Namebox - sell your unwanted or unused domains

by calvin • 13 years ago

84 76 13 years ago

goatsecx• 13 years ago

Being able to sort/search by the price domain sellers have set is not terribly useful. There are too many people out there who think their reg price only domain is worth $1 million.

hackerboos• 13 years ago

There are too many people out there who think their reg price only domain is worth $1 million.

That's a problem in every domain market-place. People soon learn that unique != priceless.

orik• 13 years ago

A lot of these seem super overpriced. Not that that's a fault in the platform.

I hope people don't squat on domains to try to sell them on this.

jhome• 13 years ago

I wouldn't hold out much hope.

ramykhuffash• 13 years ago

I think a lot of people like me buy domains planning to do something with them. Eventually we realize that time is limited, but we still hang onto the hope of eventually finding the time to do something with the domains.

I'm guessing they are overpriced because people don't actually want to sell their domains, but they would happily do so if someone was to offer a good chunk of cash for them.

That's my logic anyway. I never bought any domains with plans to sell them, but this site was so easy to use, I threw them up there and put big prices on them, just in case :-)

reustle2• 13 years ago

There are already plenty of services for domain squatters out there.

abcd_f• 13 years ago

Does this offer an escrow service for transferring domain ownership?

Being able to list and browse available domains is nice, bootstrapping negotiations is nice too, but the purchase closing is the most tricky part and the ownership transfer via a third party is an absolute must. GoDaddy offers a service like this and it costs few hundred $ per transfer.

reustle2• 13 years ago

Why not just use escrow?

https://www.escrow.com/services/domain-and-website-escrow.as...

benatkin2• 13 years ago

It's "escrow.com", not "escrow". They try to do a funky thing with their logo to separate the escrow part of it from .com, but they aren't brash enough to leave off the suffix. If they did, I don't think it would fly.

I searched for "escrow.com" reviews and found some negative ones. So there's one reason why someone might not use it.

Another reason would be that as a general escrow service they may not understand the domain escrow process as well as a company that only does DNS escrow.

progx• 13 years ago

Really cheap service. Without ownership transfer this service is pointless.

Whats next? Make a plattform with bootstrap to sell Real Estates, or Cars ?

colept• 13 years ago

I think it would be valuable to see other potential bids, in case you wish to "raise your maximum" and discourage unnecessary competitive pricing. Browsing a list of domains that are overpriced would be very inconvenient after the first page.

mapleoin• 13 years ago

Domain squatting made easy?

rll• 13 years ago

Yeah, that was my reaction as well. Why legitimize and enable domain squatting?

jmathai• 13 years ago

I don't think this makes squatting any easier than the existing tools to sell domains. I'm giving the creator the benefit of the doubt and assume they did this because, like me, they probably have tens of domains they don't plan on ever using.

miguelrochefort• 13 years ago

After patents and copyrights, we should totally ban the monopoly that is domain ownership.

smtddr• 13 years ago

What about those of us that have domains in use but would be willing to part with for a certain amount? I have a game-server that resulted from some hacking network traffic of an old Wii game. I still have that system up today, but if someone came along and offered me $1,000,000 dollars for the domain(dontrush.me) I'd give up that domain with no regrets and just buy some other one. I didn't buy it as part of some ingenious marketing strategy, I just thought it was kinda cute and was surprised it wasn't taken already - though this was like the first day .me TLD was made available when I got it.

thejosh2• 13 years ago

Not like there isn't places to do this already, such as flippa.

stfu2• 13 years ago

I highly dislike this negative attitude towards domain name trading and ownership.

You are absolutely right when it comes down to trademarked names or typos when somebody's rights are getting abused. But other than that banning the ownership of domains which one doesn't use is just ludicrous.

It is almost like arguing that any real estate ownership should be forbidden that goes beyond the personal use. A deeply anti-free market attitude that has in my view no place in reality.

eksith3• 13 years ago

It's a bit complicated though.

Like you say, there are egregious examples out there which clearly fall under squatting, but I think there's also the sentiment that domains are a tool and identity. The idea that someone thought up a really clever name and then do nothing with it but sit on it for sale tends to stir up the same emotions people have toward patent trolls.

"Yeah, they own the patent, but it's obvious! And they're not even using it to make stuff!" ... or the like.

njharman• 13 years ago

DNS is not a free market.

Even so I highly dislike this attitude that free markets are inviolate, perfect silver bullets.

Real estate is bad example as things such as zoning, HOAs, and eminent domain will force you to use / not use / or sell your property

billpg• 13 years ago

$24,999.00 for freepopemail.com?

Somehow I can't see a business based around free mail from the Pope ever earning that much revenue.

whacker• 13 years ago

free-pop-email.com in case you were being facetious.

thejosh2• 13 years ago

Next you're going to tell me expertsexchange.com isn't about gender realignment.

manojlds• 13 years ago

From what I understand facetious to mean, should you be saying "in case you weren't being facetious" ?

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

still, at $25K??? I guess people reserve to price their own stuff, but it seems delusional to me.

mrmagooey• 13 years ago

Isn't the ass going to fall out of this market once ICANN starts issuing an increasing number of TLDs? Seems like "sell" would be the dominant intent amongst squatters

dsl3• 13 years ago

Nothing really changed when .info, .biz, .pro, .xxx, etc. hit the market.

There are trillions of dollars in marketing behind .com, and we will likely see no change in the standard user mentality (type brandname.com) for generations.

madoublet• 13 years ago

Lets hope. In my opinion, it seems crazy to me how hard it is to get a good .com and how few are actually being used.

matrixer• 13 years ago

1.I can not add any domain now.

