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Domain Bundling and Brand Protection

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Branding

Prospective domain buyers often ask if I’ve also got other relevant extensions, such as the .com version of a .com.au domain and vice versa.

For example, I’m currently negotiating a five figure sale for a bundle of four domains that include .com.au and .com domains for a particular term.

Being able to offer a ‘brand in a box’ is great, but of course it’s not practical or possible to secure all the relevant extensions or variations of terms across your whole domain portfolio. If you try to ‘cover your bases’ across hundreds or thousands of domains, your costs will quickly skyrocket.

I buy complementary domains very selectively. On rare occasions I also secure the Twitter handle, but I don’t bother with any other social media accounts. A recent example is ‘Aussie Cover’. I bought AussieCover.com.au, AussieCover.com and I also grabbed the Twitter handle. I’m a big fan of domains in the insurance space, so I think it was worth my time and money.

Another tactic that I often use is to acquire variations of a term, such as WhiskyBar.com.au and TheWhiskyBar.com.au or KitchenwareShop.com.au and KitchenwareStore.com.au. I reiterate though, it’s very important to be selective!

I don’t just buy supporting domains for investment purposes, this is something I’ve also been doing for my own businesses for a long time. I know first-hand how beneficial it is to have brand coverage across the key domain extensions. For example, I bought the .com version of my main business name (The Lucky Country) early this year. This means that I don’t have to worry about people ending up at the wrong place, as the .com version forwards to my website hosted on the .com.au domain. I’ve also got email forwarding setup, so if someone leaves the ‘.au’ bit off the end of the email address – the email will still get to my inbox. Having both the .com and .com.au domains also means that I can just say the name of my business, I don’t need to say “dot com dot au” at the end.

Domain extensions

For .com.au domain investment, the only other extension worth securing is the .com equivalent; if it’s available and if it’s reasonably priced.

However, if you’re running a business on a .com.au domain, then in addition to securing the .com equivalent, you could also get other extensions such as .net and .org. If you’re planning to operate in overseas markets at some point, then you could also buy domains in other country extensions, such as .co.nz (and .nz) and .co.uk (and .uk). Locally, you can also cover your bases with a .net.au domain (and potentially .au in the future). I only have a very small number of .net.au domains and most of those are for brand protection – it’s not a great extension for investment.

I used to buy .net, .org and some other extensions for brand protection by default (when attainable), but my approach has changed and I don’t buy as many other extensions now. With all the ‘new gTLDs’ coming onto the market, the range of extensions has exploded – prompting many businesses to reassess their brand protection strategies.

Term variations

There are lots of variations that could be covered depending on the term, such as: singular and plural; ‘shop’ and ‘store’; adding ‘the’ at the front; and common misspellings.

Variations should only be purchased if the main term/domain is a very good one and the variation domain(s) will add some value as part of a bundle or have value in their own right. Of course if you’re running a business, then variations can be also be important for brand protection.

I only buy misspellings if they’re very common (often for domains that fail ‘the radio test’) or for brand protection. I’ve only got a handful of these domains and would not recommend buying misspellings unless absolutely necessary.

Social media accounts

In my experience, it has been very rare for a buyer to ask about matching social media handles, so I don’t bother with this very often at all. The time required to manage my domain portfolio and marketplace is already quite significant, so I need to allocate my time to those activities that will provide the greatest return.

Pick Up The Phone!

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Phone

I understand that some people feel more comfortable communicating by email, but if you have a phone number for a prospective buyer, then in my opinion it would be crazy not to call them.

I do usually start with an email reply to enquiries, but I also like to follow up with a phone call if I don’t hear back.

Today I’ve been doing some follow up calls and I’ve had some great conversations. I love hearing about peoples ideas and business ventures.

I’ve been able to upsell and cross-sell all through some quick phone calls. Once you have someone on the line you can find out more about what they’re looking for, which gives you the opportunity to suggest other domains to meet their needs.

In my experience, you’ll learn more about a potential buyer through a quick phone call than you would through exchanging a dozen emails.

It’s amazing what a difference a conversation can make, so pick up the phone and boost your sales!

Reg fee .au domains can pay off!

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.au cash

I purchase most of my .com.au domains via the drop platforms, aftermarkets and direct contact with domain owners; but I also ‘hand register’ quite a few domains, probably a dozen or so each month.

In fact, one of my first .com.au sales was a hand registration, I sold it in the same year that I registered it for over $3k. That’s a pretty terrific return on a $20 investment! These days I would estimate that about 25 – 30% of my sales are ‘reg fee’ domains.

