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Just as we were finalizing our new weekly domain sales report we got an urgent note from Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com CEO Monte Cahn urging us to "stop the presses!" It turns out the news was worth waiting for as the company wrapped up the final details of a $62,500 sale of the appropriately named Stop.com. |
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The price vaulted Stop.com to the head of our new Top Ten chart but the buyer of the runner-up domain, Chris Chena, had the perfect remedy for any letdown he might have suffered from being passed at the last minute. His latest buy was the aptly named domain AntiDepressants.com! In a private sale, Chena laid out $30,000 for his latest acquisition, a domain he will use to boost traffic to one of his online pharmacy sites. The fact that the high Overture bid for "anti depressants" is $2.70 per click also went a long way toward cheering Chris up! Afternic.com landed the #3 sale, collecting $20,000 for Group.com. A highly trafficked misspell, Travalocity.com (1,470 in Overture with the extension) was next after changing hands for $15,500 at Pool.com. Another very nice one-word domain, Initiative.com completed the top half of the chart after selling for $12,000 at GreatDomains. A beautiful 2-letter .org, NY.org added still another five figure sale to the big board after going at Sedo.com for an even $10,000. At the same popular venue, Caribank.com was just a dollar behind. A little pocket change would have pushed that one into five figures and there was another one that did reach that rarified atmosphere at Moniker/DomainSystems, but the company couldn't release the name due to the client's request for confidentiality. That was a $21,300 sale. Let's take a look at the new rankings, then we will continue our Top Ten breakdown and also take a look at a load of nice sales that fell just short of the chart. New TLD fans in particular will want to stay tuned to see another fistful of big .info sales (the new TLD breakout that started last week continued this week with the highest number of four figure sales we've seen to date). First though, here are the best reported sales for the week ending May 23:
Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com cemented a very solid week by landing the #8 and #9 sales to go along with their chart topper. In addition to the $9,050 for FrenchCar.com and $8,100 for BroadcastingSchools.com, Cahn's crew collected another $3,000 at the door for AmazingTickets.com. Sedo also placed three domains on the big board and anchored the chart with a choice UK country code domain, ShopsOnline.co.uk at $7,241. We're seeing a lot of activity in those co.uk's lately. One domain investor told us he just spent �5,000 ($9,058) and �2,500 ($4,529) respectively on a singular/plural pair of one word .co.uk domains (he wants to keep the names confidential). Of course, Sedo is always in the thick of the country code action. Their other sales this week included Kurzreise.de ("short trip" in German) at �4,750 ($5,750) and LinkLondon.co.uk at �3,500 ($4,237). Sedo also sold PHPSlash.org for $3,000, but a pair of .infos came in at nearly twice that much. Those went for $5,888 each. Rather than repeat ourselves, we'll save those details for our New TLD section below where big sales are starting to burst our chart at the seams (in fact we had to permanently expand it a couple of notches this week)! Of course no DNJournal sales report would be complete without a lengthy dip in the Pool. You don't need telepathy to know you'll see a lot of strong sales at the popular auction house. In fact Clairvoyance.com conducted a $5,388 seance and it took an event like that to get people's attention away from NastyWomen.com which went for $5,000! If you think good service doesn't pay consider that Tips.net topped both of those after going for $6,000! The traffic chasers were out again too, laying out $4,000 for CartoonNework.com, a misspell with a whopping 2,741 in Overture with the extension. Pool's other winners included SandelsResorts.com at $3,160, DiscountCarRentals.com at $2,600 and ExpiringDomains.com at $2,150. Also worth mentioning was ChristianMate.com at $2,050 and Profiles.net at $1,550. Elsewhere GT Web Services brokered the $6,000 sale of Motoring.com while Afternic attracted $2,488 for MobileHomeSales.com and $2,288 for HotelCareers.com. Over at Enom's Club Drop, the top sellers were SDSU.com (San Diego State University most likely) at $1,800, DogZone.com at $1,600 and Oparh.com, a nice misspell (779 with the extension in Overture) at $1,400. In the Pipeline: Pool has a couple of contenders for next week's chart in the pipeline. An auction for PokerTV.com ended at $7,400 while Bookers.com was just behind at $7,100. Afternic tells us the Vitamins.info sale we previously told you about (at $9,500) should also be out of escrow and ready for chart consideration next week. We add two positions to our Year-To-Date chart this week to make way for Stop.com and AntiDepressants.com. Stop.com goes in at #13 while AntiDepressants.com pops up at #29. Here are the big winners so far in 2004:
Last week was a breakout week for the new extensions with half a dozen sales hitting four figures (one, Casino.info, actually hit five figures at $20,899). The momentum grew even stronger this week with seven official four-figure sales and three more that are near completion. With all of this activity (and no sign that it will drop off any time soon), we decided it was time to permanently add a couple of slots to our New TLD chart whch now becomes the Super 7. As usual, Sedo is at the front of the New TLD parade, taking 6 of the 7 spots on the chart. A pair of strong German words tied for first at $5,888 each - Finanzen.info ("finances") and Steuer.info ("tax"). Another one, Silikon.info ("silicon") was next at $3,026. English terms ruled the rest of the chart. Two of those, LawFirm.info and Houston.us tied for fourth at $2,500 each. Houston.us is especially interesting since Houston.info sold earlier this year for a higher figure, $4,000. Both extensions suit this major city name well. Is the .info worth $1,500 more than the .us? That's a question those involved in the transaction decide, but we believe the buyers of both domains got terrific bargains. Houston.us prevented a .info sweep of the chart. As you probably know, .US was the last of the new extensions to make its public debut (arriving in April 2002). It appears that the new TLD's are breaking out in the order they were introduced. .Info (which debuted in Sept. 2001) was the first to gain market acceptance and is really rocking now. .Biz came next (November 2001) and we are seeing steadily increasing sales activity there (not high dollar but much higher volume). Now .US appears to be walking on stage right on cue. There's more to talk about, but first let's take a look at the complete Super 7 for the week ending May 23 - and our first New TLD chart where it took at least $2,000 just to get in the door:
As you can see Sedo filled out the chart with two more solid .infos, Story.info at $2,421 and Mediators.info at $2,000. We also have word that two more auctions have ended in four figures at Sedo, RedLightDistrict.info at $1,500 and Counterfeit.info at $1,000. Add those to the nearly complete sale of Vitamins.info at Afternic ($9,500) and you have a nice head start on another big week ahead. I just received a high 3-figure payment for a matching pair of .us/.biz domains. Just a few weeks ago each of those domains would have made the chart. Now they are peanuts by comparison to the four-figure sales that have taken over the leader board. That is a very healthy sign for the new extensions. Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart expands to an even 20 positions this week to make room for those two big sales at Sedo. We have also added a footnote section to this chart (like the one on the mainstream chart) to track major sales where only the price range was released (in this case five figures for Fashion.us). The cost of admission to the New TLD board is currently $4,000. Here is a look at 2004's top sellers through May 23.
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 2004
Domain Name Journal
A Division of
Internet Edge, Inc.