How To Buy A Domain On Ebay ?

This article shows some tips for buying the domain. I use my experience from Ebay,

but the advices are valid in any case of purchasing a domain from different sources.

Generally, you can buy

a new domain registered recently

a dropped domain – a newly registered domain that was previously registered, used, and expired ( canceled by different user)

an old domain that was used for active web site , usually more than one year old

a domain used only for parking , in this case the age is not so important

No matter what domain you want to buy, the first steps are similar :

We start from a look at the product information page,
and you should read it very carefully to avoid later surprises.
Check the Seller Reputation

Ebay publishes the reputation of the seller, with system of points given by satissfied customers.
Generally, the sellers are honest ( the are willing to sell ), but definitely you should read any negative comments given by buyers,especially when you will to pay a nice sum of money.

100% of positive feedback with few dozens of transactions is a good sign.

Check the Domain Name

Make sure to read correctly the name of the domain you are bidding for
Quite often you can find the domains with typos, say BruceSprengsteen.com or KylieMinoge.com they have some value,but much lover than the domains with the proper spelled(?) names.
Now popular are the domains with international letters so be carefull when you see :ęuropę.com ħarvard.com or ŋewyork.com.

This is a time to think about issues connected with probable Trade Mark, if the domain has some copyrighted mark like google, microsoft , it could give you some trouble in the future, or even can be canceled, and taken away from you.

Does the Domain have Reserve

Some of items have the reserve – the minimal price for which the seller agrees to sell.So if the item has a reserve, you start from low bid, but if the auctioned price is lower than the reserve, the sellers keeps the item.

As the reserve is not known for the bidders, I usually don’t bid on the items that have the reserve set. I don’t think it is fair to start the auction for say $1, when you want to sell it for at least $500.

Are there any Strings Attached to the Offer

In some, fortunately very rare occasions the seller tries to add some extra conditions, on which you can receive the domain. It could be the necessity of membership for which you have to pay extra, or using the

hosting services. You have to see it written precisely, that only the auction payment is necessary to get the domain.

Check the Hidden Costs -The Reneval fee
Before the expiry date you will have to pay renewal fee, and usually,after the purchase you are not allowed to transfer the domain to another registrar for 60 days, so when the domain expires next week ,you will have to pay to the current registrar fee and some TDL are renewed for almost a hundred USD a year, so it is wise to check registrar fees before.

Although the renewal time is supposed to be written in an Ebay offer you can also get all the informations using whois data, for example from site http://who.is, some national TLD would have different regulations .

Usually the seller transfer ( push) the domain to your account for free, but sometimes is different, so check are there any transfer fees.
How big are the Payment fees

Sometimes the sellers add the costs of shipment , that could rise the price of domain.

With the high prices it is possible to use Escrow services for secure money transfer, and you should check who is going to pay for this service.

Check the domain history

This is important part for me as I use domains for buliding websites – the domain history.

The present strength of a domain you can test with for example tool from

http://checkpagerank.net which gives you the detailed information about the domain age

backlinks, and google Page Rank , that is not of great importance, but if the domain has no PR it could be ‘punished’ by search engines, thus less valuable.

Checkpagerank tool gives you also the link to alexa.com wayback machine, where you can see the archived pages of the website from 10 years back( if it is that old).

Of course they are automated tools, so the results shouldn’t be the only criterion of purchase. The parked domains are usually not indexed by SE, and have no past data.
Check the Estimate Value of the Domain

The real value of the product is the price the buyer is paying or willing to pay.

If you want to buy the domain, because you like the name, that suits your firm vision, the fair price is the price you want to pay. Sometimes the seller includes the professional domain appraisal, and you can follow this advice, but they usually give you the highest possible price, you can probably sell the domain for.

As no one did know the value of ‘Google’ name 20 years ago, or ‘Apple’ sign , you cannot guarantee that in the future some of the new names would bring you the fortune, though.

I park plenty of domains, but my basic target is to create a strong site, so I do not choose a domain strictly for parking, and for my needs I’ve found estibot.com free appraisal , that gives you the estimated value of a domain.

Of course, everybody has its own view of value of domain, and uses different sources of information, and

if you like the name of a domain – just buy it.

I hope, I added some tips to ease the process of buying, so

Happy Bidding !