Author: Trevor John

Buying parked domains is a bit of a black art. It's often also a
test of your detective skills. Plus you will need a dose of
patience and some good negotiation skills. When you are buying a
parked domain name, luck also plays its part.

So, how to buy parked domains?

Firstly you've got to find a parked domain before you can think
of buying one. That's fairly easy. Go to a service like
NameBoy.com and type in a couple of your preferred keywords.
This will bring up a list of all sorts of vaguely related domain
names. NameBoy is good at thinking outside the box and will
often come up with variants on a name that you'd never have
considered before. I'll leave it up to you as to whether this is
a good or a bad thing but when I'm looking to buy a parked
domain name, I find it a good place to start.

Then you need to start copying and pasting the domain names into
your browser.

Some will come up as live domains, some will be clearly
identified as parked domains and yet more will fall into a
no-mans land. Kind of the scrap heap of the internet.

If the domain has a clear "for sale" sign on it then that's
good. Chances are there will be a link that allows you to
contact the domain's owner without falling foul of spam filters
and you can open up negotiations. Start low and work upwards is
a good technique. You may also find that it's useful to ask what
traffic the domain has had in the past and what sort of figure
they would be looking at to sell.

A useful tool is archive.org. This allows you to go back in time
and see what has (or more often, hasn't) been done with the
domain in the past.

Another useful site is domaintools.com which allows you to see
the domain's history. Things like previous owners, changes of
name servers, etc.

All of these will give you clues that will help you to buy
parked domains.

If the domain is clearly parked but doesn't have a For Sale sign
on it, you may need to do some detective work. A WhoIs service
may tell you who the owner is. If it does, don't be afraid to
get on the phone and call the owner. Whilst phoning is old
fashioned, you'll know your enquiry got through and it may well
be quicker and more reliable than email. If there isn't a
working phone number, try writing.

Why not just email the owner of the parked domain? Well, for
starters, email is getting less reliable nowadays. Secondly,
lots of newer domains have domain name guards to stop spammers
so the WhoIs details may not have contactable details. Emails
sent to info@ or webmaster@ may or may not get through. They're
worth a try, but don't hold your breath. At the end of the day,
unless the parked domain is one that you absolutely must have,
remember that there are often a number of choices that you can
go through when you are looking to buy a parked domain. The
domain name is only part of the equation. It's what you do with
the parked domain once you've bought it that really counts!

About the author:
For up to date information on how to buy <a
href="http://trevsreviews.com/2006/12/28/domain-parking">parked
domains</a> and what to do with your parked domains while you're
waiting to develop them, check out my blog at
http://trevsreviews.com