on domains that I own, with hyphens inserted between the keywords or alternate TLDs.

I delete those immediately.

There is another category of email offers that fall in the “domainer fail” category, and I will explain its issues by using a real example from a Joaquim Rodrigues who operates URLideas.com

Our friend introduces himself from a Hotmail account. Fail checkmark #1.

He then proceeds to state:

“I’m liquidating a part of my domain portfolio.”

That’s Fail checkmark #2. When I hear someone is “liquidating” something, it means that they are trying to get juice out of rotten oranges. What I want to see is current investment activity by the pitcher of those domains.

Which brings us to Fail checkmark #3: URLideas.com has nothing to say for the person or the company. It has a lame “under construction” image and a fax.

Last time I used a fax was in 2009. Fail checkmark #4.

The attached list was in Excel, and that renders Fail checkmark #5. With the amount of viruses and trojans in the wild, sending anything else than a text document might immediately forward your offers to the trash.

After scanning the attachment for viruses, I opened it. There were three columns: domain name, TLD it belongs to and notes. The notes field contained prior sales of other TLDs for the same domain, or visitor stats. Jotting Fail checkmark #6: I don’t care about how much wespeak.es sold for; when you offer wespeak.asia the domain+TLD must “speak” for itself.

Finally, Fail checkmark #7 comes in the form of numerous adult domains, and Spanish words that I’ve no interest in.

Joaquim Rodrigues stated in his email:

“I’m sending to you this email because according my searches, you are one of the best investors in this industry.”

Thanks, Joaquim – and that’s why I’m now using your email as an example of what you should not bug the “best investors in this industry” with, when you want to “liquidate” your domain portfolio.

Earlier today, Mike Berkens posted about a UDRP case that is about to claim the ‘developed’ web site, Vanity.com

Because it’s pointless to wade through trolling comments in order to relay the type of information that such a post deserves, I’m posting it all here.

What does one do with a domain, as soon as they register it?

The obvious answer is parking. It works for the most part, as a place holder that requires no development and no web hosting is needed for some temporary, under construction notification.

The next step up, is exactly that: a simple page that notifies visitors that the content is not there yet.

One step up, is a system that collects email addresses, all while the web site is “under construction”.

A mini site exists for the purpose of delivering content in small, organized chunks, interlaced strategically with ads such as AdSense, for monetization purposes.

Static web sites contain more info than a minisite and their content does not seem to be updated often; the manual editing of pages might occur once in a blue moon.

Dynamic web sites utilize multiple sources of information, databases and feeds to keep the content fresh; both for the visitors and for ranking purposes in search engines.

Now, there is a category that combines all of these elements and yet does not fall in any distinct category: the perpetually under construction, pseudo-developed collection of pages that hints of development. Its purpose and existence is simple: it’s there in order to avoid the delivery of the much-dreaded UDRP, particularly when the domain is extremely valuable.

This method of hybrid domain existence seems to work for the most part, as it often fools both those that could have a legitimate interest in challenging ownership in a domain, and those that deliver judgement over its status. It works beautifully even with domainers that are otherwise experienced, and yet fall prey to tagging such an abomination as “developed”.

On the subject of Vanity.com which Mike scooped from the newly opened cases at the WIPO, I’d be interested to read the case and the argument of the complainant and the respondent; the latter appears to be a company that is not registered in the state of California, unlike what the WHOIS shows.

It was a great opportunity to clear out some misconceptions about domains and web development, and I’m looking forward to doing the same in person at TRAFFIC 2012 in Ft. Lauderdale.

Former Moniker account manager, Bari Meyerson, has moved to eNom as a senior bizdev manager, according to Elliot’s Blog.

That’s a great promotion for the very likable Bari, and there is a very specific reason why I like her.

Although I was never a Moniker fan – still keeping less than 10 domains there for no particular reason – Bari stood out for me in TRAFFIC 2008 in Orlando, when she was part of the Moniker crowd overseeing (cough, cough) the live domain auction.

My domain, 360.org was being auctioned – back then with a very reasonable reserve of $6,000 – and during the minute or so that attention was drawn to the lot, Bari “drew” in the air a full circle, with her fingers. That shows she understood the significance of the number very well.

Incidentally, the domain wasn’t sold at the auction but a year and a half later set the record for the highest priced NNN .org in history.

Thank you, Bari, for knowing the rules of the game so well and best of success at your new job with eNom.

As a domain investor, I’m looking into maximizing my ROI from domain sales. When that happens, it’s because my asking price was met by the potential buyer.

On Sedo, where anonymous offers can be considered ‘safe‘ by those that place them, it’s not always easy to come to an agreement.

While flexibility by both parties is the key to any successful negotiation, there are times when a comment or a change in the price terminates the desire to communicate further.

A couple of days ago, I received a series of increased offers for a generic domain in my portfolio. Apparently, my asking price ‘shocked’ the newly registered account that the bidder was placing offers from at Sedo.

When I responded with a detailed message to their standard “Please justify your asking price”, things turned nasty. Upset that my price exceeded the cost of domain registrations over the course of ten years, the buyer attempted to teach me a lesson in economics, forgetting one simple thing in the process:

I don’t sell unless I want to, and I sell when the price is right.

When the offer/counter-offer exchange turns into a ‘conversation‘, the negotiation is pointless. Falsely believing that I will be upset, our anonymous teacher of economics turned the $x,xxx offer into $60, leaving the comment “Cool story bro.”

I did not wait for their comment to be approved and instead canceled this time-waster of a bonehead offer. No point in continuing talking to obnoxious people hiding behind anonymity. If a person is serious about a domain, they’d contact me directly via the WHOIS.

I have so many “sour grapes” stories at Sedo that it’s truly funny how I don’t even blink these days to such lowballing commentary. But it makes a cool story for my Saturday morning blogging.

Recently, I had the pleasure of exchanging a couple of emails with a person who provides quality 3D infographics for financial data, on his .info web site.

After receiving an offer for the matching .com on Sedo and not reaching an agreement on the price, I assumed it came from the .info or the .us – both owned by the same person I mentioned above.

I emailed him, making sure he got praised for his creations displayed on the year old .info, and asked how much he’d pay for the 10 year old .com that I owned.

His response left me speechless, as he stated he had no budget for the .com and that through “Google placement” he’d make the .info have more traction, overshadowing the .com. He also stated that he hadn’t placed the bid on Sedo.

At that point, I had killed two birds with one stone: first, I knew this was not my secret bidder and second, I knew he would not be the one to ever bid on the .com!

So I contacted Sedo, asking them to mediate a sale to the original bidder, offering them a reasonable discount over my initial asking price. The buyer accepted, and the sale closed and was paid in two days.

Moral of the story: eliminate those that won’t be interested in your domain and achieve a sale by seeking alternate buyers.

Many thanks to Sedo and particularly Lisa Allen, for making this sale appear effortless!