A private domain transfer usually means the WHOIS record of the domain name is set to a private record, as opposed to the true identity of the domain holder. This is typically done to protect the domain owner's privacy. However, it can hamper the efficiency of a domain transfer, so you may want to disable it while the transfer proceeds. You can always re-enable it once the domain has transferred to your registrar (most registrars offer private domain registrations, but not all, and not for all domain extensions (.us, for example, typically doesn't allow a private registration) - check with your registrar if this is a concern).

I'm using Sedo.com for an external escrow (domain transfer) transaction. Their fee is 3% ($50 minimum), which for anything above $800 or so is going to be cheaper than using escrow.com (I've used them before and the transaction went smoothly, although their "inspection period" could use a little more transparency - it closed on me before I had the domain in my registrar account).

Anyways, they're asking me if I want to keep the domain transfer private. What does this mean and is there an advantage to me doing so?

zippozap.com seems to be hugely undervaluing domain names. What does it base it's appraisal on mainly?

It is good to have a little knowledge about the domain name appraisal before buying or selling it....

My experience is....
It is better for you to check the value of the domain name with a free appraisal value from the website http://www.zippozap.com/
The data provided by this website is to give you a rough idea on the price of the domain name or website.
If you are looking for a better or human certified appraisal, Zippozap.com recommends a Certified Domain Appraisal from XnYnZ.com, it costs about $20 but the Domain Appraisal is based on an in-depth review of critical industry standards, including the history of your domain, market trends, demand for your domain and additional qualitative factors that may affect your domain market value.

Please note that Sedo does not allow sellers to place offers on their domains. The starting bid of a Marketplace Auction is based on the buyer's most recent offer. It acts as the auction's reserve price. If the seller does not receive any additional offers before the auction closes the seller is committed to selling the domain to the initial bidder. Sellers cannot participate in the bidding process on their domains.

Please note that the text mentioned by "guru" is not present on Sedo's site.

Very nice post friends..... Your post is very helpful for me......

Thanks for your commands friends......

I know, I'm the girl with all the Sedo questions. Sorry to take up the board with these but I love Guru of Search! Thanks so much for your time and answering my questions.

I recently had a potential buyer bid on a domain name of mine. The domain is short, catchy, and has an interesting registration history - it was initially registered in 2001, and then off and on until April of this year, when I grabbed it.

I didn't think the buyer's offer was enough, and they were final about it, so I declined it.

Now I'm thinking about submitting this domain name to Sedo's appraisal service (the premium, for $49). They promise:

The Premium Domain Appraisal greatly extends the level of research and analysis that your domain receives. We analyze at least 10 factors, provide a list of recent comparable sales, and give you some personalized tips on selling and marketing your domain. With our Premium Domain Appraisal you receive:

* An expert estimate of the domain name's value.
* A list of recent comparable sales.
* Advanced analysis into areas such as search engine friendliness, branding potential, possible buyers, and marketing strategy.
* The completed Premium Domain Appraisal via Email within three business days.

Has anyone used their domain appraisal? Any feedback on whether it's worth it? The offer I got on the domain was in the 4-digit range, so I don't mind forking out $49, but then again, it the service is crap I could have gone out and had a nice meal instead.

In my experience this is nothing new. They use RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) to process their credit card payments, and their gateway is unreliable at best. Trust me - you're not the only one to run into this issue, which is why it's a top question in the Sedo fact.

I believe there's two ways around this:

1) Wait 24 hours - you should be able to try the credit card option again
2) Believe it or not there's a trick you can use to pay with Paypal anyways (since the decline is handled by the bank, not Paypal), even if the Paypal payment link is no longer visible next to your invoice. To do so:

Substitute in your invoice number into the link below (replace "#" with your invoice number) and copy and paste it into a new browser window. You should be able to complete payment within Paypal, including the option to select to pay with the same credit card (as long as it's associated with your Paypal account) that was declined by Sedo's credit card processor.

https://sedo.com/shop/paypal/paywithpaypal.php?orderid=#&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us

Paying my invoices on Sedo.com is a royal pain in the @ss. When I select the "credit card" payment option, sometimes the payment goes through, sometimes it does not. The other annoying thing is that none of the invoices are combined. So if I win ten domains in an auction, there's a separate invoice for each, meaning I need to enter my billing details and credit card number ten times!

Needless to say, after paying about half the invoices (with the occasional "credit card payment didn't work" message - of which, I should point out, my credit card provider knows nothing - on their end everything looks fine), I got my credit card declined four times in a row, and then the message that as a result, the credit card and Paypal payment options have been disabled, and I need to wire funds within 5 days.

Are you kidding me? There's no way I'm paying my banks $50 wiring fee for each invoice. I'm still waiting to hear back from Sedo, but if this doesn't work out (paying them money for C'st sake) I'm done buying and selling domains on their platform.

Is there a Sedo fee (usually 10%) for bidding on your own domain name? If so, you'd effectively be losing a potentially large chunk of cash for no good reason.

Hi Megan,

It's hard to say if the seller's approach is for real or a marketing tactic - I've seen both. If the money is important to you, and the offer is within your range, I would accept it. If it's not, then either enter the auction or cancel the offer. Despite the final tone of the bidder's statement, you could, as a third option - also try and raise your bid with a counter offer. There's always a chance they'll bite. Again - consider 1) how much is the domain worth to you, and 2) will you regret selling at the current price.

