Wading through my email backlog, this is my favorite one so far:
From: “xxxxx xxxxxxxxx”
To: “Mattcutts.com”
Subject: your domain: Mattcutts.com
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 18:15:00 +0200Dear WebMaster/Administrator,
I have noticed that your domain: Mattcutts.com is about to expire
and would like to know whether or not you intend to sell it.
If you are, what price would you like to receive for it?I can be most easily reached at this email, xxxxx@xxxxxxxx-xxxxxx.net
I look forward to hearing from you,
xxxxx xxxxxxxxx
Has anybody else gotten one of these? Just for fun, I replied “Can you give me a couple of examples where you bought a domain from someone else?” I’ll let you know if they reply. 
Related reading: 419 Eater.
Update: I heard back from the fellow. He didn’t mention any of his other domains, but he did quote me a price:
Hi,
Thank you for you prompt reply.
My budget for your domain stands at about $350.
Please let me know if this is the price you would expect to receive.Best regards,
James
After due consideration of the proposal, I think I’ll pass.
{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
I love e-mails like that…get them all the time. Some can get really entertaining and I don’t mind getting them at all at times. hehe
any weather forecast on the test datacenter progress thus far Matt?
I got that one a couple days ago.
Exact same one.
Yay – had one – not for a while though – I have been hit with a PR0
– although hopefully that will change with BD developments – hint hint, nudge nude – say no more……
Also get a letter from some dodgy registrars based in some small country in the Carribean asking me to send them cash to ensure renewal for my sites – hmmmmz – not sent them cash once and my sites always seem to get renewed ok.
Lol – obv that should say Nudge Nudge – lol – you might get some hits with nudge fetishes now – sorry.
I figured out what you meant, Stephen.
Indeed I have been getting virtually the same emails lately. Matt. Funny thing is, they pertain to domains I am not using and don’t really have a plan for. I’d likely sell them very cheap … if someone were to actually offer a price and give the impression they actually wanted to make a purchase. However, I’m not in the domain name buying and selling business and I’ve learned from bitter experience that he who mentions a number first loses. My advice to anyone who gets such a mail is to tell the “prospective purchaser” to make an offer or go away.
Funny (not) how so many people seem to make a hobby out of useless exploration and dickering over price when they apparently have no intent to buy.
Best regards
Dave
that’s nothing Matt, I’ve had guys file complaints with my domain registrar trying to get domains taken away from me, because my “address” and “phone number” are listed as “please use the provided email” They claim i’m being decieving.
Jeez, I hope you replied from the @google.com address. He would have probably soiled himself.
maybe not. he doesn’t seem that smart. I would have offered at least $500 for a domain with your PR
You should make him a counter-offer Matt … and later on down the road, send him a picture of you with your Spammer Sword!
P.S. So how many Emails are you getting about the “great” V7ndotcom elursrebmem SEO Contest? I see some results are finally showing up – for a while, folks were wondering if you were blocking that keyphrase – would have been totally unlike you guys … but would have been FUNNY if you had done this.
yeah, blocking it would have been awesome…
I just hope you don’t punish All sites that have that keyphrase… As I posted a news blurb about it on some of my websites. If you are going to penalize sites in this contest, I hope you’d let us know first.
I think a-lot can be learned from this. I’ve seen a few schools of thought already… example people hurried to buy up domains with the keyword, others put it on existing sites, and others fled to sites like blogspot..
Clearly these are all different theories.. It’ll be interesting to see what works best.
Anyway for you to check how many domains this guy has?
Even I got a similar mail some time back Matt.
But what surprised me the most was that he claimed that my domain was going to get expired when it was just some 2 months ago.
I even checked with my registrar to make sure that it was not expiring.
I got one of those and followed up. I ended up getting $500 for a domain that I hadn’t used in years and had a PR1 (I have no idea who would have linked to it in the first place). The only thing that domain was good for was getting a whole TON of spam. I don’t miss it at all.
I’ve actually sent out emails trying to purchase a domain which is just parked and being used for nothing. Never have I received a response.
I’ll give you $500 for it Matt!
I’m not sure what I would do with it, since my name is not Matt, but I would consider changing my name just to match the domain.
LOL
What the helll does that guy want with your domain. A spam farm I guess? He like the PR#
VJ, i usually get a response asking for like $10,000 even though the site has never had content on it…
I always laugh at those.
That email is so funny.
According to this tool: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattcutts.com%2Fblog
How Much Is My Blog Worth?
Your blog, mattcutts.com/blog, is worth $184,040.04
Send that counter offer.
martin
What’s with that Matt??? Didn’t you take a look at Google’s patent? You need to renew for at least 5 years – 10 is even better. June 21st is right around the corner!
On another note, you should put the trailing backslash in this code:
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
That’s two SEO tips for you. Now if you could only tell me why my site is being de-indexed in BigDaddy I’d appreciate it. I’ve written help at google twice and not gotten a response!
does the trailing slash make that much of a difference? why?
