$42,000 For a 3-Letter .DE!  Stunning Sale at Sedo Stands at the Summit On Our New Top Ten 

by Ron Jackson    Archived 12-16-03

We're accustomed to 3-letter .coms reaching the stratosphere but it is rare for even one of those to scale heights like this these days. .DE also took the #8 slot on this week's chart with Oestereich.de ("Austria" in German) going for $6,100, also at Sedo, a venue that enjoyed a banner week. The auction site pulled in $20,000 for the second highest seller, Licon.com. We don't know who the buyer is yet, but two possible candidates are the Licon company that makes electrical switches or actor Jeffrey Licon. Sedo also handled a fourth 5-digit sale with Councellors.com going for $10,000. Afternic's top entry was Gesture.com at $8,500, good for the #5 slot. 

.INFO and .ORG made repeat appearances after charting last week. Sedo scored another touchdown with Sport.info attracting $7,500 to land in the 6th position on the big board as well as first on our New TLD chart. Meanwhile MediaNews.org sold for $3,633 at Pool.com to nail down the final slot on the Top Ten.

As always, keep in mind that these are the highest value sales that have been reported in the past week. This column is meant to be an educational tool, not a complete list documenting ALL high value domain sales. Such a list is impossible to produce because many sales are kept private at the insistence of buyers, sellers or both. With that disclaimer out of the way, here's the complete Top Ten list: 

South American buyer Christian Chena was again responsible for one of the Top Ten sales this week. He is the one who parted with $15,000 to add VCD.com to his portfolio (he made a Top Ten buy last week when he paid $6,600 for eMule.org). Looks like money well spent as video CD's are a wildly popular entertainment format in China and the domain already gets steady traffic. Chena hooked up with the seller through the popular domain name forum DNForum.com. 

One of the biggest stories this week is a sale that apparently has still NOT taken place. Last week we told you about someone bidding $61,005 for eDeals.com at Pool. It was not listed on our charts then because payment has not been made. Looks like Pool is still waiting for their money. The WhoIs record still has the domain registered to Rebel.com, the registrar that caught the name for Pool (the domain also does not resolve).

No need to dwell on that though because there were plenty of other domains that DID sell! The highest valued .net of the week was VHS.net which went for $2,700 at Pool (looks like there is still some life in those old videotapes!). Pool also collected $2,600 for CustomSuits.com and $2,396 for PrintingEquipment.com. Afternic logged a $2,500 sale for IrrationalExuberance.com (must be a BIG Alan Greenspan fan!). Sedo celebrated the holidays by moving Weihnachten.net ("Christmas" in German) for �1,350 ($1,655) and also received �1,000 ($1,222) for Villen.org. 

Pool landed and sold a truckload of 3-letter .nets this past week. Here is a sampling of those that all fetched over $1,000 each (the exact range for this group was $1,012 to $1,662): LRE, VAH, LIR, LMP, LFO, FEI, LMH, LNB, NFB, DRI, RNO, CRD & TTR. Makes me feel like a bit of dunce for letting one of similar quality go for about a quarter of that recently! 

Now let's turn our attention to the New TLD Chart (which tracks .info, .biz and .us). It is becoming apparent that .info has separated itself form the rest of the new extension pack. Almost every week now we have a four figure .info sale reported, and more often than not, the .infos sweep every position on our chart. This week was no different. With Sport.info leading the way, there were a trio of four-digit .info sales:

IQ-Test.info kind of brings into question the theory that combining two potential negatives (a hyphen AND a new TLD) is fatal to domain value. Obviously this kind of combination will not be a day-in and day-out hot seller, but with the right keywords and a good match with the extension, this shows it can pay off (if only once in a blue moon). 

Our fifth slot was vacant again this week as no other finalized sales were reported. I would have had that spot myself with ChicagoHomes.info which sold at Afternic for $395 last week, but we haven't completed the escrow process on that one yet. Perhaps my name will be in lights next week.

I can report one finalized sale I had at Afternic last week. Not a new TLD, but certainly an alternative choice, .WS (The Samoan country code that GoDaddy and others market to mean "web site"). The domain in question was Bodybuilding.ws which went $340. I don't have to make a sales pitch since the domain has already been sold, but that is a terrific keyword with huge marketing potential (enough to overcome the seldom used extension).

I would like to extend a special "Thank You" to Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation in Woodbine, Maryland for his help in gathering data for this week's list. 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].

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.