So I’ve Just Learned First-Hand The Only Downside To “For Sale” Landers

In my Domaining MBA Monday segment this week I discussed the advantages of using a “For Sale” lander rather than a parked page. I only recommend this in cases where domains are making next-to-nothing parked so you would want to encourage offers rather than try to get as many clicks as possible.

So on Monday I really couldn’t find a single disadvantage to the “For Sale” only lander…and then yesterday I experienced one. Confusion.

One of my domains with a “For Sale” lander happens to be the .COM of a company that uses the .NET. That particular company decided to hold a conference call for some of their clients and asked their clients to RSVP for the call on their website.

So of course, like most people, they went to the .COM rather than the .NET and entered their info. Since the lander asks for their name, email, etc. they just assumed this was the sign-up form for the call they were dialing into. Which means that at around 6:00PM PST yesterday I started getting a flurry of inquiries on this particular domain. I called one of the inquires and spoke to a very nice woman, both of us had no idea that we were talking about two different things…so the conversation went a little bit like this.

Me: Thanks for your interest in xxxxxxxxxx.com, could you tell me a bit more about how you plan to use it?

Her: Yes, I am very excited about this but it is all new to me, maybe you can explain a little more about it.

Me: Sure. Here are some similar sales [listing a few similar sales]. That should give you an idea of the price range this would fall in.

Her: Oh wow, that is really interesting. Where are you finding this data.

Me: There’s a site called NameBio.com that has a searchable database of sales and DNJournal is also a good resource.

Her: Very interesting, well I can wait until everyone else is on the call so we can all learn together.

Me: Sorry, I think you might be confused, I am calling you because you sent in an inquiry about my domain name.

Her: Oh, I thought this was the conference call for xxxxx company.

Me: No, sorry for the confusion but I think you went to the wrong site.

Of course this doesn’t happen every day, and I’m not saying that I think any differently about “For Sale” landers than I did on Monday. However, what I will say is that there is potential for confusion which could mean more inquiries from people who aren’t actually interested in buying your domain.

I found this to be a pretty funny exchange, it felt a bit like an episode of Frasier (one of Daina and my favorite shows!) and I thought you would all get a kick out of it as well. I still feel strongly that if your domain isn’t making any money parked, have it go directly to a “For Sale” lander, just know that some people might get confused and you too could have a call like I did yesterday.

Has this ever happened to you?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton