buying expired domains, am I a bad guy ??
 

... I buy about 100 expired domains every month to get advantage of the domains traffic and shit. you guys would be surprised about the nasty emails I get of the former domain owners. most people demand the domain back because I have destroyed their businesses ... should I feel bad about this and do what they demand, or should I just continue with what I am doing ... I never thought about it too carefully, but today I received this email of a woman saying that she can´t feed her kids anymore because of her lost business ....

ask for 25% partnership of her business ;)

i guess her kids are not worth the $9 it takes to renew a domain...

it can be a lie

btw how you earn money from their traffic ?

You are not a bad guy. You are an intelligent, savvy businessperson and the dipshits who let their domains expire and want them back are stupid assholes who do not deserve their domains. Not:2 cents: . FACT

popup hell

If their too stupid to forget to reg a domain, too bad
or charge them $50 to put it back

If you didnt get the domain someone else would have. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Just ask her how much she's willing to pay to get her business back, and compare it to what you can make if you keep the name.

"btw how you earn money from their traffic ?"

... I do exploit the domains google pagerank, so the domain is only good for 3 month or so ...

"popup hell "

... yes, the worst you could think of.

Eh, depends on how they approach you. If she was nice about it I would consider it. After all it's probably worth alot more to her than it ever would be to you. But if someone emails you being a jackass fuck em. How were you supposed to know and it's their own damn fault it got dropped.

No shit. You could collect aluminum cans and have enough to renew your domain. Go sell a pint of your fuckin' blood or something. A complete dumbfuck deserving zero pity. Nothing more.

Hey I can appreciate any way of making money. I know of two cirmumstances where a guy did what you do and the place fucked up and sold it to the buyer two months before it was to expire. THAT I think is fucked up. The one guy had tons of yahoo traffic attatched to the domain. The guy is pissed and it isn't over yet.

IF you really piss them off, 'take over' their bussiness sell the same thing they sell, and keep all the emails people send you :1orglaugh free clietns

" Eh, depends on how they approach you. If she was nice about it I would consider it. After all it's probably worth alot more to her than it ever would be to you. But if someone emails you being a jackass fuck em. How were you supposed to know and it's their own damn fault it got dropped."

... that´s exactly it, she was very nice and this is why I believe her and I will give it back to her (in this one case), fuck I´ve been doing this for a long time now, but I never thought about the stories behind expired domains ... it´s scary, somehow ...

exactly what I was gonna say.

either she's too absent minded to remember to renew her domain, her business is failing miserably, or she has 1,265 kids.

Oh yeah, or he/she could just be lying.

Buy the domain man, if people let them expire it's on them. I've had over 20 domains registed once they expired.....couldn't get mad at anybody but myself for not renewing them.

:2 cents:

whats the link? aybe she'd like some GFY traffic

What goes around comes around, asshole. You can act like a tough callous fuck but everybody gets the shaft eventually and next time it could be someone you care about.

Funkmaster, it depends on the situation. Just remember that not everyone who screws up "has it coming". How important is her particular domain? Will that one domain make a serious difference in your income? Maybe not for you, maybe yes for her.. Just be human and do what you think is the right thing to do.

SpaceAce

Maybe she should have stood by a freeway offramp with a sign that said "Will work for $$$ to renew www.welfaremamablowjobqueen.com" I'm sure she could have had the $$ to renew her domain in half an hour with enough left over to buy each bastard kid a Happy Meal.

I need my domain to feed my kids...that's why I registered it until 2007...I start to get nervous when it falls below a year before expiring. Who knows? I could be in a coma for a year, wake up, and find my shit gone...

If she wasn't smart enough to do it, that's hers and her kid's loss.

You should think about how you would feel if you had lost one of your best domains.

This doesn't mean you are a bad man, it's just that you take advantage of those that do not wach their business close enough.

such is life

Sorry, but it sounds like a case of an irresponsible asshole laying down a bullshit sob story, not someone getting the shaft "Can't feed my kids"? Blow me, I won't come in your mouth.:321GFY

If a person doesn't realize for 30 or 40 days that their domain is not resolving then it is obviously not a big component of their business.

Some people will just never take responsibility for their incompetence. The system is setup to give the existing registrant every opportunity to take care of renewls. I had this same problem last year with some fucker that said I stole his domain from him. Dumb ass.

I lost a really good domain name last year.
I had a recurring account with a registrar, basically they renew it for me when its up.

They didn't and somebody bought it really quick. It received almost 1000 uniques per day via type in and se.

