Out of This World! Earth.com Sells for $800,000 & Two Others Fetch Six Figures As 2005 Goes Out With a Bang

by Ron Jackson
  

Earth.com and Sharks.com were purchased by the same buyer in a pair of private transactions involving two different sellers. InnovationHQ Inc., in conjunction with DnStrategy.com and Logicbank LLC made the blockbuster acquisitions. Cameron Johnson of InnovationHQ.com and DnStrategy.com, who acquired the domains in tandem with Seraphim Marcopoulos of Logicbank LLC, said "We're thrilled to grab these two terrific premium names! The road to actually landing these domains was filled with high stakes drama, and Seraphim was instrumental in helping us secure them."

Johnson said that Innovation HQ holds more than 12,000 generic domain names that generate in excess of five million page views per month. He added that DnStrategy and Logicbank often work closely in securing and brokering top flight domains, as well as financing large transactions. These two deals were handled through Escrow.com and in an interesting market note, Brandon Abbey, the Managing Director of the escrow service said they have seen a significant increase in big-ticket domain transactions in 2005. Abbey said "The domain market is exploding and our revenue from domain escrows has increased substantially this year." 

Earlier in the week, Sedo.com announced the $600,000 sale of Annuity.com in another monster transaction. That deal helped Sedo take six spots on our new Top 20 list. We have used a Top Ten chart since beginning domain sales coverage in 2003 but as the market continued to gain steam in 2005 we frequently found ourselves having to double the length of that list. The growth trend is obvious (and seemingly unstoppable) so we are making the 20 position leader board a permanent fixture for 2006.

We have some other chart changes coming next week when we'll be posting results from the first week of sales in the New Year. In addition to the mainstream Top 20, there will be two new charts. One will cover the Global Contenders, featuring the non .com global extensions .net, .org, .info and .biz. Also joining the line-up will be a new Country Codes chart featuring the top selling ccTLD's. The importance and value of extensions like Germany's .de, the United Kingdom's .co.uk and the rapidly growing American extension, .us, warrants more attention for this sector so we will provide it. 

With .info, .biz and .us moving to these new homes, the New TLD chart they previously occupied will be retired after this week. "New extensions" has become something of a misnomer anyhow as .info and .biz are now entering their fifth year in existence and .us is going into it's fourth year as an open extension (prior to 2002 it was reserved for government use). The chart reorganization will allow those domains to join their older siblings in their appropriate categories.

With the expansion to three weekly charts, we will move what will now be three Year-To-Date charts to a new page, effective with the January 17 report. This page will be available on our top menu from anywhere on the site and will allow you to quickly access the year's sales leaders without having to scroll through the weekly coverage. There will be no YTD charts next week (January 10) since that report will cover the year's first week of sales (the one week each year when the weekly and YTD charts are identical). 

Now let's get back to the past week's sales news - and there is a lot of it to get to! Pool.com came up with the #4 sale, raking in $62,999 for Redmond.com. Tech aficionados know Redmond, Washington as the home of Microsoft. Neransk.com acquired the #5 domain, AdultMeet.com, for $50,000 in a private sale, then Sedo returned with #6 Simple.co.uk at $35,000. That was one of only three non .coms on the Big Board. Sedo also accounted for the other two; HughesNet.net (tied for 17th) at $9,000 and #20 Trader.us at €6,500 ($7,704).

Big weeks have become the norm at SnapNames.com and this week was no exception. In fact they had more chart entries than anyone else, piling up seven Top 20 trophies. Their leader was #7 ConsolidateDebts.com at $30,255. Here's a look at the complete leader board for the week ending New Year's Day, January 1:

Sedo had more entries on the top half of the chart that anyone else with #8 PracticePartner.com ($25,375) and #9 RedWine.com ($19,500) adding handsomely to their bottom line. Pool.com also had multiple entries in the first ten, with #10 StockPhotographs.com ($17,000) helping paint a very nice sales picture for them. 

SnapNames dominated the second half of the list, taking 6 of 10 positions, with three of those hitting five figures including CarsAuction.com ($13,850), GreatJob.com ($12,750) and Ardent.com ($10,000). The NamePros.com forum was the only other venue represented on the new chart. Bilal Kapadia picked up #12 SVT.com there for $13,500. 

In addition to their seven slots on the Top 20, SnapNames piled up dozens of solid four-figure sales. Teleshop.com brought $7,600 while 5R.com and Granito.com garnered $7,100 each. CriminalJusticeDegree.com earned $7,000, Cocina.net collected $6,500 and AsianSexPortal.com posted $6,310 as the trend showing more high dollar three-word .com sales continued.

Also at SnapNames, LandSearch.com found $6,288, BlondeBombshells.com exploded at $6,100 and PerformanceAppraisals.com assesed $5,888. RealTunes.com rang up $5,778, TexasStadium.com booked $5,500 and LandingStrip.com skidded to a $5,301 halt. VacationHotSpots.com attracted $5,100, Salva.com sold for $5,000 and Serviceman.com sent home $4,544. StockMarketData.com revealed $4,223, Raffi.com rounded up $4,200 and RouterTable.com took in $4,100. 

