Here's the The Lowdown from DNJournal.com! Updated daily to fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry!

My post yesterday about seeing a surprising upturn in my domain sales business drew more visitors than any other Lowdown post this year. Given the current situation in the general economy it is understandable that people are hungry for some good financial news. Though

the domain industry has taken some body blows (especially in PPC revenue declines) I still see more good news here than in just about any other sector in the economy. The new weekly sales report I just published (actually covering two weeks since I was on vacation last week) had the best industry-wide sales results I've seen this year. 

We're even seeing action at the high end of the market again, an area that I expected would be dead until the economy gets back on track. Just minutes before I started writing this, Rick Schwartz announced that he had a deal in the works to sell Candy.com for $3 million (plus a percentage of future sales) to an American candy manufacturer. As everyone has already heard, Toys.com just sold for $5.1 million and word came today that Auction.com has been sold for $1.7 million. 

Rick Schwartz

I don't mind telling you that when then President Bush announced last September that the financial world might end the next day if taxpayers didn't turn over the keys to the U.S. Treasury, I was a frightened about what might lay ahead. There is still no telling how that is all going to play out but now that six months have gone by and my business is actually going better than ever, the fear factor is starting to fade. I am feeling confident that domains (other than ones that are being sold solely on the value of PPC revenue) are going to hold their value relatively well in this downturn.  As more and more existing businesses and individual entrepreneurs come to the realization that their future prospects are going to require a strong online presence, good domains names look like great assets to be holding at this volatile point in time.
(Posted March 18, 2009)