I’ve written before about the importance of being picky when buying domains and this is particularly true for hand registrations. It’s often the case that “the domain is available for a reason” – i.e. no one else wants it (meaning it has no value as an investment).

However, given there are ‘only’ 2.9 million .au domains registered, there are still some fantastic domains to be found for reg fee. To put that in perspective, there are well over 110 million .com domains registered.

For example, a few days ago when I was scanning the .au drops I noticed ‘MySecretIngredient.com.au’. While that particular domain is not one I would go for, it did prompt me to check if ‘SecretIngredient.com.au’ was available. As it turned out, SecretIngredient.com.au had expired and was available for registration again – so I grabbed it. I think it’s a great buy at reg fee, as I’ve sold plenty of domains similar to this. It’s a name that would suit a catering business or even a ‘life coaching’ style businesses (e.g. the secret ingredient to success!). Just recently I sold a domain to a catering business and I’ve sold lots of food and beverage domains over the years, so it’s an area where I’ve done pretty well.

As another example, in the week prior I registered ‘LightningLoans.com.au’. Finance is a very competitive space and another area where I’ve had some sales success. It’s really hard to get good domains in that space, just try finding any ‘loans’ domains prefixed with terms like ‘fast’, ‘quick’, ‘rapid’, ‘express’, ‘lightning’ – they’re all long gone in any decent extensions. So I think LightningLoans.com.au is also a great buy at reg fee.

Quick ‘hand reg’ quality test

One of the quick tests that I do when I find a term available for reg fee in .au, is to check the availability of the term across a whole bunch of extensions. This gives me a rough overview of the popularity for the term. For example, if the term ‘home business’ was available for reg fee in .com.au (I wish I bought that one for reg fee!) – I would run a quick search to see how popular the term is across a heap of other extensions:

homebusiness.com.au example

Now in that example, everything is gone, regardless of extension. The results suggest that it’s an extremely popular term, so if HomeBusiness.com.au was available to register, I would grab it (as fast as I could!).

So that’s a fairly obvious one, but now let’s look at the examples I gave earlier of my recent hand registrations.

Here’s the results for SecretIngredient.com.au:

secretingredient.com.au example

As you can see, the term is taken in most of the ‘better extensions’, but there’s still some availability across the ‘low quality ‘ ones. This suggests that it’s a popular term and probably worth grabbing.

Now let’s look at LightningLoans.com.au:

lightningloans.com.au example

It’s taken in most of the ‘better extensions’, but there’s still lots of availability across other extensions. This suggests that it’s a reasonably popular term, but based on these results I would often run a couple of other tests and consider my purchase more carefully. In this particular case, I just went ahead and registered it because I’m familiar with the area.

I’ve just included one example of a test to evaluate a hand reg domain, other tests could include looking at how many advertisers there are for the term on Google. If there are lots of advertisers for the search term this often indicates that the domain has potential (particularly if they’re local (Australian) advertisers).

Share your recent registrations

Have you found some great reg fee domains recently? Let us know in the comments!

Make the most of 3 key sales channels

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Domain for sale

One of the best ways to increase your chances of a sale is maximising exposure to potential buyers, using channels freely available to you.

The tips in this article may be simple, but they’re also fundamental.

1 – Stick up a sign

Make sure that visitors to the domain know it’s for sale. This is so important, I really can’t stress it enough: put up a ‘for sale sign’!

When people are interested in a domain, one of the first things they’ll do is navigate to the URL, so they can see if it’s available or what it’s being used for… and whether it’s for sale.

My number one path for enquiries and sales is through the ‘make offer’ form on my parking pages. You can read more about parking (including the auDA policy requirements) in my recent article.

2 – Whois?

Make sure your whois contact details are correct, and use an email address that you check regularly. Enquiries from my whois contact details are a very small proportion of my overall enquiries, but it’s worth maximising every possible channel. I should also note that you’re required under auDA policy to maintain accurate whois details,  so it’s in your best interests anyway.

3 – Marketplaces

My sales are almost always done directly (not through a marketplace). There are two key reasons why I don’t use the available marketplaces more often:

1 – Wholesale buyers
Domainers aim to buy at wholesale prices (below market value) and sell at retail prices – after all, the difference between the two is how we make money!

Existing .au marketplaces predominantly attract wholesale buyers (i.e. other domainers!), which are not the people I’m looking for.

