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OK, I'm going to have to dig deep into my vocabulary bag to describe this past week in the domain business. Awesome! Sensational! Stupendous! Hmmm....all a bit long. This is the domain business, so I really need a 3-letter superlative. How about WOW! Yeah...that will work. |
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Here's what we are looking at on our new Top Ten. A blockbuster 6-figure sale at Sedo, six 5-figure deals (there was also a 7th one that remained confidential at the buyer's request) and an absolute breakout week for .info which rang up five sales ranging from $5,600 to over $20,000! While the leader board was deep in high dollar sales, it also showed the broad appeal of multiple extensions with 5 different TLD's represented in the Top Ten: .com, .net, .info, .de and .co.uk! Sedo.com earned top honors with the biggest .de sale in the company's history. The German country code domain IQTest.de changed hands for 123,625 Euros, which at today's exchange rate (May18) is $147,635! That was also good enough to place 6th on our Year-To-Date Chart, a little over $6,000 ahead of another .de sold by Sedo earlier this year. Sedo could have made that sale and gone home happy but it was just one of five Top Ten sales they racked up in a dominating performance this week. Remarkably, each of the Sedo headliners was in a different extension! Talk about covering all of the bases. All of that activity at Sedo overshadowed a sale that normally would have made big news on its own. Specialty outdoor retailer BackCountryStore.com announced they spent $75,000 to acquire BackCountry.com in a private transaction. From now on the company will be known by the shorter name, a domain they have been pursuing since 1996! It's a fascinating story you can read about at PRNewswire. .Info's big week was led by the $20,899 sale of Casino.info at Sedo. The sale of that enormously popular keyword was #3 on the mainstream chart as the new TLD continued to flex its muscles among the big boys. Oldtimers .net and .org didn't even come close to .info's overall performance this week (.info had five reported four-figure or better sales while .net had two and .org none). Afternic.com also had a major hand in the action this week, selling the #4 domain, Certificate.com for $15,900 and the #6 domain, Planners.com for $12,000. Those served as bookends for Chris Chena's 5th ranked purchase of Sitio.com for $15,000. The word means "site" in Spanish and Chena told us it will be a key component of a new Spanish language network of sites he is developing. A 3-letter .com, JMM.com, accounted for the other reported five-figure sale, going for $10,741 at Sedo. Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com told us they completed a $21,000 deal but the parties involved requested that name be kept confidential. The sales on our new Top Ten chart are just the beginning of the story. Let's take a look at the big board, then we'll continue our commentary and tell you about a slew of other sales that will make you green with envy!
Sedo completed its tour de force by placing Recipes.co.uk 8th and Wedding.net 10th, with Pool.com's TabooSex.com sandwiched in between. It was fitting that the Wedding.net sale came from Sedo. As it happens, CEO Matthew Bentley just got back home to Boston at 3am today (May 18) after spending a few days in San Diego for his brother's wedding. Even if that sale had not been waiting on his morning report, Bentley still would have found plenty to be happy about. In addition to Casino.info, there were three more .infos ranging from $5,600-$7,200. We'll hold those details for our New TLD section coming up a bit later. There was also another solid .de sale, Brinkmann.de at �4,640 ($5,544) and a nice UK country code entry that domainers will love, Name.co.uk at �3,800 ($4,540). Pool just seems to get stronger every week. Their list of sales above 2K was the longest we have seen yet. The big winners included PlacesToGo.com at $7,500, LasVegasPackages.com at $6,100 and FamilyCounseling.com (often needed after a trip to Vegas) at $5,732. Just a step behind was MedsRX.com at $5,655 and LongLife.com at $5,400. 