Domain Seller Sedo Contacts Domain Buyer After Domain Auction

Domain seller Sedo facilitated the purchase of a domain by connecting the buyer and seller after an auction

Last month, Sedo hosted an auction for the domain hornywoman.com. The domain was sold for $2,520.00 through the platform after receiving 12 bids. The specific amount of the winning offer was not disclosed by Sedo.

The domain was sold through a transaction facilitated by domain reseller Sedo, which means that the domain seller and buyer were anonymous to each other. In its role as a domain reseller, Sedo facilitated the transaction and kept the buyer and seller anonymous throughout the process.

After the auction concluded, Sedo reached out to the buyer with a message intended to establish a potential relationship between the buyer and the domain seller. This message was provided to The Verge by James Booth, the director of communications at GoDaddy — one of the largest domain resellers and web hosting providers in the world. It confirms that Sedo would connect the buyer and seller following the auction, providing a direct channel of communication between the parties.

"Congratulations on your recent purchase of hornywoman.com!

"We are reaching out to introduce you to the seller of the domain, as Sedo remains a neutral middleman in this transaction we are happy to introduce you to the seller via email.

"They (the seller) are interested in knowing more about your plans for the domain, and would like to understand why you found it valuable to purchase. This kind of discussion between buyer and seller is not uncommon, and many times leads to future partnerships, investments, and other collaborations.

"If you are interested in connecting with the seller, please let us know and we will be happy to send an email directly to the seller introducing you and providing your contact information.

"Best Regards,

"Sedo Domain Parking"

In a statement provided to The Verge, Sedo confirmed that it periodically reaches out to buyers and connects them with sellers when desired, but declined to comment on this specific auction.

"Sedo’s role as a neutral intermediary involves facilitating the transfer of domains, as well as the transmission of information between buyers and sellers through our post-sales customer service," the company said. "It’s not uncommon for a seller to express interest in learning more about a buyer’s intentions for a domain, and if the buyer is open to having this conversation, we enjoy passing their information along."

Sedo added that it does not mediate any additional negotiations or discussions between the parties after making the introduction, nor does it involve itself with any potential partnerships, collaborations, or future dealings between the domain buyer and domain seller.

The company also declined to share basic information about the buyer and seller of hornywoman.com., such as their respective locations or the date the domain was first registered.

It's unclear exactly how commonly these introductions occur after a domain sale. Sedo told The Verge that it facilitates millions of dollars' worth of domain transactions every year, while fellow domain resellers NameJet and GoDaddy sell hundreds of thousands of domains annually. NameJet did not respond to a request for comment.

In its message to The Verge, GoDaddy suggested that Sedo's message to the buyer was an attempt to ostensibly help the buyer establish a relationship with the seller to potentially enter some sort of business partnership — an arrangement GoDaddy claimed is relatively modestly prevalent across the domain resale industry to rake in extra profit through future collaborations.

We reached out to the buyer of hornywoman.com using the contact information listed in the WHOIS database, an publicly accessible database that provides information on domain registrations. The buyer, who declined to provide their name, confirmed that they did indeed purchase the domain, but did not confirm whether they received the message from Sedo and did not respond to any additional questions.

It's not uncommon to see domains like these periodically change hands through auctions and aftermarket sales. For example, the domain spicygf.com was also sold by Sedo in mid-November for $1,525 through an auction that received just one bid. Prior to that, in late September, Sedo hosted an auction for the domain fuckmywife.com that sold for $2,000 after receiving 18 bids.

All of these domains were purchased with the knowledge that they were purchased for speculative resale purposes, not for the content that the domains could potentially host.

In recent years, domains like these have increasingly been used to host junk domains or misinformation, but that's a separate issue from the more neutral discussion around the business of domains themselves.

Despite Sedo's statement that these types of introductions are not uncommon, it's not obvious how frequently these types of introductions occur or what percentage of buyers and sellers ultimately enter into any additional arrangements beyond the domain sale itself.

The broader business of buying and selling domains — particularly those that are thought to have some inherent value due to their subject matter — is a lucrative industry that routinely involves anonymity between the buyer and seller.

The practice has sometimes led to accusations of "domain squatting," where someone purchases a domain with the express intention of reselling it rather than using it for content. This was the case with the now-infamous emolument.com, which was originally registered by a man named Mohamed Elshafie in 2009 and eventually sold to a mysterious buyer in 2011 for $8,000 — with Elshafie telling The Verge he only registered the domain to "make money."

The buyer, in this case, was later revealed to be a startup founded by Donald Trump and his children that ultimately became the Trump Organization's flagship company, Trump International.

While selling domains like these can lead to considerable profit, it can also lead to some potentially hilarious and cringeworthy situations for the end buyer. The next time you see a domain name that you think would better suit your content, it may be worth asking yourself whether it's worth the potential embarrassment to your ears and your bank account.