Metropol.com Hits the Daily Double!  $38,000 Sale at Sedo Tops Two Charts

by Ron Jackson    Archived 2-10-04

It was a big drop down to the runner-up domain, MountainClimbing.com, which peaked out at $8,100 in the bidding at Pool.com. Then comes the upset of the week -  A .biz finished third and prevented .com from completing what would have been a first ever sweep of the Top Ten. Reifen.biz ("tires" in German) did the honors for Sedo, finally screeching to a halt at $6,894.

After that, it was all .com with the rest of the pack tightly bunched between $4,500 and $6,350 - the price fetched by the #4 domain BudgetCruises.com at DomainSystems.com. Pool took four of the remaining six slots with Sedo and DomainSystems each adding one more to their Top Ten trophy collection.

.Info finally got boxed out of the big chart this week, but that extension and its new TLD cousin, .US, each scored four figure sales to join Reifen.biz at the top of our New TLD chart. We'll get to that news a bit later, but first let's take a look at how the overall leaders stacked up in the week ending Sunday, Feb. 1. 

#5 domain Kaka.com might bear a bit of explaining. Thunayan K. AL-Ghanim (Elequa) claimed the domain at Pool for $6,000. As a world traveler, Elequa recognized that the word has many useful meanings around the globe. It is a parrot, a famous soccer player, an Eastern European city and even a food (which might be a bit distressing to English speakers who think of something else when they hear kaka). Elequa was also the buyer of #7 Sexism.com ($5,100) at Pool and he took a number of other domains from the same venue that finished just outside the Top Ten. 

In fact we have a long list of reported Pool sales that ended between $3,000-$5,000 including  KOD.com and Locating.com at $4,300 each, Murderers.com at $4,100, Ends.com at $3,400 and KidsTV.com at $3,350. The list continues with Odessey.com and Rapists.com at $3,200 each, UnionCounty.com at $3,100 and WatchReplica.com at $3,000. You might recall from last week's In The Pipeline section that someone had bid $36,000 on KOD.com but that apparently turned out to be bogus and the final result was dialed back to the $4,300 noted above. We also had a report of a similarly high bid on MikesAppartment.com and it has now changed hands between Pool and the buyer, however we have not been able to confirm the final selling price.

As usual, Sedo also had their share of solid sales to go along with their chart topper. Senioren-Reisen.de ("seniors travel" in German) was the highest ranked .de (German country code) of the week at $2,757. A French term in .com, Jeteplais.com (meaning "I please you" or "you like me") went for $2,512 and just when you thought you had heard the last of those meningitis domains - Hirnhautentzuendung.de ("meningitis" in German) went for $2,507! Sedo also collected $2,700 for Slippy.com and added $1,880 for BoysWorld.de and $1,470 for CurrenciesDirect.co.uk. 

Afternic.com rang up some nice four figure sales as well. StoppingPain.com relieved the buyer of $2,200, eCraft.com carved out a $2,000 payday for the seller and Saini.com (Indian surname) sold for $1,800. Someone also paid $1,200 for GoodBrain.com. We're thinking that's the first place people who are building their own Frankenstein monsters would look for replacements parts. Afternic also became the first venue we've seen to get something more than pocket change for a .cc (Cocos Islands country code). Though it looks like a pair of mismatched socks, Greece.cc sold for $525. 

In The Pipeline: On Monday, Feb. 2 (the day after our current reporting period ended), an auction for Each.com ended at $23,500 at Pool. We'll keep an eye on that one to see if it changes hands without the price rollback that we have seen on some other recent high dollar Pool auctions (occurring after high bidders turned out to be deadbeats). Even if it goes through that may not be the top domain next week. We have received reports from more than one venue that they may have something considerably bigger in the works.

Before we move on to this week's New TLD story, let's take a look at the Year-To-Date Sales Chart that has been expanded from 10 to 12 positions this week. We will continue to add slots for the first report of each new month so that the chart will grow as the number of sales in our database increases during the course of the year.  The big news here is that the .info that reigned throughout January, NewYork.info, was finally dislodged from the top spot by Metropol.com. Here's how the all-extension list now stacks up:

New TLD Section

.Biz apparently tired of being a back seat driver and took over the wheel on the New TLD Chart this week. That is Reifen.biz of course and the $6,894 paid at Sedo is a healthy sum for any new extension. .Info and .US each took two slots to round out the Top Five.

Before getting this week's sales figures in, I had been thinking about how few appearances .US had made on the chart since we started these reports last fall. It occurred to me that with .info and .biz rolling out 5-7 months ahead of .US, those two extensions might soak up most of the demand for alternate TLD's before public awareness reaches .US. If that were the case it could considerably lengthen the time it will take for the American country code to catch on. But just as that thought crossed my mind Sedo's data arrived with Bridal.us firmly positioned in the #2 slot at $1,568 and Offshore.us in the #4 position at $802. Certainly those two sales don't answer my question (and it won't be answered for some time to come) but at least .US has shown up and taken a bow.  

Sedo can taken another bow too as they swept the New TLD chart again. .Info finally took a bit of a breather from its usual dominant role here but still logged a $1,500 sale for Banks.info. Here's the full list:

A 3-letter .biz, SBJ.biz, was within hailing distance of the chart after fetching $395 at Afternic...and don't look now but a major buyer recently registered hundreds of 3-letter .infos, leaving only 7% of the original 17,576 still available - and those all have letters that most people would consider to be undesirable. Looks like it won't be long before .info joins .com, .net and .org as extensions with no 3-letter domains available for registration.

Now let's take a look at where we are at with the New TLD's (Top Level Domains) Year-To-Date. As we did with the all-extension chart, we have expanded this list (by one) to allow it to grow along with the number of domains in our sales database:

The only change this week is Reifen.biz rolling onto the chart in the 4th position. That domain breaks .info's stranglehold on the YTD list. It will be interesting to see if .biz can make any further inroads against its global TLD brother in the weeks ahead.

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]. I would like to extend special "Thank Yous"  to Richard Meyer whose help is invaluable in bringing you these sales reports and to Thunayan K. AL-Ghanim who has helped make our job easier from day one and never asked anything in return.

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.