2 – Anonymous buyers
When a marketplace allows anonymous buyers (which is the case for almost all existing marketplaces), I lose key information that can help me in negotiations.

I could be negotiating with Microsoft or ‘Mike the domainer’, it’s very hard to know.

Putting aside the points above, it’s worth increasing your exposure to as many potential buyers as possible, so I still recommend listing your domains on at least one marketplace (keep an eye out for an innovative new player in this space! 😉 ).

I do sell some domains through marketplaces, particularly .com domains. As a case in point, I sold a .com domain through Sedo in the last couple of weeks. The current .au marketplaces also play a role in moving inventory that I’m happy to price lower (i.e. wholesale).

Why bother with all three?

The example below illustrates the importance of utilising all three channels:

For one of my recent .com.au sales ($x,xxx), the prospective buyer contacted me directly by email (so they used the whois information). However, they also mentioned the listing on Netfleet.com.au and it became clear that browsing the marketplace was what actually got them onto the domain. Ultimately, we closed the sale directly, but the marketplace listing and whois details led them to my door.

Follow up on enquiries

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Follow up

I keep track of all my inbound email and ‘offer form’ enquiries using a very simple system:

  • I flag emails that I need to respond to; and
  • I place the last email from an enquiry that hasn’t led to a sale in a ‘follow up folder’.

The ‘follow up folder’ is what I’ll be discussing today.

Businesses that excel at sales will often have a series of traits in common. One of these traits is effectively managing communication with existing and prospective customers; including the distribution of timely, targeted sales messages. Many of these businesses maximise their conversion rates by following up on ‘warm leads’. Domainers are both investors and salespeople – so it makes sense to learn from these best practice sales tactics.

You don’t need to spend big bucks on a fancy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, just work out a simple system that suits your approach.

If you haven’t heard back after responding to an enquiry, it would be crazy not to follow up given the prospect of an additional sale.

A few tips:

  • Don’t pester people – I usually only follow up once. I don’t like spam and I hate it when telemarketers pester me incessantly, so I don’t do it to other people.
  • Timing
    • Don’t be pushy – firing off a follow up email 5 hours after your last contact is too soon!
    • Don’t resuscitate dead leads – an enquiry from 3 years ago is old news, things change and they’ve moved on (I’m speaking from experience on this one!).
  • Keep it snappy – don’t oversell it, they’ve already expressed interest in the past (they’re ‘warm leads’).
  • Don’t act desperate – slicing 90% off your price signals that you’re either desperate for a sale or you grossly overpriced to start with. Both scenarios put you at a disadvantage, and when they see ‘blood in the water’ they may seek to knock even more off the price.

If there’s been radio silence on an enquiry for a month or so, that’s usually when I’ll follow up with another email or phone call. Of course if the initial communication went particularly badly, then it won’t be helpful to re-engage with that person (unfortunately, on rare occasions this happens – some people have misguided views about domain investors!).

I’ve sent out some follow up emails today, with a small ‘end of financial year discount’ included in a few of these. It’s a small hook that might get some of them over the line, but it’s not ‘fire sale’ pricing!

Due diligence before buying a domain name

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Due diligence

There are a number of due diligence processes that you can undertake before you purchase a .au domain name. This can reduce the risk of unpleasant surprises later.

Some of these checks are critical and could help you avoid potential liabilities and expenses in the future, such as defending legal actions taken against you or your business.

Trademarks

If you are looking to register a .au domain name or buy one on the aftermarket, it is important that you consider whether this might infringe on an active trademark.

You can search the database of pending, active and expired Australian trademarks on the IP Australia website. You may also wish to look at international trademarks, using sites such as Trademarkia and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Trademarks allow businesses to distinguish their goods and services from others and are enforceable under intellectual property (IP) law. They can offer IP protection for business logos, business names, slogans and many other applications.

Trademarks can apply to specific words or phrases, or they can be composite trademarks that include a number of elements, such as images and words (a business logo for example).

Trademarks apply to one or more ‘classes’ and typically specify one or more ‘goods and services’ for each class.

For example, an Australian trademark may apply to Class 36, which relates to ‘insurance; financial affairs; monetary affairs; real estate affairs‘. The trademark may then specify the following goods and services within that class: ‘Provision of information relating to real estate‘.

Trademarks will often specify a number of classes and goods and services.

Domain names and trademarks – a fictional example

If a word or term used in your domain is contained in active trademarks, this does not necessarily mean that you are infringing on a trademark by using the domain.

I will use the domain ‘Soothing.com.au’ as an example.