If you decide to enter your domain name into the Sedo auction, yes - you are allowed to bid on your own name to raise the bid and thereby effectively cancel the offer that was initially on the table. Believe it or not, Sedo themselves mention this method:

"Please note that any bid made on a domain name is binding for 7 days; therefore, a given offer is valid for 7 days and is considered a binding sales offer. Within this period, the buyer is not able to lower his bid; likewise, the seller is unable to raise his offer.

Please note : within 5 days of reaching an agreement, the seller has the opportunity to start an auction based on the buyer's latest offer. Other interested parties then also have the opportunity to bid on and acquire the domain through the auction process. The buyer's original offer remains binding. Should no higher offer be received during the auction then the domain is automatically sold to the original buyer. You also have the opportunity to bid on the name, raising your original offer in order to decide the result of the auction."

I've got an offer for a domain name I've got parked on Sedo. The offer is below what I'd like to sell it for, but the seller is also acting like it's their final offer. I can't quite decide if this is a bargaining tactic or if it's for real.

Here's what they said: "Sorry, [your offer] is way too high. I've been authorized to bid up to [my budget] so I won't try and drag this out. If you accept [my budget], great. If not, thank you for your time. "

It definitely has a final tone to it. Ultimately, I don't want to pay for an appraisal for the domain name, the Sedo fees as is (10%) are already taking a big chunk of my potential profits.

One thing I've considered doing is putting my domain name into an auction. Sedo states that if no one bids higher, the offer automatically wins. My question is, can I bid higher on my own auction to therefore effectively cancel the offer at the last minute?

Has anyone used Sedo's domain brokerage service? They're asking for a $69 up-front fee, plus 10% of the final sell price, to help brokerage a domain purchase for me. I've tried getting in touch with the domain owner directly, but haven't had any luck so far, so I thought I'd try this approach.

All they ask for, after you register on Sedo.com, is the name of the domain you're interested in purchasing, the final amount you're willing to pay, and a $69 application fee (which gets refunded if your application is not accepted).

Thoughts gurus?

Good question domainer. While I imagine there's probably several ways to do this, here's our approach:

• Browse on over to Namecheap.com and select their "Bulk Search"
• Copy and paste up to 30 domain names, without spaces, and including their extension (ie. exampledomain.co.uk, not example domain .co.uk)

A good way to get multiple domains into a well formatted list is to copy and paste your list of names (ie. "example domain", etc.) into one column of an Excel sheet. Then copy and paste the domain extension (ie. co.uk) into another column. In the third column, you'll want to concatenate (merge) the first two columns with the following command: =CONCATENATE(A1,B1)

Finally, we'll want to remove the white space between the words. In a fourth column, use the function =SUBSTITUTE(C1," ","")

to remove the whitespace. Drag all the columns down so the functions will be applied to your entire list. You'll end up with a list of domain names that are formatted properly and ready to import into NameCheap's bulk domain search box (remember you can import up to 30 at a time).

Is there anywhere I can search in bulk for domain names ending in .co.uk? My registrar, Fabulous.com, allows me to search in bulk for up to 1000 .com domain names (which is great), but it doesn't support .co.uk.

My UK registrar - 123-reg.co.uk, appears to only support searching for one domain at a time.

Any suggestions?

The WS Domain extension (ie. example.ws) was heavily marketed (via an MLM, ie. pyramid scheme) as an alternative to the dot com domain name, beginning in the late 1990's, by the company Global Domains International (GDI).

You're right in that the ws domain extension is much more popular than it should be. It hails from a tiny island in the South Pacific - Samoa, whose population numbers less than 200,000.

Regardless GDI used a pyramid/ commission structure to setup a multi-level sales force to get the word out on WS domains. As a result, quite a few people registered WS domains, and if you look at the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), you'll find quite a few established sites with this extension.

Interestingly, country coded domain extensions are often used as an acronym - for example, the .tv extension could be used for television domains, the .us extension (United States) is a classic; used by the popular social media/ bookmarking site del.icio.us.

The WS extension could be used, for example, by anyone from the town of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is a legitimate domain name, but I wouldn't focus too much energy on it. .COM is still king, and generally you want to get this, followed by your country domain extension. But most important are the keywords you select for your domain name. Read our articles on Keywords in Your Domain Name and Domain Name With or Without Hyphens? for insight into how to effectively choose a domain name for your business.

What is the WS domain extension all about? I'm guessing it's a country extension, but it sure seems like it's more popular than the average country extension...just curious what all the hype is about regarding the ws domain extension.

Here's how the domain expiration timeline works, in a nutshell:

• After one year from the date of registration, a domain expires and enters the redemption period.
• It stays in the domain redemption period for 30 days. During this time, a domain owner can still renew their domain name, usually for an additional fee (we've seen the fee range from $50 up to several hundred, depending on the registrar)
• After the 30 day redemption period, a domain enters a 5 day pending delete phase. During the pending delete phase, the domain is not accessible by anyone. During these 5 days the domain goes into the process of being returned for public registration. After the 5 day period, anyone can register it.

We should point out that some registrars (such as Fabulous.com) are putting domains in the redemption period into a DDN network where they may be purchased by buyers, with your authorization, before they enter the pending delete phase). Normally the registrar splits the proceed of a sale with the domain owner.

I forgot to re-register my domain name - it just expired. I heard that there was a domain name redemption period, in which I still have time to renew my domain? I'm not sure how this works, however, or if there's an extra fee?