Premium Value Domains
This one is not really a scam, but it is using a spam list to try to persuade you to buy more domain names than you really need. But there is the implication that by buying this domain you will receive more traffic, but that is not what my research tells me.
So you receive the email on the right (click to enlarge). It clearly tells you:
“We are planning to sell communicatinggreen.com in the next couple of days. Since you own [your domain], I thought you might be interested in communicatinggreen.com.
“We have researched close to three million domains and that has led us to determine that owning communicatinggreen.com will increase your traffic to [your domain].
“You will also maximize the value of [your domain] by buying communicatinggreen.com.”
So they own this website and it has traffic and they want to sell it. Right?
Who currently owns this website?
Wrong! But, what exactly is going on. Well next I looked at the whois information for this domain, which is basically when it was registered and when it will expire.
The key lines here are:
Status: pendingDelete
Updated Date: 11-jun-2010
Creation Date: 31-mar-2009
Expiration Date: 31-mar-2010
What this tells us is that the domain name was first registered only last year (31-March-09) and was allowed to expire this year. It is also “Pending Delete”, which means that it has not been renewed and is going to expire. No-one owns is.
What are Premium Value Domains offering?
So, is this a scam? Not quite. What Premium Value Domains are offering to do for you is to grab the expired URL as soon as it becomes available. But, they are not doing this and then hoping to find a buyer, they are finding a buyer and then hoping to buy the old name – another company could equally well get it before them.
Are the benefits genuine?
Is it worth buying it? I would say not! Looking at Alexa there is no traffic ranking; looking at the Way Back When archive there is no old website and searching on Google only finds about 20 entries for the domain name, all of these being references to this pending deletion.
Why then would it “increase your traffic to [website]“ and “maximize the value of [your website]“?
In short, it won’t. There is no hidden value in an expired name that appears never to have had a website hosted and therefore, has never had any traffic.
What should you do?
My advice to you if you receive such spam is to delete it. Should by some fluke the domain name be a good name for you, then approach suitable companies yourself who can buy expiring domains. Do not reply to spam as you do not know how much over the odds they might charge and it encourages more spam.
Related posts:
- Spam selling expiring domain names
- Try Buying A Business, Not A Website
- Domain Notification: This is your Notice of Domain Listing
- notice protect– internet trademark intellectual property safeguard
- The Troubles Of URLs
- This Week You Have Been Reading
- Notice of Domain Names Property Protection
- Questions to Ask a Web Design Company Before You Hire Them
- Domain Renewal Spam From Domain Services “This is your Final Notice of Domain Listing”
- Be Careful How You Present Your Website
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