[danielna]

Haven't thought this through very much, but it'd address some frustrations I've been having lately. If someone can come up with a means of getting around domain squatters, that'd be amazing. Kind of like a redirect service for legitimate businesses.

[EwanToo]

I've been learning about the domain squatting business recently, by basically becoming a domain squatter. It's something I've been fascinated by for years, I always wondered how profitable or easy it was.

I've learnt quite a bit, and will get round to blogging things sometime, but the main lesson is - most domains earn nothing from adverts while on sedo or other marketplaces, and a decent offer of $500+ should get you almost any domain you want.

If it's a domain that's worth much more than that (e.g. insure.com sold for $16 million), then it would have been bought long ago regardless of domain squatters. It would just have been used by some other business, so you didn't really lose out.

[cobrophy]

If someone has a domain of my name that's very low value (I'd a domain I used to use for a blog). Is it likely they'll let it go after a year with little traffic? If not how much would you expect them to want? How do you get in touch if they've used an anonymous registrar?

[EwanToo]

How long have they owned it? There's lots of people (it seems everyone on HN for a start), who buy domains "for a project" that never quite gets started, and end up owning 20-30 domains.

In general, I think those kind of domains will sell for anything around $200. If they're holding it for a sale, they'll probably want more, like $500 or more.

If they've used an anonymous registrar, you can check the domainwhois sites for a history if you really want, and contact old owners of the domains, it might still be them, but otherwise I'd say forget it - they probably don't want to sell.

[cobrophy]

Interesting thanks. I'm the only previous owner, I let it lapse carelessly. As my the domain is my name, and a pretty unique one, it doesn't have much resale value.

My guess is that when I was blogging regularly it got enough traffic to get on some watchlist and when it became available was snapped up. But don't think it will see any traffic without me pushing it.

But I suspect you're right they don't make it easy to contact them so I don't imagine it's up for sale.

[EwanToo]

If you email me (check my profile for address) the domain, i'll have a poke around if you want, but it was probably an automated system that grabbed it, and if it doesn't generate enough traffic to pay for it's renewal, it'll get dropped next expiry.

[helen842000]

I think we should have some kind of domain amnesty.

Every domain you are not going to develop & probably wont renew next year should be easily available. Parked domains should be forwarded to a hosted domain page saying "If you'd like to buy this awesome domain contact me on ..." "I'll accept [insert reasonable price ie $100]

Domains with no contact info, that are parked & have never been developed are so annoying.

Either develop them or have them forward to a decent sales page.

[richoakley]

Would be really interested in a blog about this. Please drop me a mail if you ever get around to posting one?

[EwanToo]

Will do - maybe this thread will make me get round to doing it!

[brianfryer]

Third! Please email me as well :-)

[danielna]

Seconding this!