news Breaking: Domaining.com Is NOT Sold, Yet

[News]

On Friday the daily newsletter of Domaining carried this simple message:

“”Game is over. Next week I will announce the new owner of Domaining.com”

That one sentence that appeared on the top of the Domaining.com newsletter caused the domain blogosphere to blow up all weekend with posts about the “sale” of Domaining.com even leading to many bloggers and commentator guessing as to whom the buyer was.

I reached out on to Saturday to Francois Carrillo who owns and operates Domaining.com to find out what was going on.

Yesterday, he asked me to publish this statement Monday morning which appears unedited:

Full Article: http://www.thedomains.com/2015/01/19/breaking-domaining-com-is-not-sold-yet/

 

[N-A]

After reading all the comments on TheDomains about the shameful sales tactics made by Domaining.com in Domaining.com's newsletter in another thread, it'd be nice to see what @Super Software , @infosec3 , @Joseph Green , @equity78 , @hookbox , @tiawood , @photonmymind , @iowadawg , @STP , @Archangel, @MasterOfMyDomains and others think of this method to get a higher price: ethical or unethical to put an "offer" link, prior to announcing a legitimate sale, before any sale actually occurred in a newsletter to their loyal reader base?

 

[S-B]

Definitely unethical.

 

[equity78]

It is not the way to go about it, Francois imo should have looked for help from someone like a Monte Cahn, who could have put together a bidding process for those interested that would be handled in a transparent, professional way. I think the disconnect has always been on price, an aggregator can be easily duplicated, now you can say Domaining.com has built up brand equity, which it has, but if someone has the money they could build the site and spend some money on advertising. Advertise on NamePros.com, DNF, DBR, all the blogs and spend a lot less than $2million a lot less than $500,000 and over time you would have what you need as far as recognition. You buy a site when to build and market would cost you more, not less.

I like Francois and hope he does well but he needs to be realistic in pricing, sometime we get attached to projects, we think "I spent x amount of years on this, am I really only going to sell for X ?" Well if the market conditions provide for that, Yes. You can't expect people to pay more for your sweat equity.

I think it is an important site to the community and would get a premium over what it might be worth, but $2million is just not really economical for the buyer imo.

 

[Joseph Green]

To start, I think there is a language barrier here that caused most of this confusion -- not malicious or conniving intentions.

As I understand it, from his explanation on TheDomains, his message that read, "Next week I will announce the new owner of domaining.com" simply meant: "Due to personal circumstances, I have to make a deal next week, so I am sending a notice to everyone to let them know to submit their best and final offer immediately, because I will be accepting the best offer next week due to time constraints."

In other words, it's a blind auction. No one knows what anyone else is bidding and the best offer is accepted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sales process.

I think the disconnect has always been on price, an aggregator can be easily duplicated, now you can say Domaining.com has built up brand equity, which it has, but if someone has the money they could build the site and spend some money on advertising.

This is a great point: one could build a competitor and then spend that money on marketing. However, there will be significant differences that money won't solve in this scenario (at least, not with 2 MM):

• The domain would not be as good as Domaining.com.
• The site would not receive as much free, organic traffic via search engines from years of story headlines and previews being indexed.
• The site would not have a comparable SEO presence or backlink profile that has been built over the years on Domaining.com.
• The company would not have one of the largest lists of newsletter subscribers in the industry.
• The company would need to pay for all the technology behind the aggregator, newsletter, and tying those two together.
• The company would not have as good of a reputation as Domaining.com for many years, if ever. Reputation is something that is built, not bought, in the minds of consumers over many years of doing the right thing and providing a quality service.
• The company would start with $0 in revenue, so every marketing dollar that they spent would further put them in debt.

I like Francois and hope he does well but he needs to be realistic in pricing, sometime we get attached to projects, we think "I spent x amount of years on this, am I really only going to sell for X ?" Well if the market conditions provide for that, Yes. You can't expect people to pay more for your sweat equity.

