Received an offer to buy my domain

[Mr Badger]

Out of the blue I have received an offer of £750 for a domain that I registered and have been using for 16 years now. Some Googling suggests that the offer and person are both most likely genuine and I can see why they would want the web address in question for the product they are looking to promote.

There are issues in that it will be a pain to move to a new domain name (and I know that doing so will annoy some people) and also that the email account associated with it is one through which I receive a fair amount of personal email.

Any thoughts please as to what I should be considering before responding to the offer?

Any advice as to how you calculate the value of a domain name?

Cheers!

 

[radderfire]

If they've offered you £750, it's probably worth a lot more than that. What extension is it? Is it a .com?

Domain value is calculated based on the business advantage it could give a company. There are many factors. If it is short, brandable and .com, then that is good for value.

 

[Cern]

I've seen it said that you should never respond to the first offer. Or if you do, don't act too keen to sell or even act that interested in their offer, be non-committal. If they are genuinely interested they'll up their offer.

There are lots of websites out there which will attempt to calculate the value of a domain, but there's so many factors at play it's hard to be accurate. You need to decide where your 'break point' is, the point at which if someone was waving crisp notes under your nose you'd say "oh go on then". And then at least double it

Be ambitious and get the best possible offer. Consider the value of the domain to you (and your visitors) and the hassle factor of changing it. Consider that there's 16 years of trust and reputation invested into your domain and that you've got all sorts of email associations tied up with it.

In other words, don't sell yourself short and play hard to get

 

[Mr Badger]

Thank you for the input. Another issue is that some people could expect a cut of the money. The website is registered to me and I have always done all the work on it and am currently paying all the associated costs. However, as the content relates to a joint project I can see the potential for an argument. Just another factor to weigh up...

 

[Cern]

Thank you for the input. Another issue is that some people could expect a cut of the money. The website is registered to me and I have always done all the work on it and am currently paying all the associated costs. However, as the content relates to a joint project I can see the potential for an argument. Just another factor to weigh up...

All the more reason to make sure that you get a good price if you decide to sell, then you can afford to give your content provider(s) a cut of the proceeds. If you intend to re-badge the site you'll likely want them to stay on-board, so best to keep them happy. I wouldn't rock the boat at this point though, but if your negotiations with a potential buyer get more serious it would be a good idea to keep everyone involved informed.

 

[Mr Badger]

All the more reason to make sure that you get a good price if you decide to sell, then you can afford to give your content provider(s) a cut of the proceeds. If you intend to re-badge the site you'll likely want them to stay on-board, so best to keep them happy. I wouldn't rock the boat at this point though, but if your negotiations with a potential buyer get more serious it would be a good idea to keep everyone involved informed.

Oh they aren't content providers or direct contributors - to be honest they are barely up to managing the odd Facebook post. I've done all the work relating to creating and maintaining the website. and their (passive) interest is only that it promotes the thing we do. However, you can guarantee if I tell them it's changing domain name because I've sold the old one they will convince themselves that they are all entitled to a share - even through I will do all the work relating to getting a new domain and moving the website. Because, money

 

[Cern]

Oh they aren't content providers or direct contributors - to be honest they are barely up to managing the odd Facebook post. I've done all the work relating to creating and maintaining the website. and their (passive) interest is only that it promotes the thing we do. However, you can guarantee if I tell them it's changing domain name because I've sold the old one they will convince themselves that they are all entitled to a share - even through I will do all the work relating to getting a new domain and moving the website. Because, money

Ah, well it doesn't sound like they have much say in what you decide if most of the hard work and all of the financial input is yours. Just tough it out if you decide to sell.

Personally I wouldn't easily sell a domain I'd worked hard to build up, well not unless it was an extremely attractive offer or the site itself didn't have much of a future and it was best to cash in while I still could.

 

[hughtrimble]

Given you feel you may need to share it with the others who do nothing, make sure you make it clear X amount is due to the work you'll have to put in to transfer it over to whatever new domain, and then after that you can each get a share of what remains.

 

[m4rkw7]

What's the domain?