Experience with domain name auctions

[JBR]

I'm looking for some insight, or suggestions for entering a domain name auction. A URL that's now registered is up for renewal near the end of 2013. The hosting site says it's on auction until April 2013.

Of course, we (my company) doesn't want to overpay or getting into a bidding war with the squatter him/herself.

I've through of trying to obtain the name at a lower price as an individual then, if successful, selling it to my company for $1.00..

Any CP'ers have experience with this?

[sclitheroe]

It's never worth it in my opinion. Nobody types URL's into the browser bar anymore, they just google and click on the first hit.

Unless it's super compelling/core to the brand of the company in question, if you've already got a domain, and this is supplementing that, I'd just walk away.

[JBR]

Thanks. Good advice. We're willing to spend a limited amount, and I'll likely bid to this number. The main reason I'm looking for this name is to use a the new suffix for our staff e-mail addresses..

[Russic]

While google is a primary way most will get to the site, I would say it's still quite important in terms of email (as you mentioned) and memorability. Nobody wants to tell somebody they can be reached at bill@lbl-fhl.ca, nor do you ever want to be putting that in an advertisement.

I've never been a part of an auction, so I have no idea where the cost might get to there.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Russic

While google is a primary way most will get to the site, I would say it's still quite important in terms of email (as you mentioned) and memorability. Nobody wants to tell somebody they can be reached at bill@lbl-fhl.ca, nor do you ever want to be putting that in an advertisement.

I've never been a part of an auction, so I have no idea where the cost might get to there.

Observing how utterly dependant people are on the Outlook auto-complete cache for email addresses (the infamous .nk2 file in Outlook 2003, gone fortunately in Outlook 2010 and higher), I wonder about this as well - if they can email you once, and get it into the auto-complete cache, they are good until their machine crashes

(I kid...a little)