322.com dialed up $4,650 while BestSeats.com cost the buyer $4,600 and a misspelled traffic domain Asrology.com went for $3,600. Also in that range were Abtech.com at $3,500, DiscountDresses.com at $3,300, TaxOffice.com at $3,100 and ModernElectronics.com at $3,000. Pool's 2-3K sales included another misspell, Goagle.com at $2,699, Neotrace.com at $2,622 and a pair at $2,600: Staffordshire.com and TattooSupply.com. Produkt.com was worth $2,542, Moka.com collected $2,250 and Summer-Jobs.com and ChristianMate.com each attracted $2,050. While there is a wide variety of subject matter on Pool's 2k and up list, you may have noticed one common denominator - they are all .coms. The closest .net was Teppiche.net at $1,751. Pool also cracked the New TLD chart with a four-figure .biz as you will see below. Afternic placed two one-word .coms on the Top Ten and just missed landing a third after Companionship.com sold there for $7,500. Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com sold M-Link.com for the same price. They also collected $3,290 for JobBuzz.com and sold a pair of 3-character .coms for unusually high prices. EA2.com went for $2,700 and 2RM.com sold for $988. Elsewhere, DandyDomain.com brokered the $4,250 sale of Regular.com and Enom's Club Drop moved Derbyshire.com for $3,200 and WestCostChoppers.com for $1,800. The latter is a misspell that pulls solid traffic (415 with the extension in Overture). In the Pipeline: Just
as we were going to press (well virtual press anyhow!) an auction for Group.com
ended at Afternic for $20,000. Once it completes the
escrow process look for it on a Top Ten near you! Our Year-To-Date chart expands to 36 names this week, to make room for IQTest.de and BackCountry.com. A reader suggested that we highlight new domains the week they enter the chart to make it easier to spot changes. It's a good idea and we are implementing it this week, with new entries highlighted in green (the color of money)! Our list currently includes all reported sales above $25,000. Here are the big winners so far in 2004:
For several months now we have been reporting the unmistakable signs that the new extensions (.info, biz and .us) were growing in value and recognition. This may go down as the week that contrary arguments were finally put to rest. Sales were led by blue chipper Casino.info, but that was just the beginning of the story. For the first time there wasn't enough room on our New TLD chart to hold all of the four-figure (and up) transactions. If the trend continues, we will be happy to expand the chart though! .Info and .Biz has shown the most strength in Europe, so it has to be encouraging to investors that this week's big sellers were primarily English terms. Party.info celebrated in the #2 slot after selling for $7,166. The skies were sunny over Beach.info too as it came in third at $5,972. The fourth slot went to a German term, InvestmentFonds.info ("investment funds" in English) at a healthy $5,673. Sedo was responsible for all of those sales. New extension prices are also rising rapidly at Pool and they prevented a .info sweep by taking the 5th position with Horror.biz at $1,150. That kept another four-figure .info, FEM.info, off the chart. It sold at Afternic for $1,000. We know of another 3-letter .info that sold for $1,000 but the buyer asked us to hold the story until he issues a release on a series of purchases that domain is related to. Meanwhile, a very big one is in the pipeline at Afternic where an auction for Vitamins.info ended at $9,500. It is currently in escrow. We'll tell you about some other sales but first here's a look at the new chart featuring the top sales for the week ending May 16:
In addition to their four entries in the chart, Sedo had a fistful of additional new extension sales this week. K�nstler.info (German word for "artist") went for �700 ($837), Stickerei.info ("embroidery") sold for �590 ($705), V�gel.info ("bird") flew away with �500 ($598) and Sch�ferhund.info ("german shepherd") put the bite on another �500 ($598). Sedo also sold USAShops.biz for $499. A reader also told us they just sold ThePresident.info through Sedo for �600 ($717). It looks like .US is starting to perk up too. In the last three days at Afternic, Boards.us ended at $1,000, Mines.us at $495 and PhoneMe.us at $200. All are currently in escrow. Some of the new interest in the extension may stem from last week's VolvoCars.us ad on the final episode of NBC-TV's Friends. It's estimated 51 million viewers saw that commercial. Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart makes its biggest expansion ever this week. We had to add four slots to make room for those big sales at Sedo. 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.