Buyer’s guide
How to buy a name without getting played
Premium domain sales are quiet on purpose. The pages that shout about how many people are viewing a name are selling urgency, not a name. This is the sequence a careful buyer uses, and the sequence this listing will follow.
1. Decide what the asset is
An exact-match phrase .com is a string. It is not a business, a social following, or a trademark. Ask, in writing, what transfers. On this listing the answer is the domain. If a seller bundles “the brand,” ask which filings, accounts, and marks are actually assigned. If the answer is vague, you are buying a story.
2. Write an offer a human can answer
Include your name, a reply-to email, a number, and one line on use. “Interested, please send price” is how inboxes get ignored. You do not need to attach bank statements to a public form. Proof of funds, if anyone asks, belongs in escrow, not in a landing-page upload.
3. Use escrow you can check
The buyer funds a neutral escrow. The seller starts the transfer only after escrow confirms the deposit. Funds move to the seller after the buyer controls the name at the registrar. Escrow.com is the common desk. Another licensed escrow is fine if both sides agree before anyone signs. A wire to a personal account is not a variation on this. It is a different, worse transaction.
4. Know the two ways a .com moves
- Registrar push. Both accounts live at the same registrar. Often the faster path, sometimes inside a day, often inside five.
- Auth-code transfer. The name moves between registrars. The window can run five days unless the losing registrar approves it early. Do not schedule a launch on the first morning.
5. Red flags that end the deal
- Pressure from a countdown you did not ask for.
- Payment instructions that skip escrow.
- A promise of included traffic with no analytics access before close.
- Refusal to say which registrar holds the name once you are under contract.
- Any claim that a third-party platform or a public person is part of the sale.
6. After the name is yours
Lock the registrant email, turn on registrar lock, and point DNS only when you mean to. The demonstration site on this hostname goes away when the name leaves. Plan the replacement before you launch a campaign at the URL.
The same path applies here. Offers go to [email protected] or through the form.