Over time a domain can lose its relevance. The company that owns the resource may cease to exist, and web addresses bought in bulk may simply never be needed. In such cases you can make a certain profit if you sell the domain to another person.
Let's look at how and where to sell a domain, and what it is really worth.
The price of a popular domain can reach several thousand dollars. But that is the exception rather than the rule. The value of most domain names barely reaches a few hundred. And yet selling a domain is a chance to earn a tangible amount of extra money!
How to find out the price of your domain
The following factors will help you objectively assess your domain's market value and sell it at the best possible price:
- How well the domain associates with the brand name, field of activity, products and services.
- How vivid, evocative and memorable the domain is.
- The amount of traffic and the site's popularity among internet users.
- The domain extension. Domains ending in .com are considered the most expensive. Names with .info, .biz, .net and other extensions sell somewhat cheaper.
- The readability and length of the domain name largely determine how much it will cost and how quickly it can be sold.
There are also online resources that can appraise a domain automatically. However, we do not recommend relying on their estimates. The best results come from researching the domain name market yourself and determining your site's value on your own.
Verifying domain ownership
When buying a domain, you need to make sure that the seller and the owner are one and the same person. To avoid risks, it is best to use one of the verification services, for example «Whois». If the owner's personal details match the information provided by the seller, this gives extra assurance that the person selling the domain is indeed its owner.
How and where to sell a domain
There are many ways to sell your domain. Let's list the main ones:
- Online marketplaces and auctions. «eBay» and similar services let you set a starting price, put the domain up for sale, and wait for the most profitable buyer.
- You can draw attention to your domain sale listing by posting it on one of the trading platforms: Sedo, Flippa, GoDaddy, AfterNic and others.
- You can sell a domain by placing an offer on your own website.
- You can add a sale offer and the domain's price by editing the details in the «Whois» database.
- Parking the domain on one of the dedicated services lets you not only display a sale notice alongside the site, but also earn a little from advertising.
And finally, a domain can be sold profitably through the domain name registrar or a specialized domain broker.
Remember that the cost of renewing the registration of an unused site name will regularly eat into your funds. And if you do not renew the subscription, the domain will automatically become available for re-registration by someone else, free of charge.