I get my fair share of strange email messages, and I’m not just talking about so-called relatives who have billions of dollars to bestow upon me. A long while back, I remember a certain panda killer saying that no one in their right mind would want to buy his blog, because the site would effectively lose all of its value if he were no longer behind it. After all, who would still visit John Chow dot Com if John Chow wasn’t the person behind the site?
This is why so many of those “how much is your domain worth” estimation tools are inaccurate, not representing the true market value of a particular site. Domains that do not carry a person’s own name are much easier to sell. For example, if my fighting games blog takes off in popularity or Slap Shot Squad rakes in all sorts of traffic, they’d be much easier to flip than MichaelKwan.com, and by association, easier to sell than Beyond the Rhetoric. Even so, there does appear to be some interest.
I just received a message in my e-mail inbox inquiring about the sale of MichaelKwan.com. It’s brief and to the point:
Obviously, there’s no way that I would ever sell this domain to anyone unless they offered some insane amount of money. Even so, as I said, MichaelKwan.com would lose pretty much all of its value if I were no longer the one behind the site. Why own a site that advertises Michael Kwan’s freelance writing services when he’s not even there anymore?
I just thought that I’d share this email with all of you, because I’m curious if anyone has received a similar offer. Ironically, Problogger.net and Shoemoney.com could be a viable sales, seeing how Darren and Jeremy’s names aren’t in their respective domains.
I haven’t received one (and probably won’t!) but I recognize the letter. A few years ago, I bought an eBook on buying and selling websites. (The company selling the book has since vanished from the Internet.) That letter is pretty much the form letter from that book, just slightly modified.
You’ve got a ton of content here, so that must be worth something. Even if the blog is never updated anymore, you should still get enough search engine traffic to make the site worth buying.
And I suppose as long as it’s about Michael Kwan, it doesn’t have to be by Michael Kwan. You could be like a celebrity, with the new owner reporting your every move! ๐
The idea of a “fan site” would probably be the most viable option for a domain name with someone else’s name in it.
Ever think the OTHER Michael Kwan might want his URL back? ๐ ๐
Quite the statement from the “fake” Stephen Fung ๐
What’d they offer you? If it’s enough…well…
That’s the thing. As dcr mentioned above, it was probably a form letter and you know just as much as I do: I pasted the entire email message above. I never replied.
Should I invest in therealmichaelkwan.com now?
I’m curious, why don’t you have this blog on beyondtherhetoric.com?
Please don’t sell this blog, unless they offer you a million bucks, or if they make a contract with you to continue to post articles here after it is acquired by the new owner.
Ryan Shamus dot com was sold to another blogger and I no longer visited the blog. It feels weird to be reading a personal blog with the person’s name as the domain name but the new owner is not the actual person behind the name.
http://ryanshamus.com/shamus-news/going-once-going-twice-sold-goodbye/
like what betshopboy had mention,don’t sell your own name to other’s. It’s sound like how you are selling yourself on ebay for a price.
They must want the traffic or something, like why else bye a personal blog.