SnapNames had 35 more sales ranging from $2,000-$4,000. This table lists those:

Back at Pool.com, ColoradoSkiVacations.com hit the slopes with $6,850, SeaAnimals.com swallowed $6,100 and PHPNuke.com notched $6,099. HighSchoolPlayoffs.com scored $4,988, ThugMale.com made $4,300 and Aspirin.net took $4,200. Despite including three words and an acronym SanDiegoDUIAttorney.com banked $2,988, as did BestAnnuities.com. 

Pool's other winners included GetInsured.com at $2,705, MPEGConverters.com at $2,700 and OuterSpace.net at $2,600. HostingDomains.com added $2,549, USATaxRefund.com returned $1,950 and CanadaIncorporation.com commanded $1,894. 

Sedo had their usual strong brew of .coms and .nets spiced up with some nice country codes. SpamFilters.com netted $6,000, PeyroniesDisease.com drew $5,000 and DailyNY.com went for $3,250. Their top ccTLD sales included Leistner.de at €5,000 ($5,926), Metando.de at $€4,500 ($5,334) and ClassicLine.de at €3,500 ($4,148). gMaps.de delivered another €2,400 ($2,845).

Sedo also picked up $2,800 for Asiatica.com, €2,300 ($2,726) for OSI.net and €2,250 ($2,667) for Moebel.net. GeantCasino.com (spelling is correct) added $2,500 and Wireless-Phones.com dialed up $2,005. Sedo also had four entries on our New TLD chart. We'll have more on those a bit later.

At Afternic.com, Horseboarding.com brought $5,800, MusicVault.com stored $4,000, Incall.com caught $3,500 and Pyrox.com posted $2,280. At Enom's Club Drop, Reiki.net fetched $3,600 and CocktailTime.com stirred up $1,700. 

*****

Our final 2005 Year-To-Date Chart gets three new members this week and  two of those hit the Top Ten. Earth.com settles in at #3 after that 800K payday while Annuity.com takes up residence at #9. Sharks.com also swims into the upper half of the chart after going for $140,000.

If the price had been revealed, it's likely Software.com would be sitting on top of this chart. Internet Real Estate Group President Andrew Miller told us his company recently acquired the domain from Openwave. Miller told us "It is our management team's belief that Software.com is an anchor property for IREG and a top 5 domain name asset." Miller will be featured with many other industry experts in our upcoming January Cover Story (due out later this week) reviewing the past year in the industry and forecasting what lies ahead in '06.

By the way, if you would like to be notified when major articles like that are published, as well as when the weekly sales reports are out, you can now sign up at no charge for e-mail updates and the new DN Journal Newsletter that will debut later this month. 

There won't be a YTD chart next week (since 2006's opening week sales will also be the year to date sales), but on Jan. 10 we will be bringing you a complete list of every domain sale of $10,000 or more in 2005. Meanwhile, here is a look at the 60 biggest sales in 2005: 

New TLD Section

.US has had the majority of the high dollar new extension domain sales this year and the American country code continued to rule on that count this week. Trader.us changed hands for €6,500 ($7,704) at Sedo to take the top spot on our final New TLD Chart. As I noted earlier, .us, .info and .biz will move to new homes next week. .US will join the world's other ccTLD's on a new Country Code Chart while .info and .biz hook up with .net and .org on the new Global Contenders Chart.

The strong sales increase in the last quarter of 2005 indicated to us that all three of the "new" extensions were ready to graduate and compete head to head with the older extensions in their respective categories. We think that this move will be beneficial for the three extensions as they will now be seen side by side (as equals) with their senior siblings. 

While .us has dominated the high end of the market, .info enjoyed the largest number of sales in 2005. That is also a trend that continued this week with .info taking 7 of the 9 positions on our chart (there is one extra spot on this week's list due to a tie for the final entry). #2 Lambretta.info led the charge for the extension after going for €2,000 ($2,371) at Sedo. Lambretta is a well-known scooter manufacturer in Europe. The third spot went to Agenturen.info ("agencies" in German) which sold for €1,750 ($2,074), also at Sedo.

Two other .infos hit the four figure mark; Brazilian-Transsexuals.info at $1,800 (sold at SnapNames) and Cardiology.info at $1,000 (sold at Afternic). .Biz got into the act with #5 BristolTradeCenter.biz going for $1,650 at Pool, not bad for a three-word new TLD! Here's a look at the complete new extension leader board for the week ending New Year's Day, January 1:

A trio of .infos anchored the chart with #7 RaceTips.info going for $802 at SnapNames, Militia.info marching to $750 at TheNameStore.com and CaliforniaCity.info attracting the same price at Sedo. Sedo also sold Reisebuch.info ("travel book" in German) for €501 ($594) and Domains-Trader.info for $300.  

*****

Trader.us was the only domain to crack our final Year-To-Date New TLD Top 50 chart. That domain takes over the 21st spot after going for $7,704. .US had 11 of the 22 highest new extension sales this year with .info and .biz splitting the other 11. Next week we'll have a list of every reported New TLD sale of $1,000 or more in 2005. Meanwhile, here are the year's 50 highest new extension sales:

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better,  just drop a note to [email protected].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies represented on our charts who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Individuals like Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation also provide invaluable help by sending us data for these sales reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling prices - these are top selling domains. One of the biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in your pocket more often!

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.