Good things sometimes do come to those who wait

When I was looking to buy some furniture domains late last year one on my wanted list was diningroomfurniture.co.uk, the .net was for sale for around £1500 but I prefer the .co.uk so emailed the owner to offer a pretty respectable £1000 for it.

9th November last year I received a reply:

Scott, £1000-£1500 is not really of interest to us at this point.

It went on, suffice to say what I felt was a reasonable offer did not make selling it of interest to the owner. Fast forward a year almost to the day and on the 6th November the domain drops, freely available and I hand register it for £5.

About Scott Jones

Scott hails from the north east of Scotland and started earning online at the end of 2000 building websites for local businesses during which time he won an award from Lord Alan Sugar for Excellence in Enterprise. After having quite a bit of success with domaining Scott mainly runs educational evergreen websites which generate over 3 million visitors per month but is always on the lookout for a fresh thinking out of the box way to turn a buck. Follow on Twitter.

Comments

  1. Andrew Johnston says:

    Haha brilliant, well done. Silly owners letting it expire, could have made atleast £1000 for 10 minutes work.

  2. You’re kidding? My god that guy must feel stupid right now. Good catch!!

    Mikael’s last blog post..Opgørelsen af stemmerne

  3. Excellent - I love to read about your adventures in domaineering (if that’s the word) and this is the best story by far.

  4. It’s fun when you have those moments. It depends on your perspective as a domainer. Personally? I don’t want to hold a large stock of unused domains, it’s just dead money.

    Dan

    Dan @ PowerDosh.com’s last blog post..Buy Your Own Name As A Domain Name

  5. Great catch Scott. Did you use the DAC (domain availability checker)? I’m guessing this one alone covered your costs.

  6. Even more amazing 🙂 I’d complain to Nominet though. You paid a hefty sum for getting a jump on dropping names.

  7. Sometimes people amaze me. Who lets a domain drop that has previously attracted an offer of 1,000£?

    The human mind sure works in mysterious ways sometimes. But as long as it saved you 999£ there’s no need to complain 🙂

  8. You should offer to sell it back to them for £10,000!!

    Justin Cook’s last blog post..What to do when you’re dropped from Google’s index

  9. Scott,

    Should start selling furniture with your collection - fantastic catch and what a plonker the ex-owner was.

    Nick’s last blog post..Online Room Planners

  10. Can’t believe this guy. Why would he refuse £1,000+ and then just let the domain expire. Idiot.

    Nice catch 🙂

  11. Posts like this remind me to check my renewal dates 😉

    Dave Marshall’s last blog post..Development Manager at Quantic (Oxford, OX27HT)

  12. That is brilliant. Happy for you Scott! Must be hard to resist emailing the previous owner ?

    Great Catch!

  13. That’s crazy being able to pick up a site for next to nothing when it was obviously well thought of (hence the rejection you got).

    I was reading something similar which made me wonder if you’re responsible for this find as well.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/7727625.stm. I wouldn’t put it pass you!

    Well done.

  14. Nice catch Scott!

    May I ask, do you use any services for parking domains that you are not ready to develop? I bought a lot of new domains recently and have heard good things about WhyPark’s service

    Cheers, Jon

    Jon’s last blog post..Salon Websites - Google Search Engine Optimization Guide

    • I don’t park any domains Jon, would only be if use if you felt you had type in traffic which is not the case for most of mine.

      • Yes, sorry, “park” was the wrong word. I’m thinking of services like WhyPark that build you an automatic mini-site and allow you to build backlinks to it. Might be worth a look - looks like it’s not as good as aeiou’s service, but a lot cheaper if you have a few domains that you’re not yet ready to develop.

        Cheers, Jon

        Jon’s last blog post..Salon Marketing - Another Christmas promotion idea

  15. ha ha that’s brilliant. Must have more money then sense I would imagine to let that happen!

  16. I wonder how long until the previous owner realises the domain has expired! Words escape me for people that do things like let valuable domains expire, ah well makes life easier for the rest of us.

    Chris’s last blog post..First Post: Blogspot Users Do Yourself A Favour!

  17. Congratulations Scott, how did you know that this might be available for registering. Had you seen that it had been suspended?

  18. web domain selection says:

    Well, waiting in business means delaying profit. If you ave had bought the domain for 1500 versus today’s 5, that would have a 1495 difference. But you may have missed the opportunity of potential gain through that site for, say, 10,000 within tat span of time. Maybe the owner realized the value depreciation in economics. Anything could have been a lot cheaper through time but potential profit greater than its value might have been in that span of time. So, profit is lost.

  19. Love this post.

    Recently i have started to list any domains that take my interest in an excel spreadsheet so i can check to see if they get renewed. Early days yet but this post proves there is always a chance they may not, at which point i have chance to snap it up!

  20. Domaineering says:

    Domaineering is the web-based marketing business of acquiring and monetizing Internet domain names focusing on their use specifically as an advertising medium rather than primarily speculating on domains as intellectual property investments for resale as in domaining where generating advertising revenue is considered more of a bonus while awaiting a sale. In essence, the domain names function as virtual Internet billboards with generic domain names being highly valued for their revenue generating potential derived from attracting Internet traffic hits. Revenue is earned as potential customers view pay per click ( PPC ) ads or the Internet traffic attracted may be redirected to another website. Hence, the domain name itself is the revenue generating asset conveying information beyond just functioning as a typical web address. As the value here is intrinsically in the domain name and not in a website’s products or services, these domains are developed for advertising, ( i.e, “parked” ), and not into “conventional” websites. As with traditional advertising, domaineering is part art and part science. Often to be the most effective as an advertising tool, the domain names and their corresponding landing pages must be engineered or optimized to produce maximum revenue which may require considerable skill and keen knowledge of search engine optimization ( SEO ) practices, marketing psychology and an understanding of the target market audience. Domaineering generally utilizes a firm offering domain parking services to provide the sponsored “feed” of a word or phrase searched for thus creating a mini-directory populated largely by advertisers paying to promote their products and services under a relevant generic keyword domain. Occasionally content is added to develop a functional mini-website. Domaineers and some of those who advertise online using keywords believe domaineering provides a useful, legal and legitimate Internet marketing service while opponents of domaineering decry the practice as increasing the ubiquitous commercialization of the world wide web. Domaineering aka “domain advertising” is practiced by both large organizations which may have registered hundreds or even thousands of domains to individual entrepreneurial minded domaineers who may only own one or a few. The earliest known verifiable identification and defining of domaineering as a distinct Internet advertising practice is attributed to Canadian Professor William Lorenz.

  21. That’s funny, I was actually looking for furniture, not a domain and came across this site and now I’m hooked!

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