The Abandoned Wasteland DNForum.com is for Sale; Here’s Why It Still Has Value

NEW YORK – If you have not yet heard, and I am sure that you have, once popular domain name forum, DNForum.com, The Place to Talk Domains is for sale. Ownership says they’ll have it sold this week and I would not be at all surprised to see that happen, because even if no-one at all bids on it, I did.

That’s right, I put in a small [worst case scenario] offer for the website, and if I wanted to steal it for the best absolute price, I wouldn’t be drawing even more attention to it by writing about it, but I don’t care much either way.

So here’s why I still think it is a good site to acquire if you like domains and have a little bit of cash laying around.

1. Although there are many – many – many – people who would love to watch it VANISH, it was once a thriving domain sales forum where many domain name enthusiasts struck their very first deals.
2. It has a bazillion back-links (not easy to replicate).
3. It’s had lots of bad PR over the years, but if you know anything at all about PR, ‘sometimes’ and I do mean sometimes, bad news is better than no news at all. There are plenty of brands that actually benefited in the long run from bad PR.
4. Most people in time forget the negative they read or hear and just remember seeing the company or product name and this brings with it recognition.
5. Although many people were burnt out of money either on DNForum itself, or directly from its previous owner Adam Dicker, the fact is that many people in this world just do not care about others and are selfish. Not everyone, but many. [I personally would like to see the forum do something good or give something back, for all those who have lost there]
6. Howard Stern became insanely famous because people hated him with a passion. In fact, at one time, more people listened to Howard Stern that hated him then those who actually liked him. When asked why, the answer was that they wanted to see what he would say next. Read The Great Formula: For Creating Maximum Profit with Minimal Effort (Page 162).
7. Love it or hate it, it’s a name people know about, and I mean a lot of people. For example, as a case-in-point, the site is for sale, and many people are blogging and talking about it. Put up a site for sale and see how many people start blogging about it being for sale. Probably Zero. Unless you have built quite a following, no one will be discussing it but you, because no one but you will care.
8. Finally, and obviously, it could be brought back to life with the right ownership, the right effort and the right decisions. Maybe not to what it was at one time, or, maybe even better. There is no way to know, but it has EXISTING TRAFFIC – the single critical component to make anything work online.

DNForum.com back in March 2004

So there you have it.

Starting something from scratch these days is near impossible. Back in the day I could through a site together in a couple of days and start getting search engine traffic and actually have a business within a few weeks. Try doing that today; it’s just not going to happen as easily. It’s going to take forever (if even it works at all). So starting something which is already known about, has existing traffic and a bazillion back-links is a whole lot easier.

Someone will buy the site. If I owned a competing domain forum I’d buy it just to redirect it and chalk it up as an advertising expense.

We all shall see what happens this week.

John Colascione

About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, authored a ‘how to’ book called ‘‘Mastering Your Website’, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®