WTF is up with all of the domain names being taken away? Why the hell do people buy up thousands of domains and try to sell them for many times what the registration cost ($15 usually) is from companies like Dotster of GoDaddy? Its in-fucking-sane what one of them would go for were I actually stupid enough to buy it.
OK. Let me back up a few steps and explain. I’m looking into starting another website and was searching around for domain names that would suit the style of the site. I searched for about 45 minutes and was greatly disheartened at what the results were. Of the 80 or so domain names I searched for, only 5, yes 5, were available. And of those there were only sporadic TLDs available (like one had a .net available, another a .org available, and so on). I’m a little partial to the .com’s (having been a Dot Com-er back in its heyday) so I get a little miffed whenever a name I want is taken for no reason.
Now, I don’t get miffed when someone has bought it an used it as a store front, or a company site, or a dedication to some old ladies dear departed Shitzu. These I am fine with. But when soulless, ass-hat companies like Buy Domains have purchased it for no other reason than to put up a page that says “This domain is for sale”, then I start getting irate. Irate to the point of contemplating serious bodily harm to the jag off who thought of the term “domain parking”.
Heres an example from my own experience:
Last year I wanted a very specific domain name for a very specific project my partner and I were working on. This was to be a community site with no ads and no monetization at all. We needed that domain as it embodied all that the site was going to be. I looked, and sure enough it was already registered, and by none other than BuyDomains. A little irked, I emailed them asking how much the domain is going for. I get a response an hour later saying that the domain could be mine for the low low price of $1,500.
Out of curiosity I checked the domain records and see it was registered in 2003. I give the guy a call and ask him why the domain is thusly priced. He said that it was a very popular name and that as so it carried a larger price tag. I asked him how many inquires he gets for that particular name, he lies and says 10 or so a month. I ask him how many people offered to buy it, he said “Well, none. The name is for sale, isn’t it”. I told him I would give him $50 for the name. He said no.
Its little wonder why the 360 or so people before me hadn’t bought it. Frustrated, I just added a dash to the domain name we really wanted and bought that one. I don’t consider it spending $15 so much as denying BD of $1,485.
How is it that these domain squatters think they can make money off of buying these names? One of the companies I talked to about it said “It only takes 1 purchase to negate the cost of buying 200 others”. Yea; you let me know when that one purchase goes through mate.
And even worse, possibly, are the domain negotiators like Sedo.com who offer to broker a deal between the owners of a wanted domain and you. They are worse as they are taking a commission from the guy screwing you over. “Hey, heres a $15 name, they are charging $2000, I talked them down to$1400, and my commission is only 20%”. Dingle-berries, all of them.
I understand the principle behind their business tactics as it is the same thing with land owners in the early 19th century here in the US. Buy a big plot of land, then sell off small chunks at profit. Well, most of the internet “land” they are peddling is murky swamp filled with snakes and dysentery. And you will be stupid to take them up on their “generous” offers as they are nothing more than under-handed snake oil salesmen in Kenneth Cole shirts (with no tie of course).
The next step in acquiring the domain for the latest project is to go with a weird spelling like Scrybe or Joost did. Thankfully for them, its working out OK as its a very Web 2.0 style of thing to do. But for me, no, I just cant do it. I’ll use Ajax on my sites, I’ll throw in an inordinate amount of gradients into my designs, I’ll even go with the slightly too large footer with nothing in it. But the name is too important to swap out an ‘i’ for a ‘y’ just to get a bloody entry in a registrars record books.
In short, I may just have to stuff the project all together if I can’t get the name (yes, its that important to me). Either that or just add a subdomain to my site as I have total control over everything under iGonzo. Perhaps BD would be willing to donate the name in exchange for a link?
Yea, I’ll hold my breath until that happens. It looks like I will have to either A) wait until I win the lottery or B) wait until these domain stealing web-ticks go out of business. I’m thinking B will happen sooner.
Oh, and if anyone from Buy Domains is reading this, please email me and let me know if anyone has registered the domain I inquired about in January 2006. I would be REALLY interested to go and meet the biggest moron on this planet.
-Cheers