Generic terms – a safer bet

‘Soothing’ is a common word that is used across a range of industries, products and services – it is not a word that is used exclusively in reference to a particular business, product or service (e.g. ‘Google’ is such a word).

For this reason, it would be difficult for a business to successfully trademark the word ‘Soothing’.

Active Australian trademarks containing the word ‘Soothing’ all include additional words or are composite trademarks (e.g. logos).

The generic nature of the word greatly reduces the likelihood of trademark infringement.

Trademark coverage

Even if there was a trademark for the exact word (‘Soothing’), it may be that the trademark applies to a class or classes that are unrelated to the manner in which the domain is used (e.g. the goods or services offered).

For example, this fictional trademark for ‘Soothing’ may apply to class 35 (‘Advertising; business management; business administration; office functions‘), however the domain may be used as an ecommerce website for luxury bath products with the brand name ‘Soothing’.

In this fictional scenario, it is highly unlikely that the use of the domain Soothing.com.au would be considered a trademark infringement.

Existing businesses

If you are looking to use a .au domain for your brand, it can be useful to determine if the term or word in your domain is actively used by another business (or businesses), as this could create confusion for your target market, perhaps even resulting in loss of business to a competitor.

Australian Business Numbers

Australia businesses are required to have an Australian Business Number (ABN).

The ABN Lookup service allows you to search the Australian Business Register (ABR), which contains details of all registered ABNs, including the business names associated with ABNs.

Business Names

Most Australian businesses are required to register a business name.

The Organisation & Business Names search allows you to search the register of business names (including removed and deregistered names).

It should be noted that registering an Australian business name does not provide exclusive use of that name, only trademarks can offer that protection. A business name registration also does not provide any entitlements to a corresponding .au domain name.

.au Domain Administration (auDA) policies

There are a number of policies that apply to the registration and use of .au domains. Contravening these policies can mean the loss of your domain.

Reserved List Policy

The Reserved List details words, phrases, names and abbreviations that cannot be used in open .au second level domains (com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au and id.au).

There are limited circumstances under which you can use a domain that is captured by this policy. In most cases, auDA will revoke the domain name licence and delete the domain name.

It is therefore in your interests to avoid registering or purchasing a domain that contravenes this policy. There are exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking the end result will not be a positive one.

The Reserved List is also available in PDF format here.

Prohibition on Misspellings Policy

The Prohibition on Misspellings Policy includes details of the type of .au domains that auDA may regard as prohibited misspellings.

The policy aims to “preserve the integrity of the .au domain space by discouraging “typosquatting”, whereby a person deliberately registers a misspelling of a popular domain name in order to divert trade or traffic“.

The List of Prohibited Misspellings is available in spreadsheet format here, or in PDF format here.

History – skeletons in the closet

How a domain was used in the past can affect its value today.

For example, if the domain you are looking to purchase was given a heavy penalty in Google for low quality content or distributing malware, then its value to you may be greatly diminished. Effectively using the domain for your business could require significant expenses in order to repair the reputation of the domain.

There are a number of tools available to determine how a domain was used in the past. I discussed many of these tools in detail recently: Gathering domain intelligence: domain detective tools.

Below are some additional tips on determining whether a domain has been penalised by Google:

Backlinks

There are also tools available to determine what backlinks (inbound links) a domains has. Search engines take link quality and quantity into account when ranking sites in their search results. Lots of links from low quality sites can be very detrimental.

Here are two of the most popular tools for analysing backlinks:

Ahrefs (one free search per day for unregistered visitors)

Moz (free tools also available – check out Open Site Explorer)

Email blacklists

There are a number of databases, such as Spamhaus, that contain records of domain names responsible for sending emails that could be considered spam.

Webhosting providers, email service providers, and many others will often utilise these blacklist databases in order to block emails sent from domain names that are flagged for sending spam.

In most cases, it is fairly easy to have a domain removed for these blacklists. However, a domain being recorded in the first place may ring alarm bells, as it can indicate previous use that may have damaged the reputation of the domain.

Malicious site blacklists

Just as there are databases of domains responsible for spamming our inboxes, there are also lists of domains that have been linked with malicious activities and therefore may pose a security risk.

This can result in visitor access to a website being blocked by internet browsers, search engines or antivirus software. This could present a serious problem if you wish to establish a website on a domain that is flagged for malicious activity.

The fine print

The contents of this article do not constitute legal advice. The article is provided for general information purposes only.

For legal matters you should consult a legal professional.

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