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The domain market delivered the second half of an impressive one-two punch this week. Last week it floored observers with flash thanks to that $180,000 sale of Commerce.com. This week it wowed viewers with broad-based strength, racking up dozens of impressive four and five figure sales in a wide variety of extensions. |
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Afternic.com landed a couple of haymakers too. They took the #2 spot with the $21,000 sale of KidsChat.com and added another Top Ten trophy with OSN.com #9 at $9,500. I wound up having a personal connection to the KidsChat.com sale. Afternic has a very generous and well-managed affiliate program that shares revenue with any site that sends business their way (whether revenue is produced from domain sales, exchange memberships, appraisals, PPC revenue or anything else). I tested their affiliate links on one of my sites and the KidsChat.com buyer happened to use one to visit Afternic and make that major purchase. I received a very substantial commission check as a result. I have been disappointed with most affiliate programs I have tried, but Afternic has never failed to provide accurate tracking and prompt payment for all business sent their way. They have one of the few programs I have no qualms about personally recommending. Pool.com enjoyed another banner week, racking up four Top Ten entries including one of the strongest .net sales of the year, Destination.net which landed in our #3 slot after going for $17,000. Chris Chena, who appears in this column so often as a buyer, turned seller this week to claim the fourth position. He sent Warrior.com to a new home in a $15,000 private transaction. Chris told us he also sold a 2-letter .com in five figures this week but the buyer requested that the name and exact price be kept confidential. Moniker.com/Domainsystems.com also had a pair of five figure sales they had to keep private. The prices were $16,350 and $13,450. If the names had been released on just two of the four private transactions we've noted, it would have been the first time our Top Ten chart sported five-figure deals from top to bottom! You'll see just how deep this week's run of strong sales went when we continue our commentary, but first let's take a look at how the big winners stacked up for the week ending May 9.
As we pick up the action, you undoubtedly noticed another one of Sedo's patented high-dollar .de sales in the #5 slot with FlirtArea.de at $12,456. They practically own the market for the German country code, a position they built from scratch soon after setting up shop in Cologne four years ago. Sedo also took the 6th position with an international character domain, M�bel.com at $11,864. CEO Matthew Bentley told us the company is having great success with the new multilingual domains that finally allow words to appear with the correct characters in the countries that use them. In fact another one from Sedo, B�rse.ch (Swiss country code domain that means "stock exchange") just missed the Top Ten after going for a very healthy $8,282. Pool completed its quartet of big hits with Alscan.com, DotPlanet.com and Soundcard.com claiming 3 of the last 4 spots our new chart. Alscan.com is a nice traffic domain that currently scores 767 with the extension in Overture. DotPlanet scores lower at 129 but has some terrific branding potential and Soundcard.com speaks for itself as the definitive term for an important computer product. Pool's list of winners extended well beyond those you see charted above. NBC.net tuned in $6,100 to head the next group. Spywiper.com was worth $5,600, while Travelgate.com attracted $4,801 and CatoonNetwork.com (very high traffic misspelling) yukked it up for $4,289. Then there was MonsterInc.com at $4,100, FederalLoan.com at $3,620 and ChecksFree.com at $2,766. Another misspell that pulls huge traffic numbers (3,562 with the extension in Overture), DisnyChanel.com sold for $2,250, followed by DelanoHotel at $2,150, PartyMail.com at $2,026 and Geosys.com at an even $2,000. You'll hear more from Pool in our New TLD section below. Sedo also had a sales list of notables to add to their headliners above. Bonito.com ("pretty" in Spanish) sold for �6,500 ($7,715) while another buyer took a shine to Baldness.com at $6,010. That was followed by another Swiss international character domain, H�user.ch ('houses" in German) at �5,555 ($6,594). Sedo also sold Baier.de ("brand name" in German) for �4,000 ($4,749) and a two-domain set; Anwalthomepages.de and Anwalthomepages.com ("attorney home pages") went for �5,000 ($5,936). Sedo also had the oddball of the week, a rare .cc sale (Cocos Islands country code), Career.cc at �300 ($356). You can never say they don't cover all of the bases! In fact we'll be hearing more from them in the New TLD section where they always have a strong presence. Rewind: Chiron Vaccines International bought Meningitis.com for $45,000 two weeks ago. The domain was acquired from the HealthHeroNetwork. Chiron has bought up meningitis related domains in many other extensions over the past few months. In The Pipeline: A report from a member at the DomainState.com forum says 998.com has been sold in a private transaction for $17,000. The WhoIs record hasn't updated yet but it appears to be a credible report. The number means "long long wealthy" in Chinese (where the seller is based)....An auction for GayMarriage.com ended at Namewinner.com just above $10,000 on May 9 and one of their registrar partners did succeed in catching the domain. We'll watch to see if it changes hands now....The news continues to improve for .net too. At Sedo, Wedding.net went for $8,000. A party to the sale told me the buyer has paid and he is just waiting for his funds to be released from the escrow transaction. We are adding two positions to our Year-To-Date chart this week, expanding to 34 slots to make room for Meningitis.com at #17 and HotelReservation.com at #29. Our list currently includes all reported sales above $25,000. Here are the big winners thus far in 2004:
The wealth you saw in main section of this week's report spilled over to the New TLD's too. We saw three four-figure sales this week headed by a superb geographical domain, Washington.info, picked up by the buyer in a private transaction at a bargain price - $4,000. Considering that Washington is both a major state and one of the world's most important cities, the price looks great compared to the $10,000 each paid for Tampa.info and Moscow.info earlier this year. The same buyer who acquired Washington.info told us he also bought a .biz for $2,500 this week, but is not releasing the name of that domain. Too bad for the bizzers because that would have stopped .info from sweeping the chart this week! With no one else standing in the way, .info ran the board with a pair of German terms, Private-Krankenversicherung.info #2 at $2,966 and Staedtereise.info #3 at $1,424 joining Washington to lead the charge. Sedo accounted for all of the chart sales except Washington.info. Here is the full list of top sales for the week ending May 9:
Last week we talked about the flood of bidders pouring into Pool and other drop catching services to chase .biz domains that had been going for reg fees earlier this year. Just to give you an example, at Pool last week Tee.biz went for $475, Fund.biz for $411 and BBS.biz for $360. They also sold Sportwette.biz (German for "sports betting) for $350 and Desi.biz for $291. Choppers.biz went for $270 and Boot.biz for $262. Most of these are being bought by people expecting to resell them at even higher levels. In watching the daily drops we almost never see individuals landing decent .biz domains manually anymore. When the WhoIs updates it is invariably a professional drop catching service holding the name...and so another great window of opportunity has closed. They don't stay open long in this business, so you better take advantage of them when you see them! Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart adds a newcomer this week. $4,000 is the price of admission and Washington.info hit the mark to tie Houston.info for the final slot. Here is a look at 2004's top sellers:
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. |
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Copyright 2003
Domain Name Journal
A Division of
Internet Edge, Inc.