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Ask HN: Have you ever been unable to obtain a domain/business name you wanted?

3 points by jakkinabox ↗ HN
There's a domain name I want but is taken. What is the procedure for buying it off that person?

And as a side note, what happens if the name is already being used as a business in another country? What happens if they won't sell? Or want some crazy price?

For example: Facebook was originally thefacebook.com. Was the business originally called thefacebook? Was there another business called "Facebook" at the time and if so how did Zuckerberg get it and the domain name?

EDIT: Fixed formatting that HN messed up.

4 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 20.5 ms ] thread
kitcar
The simple answer is a domain name is very similar to most other pieces of property. Everyone will eventually sell, if you pay a high enough price, because at a certain point the owners quality of life will actually start to decrease by not accepting your offer (due to the opportunity cost of not having the exorbitant amount of funds you are offering). The question is, are you willing to pay that much?

So short answer is pick up "Getting to YES" from Amazon, a book on negotiations, cold call the owner listed on the WHOIS record, and start negotiating. Hopefully they are reasonable, and you get a deal closed. The holding costs of domains are so low though that the downside from their perspective of not getting a deal done is pretty low, so keep that in mind while negotiating. Best of luck -

staunch
Don't fixate on a single domain. There's no point. There are always multiple that would work equally well. It's very easy to find yourself in love with one, so try to avoid that.

The procedure is simple enough: email the owner. Some times they have a contact form on their web site, other times whois will give you an email address. If you have a business email address use that. Email from gmail/hotmail/yahoo addresses tends to get ignored more often. If your organization is big and rich though you probably want disguise yourself otherwise people will ask for too much.

Be sure to tell the person that you want to make a serious offer. People constantly try to buy $10k domains for $100 and it gets annoying. Indicate you're not one of them.

Give a phone number if you're comfortable negotiating on the phone. Otherwise keep it to email.

Abso-fucking-lutely use Escrow.com (or Sedo's escrow service) to handle the transaction. Split the fee if you can, otherwise pay the whole thing. It's worth it.

Facebook.com was bought for $200k by not telling the owner who they were. It's covered briefly in The Facebook Effect.

jakkinabox
I definitely suffer from falling in love with names. I had the perfect name but I sat on my idea too long and it got taken (but isn't being used which just sucks). I had finally moved on and came to the current one I want.

I checked the whois records and the domain expires (very) soon. I doubt the owner will let it go but if he did, what's the best way to get it? Does backordering it on GoDaddy alert the owner that someone wants to buy it?

I will look into Escrow.