I’ve been wait to write this post for almost 3 years – I just bought ProBlogger.com.
The day I first came up with the idea of starting a blog called ProBlogger I started it as an extension on another blog domain. A few months later when I decided it was a topic that needed it’s own purpose built blog I found that Problogger.com was already taken (it was a holding page for a blogging community from memory) and so I was forced to buy up ProBlogger.net.
Since that time I’ve attempted to purchase ProBlogger.com. on a number of occasions – but in each instance the owner either was asking for an amount which was too much for my budget or had plans of their own to develop it.
I had numerous watch systems up on the domain in case it ever expired and every year in February I held my breath hoping that it would. However each year on the day it expired it was renewed – until this year….
That was the day that I started getting emails from ProBlogger.net readers telling me that the .com version was expired. I must have had at least 15-30 emails a day from readers telling me this (an indication of how much type in traffic my brand had been driving to the domain). In fact the domain has already got an Alexa ranking simply from this (around the 150,000 mark – higher than many developed blogs get after concerted effort).
Auction 1 – As part of the expiration process at GoDaddy (where the domain had been hosted) they then put domains up for auction – two weeks before the current owners can actually renew it for the last time (why they do it before their last chance for renew is a mystery to me).
So the GoDaddy auction took a week and ended a couple of weeks back. The price got too high for my liking (it was over $7000 USD) and someone else got the right to buy it if the renewal didn’t happen.
Luckily for me the previous owners did renew it (this was a real roller coaster for me) and then decided to sell the domain on ebay. My heart sank and leaped all at once – another auction to endure, but also another opportunity to buy the domain I’d been looking to secure for years.
Auction 2 – The ebay auction was nowhere near as active as the previous one and remained at the starting bid for a week. It was only in the last day or two that bids were placed. It was a reserve price auction and while the auction took place I talked to the representative of the owner.
The last few minutes of the auction were hot but at its end it hadn’t reached the reserve price. I had the highest bid ($4050 – the ebay page is here) and immediately contacted the owner’s rep to see if we could come to a mutually agreeable figure.
Negotiations – Of course this all happened just a few hours before our flight left Melbourne for the USA so it wasn’t an easy negotiation in terms of time zones – but I’m happy to announce that in the last day the final price was negotiated and payments and transfers have been made.
I’m not going to disclose the price – but it was higher than $4050 and lower than the original auction of $7000 USD. It was a little more than my budget and hope for a purchase price but in terms of having the control of the brand and some of my future hopes for ProBlogger I’m satisfied with what we negotiated.
At this point ProBlogger.com will simply forward to ProBlogger.net (and it’ll help increase traffic from type-ins slightly) – however I do have hopes to use the .com site for an additional ProBlogger branded online experience/feature.
I guess the whole experience has been a learning one for me. Get the domain you want early – think ahead – if you’re confident of your brand go for it earlier than later etc.
PS: thanks to the many many readers who emailed me to let me know the domain was up for grabs over the last month. I appreciate your support in the process!
Congratulations!
Must feel great to finally get your hands on the .com version :)
All the best
Oh… Me again.
Just wanted to add the following:
Seeing the title “Problogger.com Sold” in my reader, made my heart leap a couple of beats. Only after reading it several times did I realize that you had NOT sold Problogger.net.
Thank God:)
Make a store out of it –
“Coming soon – ProBlogger.com t-shirts, coffee mugs, chocolate bars, keyboards, mouse pads, and pop tarts with the problogger logo”
Congrats!
I was wondering why you use .net instead of .com. My question is now answered!
LoL good one, Can anyone tell me whats the plugin to have all your links highlighted in orange like this blog??
WoooooHooooo!
Darren that Rocks! Great job – I’m so happy for you!! :D
To make the links orange just edit your blog’s theme’s CSS file (assuming you use a content management system like WordPress), if you use blogger.com then you will have to mess around with the layout settings.
hmm I dont know much about CSS, is there a java code or script I can just insert in my template?
Hi Christa,
I don’t use WordPress so I might be wrong, but I bet the links light up in orange due to the stylesheet (CSS) used rather than a plug in. I hope that helps.
Congratulations, Darren.
Well done!
BTW Christa, to make the links orange, it uses CSS. I incorporate this on my blog, http://www.maxblog.co.uk. Here is the important piece of code to make the background come up.
#divname ul li a:hover {
color: #fff;
background: #333333;
}
Max
Congratulations Darren!
It feels like problogger.net has finally found its twin brother problogger.com. :)
Darren, I think you should devote the entire .com site to A VIDEO PROBLOGGER SITE. Just think Tubetorial and you have your concept. Basically, take everything you do on the .net site and create video versions for the .com page using a teleprompter if you like. I only speak for myself, but I’m sure others would love to see this, too. We don’t care if it’s a professional level production. Just crank them out and post. (You’d get to use all your digital cameras you talk about on your other blog )
Regards.
Shane
Congrats Darren! I’ve been watching that domain sit undeveloped for the last year. I’m glad it is going to a good home.
I did a double take when I first read it too. I thought you sold this site.
Congrats on getting the .com
I know I have typed in the .com by mistake a few times. :)
Congrats! I think this was a VERY smart purchase!
Congrats! Domain buying can be a frustrating experience. I know I visited the .com a couple times accidentally when I first started visiting your blog. Glad to know you will get all your traffic now.
Ha ha.I just got here by typing problogger.com! I am on my home computer and it wasn’t in my cache. As I hit enter I went “oh no, wrong one” and then to my surprise the correct site come up. Then think how stunned I was when I read the first post. lol. Top stuff Darren!