Matt, I will give $510! heheheh
I never got one like that, but I got a letter via mail to renew my own domain for $50 with a register that I’ve never heard about! It was actually a bill. I guess a lot of people that are not sure about their domain registry send them the money.
(sarcasm)
Their devious attempts at trying to bypass the temporal aspects of Google’s algo know no ends! Sending emails for a potential business transaction.
How dastardly naughty and evil of them, trying to PURCHASE a web business / domain name!
Damn Sandbox evading spammers!
(/sarcasm)
HI Matt mate
Yea, I get these a couple times a week. I’ve gotten into conversations with them on a couple of occasions just to see what they’d offer me. They generally seem to be lowballers. It makes me wonder if I shouldn’t be out there spamming domain owners with lowball offers, it must work or they wouldn’t be doing it so much.
Ryan -
>>does the trailing slash make that much of a difference? why?
See here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/
Since Matt is redirecting to the backslashed site anyway, it helps Google if he is consistent. Of course only Matt knows if this really makes a difference.
Matt
the guy should have offered at least 350,000 to have started the ball rolling
tell him mattkutts.com is still free
I’ve had a couple similar in concept but not that wording.
Somewhat related but a very deceptive practice are the snail mail invoices that appear to come from the registrar. I wonder how many people simply pay those without realizing it’ll change the registrar?
PS – welcome back from San Diego, Sr. Inigo!
talk about a low ball offer.
Lol,
A website with a “few” PR7s and PR6s etc…worth only $350?
Well, I wasn’t expecting to see 419 Eater when I went onto the blog today.
Buuuuuuuuuut…you really need [url=http://www.thescambaiter.com]The Scam Baiter[/url] (NOT WORK SAFE). What theFAILURE does to the Nigerians is the highest comedy imaginable. In particular, I highly recommend the Anus Laptops (that’s not a typo, either) threads.
Cookie cutter emails like that are a good way to start the morning chuckles.
Matt,
Ask for 10 mil – if he says yes, my suggestion would be to sell…
Steve
What a dissapointment!
I clicked on the comments hoping to see an auction going on for Matt’s domain name, but there were 2 offers of $500 and that was it
I’ll offer you $600 – in cash, Matt.
Care to talk about this v7ndotcom elursrebmem thing Matt? I think it would be classy if you blogged it and won it. How about it?
LO! @ Aaron. That would be cool if Matt won wouldn’t it!
Personally, I don’t tust the organiser of this comp one bit!
Sory for the off topic, but since … most of the herecommers are search fans…
Take a look at this…
http://ar.search.yahoo.com/search?p=vidrieria+san+isidro&prssweb=Buscar&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&vc=countryAR&x=wrt&meta=vc%3DcountryAR
Holly good … im getting same site for 1 2 3 4 5 6 postitionos… IT SO COOL i ll print screen, not to say google is PERFECT , but this is a little amazing.
Sory i posted this in this “post” er… but has to be seen soon cause i hope it ll change as fast as possible.
you have a nice day
I’ll offer $700. Little does he know there is no longer any need to purchase sites from owners to beat the sandbox.Just snap up some expireds.
Dear Matiasn
Not to judge you or anything, but you are talking about a strange result in GOOGLE, yet the url you posted is from YAHOO…
And it doesn’t show up what you say it does either…
Dave, Dave, Dave. I think that this post will amaze you…
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
WOW! I am amazed
Jeez.. i love this guy, i wonder if anybody falls for these?
matt.. i’ll be a sub domain from you for the SEO comp
v7ndotcom elursrebmem
or do you have any expiring subs? LOL
pete
Can you feel the love?
Someone hold me!!!
Just realized the Scam Baiter url didn’t work.
So here it is again:
http://www.thescambaiter.com
I got an email yesterday with the same header re: mydomain. Normally I would have trashed it, but decided to take a look at it, probably because of this thread. I replied that if he was serious to be a bit more specific. Turned out to be a legit offer for $50k that I tuned down. He came back at $70k. Still no deal, but with the activity of the domainers out there, I guess I now have to at least look at these emails now.
RE: Can you feel the love?
Group hug
Think of all the cool things you could buy with $350.. lol
Maybe he was actually trying to buy some domain memerabilia for $350?
419 eater is pretty funny. The scammers getting scammed. I didn’t understand it at first, but after reading the pages, I had to pass this around the office.
I get those emails daily, it is funny that they are getting nailed!
You passed up $350??? man..matt…good man! I get those e-mails quite often actually -- but they are for un-used domains which I do intend on selling, but not to the spammers whom e-mail me about them.
recently was working on keywords swopping about to get best feel for a disability site with partner. words like scooters/wheelchairs/mobility etc.
His email to me of a suggested title cracked me up – both punchdrunk so too far gone to notice significance at the time. This title was live indexed on major search engines for a while……….
“Electric chairs for the disabled, the ultimate in relaxation”
I still chuckle at that totally unintentional set of words.