I received a tweet this morning asking if there was any hope for an individual (vs. a company) to buy a domain name given how many are parked.
My response was:
absolutely, individuals have the same chance as a startups, remember parked usually means “for sale”
This echoes what I think is a common confusion about parked domains. Parked doesn’t mean the domain is in-use and absolutely unavailable for sale. In most cases it means the exact opposite.
Think about it.
If a domain name is developed and features the homepage for an existing company, then it has a lot more value assigned to it than the domain itself. If a domain is parked, you’re in luck, this means nobody is using it to do anything except for collecting money until someone comes along and makes a nice offer.
Given how much parking revenue has declined over the last ten years I can tell you that if you see a domain parked you’re often in the “best-case” not the “worst-case” scenario. Oh and if you see that the email address in the WHOIS is something like privacyprotect1112@whoisprivacy.com, don’t worry – you can email this directly and it will reach the owner.
So next time see a domain you want to buy is parked, don’t panic, just think of it as good news, the domain is not being used and depending on your budget, it could be yours before you know it.
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If you’re a startup looking to learn more about buying a domain name make sure to read my article on Medium.com – What every startup founder should know about buying domain names.
