Selling a domain name

Hodders · 22 May 2009 at 17:41

I own a domain name that I no longer need/want and I want to get a rough idea of what it is worth.

I am not going to be too specific as it may break rules about promoting businesses.

But anyway the following is probably relevant lets say the domain is rollingrock.co.uk (but it isn't):

1) The domain has been registered since 1999
2) It is a .co.uk
3) The .com is used by a large US company that also owns a hypenated version of the domain .co.uk - i.e. rolling-rock.co.uk
4) The US company's business area is not the same as the one currently run on the domain
5) The "rollingrock" bit is on the front of about 80% of their products

Now all the above point to it being worth a fair bit, BUT the only really interested party is likely to be the US company as the only other companies that might be interested are tiny and unlikely to have the cash.

Any ideas on how to make the first approach and any gotcha's I should be aware of would be great (trademarks, protection against legal issues etc)

Cheers !

WalesOwl · 22 May 2009 at 17:43

Have you asked them?

rz30 · 22 May 2009 at 17:54

Sneaky.

Andr3w · 22 May 2009 at 17:56

Give them a ring and ask?

What is it, tell us

Rosbif · 22 May 2009 at 18:07

If you registered it in 1999 and you haven't received an offer from this 'large US company' or had legal proceedings against what could be a trademarked name then I do wonder about the value of the domain.

From the sounds of it this domain doesnt really have any transferable value so the last thing you want to do is to tell them that you've no use for this domain anymore. They'll just know they can lower the price on it. I might be tempted to give it the old 'Due to uncertain times we're looking to unlock value in our assets and are prepared to sell our domain to you'. I certainly wouldn't say 'Im closing the site (and therefore business), I have no use for the domain anymore'.

Dunno really. No idea how to value a domain.

Hodders · 23 May 2009 at 11:46

Rosbif said:
If you registered it in 1999 and you haven't received an offer from this 'large US company' or had legal proceedings against what could be a trademarked name then I do wonder about the value of the domain.

From the sounds of it this domain doesnt really have any transferable value so the last thing you want to do is to tell them that you've no use for this domain anymore. They'll just know they can lower the price on it. I might be tempted to give it the old 'Due to uncertain times we're looking to unlock value in our assets and are prepared to sell our domain to you'. I certainly wouldn't say 'Im closing the site (and therefore business), I have no use for the domain anymore'.

Dunno really. No idea how to value a domain.

I think that you raise some good points - if they haven't approached me then are they interested.

However, until about 2003 the .com was owned by a San Francisco media company who then sold it to the big US company. Maybe at the time they did not see the .co.uk as key.

I like the idea of approaching them and saying that we are in the process of a rebranding and are interested to see if the current domain name has any value to them.