My Major Domain Flipping Failure
I was home watching television when the news broke about the Haiti Earthquake. Immediately, I knew that this would be one of the biggest news stories of the decade. Within an hour of the breaking news, it occured to me to reserve the domain name “haitiearthquake.com” – so I went to GoDaddy and sure enough, that URL was available.
Just as I was about to reserve the domain name, I started thinking… “What am I going to do with this domain?” I knew that I would not be comfortable selling it, after all I was not comfortable profiting off an entire nations misery. I figured that a volunteer group would probably want to reserve this domain. I decided that I could not conciously obtain this domain and I let it go.
A few hours later, I typed in the URL just to see if it had been reserved and sure enough it was taken. Not by a volunteer or relief effort – but some ordinary person reserved this URL and it was sitting there as an empty blog. At this point I was not too dissapointed, after all what was this person really going to do with haitiearthquake.com? I had no regrets about letting someone else take the domain.
As time went by, I saw all of the immense suffering going on in Haiti and any thought of this domain name had long passed – until yesterday. I was home browsing the Internet when I thought I would check to see if some volunteer or relief effort had purchased the domain. When I went to the URL I could’nt believe what I saw. Google had bought the domain! Not only did they buy the domain but it is now Google’s main webpage for Haiti relief.
Like I said, I would not want to profit one penny from the Haitian crisis. But I would have no problem selling a domain to a huge conglomerate like Google. I can only imagine what this domain was flipped for. Heck, even if I sold the domain to Google and gave half the profit to the Red Cross – I would have still done pretty well for myself.
This goes to show that if your initial gut reaction is to take action – do it! This was an opportunity that I let pass that I should not have. I should have simply bought the domain name and if some small volunteer group wanted it I could have donated it to them, but had Google called I would have had them break out their checkbook!
MJ
UPDATE: 2/27/10 – Just checked first thing this morning – chileearthquake.com is already taken! The news just broke on Yahoo 38 minutes ago and this domain is already gone. I am just going to reserve every country in the world with the word “earthquake” after it! peruearthquake.com, irelandearthquake.com, pakistanearthquake.com, trinidadandtobagoearthquake.com…lol
2 Comments to “My Major Domain Flipping Failure”
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I am definitely going to Tweet this story! You did the right thing for not trying to profit from it. I wouldn’t want to profit from it as I think it is not ethical to do.
Also, make sure it is something that will last. 1 year later, that keyword “Haiti Earthquake” might only get very little amount of search. Don’t just buy a domain based on trend, but buy something and work on it based on something that will last.
-Kai Lo
Twitter @lomak1985
You are right, I was thinking about what was the ethical thing to do at first. But, I would not have minded a check from Google!
MJ