Selling a Domain Name

January 29, 2004 2:14 PM

I've always thought jezebel.com would make a great URL for a porn site. And after 8 years of using it for photos, desktop backgrounds and postcards, I'm ready to sell it off to the highest bidder in order to finance my upcoming wedding. So I'm looking for two wholly serious pieces of advice: a) high-level contacts in the adult industry and b) a sense of what the current market is like for domain name sales.
posted by heather to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

The last I talked to Halcyon, he was somewhat loosely involved in the web design for porn business. I bet he knows a lot of people.

Also, there's the Jezebel magazine that might be interested, though they might be all pissy that you've got one of their trademarks or something.

How did the vivid web design group ever sell vivid.com to the porn empire?
posted by mathowie at 2:25 PM on January 29, 2004

Response by poster: that's matt... i've actually covered two of those bases though given the pissy back and forth i'd had with the magazine a couple of years ago, i'm pretty loath to sell it to them.
posted by heather at 2:33 PM on January 29, 2004

I think the market for really good names (like yours) is very good right now. Although porn domains are actually not as important as other ventures, (you can do a different spelling and have almost the same effect, since most martketing efforts are online anyway) I think that if you find the right buyer, you can make some very good $$$ on the domain.
posted by cell divide at 2:44 PM on January 29, 2004

i'd hustle the suicidegirls.com peeps... i bet they'd be interested....you'd think.
posted by specialk420 at 4:05 PM on January 29, 2004

Back In The Day, I used to get offers for my restraint.org domain from a few pr0n sites. I'll see if I can find the old emails and forward you the contact info.

I'd probably still sell it if the price was right, if only to confuse my mother.
posted by Jairus at 4:15 PM on January 29, 2004

AskMeta: Here to confuse your mother.
Getting a domain bought from you is neat. I recommend a lawyer once you get to the negotiating phase (Though I have no experience with this process :-)
posted by Happydaz at 7:01 PM on January 29, 2004

Afternic.com..domain auction site...if not to sell, then at least to see what prices are paid...third time posting this thru ^%$&^ server errors...
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:20 PM on January 29, 2004

I have nothing constructive to add, just wanted to say jezebel.com was the first site I visited almost every day. good luck, heather. may you reap a large wad of cash.
posted by whatnot at 7:20 PM on January 29, 2004

Holy Cow! Married? Super congratulations. Inviting all mirrorproject and fray participants? or had better make a nice amazon wish list. damn drunken typing.
posted by th3ph17 at 11:43 PM on January 29, 2004

Heather, a friend of mine who works for a company that runs porn sites (and used to own one himself) suggests that there are message/chat areas on these sites where adult industry types hang out. I'm at work right now so I'm unable to check the sites out, but he says they might be good places to contact people about buying your domain:

http://www.ynotmasters.com/home.html
http://www.netpond.com/threaded/
http://adultnetsurprise.com/

Oh, and may I add, I absolutely love your photography on hchamp.com!
posted by dnash at 7:20 AM on January 30, 2004

While not porn, I would bet that these folks would be quite interested.
posted by grabbingsand at 8:43 AM on January 30, 2004

I would suggest placing a good-sized notice on your front page that the domain is for sale... that's how I sold one of mine. I was going to list it on eBay and Afternic.com but had an excellent offer so didn't need to.
posted by tranquileye at 10:05 AM on January 30, 2004

i hope you keep your e-cards available somewhere. those are the best!
posted by centrs at 3:35 PM on February 4, 2004