Chances are you haven’t heard about renting a domain name. If you have heard about it, you may be wondering just how it is done. It’s actually quite simple. Let me explain.
Let’s say that I own a domain named “superblogger.com.” Someone else (who is actually a superblogger), is trying to buy that domain name. They try to buy it, and see that I own it. They do a search for the administrative contact, and find my email. They offer to buy the domain from me for a small price. I feel that the domain is worth more than they are offering and we come to bartering standstill.
I offer to “rent” the domain name to them. The important thing for me to do is to keep control of the domain name registration. I will NOT under any circumstance put their information in the administrative contact or any other contact on the domain name. The way I will give control to them to publish content is to change the NAMESERVER information and make this point to their hosting provider.
They need to sign up for a hosting account and then give me the two nameservers that go along with that hosting account. I will then go into my domain name service, and change the nameservers to point to their hosting account. When the business contract is over, I can change them to point back to a hosting account controlled by myself. If their short business stint was lucrative enough, they may realize the true value of the domain and offer me my original asking price, or they may wish to rent it again for another quarter.
Easy huh? If you were lucky enough to be around in the big dotcom boom when everyone was buying up domain names, you know just what I am talking about. Some domain names are very valuable, and will continue to be valuable for years to come.
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I think you need to have some kind of lease agreement for domain name renting – like they use in commercial real estate.
So maybe 3 + 3 years. 3 years + cpi each year with the right to renew after 3 years.
I couldn’t agree more. It is real estate, the virtual kind.
You could also take it a few steps further and work out an agreement that you (the domain owner) get 10% of all sales generated through that domain name.
You know… never even thought about renting the domain name. I have asked quite a few people to buy their dm…especially if it’s just sitting there with nothing on it (do most people rarely even reply?)…but renting, that is a new angle.
Thanks for the thought. and I totally agree…virtual real estate needs an agreement of some kind.
Listen carefully to the part about NOT changing contact info. If you put the administrative/registrant contact info in their name and they can prove it was in their name, they might be able to sue you for the domain. Also NEVER give them access to the registrar account the domain resides in NEVER! Every day I see a webmaster who was trusted enough to be given login/pass to a registrants account and who changed the contact into and moved the domain into another account. Once their name is on that domain, they might win in court.
Justin
http://blueballdomains.com
@Justin: I totally agree, I have an experience working in a web hosting company so I know this stuff. To all the domain owner “DO NOT CHANGE THE ADMINISTRATIVE / REGISTRANT CONTACT OF YOUR DOMAIN” else they will be the new owner of your domain and “YOU SHOULD NOT GIVE ANY ACCESS” to your registrar’s account.
To those who rent “YOU SHOULD HAVE A LEASE OF CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND THE OWNER OF THE DOMAIN”.
@ALL: I can advice you to just buy your own domain instead of renting it. I can suggest you to buy a domain at 1&1 Webhosting. The price is reasonable and affordable.
I just had someone offer to buy a domain name I own. I’d rather rent it than to sell because I think it will only become more valuable in the future. My question is, how much do I rent it for? I think if I was to get an offer of 1500 bucks I think I’d sell but I’m reasonably sure that is not going to happen.