Submitters asked to park their domains and forward all inquiries before the names are accepted.
Submissions for the NamesCon domain auction next month are open, but some domain investors are questioning the procedure for getting their names considered.
After submitting names for the auction, a DNW reader received this response from Right of The Dot owner Monte Cahn:
Thank you for your submission. I will tell you what we will do in the mean time. I will put these up on our linguistic bid / inquiry landing page system. We can monitor traffic, click throughs, bids and interest and respond to those offers and try to get you some sales. This will help us with value indications and direct type in visitor leads to us. Please forward all email and phone inquires to me during this time period as well.
As we get closer, we can see if any names make sense for any of our live and online auctions based on interest and reserve price adjustments during this time period. Any names that do not qualify for this auction will still be worked for sale on our platform through brokerage.
Please change your DNS / NameServers to: ns1.parkingcrew.net and ns2.parkingcrew.net
That will help us determine value. Let me know when the servers have been changed and we will load the names up.
I reached out to Cahn to understand why this is required:
As part of the submission process and auction consideration, we do suggest changing the domains to our landing pages so that we can monitor traffic, bid interest, respond to bids and leads while we are marketing the domains, steering interested parties to the pre-bidding and auction or we try to help sell the domains pre, during and post auction. We also monitor and track the clickthrough data. All this helps us determine value and auction potential. This process has been successful for our auctions for 20+ years. From this info, it helps us select names for pre-bidding and potential auction. Names that don’t make the auction, we continue to work on and market and sell as it has in more than $400mm in domain sales that I have been involved in.
If people ‘ like the request, they don’t have to participate. It wont help us help our clients sell their domains.
Selecting domain names for an auction is hard work. At the same time, I understand why people would be cautious before parking all of their domains and forwarding all leads if there’s only a slim chance of getting in the auction.
Mark Thorpe says
I personally don’t like the procedure either, will leave it at that.
shahram says
All your leads are belong to us.
JOHN COLASCIONE says
I remember this from last year and although I was a little taken back by it for a moment, ultimately, I felt it was a reasonable request for the auction house to determine market interest in the name.
DOMAINER says
They are nuts, A ONE YEAR EXCLUSIVE???
3. Non-Circumvention
A. In addition to any other rights ROTD may have, if a Domain is accepted for a ROTD Auction during the Exclusive Sales Period, and for a period of one year following the termination of the Exclusive ROTD Sale Period, Seller shall not, directly or indirectly:
i. Make contact or attempt to make contact, solicit or attempt to solicit, negotiate or attempt to negotiate, enter into or attempt to enter into any agreement, and/or transact or attempt to transact any business with any potential purchaser (or such purchaser’s attorneys, agents (other than ROTD), representatives, employees, officers, directors, principals, owners, shareholders, members, managers or any person or entity that is connected, directly or indirectly, with such purchaser) procured by or introduced to Seller by ROTD, except to the extent such contact is through, or with the prior written consent of, ROTD; or
ii. Commit any other acts, directly or indirectly, which would affect in any way whatsoever, circumvent the restrictive covenant stated herein.
B. In the event that Seller violates the provisions of this Section, ROTD shall be entitled to receive its full fee as if such Domain were sold for the reserve price, or an offer otherwise accepted by the seller (See Addendum 1 Fee Schedule and Policies).
Andrew Allemann says
That’s one year for anyone they already discussed the deal with. Wouldn’t prevent you from going to someone new.
Joshua says
A friend & I tried namescon’s submission last year and this deterred us a lot from even trying to list some of our names and the ones we did try to list (Like AmericanPollution.com) we didn’t hear anything back from. The whole procedure seemed extremely inefficient. I’ve since decicde to just develop websites and businesses on some of the names.