I think it is an important site to the community and would get a premium over what it might be worth, but $2million is just not really economical for the buyer imo.

You can't expect people to pay for sweat equity unless it has translated into something tangible. In this case, it has. For the reasons I listed above, I believe 2 MM is a fair price.

 

[infosec3]

I am scratching my head right now... I am not sure what to think.

 

[hookbox]

TheDomains, DomainNameWire, TLD Investors, DomainInvesting, DomainShane and OnlineDomain are the only ones that consistently post on Domaining.com. Take them away and all that's left is a good domain name. There is literally nothing there if the blogs go away. There is no content provided by Francois because it's all reliant on others feeds.

What is the Domaining.com domain worth? Maybe 100 grand. Probably closer to 50-75 grand. I think the domain and the site as a package is worth $250,000 tops and that's generous.

 

[domaincandy]

Just another example of shill bidding and scamming. You see it every day on forums and auction houses. ON forums it goes like this: "Received an offer by way of PM. Need just a little more". Or, "Keep the offers coming". Most of the time there are no offers, but the scammers know that you cannot verify that. The times that I have called people out on this through the years have led to be being banned from the forums. ANd I was right every time.

The only solice that I got out of it all was that 4 people committed suicide, and three people were sent to prison. Oh, and 37 of them filed bankrupty. Well, a man can dream, can't he? Never ever trust a domainer who says that he has another bidder.....ever. When the biggest legends like Frank Schilling are willing to cross over to the dark side and pump worthless extensions (after making tens of millions legitimately), then it is absurd to trust some clown sitting in his underwear trying to sell you some garbage on the forums.

Generally speaking, smart businessmen avoid any type of auctions. Buffett never participated in auctions of any kind for reasons that are obvious if you have followed my post. The bottom line is that there was window in time for those who bought good domains in the late 90's were set for life. There was a second boom in the mid 2000's where decent names were changing hands. Those days are over. Most domainers with decent names are the most dishonest people in the universe. Right there with poker players. Real dirt bags for the most part, as they don't care whom they destroy, as long as they don't have to get a real job and contribute to society.

 

[Tia Wood]

As I understand it, from his explanation on TheDomains, his message that read, "Next week I will announce the new owner of domaining.com" simply meant: "Due to personal circumstances, I have to make a deal next week, so I am sending a notice to everyone to let them know to submit their best and final offer immediately, because I will be accepting the best offer next week due to time constraints."

In other words, it's a blind auction. No one knows what anyone else is bidding and the best offer is accepted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sales process.

That's the way I am seeing it, too. Francois has a language barrier and does have trouble putting words together that are often misconstrued so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who has ever communicated with him via email can attest to this.

I believe your explanation was his meaning. It's the bloggers who jumped the gun and made the announcement that Domaining.com was sold. Francois never specifically stated this.

If Francois were up to something shady, I doubt he would do a tell-all on TheDomains.com. Instead he attempted to clarify:

"A Few bloggers started to announce domaining.com was sold.

It’s still not the case otherwise I would have previously sent a private note to the bloggers."

 

[shiftaction]

sounds like every other case of fraud lol

 

[domaincandy]

He admitted it the recent announcement that was a ploy to get the one legit bidder to raise the price. Of course, as is usually the case, there was no original bidder. It is simply an attempt at criminal fraud, as he was trying to induce another to buy based on fraud (nonexistent willing buyer). Anyone who claims it is some sort of language barrier is way off base.

I know that people have witnesses hundreds, if not thousands of cases like this on forums through the years, so you must be desensitized to it. Once again, it reminds me of poker players and the stuff you read about on those forums. Million dollar frauds and thefts almost weekly, and the worst that happens is someone writes something bad about the person. You don't even get that level of punishment on domain forums....lol.

 

[Joseph Green]

Most domainers with decent names are the most dishonest people in the universe. Right there with poker players. Real dirt bags for the most part, as they don't care whom they destroy, as long as they don't have to get a real job and contribute to society.