Congratulations Darren. I am so happy for you. Hope next is problogger.org for philanthropy!
whoa–just a few days ago i typed in the dot com address by accident and thought to myself how unfortunate it was that you didn’t have that domain. so congrats!!
This episode illustrates the necessity of reserving a .com, .net, and .org versions of a desired domain, all at the same time, if it can be done.
So what’s next? will you completely convert the site to the .com domain and park the .net on top of it, or will you keep it like this?
Hope this comment is not too far down not to be answered :(
Lol.. I almost forgot that you’ve been using .net all this while. When I saw the RSS feed topic screamed Problogger.com sold, I thought you have decided to sell this blog out. :p
Congrats for finally getting the .com version of this domain name, yea, me myself have been typing problogger.com several times before this. Oh well :p
Darren,
Fantastic news. Glad to see Problogger.com and Mr. Problogger are finally reunited!
cheers, Mark
[…] It only took him three years but Darren Rowse (aka Mr. Problogger) has finally acquired Problogger.com. You can check out how it happened here. Congrats! […]
Good work, Darren. All of us can learn from your patience. In all the skills needed to make a blog/on line property grow, patience and strategy are the two that seem the hardest to acquire … for me, anyway.
For anyone into the “domaining” aspect of the business there are some valuable lessons here also. I’m not even close to being an expert, but I know some real experts, and there are several better strategies to get value out of a potentially “hot” property than the one used. Good for Darren, good, but not quite as good, perhaps, for the original owner.
@ => Rehuel: Read Darren’s post, I think he pretty much explains what’s next, in so far as it’s wise to reveal the secret sauce recipe.
Hi Darren, congratulations! I am really excited for you …you are an inspiration and I hope to start a great blog like yours one day. (I do have a small suggestion as I am a grammar police of our beloved English language – The word “it’s” is composed of “it + is” and is not what you want to say – instead you need to say its – without the apostrophe – because it is a possessive pronoun. For instance, I found its wings – referring to a bird’s wings – but it’s a beautiful day – same as it is a beautiful day. This is the first subject I am going to blog about but for now, watching out for perfection in high quality blogs. Hope you do not mind the brazen comments! :)
Cheers from USA….and keep on blogging!
Farnoosh
Thanks Dave, I totally misread that paragraph. Thanks for sending me back to read ;o)
Congrats, I’m glad it’s in the hands of the person who already owns the Problogger brand.
That is totally awesome. Congrats, and I can’t wait to see what you have in store for ProBlogger.com
I was shouting NO when I saw your post. I thought this blog had been sold to someone else, which made MY heart beat faster. But – whew – it was just a domain.
Congrats, Darren. At long last you have your hands on the domain that you want.
Congrats man! I always wondered why you were using the .net extension. Way to go.
I had the exact same reaction as everyone else. I thought you sold it for a tidy sum and were taking your bat and glove and heading home! LOL…
Christa, I’ve found that, if you don’t have a decent idea of how to use CSS, sometimes the best thing to do is to hire (or trade out) with someone who does. Blogs aren’t like web pages, where it’s easy too experiment (at least, not for me). CSS is beyond my skill set, and I’ve really messed some things up by not knowing what I was doing.
Even though Max provided the code, blogs are usually broken into sections using containers and div tags…and you might be fishing around for quite a bit if you start guessing your way through.
Best of luck with it, though!
congrats man!
Congratulations on getting your domain!
hi
Congratulations. what will you do with problogger.net and all the traffic coming to it.Presently I am working on my new site and you’re right that we should have our own domain name.
All the best.
Congratulations, Darren!
I’m having a similar problem .When I started my blog, I wanted the name AutomoBlog, but the .com was already taken, so I had to go with http://www.AutomoBlog.net and I sort of wished I would have waited and thought of a different name, but I’ll wait until it expires or something.
Anyway, congrats!
Congrats Darren!
You have just inspired me to seek after a dot com as well!
I know how it feels, and perhaps all I need to do is wait a little longer as well.
Congradulations on your purchase! It was well worth it!
PS
You should keep the ProBlogger.net as a network/knowledge base (as I often visit the site not only for your content, but the “wisdom of the crowds” in the comment section).
Turn ProBlogger.com into an “online Book” or something. Or even better, a site where “V” can blog on. :-p
Great news, Darren! Congratulations! I still think of “Problogger.net” as your brand, but it’s great to finally have both! :)
I actually was the bidder under you. It would have been the third domain I bought for someone and handed it over. I was smart enough (or lucky enough) to keep all extensions of all my domains and buy the ones of popular names and give them back. Not to make a profit but to make the people that I enjoy realize the value of their dot coms and how much traffic is going to squatters. I don’t know you personally but I knew you were smart enough to pay me back the 2 grand I would have spent to get the name. Congratulations
Shane @ wallstreetfighter.com
Felicitaciones !
Keep up the great work buddy. You are an inspiration. I am just getting started in the game. And I must say that your site ranks number 1 as my source of inspiration.
Congratulations….
congrats
Congrats Darren !!!
But the Title “Problogger.com Sold” ; for a second my heart was in my mouth.
Hey Darren,
Congratulations. You deserve it – and it looks like your subscribers count has increased too.
Rob.
You own the “problogger” brand and now you’ve go the the problogger waterfront property. I only wish I had hung onto those problogger.com shares at http://www.alexadex.com. BLOGGER! oh I mean BUGGER!
Nice one geezer
congratz darren, you are the real problogger boss now, well done. And again, the lesson i learn from here is remember renew before expire! :P
That’s really great. Now you’re official. Finally.
Seriously, you could stand toe to toe as a .au with any .com any day of the week. But the .com would help me to sleep better at night just cause .com’s are my woogie’s.
I know you’re thrilled!!