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Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

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Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#31

Post by lathamcity »

Has anyone ever actually bought one of these domain names?

I tried to once. I had a good idea one day and wanted the domain name for it. It was a somewhat out-of-the-blue idea, so I wasn't really expecting it to be taken, but it was and all the names somewhat close to it were taken as well. I went back to the original name I wanted and e-mailed the squatter asking how much he wanted, hoping it would only be in the low hundreds of dollars. He e-mailed me back asking for $6600. When I said that it was too high and I wasn't interested, I got a much less professional e-mail:

"LAST 5.5 K

Keep or find other domain name

Bye"

I said it was still too expensive, and got

"LOL ...

Bye"

I went to the website that the e-mail was sent from and it was all Lorem Ipsum. When I went back to the domain name I wanted when I was writing this, it had a startup-y logo, a promise of something cool being built, and an invitation to follow the developers (a tech blog I had never heard of) on facebook or twitter. It was all sounding legitimate, and I was upset that someone else apparently had an idea that was probably similar to mine, until I started clicking the really random assortment of "sponsor" links (to medical and legal sites, which pay a lot for ads but which had no obvious connection to any idea that would be associated with the domain name) and some of them took me to more lorem ipsum sites.

Very mysterious, and tremendously irritating.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#34

Post by trentmb »

epoxyhockey wrote: post #20
zachallia wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I have 40 or so domains, but none were purchased as an investment. All because of some random idea I had. Always happy to sell them for totally reasonable prices.

As someone who has approached others to buy their domain names, what do you consider as a totally reasonable price for an average domain name?

Not OP, but however much I have already paid is the amount I've parted with a domain or two before.

Edit: For example: 2 years @ $10/yr so I sell it for $20.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#35

Post by slamdunc »

NatW wrote: post #13

The article says he claims that he sometimes buys domains via GoDaddy. Why would he use GoDaddy since he can get them from cheaper (and more-ethical) domain name registrars than GoDaddy?

That was what jumped out at me as well - I could only think about the $100K that was going into GoDaddy's bank account. ALL the dozens of domains I've moved (and continue to move, sometimes one by one) hardly make a dent when compared to these bulk folks that still use GD. Oh, well, death by a thousand (hundred thousand) blows...

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#36

Post by true_religion »

NatW wrote: post #25
citricsquid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper than GoDaddy, like who? GoDaddy give awesome discounts if you're a bulk buyer. You can pay close to verisign price. It can work out more economical than running your own registrar if you're willing to trust GoDaddy. They also have great support for high quantity customers.

I just researched it and fair enough! Though you can easily find cheaper prices if you're not a bulk customer, you may be right on bulk. Ok, then I guess he just doesn't care that he's supporting an ethically-challenged company that has supported SOPA, etc.. but that's not too surprising.. giving what he does for a living :).

Go-daddy is probably a loss leader when it comes to domains. They just use domain sales to try and upsell you to other things.

If you're only buying bulk domains from them, you're not really supporting their business very much.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#37

Post by citricsquid »

slamdunc wrote: post #35
NatW wrote: post #13

The article says he claims that he sometimes buys domains via GoDaddy. Why would he use GoDaddy since he can get them from cheaper (and more-ethical) domain name registrars than GoDaddy?

That was what jumped out at me as well - I could only think about the $100K that was going into GoDaddy's bank account. ALL the dozens of domains I've moved (and continue to move, sometimes one by one) hardly make a dent when compared to these bulk folks that still use GD. Oh, well, death by a thousand (hundred thousand) blows...

The majority of that $100K doesn't go to GoDaddy. I believe the current cost of a .com from verisign is $7.21 + $0.19 ICANN fee, then transactions fees etc... godaddy probably takes home about $0.50 per domain, so they made maybe $5k off this guy.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#38

Post by elliotanderson »

deniszgonjanin wrote: post #7

I think we should institute a Homesteading Law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle ) for domains. You can claim a domain as long as you use it for a legitimate purpose instead of just parking on it. There would be details to hash out for sure, but in the end I think we would have a much better system in place.

Easily worked around: set up MX records and claim the domain is for email. Website not required

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#39

Post by epoxyhockey »

trentmb wrote: post #34
epoxyhockey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has approached others to buy their domain names, what do you consider as a totally reasonable price for an average domain name?

Not OP, but however much I have already paid is the amount I've parted with a domain or two before. Edit: For example: 2 years @ $10/yr so I sell it for $20.

Thanks for that info. I usually offer a little more than that, but have never been successful.

Re: Meet the 'Mann' who registered 14,962 domains in 24 hours

#40

Post by serge2k »

lathamcity wrote: post #31

Has anyone ever actually bought one of these domain names? I tried to once. I had a good idea one day and wanted the domain name for it. It was a somewhat out-of-the-blue idea, so I wasn't really expecting it to be taken, but it was and all the names somewhat close to it were taken as well. I went back to the original name I wanted and e-mailed the squatter asking how much he wanted, hoping it would only be in the lo…

a friend and I phoned about a domain for an idea we had.

They wanted 25k.

we hung up and laughed. Told other people, they laughed.

At least we got a laugh.

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