You quote someone $8,500 for a domain. They Google it and find a forum post you wrote six months ago.
“Paid $40 for this one. Would be happy to get $500.”
You probably wish you hadn’t posted that.
There’s nothing wrong with buying a domain for $40 and asking $8,500. Your acquisition cost doesn’t set its value, and you’re allowed to change your mind about what you’ll accept. But if I’m the buyer and I find that post, of course I’m going to ask about it.
Wouldn’t you?
We spend plenty of time researching potential buyers. I think it’s reasonable to assume some of them will look into us before sending money. Search your name, your email address, and a few domains you’re trying to sell. See what comes up.
An old price might be the least interesting thing they find.
Maybe there’s a public argument where you spent two days calling someone an idiot over an auction. Or a screenshot of a buyer’s email, posted so everyone could laugh at the offer. Or a string of comments about how clueless end users are.
Now imagine reading those things while deciding whether to do business with the person who wrote them.
You could be completely right about the auction. The offer might have been absurd. I’d still be wondering whether my emails would end up in a forum thread if our negotiation didn’t go well.
That would bother me more than finding out you paid forty bucks for the domain.
I don’t think every low offer deserves the reaction it gets. Someone offers $100 for a name you value at $10,000, and it’s tempting to treat it as an insult. But what does that person know about domains? Have they ever bought one from an owner before? They may be comparing your name to a registration they bought for twelve dollars.
You don’t have to spend your afternoon educating them. Say no, send your price, or move on. Making them the subject of a public joke seems like extra work with very little upside.
And removing the sender’s name doesn’t always make an email anonymous. If you leave the company, domain, or enough of the exchange visible, the person may be easy to identify. At minimum, they’ll recognize their own words.
I’d rather a buyer feel comfortable asking me a basic question than worry that I’m going to share it with other investors.
There’s useful discussion to be had around negotiations. I don’t want people to stop sharing what works, what went wrong, or what they wish they had done differently. Those conversations help other investors. Usually, though, you can explain the situation without exposing the person who contacted you.
Some of what a buyer finds will be less dramatic. An old sales thread. A forgotten marketplace listing. A post asking whether the name is worth renewing.
That last one could make your five-figure quote a little harder to explain.
It doesn’t mean you have to defend every opinion you’ve ever had. You may have learned more about the market. Your financial situation may have changed. You may simply have decided to hold out for a better price.
If the buyer asks, tell them what happened. Don’t invent an offer from another company to make today’s price sound more convincing. You’ve already got an awkward question to answer. Adding a story you can’t support won’t help.
The old listings are worth checking even if nobody brings them up. If you’re quoting $8,500 directly and still have a $500 buy-now listing somewhere, that needs your attention. It’s easy to forget where you listed a name, especially if you’ve owned it for years.
As for the public comments, I’m not suggesting we all stop having opinions. I write a blog. I like a good debate and some back-and-forth. You can disagree with someone without worrying about whether a hypothetical buyer will approve.
But I think most of us know when we’ve gone past disagreeing and started making ourselves look difficult.
Before your next negotiation, spend a few minutes searching for yourself. Read what comes up as if you were considering sending this person several thousand dollars.
Would you be comfortable doing it?