This is an offensively ignorant statement. Why would you make such a horribly inaccurate generalization about an industry in which you participate? Because of a few bad apples? Come on... every industry in the world has them. It does not define or represent "most" of us. Your sentiments are misplaced.

 

[hookbox]

“Game is over. Next week I will announce the new owner of Domaining.com”

How in the world can anybody say that this statement has anything to do with a language barrier.

He is telling them that I am done playing games with you and now I will take the other people's offer instead. If you guys don't wake up over the weekend and complete the deal I will announce the sale to the other people on Monday.

The only problem is this tactic backfired because their was no other offer from a second group. Or that second group backed out.

 

[Name Trader]

You beat me to this comment, hookbox. I had the statement copied to my clipboard and ready to post it, until I saw your thread. He should never have posted that comment unless it was already a done deal. He is clearly unethical, imho. I thought he was a straight-shooter, but obviously he is not. I think he has done almost irreparable harm to his own reputation, and maybe that of Domaining.com also. But we have short memories in this Domain Business. IMHO, he will get less for Domaining.com this week, if it sells at all.

 

[youmakemewanna]

I am scratching my head right now... I am not sure what to think.

 

[NameOmnia]

I think I am here still trying to understand wtf has happened.
I am not a Domaining .com user or visitor; I simply receive the newsletter that I hardly ever read oops: ) but I saw the famous sentence as it was written at the very top of the newsletter.

My understanding was that the deal was made and the blog was sold. Period.
So I don't exactly know what to think about the supposed " strategy " considered he literally hammered himself in his big toe

" The other bad news is I did not realize some newsletter readers would understand the sale was already effective and lead to few sale blog posts and some anticipated congrats."

Being not a native English speaking person I understand that some sayings that are crystal clear in my language turn into something that doesn't make sense if translated in English. I don't know where Francois is from but I have no doubt this can be what really happened in this case.

In other words, it's a blind auction. No one knows what anyone else is bidding and the best offer is accepted. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sales process.

This is, imo, the other more probable scenario and I agree with him.

Reading the post on thedomains it doesn't seem he was up to anything " not clear " but I might have misunderstood and/or it could be faking extremely well.

I would still put my money on scenario number 1 or 2

 

[Paul]

I know that people have witnesses hundreds, if not thousands of cases like this on forums through the years, so you must be desensitized to it.

Actually, shill bidding doesn't happen too often here. Just because we lock a thread for suspicious bidding doesn't mean that we've caught a scam in progress: most cases I've dealt with were a result of inexperience on the part of a newcomer or simply coincidence. Buyers quite regularly fail to follow through with their offers, though; that's a problem I see much more often.

This incident doesn't show any telltale signs of fraud. For example, the current bid price was never given much publicity, and very little effort was made to solicit further offers. If this were an attempt at fraud, the notice on Domaining.com would've sounded more like this: "Selling Domaining.com! Current bid at $____ will win on ____ unless outbid! Submit bid [here]" But the notice was nothing like that.

It's oddly satisfying to call someone out on their trickery, so we have a tendency to assume malicious intent. Similarly, bad news is exciting, which is why news stations mostly broadcast bad news: more people are interested. However, when we examine the situation more objectively and without the bias of our predisposition, we often find that our evidence is not as solid as we originally thought. The accused is often merely a victim of coincidence, and we've instinctively jumped to a conclusion of malicious intent, where no malice was intended.

 

[Name Trader]

@Paul Buonopane I don't agree with this. “Game is over. Next week I will announce the new owner of Domaining.com”. There isn't much to misunderstand about this statement, imho. So unless he announces the new owner by Saturday, it's all BS, imho.

 

[TheWatcher]

Bad announcement ... followed by bad posts from known domain bloggers ... bad publicity to buy and selling domain names.

Bad for everyone in domain business. A sad day.