Any experiece with Buying Domains?

[IFSNA]

Hi!

My company is looking to purchase a domain that is more relevant to our business. The company that we are looking to purchase the domain from was actually bought out a few years back and no longer brands itself by that particular domain.

Does anyone have any experience buying domains or working with domain brokers? My preference is for a broker but I am open to hearing any suggestions. In the past we had approached this company to purchase the domain and it just didn't work out.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[IFSNA]

Thanks! I will check out SEDO, I've looked at GoDaddy but wanted to see if there were any other companies providing that service.

[vmialik]

Just to add what EGOL mentioned in his post from ways back, with something else EGOL mentioned recently in http://moz.com/community/q/advice-needed-on-a-potential-domain-purchase, with something that is really important in this day/age in SEO to consider: "However, if it is a long-established site with enormous amounts of domain queries, backlinks, brand mentions, likes, etc. then my concern would start to go up."

In other words Good history is good for your domain, but its hard to come by these days, no history may also be good, bad history is really bad. And more and more you find companies with bad history selling their domains to get rid of them. History = some of the things EGOL mentioned, with big emphasis on back-link profile quantity and most importantly quality.

Hope this helps

[EGOL]

I wrote this Moz post a long time ago but the details (and member comments) are still relevant.

http://moz.com/blog/ten-tips-for-buying-a-website

The only thing that I would add is....  If you are buying a domain today it would be a good idea to do a Panda, Penguin and Unnatural Links risk assessment.

Good luck.

[WhiteboardCreations]

Vince,

We have had several clients purchase domains owned by other companies, so I'll recommend to you what I told them... Visit http://www.sedo.com/us/buy-domains/domain-brokerage/ and get them into the mix of becoming your broker, especially if the company who owns the domain is a little tough to get in touch with. Out of the 6 clients who have had to purchase domains from others, 2 went at it on their own and the others used SEDO and enjoyed the experience.

Also, check out GoDaddy's Domain Brokerage services here http://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain-broker.aspx.

Hope this was helpful. - Patrick

[john4math]

I've used both sedo.com and escrow.com in the past to buy domains with no issues.  Through either, there's an escrow process to ensure the domain is transferred properly, so no one gets ripped off.