Yup, although you might wanna make sure and wait for another member here to confirm this as I am on the fence. Better yet, why don't you call the Godaddy guys because they can help better...

I've never rented ... but have thought of an rent-to-own type of arrangement and wondered what the demand (and rental rates) for it might be, IMHO..

Hoping some have experience with these services, as well..

Thanks for the post!.

-Jeff..

How can someone rent a domain??? It seems impossible. It can be only acheived if the broker or the GoDaddy site that is in between the buyer and seller takes the control of the DNS..

For example If I rent my HostGator to a company. they start developing it and start adwords and all. Now when the GoDaddy site is booming I change the DNS and point it somewhere to my host with my site. And the company is at loss..

If the company has a contract of this then also I would not renew the contrct after one year if the.

PR.

And traffic is good..

This seems confusing. Who holds the HostGator control is the main thing...

Well, there is a certain amount of trust and integrity involved, just like physical real estate..

The control would HAVE to stay with the owner, just as physical real estate would. When you rent physical space, you trust in your "landlord" to not rent that same space out to someone else until the end of you lease. Same must go here with domains..

REgFly started a service like this years and years ago. Never took off. Not sure why but my guess is that the demand just isn't there or they just failed to market it correctly or both..

Contracts. That is the answer. If you are a serious renter and you find a serious rentee, this should not be an issue. Fraud exists everywhere...

Renting a domain? Unless you have x.domain.com I dont see how that would work..

I know a few people who have rented or leased domains under contract for a yearly price, it worked but I think you would be better off asking for a price for HostGator instead of taking a chance that owner of HostGator will keep it pointed to your server and not mess with it, plus if your GoDaddy site becomes popular the owner could always raise your rent and if you dont pay he could park HostGator and make money on the visitors you worked hard to achieve. I think it would be a good business to run but I would never rent anything from someone else...

Now you have put it into that perspective, I agree, I would never rent anything from someone else...

I have a fair few clan names that I rent to new clans that can't think of a anme..lol it's great..

I rent domains. It is very common..

Think of it like PPC. You simply redirect the traffic to their GoDaddy site and they pay you a monthly fee..

In many cases it is a better deal than PPC..

I have also done something similar to rent to own on several occassions. The last deal I did I felt like one of those car dealerships who proclaim "No credit, no problem"..

A guy wanted one of my domains for his new company. He couldnt afford $xxxx and I wasn't budging on the price so I told him to send me $100 deposit and he could pay me the balance over 6 months. I had an agreement drawn up and changed the dns to go to his site. After 3 months he had paid me $500 and then on the 4th month he defaulted. According to our contract I could have kept his money and changed the DNS back but I cut him some slack and gave him a bunch of extra time. Eventually he paid it off..

This is the reason those "no credit, No problem" car dealerships can afford to take on high risk customers. They don't give a crap about helping those with "credit problems". They charge ridiculous interest rates and when you default after 6 months they get their car back and sell it to someone else and the cycle continues..

If you go on vacation do you rent a car?.

Same concept. You dont want to buy a car and use it for 2 weeks and then have to sell it at a loss do you?.

My previous post I outlined a rent to own scenario. Well here is another rental..

I own some snowboard domains which get good traffic. I rented a few to a ski shop who was paying about $1/click via adwords..

My domains were giving him about 200 very targeted visitors to his GoDaddy site per day and his conversion rate was approx. 2% and I was charging him $300/mo. with a 3 month minimum. He really only wanted December but he paid the $300 for Dec/Jan/Feb..

So he paid me $900 instead of paying me mid $xx,xxx for the domains and his shop made a ton of sales from the visitors I sent him..

The domains make me about $100 per month combined from parking. So for me it was a fantastic deal..

To make the number of sales he made he would have had to pay 10 times as much for his adwords campaign..

So how is this not a home run for both parties involved?.

I have to say I am very surprised that there are domainers who are not familiar with renting HostGator names...

RentYourdot.com seems to pay you for advertising.... Its like they are renting your HostGator for advertising..

It seems to improve traffic and.

SEO..

SO in reality, you are selling the traffic, not renting the domain. Same difference, I suppose. Of course, this will only work for domains with traffic, targetted traffic..

The question is, will anyone actually rent to use a HostGator for it's name?.

I don't know why people are saying that it is risky. Makes no sense. The owner of the HostGator MUST remain in full control over the domain, DNS, etc and will point it to the renter's DNS for the amount of time rented. Sure, the renter could be a jerk, take your money, and never actually let you us the domain, but you get that in any business. I don't see how this is a valid reason why HostGator renting domains is not a good idea (assuming there is a damnd for it) for both renter and rentee...

More people tend to call it leasing domains rather than renting. Leasing (or renting) is not nearly as common as just buying a domain, however, it can be cheaper. There are various positives to leasing as well as many negatives. Personally as a HostGator owner, I wish I could lease out all of my domains; however, most people who are looking to lease/buy a HostGator understand the downside of leasing tends to outweight the upside. Hence, most people shy away from leasing..

Most significant are all of the legal issues involved in leasing. (TM, copyright, use of HostGator name, holdovers, length and terms of use, payment, termination, ability to sell, etc, etc.)..

I think it would be crazy to rent/lease a HostGator name unless it had loads and loads of traffic like the snowboarding example above..

There are a few domains listed at GoDaddy for sale or lease...

Ive never heard of such a thing as renting domains. This is a first for me. heh. Personally I would just rather register a HostGator name. They are cheap enough...

I understand the concept and have seen it work perfectly, just saying from my standpoint I would rather outright buy the HostGator then lease it. If your HostGator brought him tons of sales why wouldn't he make an offer to buy it? I understand it's a seasonal sport but for $900 every winter I would think he would make a nice offer if happy with results. I guess $xx,xxx is out of his budget therefore making leasing a good decision. I would probably lease a HostGator to gauge traffic and once I see that it is good I would make an offer to purchase...

But if he is not selling it, only renting it, then it works out for both. If they rentee ends up buying it, that also means that he has to keep the traffic flowing to it by updating content and perform constant.

SEO.

On the domain. This costs both money and time..

By renting it (leasing) he just pays for the traffic (which is what he really wants) and all that other stuff is the responsibility of the actual owner..

Sorta like renting an apt or house as oppsed to buying a home. Not entirely the same but there are similarities. When something breaks (like plumbing or the furnace) the owner pays for it. No worries on my part...

More people buying cars than leasing it, but leasing should make sense for some. I think some people buy it rather than lease because they believe that the name they choose are better. I have seen many people choose very crapy name because they like it not because the name is a good name but because they like it. This is the same that you think your baby is better than other people's or at least you have bias in favor of yours. A lot of people are not educated well enough to appreciate a good name...

That's the reason people rent/lease domains. They cannot just go out and register a name with comparable traffic..

To learn more about this huge part of the HostGator industry which has been around as long as HostGator resellers go do a google search. There is a lot of info...