2.There is a bug.

when I clicked the blank area of the box "You haven't added any domains yet. Add one.", an "edit domain" pop up dialog came out ...

Jhsto• 13 years ago

Million dollars for unwanted domain?

This could work so much better if you could only ask below the registration price.

slig• 13 years ago

I liked it.

Or if the domain is N years old, the max price should be (N + 1) * registration price.

Also a simple DNS that I could point the domain to and it would serve a simple page stating the price and linking to namebox.io.

olssonm• 13 years ago

Really nice and well done. However, there are multiple services like this – it would be cool if there would be a cap on how much you demand for a domain, like $200 or something. That way this really would be the place to load of domains and give them to someone who might have more use of them than me.

Those complaining that this makes squatting easy – not true. I myself have collected 30-40 domains over the years for projects that I want/will/should build – but never have built... I keep renewing the domains "just in case", but if I could list them for $50 to $200 each and know that someone else will use them for a good purpose, I would.

pearjuice• 13 years ago

I think the "Any amount" listing is a bit vague. You should make it required to have at least a minimum amount. For example, video.io sells for "Any amount" but I doubt that can be taken literally.

stfu2• 13 years ago

There are already very successful domain trading platforms around (http://www.sedo.com). I can't really figure out what namebox's unique value proposition is.

neilkelty• 13 years ago

Profile Picture next to the domain name?

dsl3• 13 years ago

Twitter integration! Seriously the reason I prefer Sedo and BuyDomains is that I don't have to deal directly with or have my personal info given out to buyers.

I used to have my email address listed on some domains I had for sale, and after rejecting a ridiculously low offer ($40 for a 3 letter .com) had some 14 year old kid and all his buddies emailing me and calling me at all hours to try and harass me into accepting it.

dangelov• 13 years ago

Seems pretty simple to use.

I added a few domains to see how it goes > http://namebox.io/dangelov

array• 13 years ago

The simplicity of this service and the free listing model could make it a real contender as a Flippa.com alternative. As others have already commented, there is still a lot of room for improvement (payment methods, improved bidding system, etc), but I could definitely see this in future iterations of the service if it were to gain enough traction.

As an immediate suggestion to the developer, it'd be nice if the registration, login, and dashboard areas were secured (HTTPS). Everything appears to be transmitted over HTTP at the moment.

In any case, kudos on the launch - this could definitely shape up to be a pretty solid service.

stevewillows2• 13 years ago

Of everything listed (mine included), task.io is clearly one of the better domains posted. I don't doubt that everyone has a story behind their ideas, but this was one of the few with a clear purpose.

imwhimsical• 13 years ago

Put hackerspot.org up there. Lets see how this works :)

stevewillows2• 13 years ago

The ideal resource for hackers with glaucoma!

aitoehigie• 13 years ago

I have put up hacki.ng. I noticed that I have started getting dud purchase requests from buyers. I.e. the email address gotten from the purchase mail from namebox.io is false I.e. it doesn't exist. What does the owner of this service intend doing to curb this?

dersebbi• 13 years ago

You could refine the search, if a search for e.g. coin would also show results containing *co.in. I am thinking of something like https://domai.nr/ Does this sound feasible?

dsirijus2• 13 years ago

Few suggestions.

Make "Browse domains" more prominent, not just in the footer. Have domains under that somehow ranked. I'd suggest having price listed on click or on visit, so you can grab on that data. Remove "any amount" - that's psychology 101.

(plug & rant pending) I'm firmly believing synthmeat.com will some day be worth much - http://namebox.io/dsirijus - so I'm squatting. Why is there a negative sentiment about that? It's an investment, like any other.

solistice2• 13 years ago

Or just have example domains you're offering right now show up faintly on your landing page.

(plug & rant response) I'm much more freaked out by burnakitty.com. What are you planning to do with that domain?

dsirijus2• 13 years ago

Burn prints of cat images per request and for a fee.

josephwachira• 13 years ago

Seems pretty simple to use.

Since I have a couple unused domains I decided to list them here for any suitable amount - http://namebox.io/chaz

eksith3• 13 years ago

$200 for "urrl.us" ? I wonder how much sh2.us would fetch ( currently hosting my ramblings http://www.sh2.us )

While I like the idea of a simpler domain sales option (since GoDaddy is a spammy nightmare) at present, I think what would really help would be a domain valuation service. It's pretty hard to put an amount on something when you're not sure how much it would really fetch on the market.

jaredstenquist• 13 years ago

I tried adding one of my domains (read.io), but having to create DNS records for every domain I own is a huge pain.

I'm building a similar service now, which automates everything through WHOIS and DNS resolution. The feedback on this post has actually been really helpful.

ionwake• 13 years ago

The domains I added seem to be on my profile but have been removed from the browsing list.

Any idea why?

Splendor• 13 years ago

Being able to sort by URL length would be nice.

gscott• 13 years ago

Putting in a plug for the domains i have for sale. I have to renew a bunch today could use to sell one or two

http://namebox.io/gscott

EGF• 13 years ago

This is great and hopefully opens up domain listing from folks here on HN. Demand for domains is only increasing, and as someone that handles private buying/selling for startups I see more and more of this need.

apa-sl2• 13 years ago

Please allow people to login using their alias OR email address! I have alias only login :-)

apa-sl2• 13 years ago

I cannot verify my domain fashioner.com - TXT record was successfully added to DNS 18 hours ago, I've checked it by char by char using some outside DNS records viewer.

Namebox - sell your unwanted or unused domains

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