As a domain seller, how much attention do you pay to your Whois info? If you aren’t paying close attention, you might be making these 3 critical mistakes that are costing you money.
If you get these steps down, it will save you lots of time in the long run, and hopefully, help you sell more domain names. If you have not been diligent, I recommend taking the time to audit your domain portfolio to see if you are guilty of any of these following:
- Not Keeping the Whois / Contact Info Up to Date. I just started to audit my domain names (with many more to go) and realized that I had some outdated email info as well as contact phone numbers. If you see this warning, this is a sure sign that your WHOIS contact info is out of date or incomplete:
I will be transparent and let you know that one of my domains even had my old Maryland address (I’ve lived in Arizona for almost 8 years now.) If someone wants to contact you about purchasing your domain name, they need to have the correct info as most won’t go too far to find it.
- Not Letting People Know The Domain is For Sale. I have heard this tip for years, but I failed to identify my domains that were for sale as such. As I update my domains, I now make a note in the Organization / Company field that the domain name is for sale. If they have looked up the Whois info, there is a high likelihood that they are interested in buying it… or they are a stalker.
Here is what my Whois info looks like on my domain names for sale:
- Failing to Update the Whois info When You Buy a Domain. OK, so this is another embarrassing one. A domain in my portfolio that I purchased over a year ago still had the old owner’s contact info. Sometimes we get in such a hurry to get a domain in our account that we forget to change the info. If you are moving from one GoDaddy account to another, this can easily happen, especially if you keep all of the info the same to not have a website go offline during the transition.
I hope that is helpful. Let me know if you have any other Whois tips, and if you want to be transparent let us all know (in the comments below) of any interesting finds when you check your Whois info.