I went rounds with the registrar forever but never did get my domain name back, the person who bought it now has click thru and partner programs on it with the same niche I was selling edit Just checked the domain he put only clicktrus on it now

It can happen, it happend to me without my fault. I moved all my domains from that registrar to directnic and no I am not doing the auto recurr, now I recurr them manually and if I forget to manually pay for another 1-2-3 etc year I can only blame myself.

However I am still pissed about loosing my domain

http://www.bikerchik.com

Exactly

I have seen some people do some pretty horrible shit when it comes to snagging mainstream domains and adding porn links for page rank etc.

Ive seen 'Star Wars ' related kid sites listed in yahoo, get snagged by a porn webmaster and turned into a porn link site.

what type of traffic do you think the site had?

People who do this should be shot dead in the face on HBo.

Hmmm

If it is up for sale, you can buy it. Some people let the domains expire on purpose and don?t care about them, failed business or hobby, whatever the case. On the other hand, some people are inattentive and regretfully find out after it is sold?mistakes happen to the best of people.

But you cannot be expected to check with each former owner before you register a domain?if you registered an expired domain; it is fully in your right to keep it

However, we are rational human beings here?and like stated above, it might be worth more to the old owner than to you?so depending on the request/circumstances, a decision needs to be made. You might decide to sell them back to the owner for the price that you had paid for it, perhaps a little more to compensate for your time?I don?t think that is unreasonable, even a link to your site, whatever you feel is fair

hmmm? uhm?

fletch, this particular site, which I am going to give back anyway has real estate traffic ... anyway, sounds like you are not to familiar with the way google and it´s pagerank work, but be sure after the first update there won´t be anymore real estate traffic coming to that domain ... but yes, yahoo would still send in real estate traffic.

I buy expired domains ALL the time...

Fuck em...

If you own ONE domain you know that registrars give you tons of notices.. to renew... You gotta be really out of the loop to let a domain expire.. not only do they start sending messages 60 days before.. but it takes about another 60 days for the domain to actually drop and be available to register. In other words, there is a 4 - 6 month window for a domain to be renew by the owner.. if they don't renew in that time frame.. FUCK THEM!

You're right about this Fletch and these are the same webmasters that are bitching about the government going after porn webmasters. Pure scum.

You're not a bad guy. In this case you could give her the domain back (or sell for the $ you paid) and ask for a link back to one of your related domains. If this domain's PR is good enought it'll be good for you too and will make her very happy. But I would ask for proofs that it was her domain.

Doesn't hurt do be a nice guy :)

I've picked up a few expired domains. Porn people who forget to renew their names are the best. They know they fucked up and I have gotten a few emails from the former owners and all they say are things like "oh fuck" and "shit"


However, I had a few run-ins with mainstream people saying their domain was their sole source of income and they couldn't live without it.

I made them fax me a copy of their last tax return (and their spouses). This may be something you want to do to determine this chick's veracity.

... thanks for the input guys, well I am not going to ask for a tax return copy ... but I will give this domain back ... it has little value to me and is an important thing to that woman ... so hell yes, let´s give it back to her after all I am a nice guy and hopefully she will learn for the future ....

Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers!

You can not be a successful businessman if you FEEL SORRY for people. Sharks Win, Minnows Get Swallowed! Be a shark and keep doing what your doing.

let me guess you have no friends ?!
:Graucho

I think it is a case-by-case thing. If your heart tells you to have mercy on a particular person, then it is the right thing to do. However, on a general level, someone is going to register an expired domain.

I don't think the window is always 4-6 months. I once purchased a domain which had been expired for only a day or two. I've had stuff registered with registrars who did not send renewal e-mails. I've had domains where the registrar might have sent them, but they refused to update my contact e-mails when my ISP was bought out. Some registrars will refuse to transfer some of your domains if you do a bulk transfer and it is easy to miss that you only got 18 out of 20 you input. I ended up paying off someone who bought a domain I owned the trademark for because it was cheaper than the arbitration thing and the guy basically made his living selling to people like me for under $900. I had the .net and the prior owner of the .com was in a different industry and also had a legit trademark, but netsol refused to release the domain for months and months and then this guy was able to beat my snapnames and constant checking and e-mail me within less than a day.

I also kept a snapnames on my most important domains until it did not work for me.

What do people use to beat a snapnames and can it be used to protect a domain important to you?

Thanks, Amelia G

Bullshit! You can make buckets of money and still be a decent person. It is only an either/or if you make it that way.

Nice to see there is still some decent webmasters around. I think your doing the right thing.:thumbsup

:1orglaugh

Well, now the registrars are making it easier for webmasters to renew their domain name with the WHOIS information and extra 30-days.

No mercy to those who forget to renew their domain names after this new "rule". :321GFY