tech-company, domain-nameI am quite keen on a specific domain name for my startup. Unfortunately it has been taken. How do I go forward? I have checked whois and know the company who has registered it, and the business that owns the website.
The interesting thing is that while I am interested in [**ok].com, the company who is using it, redirects to a completely different domain [costumes].com (which is their company name). This makes me think that they might be open to offers for [*****ok].com.
If such a situation arises (they are keen on doing a deal), what is a reasonable amount to offer to buy the .com domain? Is there a central place where I can check such statistics? Therefore, a distribution graph/range of prices at which domains have been bought? To give me an idea.
As somebody who paid 5 figures for several domains, I would suggest finding another domain name as this one seems to be abused and you may have a hard time getting traffic from search engines if this domain is blacklisted.
If you want to take the risk, you will have to negotiate smartly and be patient, otherwise you will overpay badly for something that may not even be worth it.
I would also stay away from some generic or uncommon extensions such as .co. While these may be popular among some startups, average Joe will always be confused and most people will type .com anyway and you may be sending traffic to an unrelated website or even worse your competitor.
Other than the normal costs (acquisition cost and annual fee) associated with keeping a domain for a while after market domain pricing is very subjective and mostly depending on how badly the seller thinks you want it and how good he thinks it is. A domain can go from a couple of hundred dollars to millions. There are many domain market places - http://www.above.com/marketplace/index.html is one. And the listings can give you an idea how much people are paying.
I suggest you try the .co domain.
You lose nothing if you send an email to ask if they want to sell the domain. But until you wait you can check for another domain name.
If you want to see prices of different domains, check SEDO \ They are redirecting the domain with a reason. - It could be a re-branding, so check the domain in WebArchive to see the history. - Check domain in www.majestic.com to see if it has a SEO value. It's a practice to buy dropped domain with SEO value and links similar to your niche for redirect or satellite-website.
So if
Contact the owner and don’t overpay. Decide what the name is actually worth to you. There is not really a market price as it varies so much by the name and the value it has to the seller.
Don’t get too caught up in the domain name as with search engines, browser auto-complete, and favorites the value of a really cool name they can memorize is less than it was in the early days of the Internet.
Tie up both .com and .net. Then apply for trademark if you intend to trademark. I know a guy that saw a .com was available and paid a bit of money to get the trademark only to find out the domain name was purchased in the process.
Let say the perfect domain name is $20,000. You might be better off with a less than perfect domain name and $20,000 to spend on marketing. Now if you can get the perfect domain name for $2,000 then great.
A domain name can be still used with slight modifications. It’s important to keep your original name, and if it’s taken, keep trying. EXAMPLE - Michael’s Website Design - is taken Try - Website Design by Michael - Michael does Website Design - Michael’s New Website Design - Micheal the Website Designer
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