Buy, Sell & Park domain name

Sections: Should you Buy an Existing Domain Name? | Why Park your Domain and Where to do it | How to Sell a Domain Name

Should you Buy an Existing Domain Name?

Another option for getting a domain name for your business is to buy an existing domain name that has expired. This means that the person who bought the domain name has failed to renew it and it is now up for sale. In some cases expired domain names are put up for sale for huge sums, but are they really worth it?

It is true that some people are better at coming up with names than others, but many of the domain names for sale are there because they didn't work for the previous owners. That's worth considering before shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars for an expired domain name. On the other hand, maybe there are a couple people around with your name and someone has already bought the domain you want. If that expires, it could be worth buying if your name is your brand.

One reason to buy an expired domain name that is related to your business is that you will benefit from all the traffic that the site already gets. After all if there are existing links to the site that complement your content then they will be seen as relevant. The jury is out on how much weight Google gives to expired and repurchased domains, but it seems that MSN and Yahoo do give them some value. Check the search engines to see what links are coming to that domain name and make sure there is nothing questionable before taking the final decision. Once you are happy visit one of the sites where expired domain names are listed, ranked and sold (such as DotDNS) to make your purchase.

Why Park your Domain and Where to do it

If you have bought several versions of your domain name, you may not intend to use all of them. In fact you may simply have bought them to stop them from falling into the hands of your competitors. But even if you are not intending to host a site with the extra domain names you can still make use of them with domain parking. At its simplest, you can use domain parking to redirect traffic from one domain to another. That means that traffic from 'getmeahost.net' can be redirected to 'getmeahost.com'. The advantage of this is that even if people use the wrong top level domain suffix, you still get the traffic.

However, you can also make money with domain parking, by parking your domain with a domain parking service. Many domain registrars offer this service. If the domain parking is non-monetized then you will probably see an 'under construction sign when the address is typed in. This can be a way to start to get traffic to the site even before you have uploaded content.

Even more interesting is monetized domain where ads are shown when someone types in the web address. You can gain pay per click or pay per impression advertising revenue from parked domains as well as tracking how many people are visiting the domain. This is a good way to make some money for very little effort. Meanwhile you find out which domain names are popular with visitors, which is useful for your internet marketing strategy.

How to Sell a Domain Name

Selling domains has become big business, though there are many more sellers than buyers. There are several options for selling your domain name. First of all, you could wait for someone to approach you and offer to buy the domain name. This requires little effort, but you can't be sure that anyone will know that a particular domain name is for sale.

Second you could set up a web page or have a banner on your parked domain that indicates that the domain is for sale. Third, you could put a banner on your site that indicates that the domain is for sale. Some people do this when they have a well developed site and are moving onto new challenges. Finally, you can sell domain names through a domain auction site or through a domain broker. In most cases this will involve a free listing (though sometimes the listing is paid), with the site or broker taking a percentage of the sale price as commission. When selling a domain you will have the option of setting a fixed price or accepting offers. Most brokers recommend that accepting offers is the best way to sell your site quickly.