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For those sitting around waiting for the summer doldrums to kick in, you might as well go about your business - they're not coming! A flurry of major deals made that abundantly clear this week. AOL seemed to set the tone Thursday (June 24) when they laid out $435 million to buy Advertising.com. |
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We also got word on a pair of confidential six-figure deals and we'll tell you what we can about those shortly, but first let's recognize the biggest sales that can be made public. Kazalite.com claimed top honors for Pool.com after selling for a whopping $83,500 in an auction there. The high traffic domain scores 1849 with the extension in Overture. It's interesting to note that a similar spelling, Kazzalite.com, also sold last week but apparently for less money despite an even higher Overture score (4256 with the extension). Kazzalite.com was caught by Galcomm.com but they have not released the price they received for the domain. We do know that before it dropped, the domain had been bid up to $20,000 at Namewinner.com. The runner-up to Kazalite.com on our new Top Ten chart was a high-flying .org that went for $16,915 (at today's exchange rate - June 29). That was Libtiff.org, sold by Markus Schnermann of KeywordDomains.com via Sedo.com. If the term has you scratching your head it's because there is more there than meets the eye. It means TIFF library (an important graphics format) and more importantly the domain has a very strong Google page rank of 7. Links from such sites are highly valued because they boost the search engine rankings for the site being linked to. Schnermann was also the seller of the #5 domain, CyberSurfari.org, letting it go for $10,100 in a private transaction. It's the first time we have had two five-figure .orgs on the chart at once and the first time a pair of them occupied slots on the top half of the Big Board. CyberSurfari.org also has a Google page rank of 7 after a previous history as a children's internet portal. The buyer of the #3 domain, PBI.com, was also involved in one of those six-figure sales we mentioned above. That is Paraguay's Chris Chena who picked up PBI for $12,500 in an auction at Pool. While Chris was happy to get that domain, he is delirious over landing Juegos.com (Spanish for "games") this week. Chena told us he had been pursuing the domain for more than a year and finally laid out a high six figure sum to obtain it. Chena has been building a network of prime Spanish word properties and he said Juegos.com now ranks as his most prized possession. If the exact price had been disclosed it would also rank as one of the year's top two sales (with Mercury.com at $700,000+ the other). Revitalize.com rounded out our first five after going for $12,480 at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. Moniker/DS also happened to be the venue that handled the other six-figure sale we alluded to. CEO Monte Cahn couldn't release the domain name but he told us the deal was worth $180,000! Cahn said his company closed another confidential transaction at $38,900. Before we break down the second half of the chart, let's take a look at the full list of top reported sales for the week ending Sunday, June 27:
You can see Sedo flexing their muscles again this week as they racked up a quartet of Top Ten sales. As usual, they did it with a remarkable variety of extensions and amazingly none of them was a .com! In addition to the #2 domain, Libtiff.org, Sedo socked away positions 6, 8 and 9 with a .co.uk (UK country code), a .de (German country code) and a .cn (China country code)! Cruises.cn at $6,700 is our highest reported .cn sale to date. Seller Raymond Marshall of NuMedia Concepts, LLC contacted us separately about the transaction and indicated the deal might be a harbinger of good things to come for .cn. Paintings.co.uk at $9,938 (the exchange rate was over $10,000 on the day of the sale) is just the latest in a line of rapidly improving .co.uk sales we are seeing this year. Of course .de (the world's second most popular extension) is always a force on the chart, so no surprise in seeing NahrungsErgaenzung.de, the German term for "nutritional supplements", go for over $7,000. Sedo had some additional sales that just missed the Top Ten that we will get to shortly. Afternic.com landed the lucky #7 slot after attracting $8,000 for HotLeads.com. They also had a solid week overall, further proof that sales are heating up this summer rather than going on holiday. Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com completed this week's elite list with the $5,700 sale of DemoStation.com. Sedo's other top sellers were in that same price range. They collected �3,000 ($5,424) for Pubs-UK.com, �4,250 ($5,135) for FineProducts.com and an even $5,000 for StrategicVision.com. Afternic added $5,025 to their ledger with the sale of LCIA.org (continuing quite a run for the .orgs this week). We also caught the Collins brothers cracking a smile over the $4,500 sale of StraightMen.com and they could laugh all the way to the bank thanks to a $3,970 return on Bankability.com. Afternic also connected for another $3,888 on HouseNetwork.com and $3,200 on YourContacts.com. The hits just kept on coming with HouseFurnishings.com going for $2,688 and 460.com commanding $2,600. What would a hot summer sales week be without a dip in the Pool? Well, we won't have to wonder because the lifeguards were on duty as usual in Ottawa. EquifaxCredit.com rang up a $3,600 charge, while Edgemont.com added $3,320 and DietPillsUSA.com popped for $2,395. SlideGuitar.com also hit a sweet note at $2,150 leaving LatinGay.com dancing in the aisles at $2,100. Pool even scored with a couple of .nets as Movers.net trucked in with $2,900 and Regards.net sent a $2,566 thank you note. Over at Enom's Club Drop a pair of misspellings produced nice returns. Ebuamsworld.com (the "u" and "a" are transposed), with a huge Overture number of 9102 with the extension, went for $4,000 while Ebaumworld.com (missing the "s") was right behind at $3,700. The latter domain also sports a massive Overture score, 6358 with the extension. In the Pipeline: Things seem to be heating up at Club Drop as an auction for FastPitch.com just ended there at $8,100 as we were going to press. If the payment and transfer go off without a hitch that one has a good shot at next week's Top Ten. However the real behemoth currently rolling through the chute is PaintballGun.com which closed at $21,830 in a late Pool auction. Another big Pool auction for PartyPocker.com (misspell of PartyPoker.com) was still underway at press time. No telling where it will land but before it dropped it had been bid up to $20,210 at Namewinner. Our Year-To-Date Top 40 list gets a new member this week as Kazalite.com takes up residency at #11. Juegos.com also gets a spot in the footnotes among the year's biggest deals that were not fully detailed by the parties involved. Here is the complete list of big winners as we hit the halfway point in 2004:
This scintillating sales week extended into our new TLD section too. .Info racked up a trio of four-figure sales and swept the first four spots on our new Super 7 chart. After that it was all .US as the American country code continued a nice run it began after breaking out earlier this month. At first glance I thought this week's #1 seller, Aluminium.info, was a mistake. When I saw it had gone for $3,800 at Pool, I thought "who would pay that much for a new extension misspelling?" A quick check of Google proved my provincialism was showing. I didn't realize that around the world, "aluminium" is almost as popular as the American spelling "aluminum". Google returns 8 million page references for "aluminum" but "aluminium" also scores big with over 5 million page refs. #2 domain Wyoming.info had just changed hands as we were wrapping up last week's column. That deal has now been verified and new owner Robert Connor has his home page up already! Connor picked up the domain for $3,000 in a private transaction. Sedo took the next four slots on the new extension chart, with Benchmarking.info leading the way at $1,359. Good German terms always score well with .info and another one turned up at #4 this week. That was Zierfische.info ("aquarium fish") at $906. .US then stepped in to take positions 5, 6 & 7. Here is a look at the complete New TLD list for the week ending June 27:
At $900, #5 BritneySpears.us attracted a nice price for a new extension celebrity domain. Her name pulls one of the highest Overture scores you will ever see, more than 3.8 million! OnlineShopping.us was right behind at $845 and I made my own chart with the $550 sale of PMC.us at #7. I had not gotten around to listing that domain on the exchanges, but an Afternic customer asked them to make an unsolicited offer on his behalf (a service offered by several of the major exchanges). After they contacted me, I was able to close a deal the same day with the owner of a small publishing company in Solvang, California (a picturesque village settled by Swedes that I love and have visited many times). If we hadn't hit if off based on that common ground I probably would have asked for more! .Biz just missed making the chart after RAT.biz went for $500 at Afternic. Looks like another good week is shaping up ahead for the new TLD's. A buyer tells us the transfer of Satellite.info is underway after he acquired the name for $1,000. We will tell you more about that next week when the deal should be done. No new members in our Year-To-Date New TLD Top 25 this week. Aluminium.com fell just $200 short of cracking the elite list. Here is a look at 2004's top new extension sellers through June 27.
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.