That sale was just one of five reported five-figure deals with a
couple of others just a few hundred dollars below that mark. The
steady rise in new extensions continued as well with six four-figure
deals reported and another less than $50 under that benchmark. Even
so, .com called the shots this week, taking 9 of the 10 slots
on our new mainstream chart. The world's most popular
extension has come within an eyelash of sweeping the Top Ten in the
past but hasn't quite cleared that hurdle yet. To be fair though, if
all domain sales were reported, .com would have scored
several sweeps by now. The sales that are made public give all of us
a good indicator of where the market is going but the majority
change hands in confidential transactions.
You'll recall this week's #2 domain from a mention in our
Pipeline section last week. PartyPocker.com, a high traffic
misspelling of party poker, raked in a $26,500 pot when the
sale was finalized at Pool.com.
The domain scores 362 with the extension at Overture.
With Overture's top advertiser bid for "poker" standing at
41 cents it still looks like it will take a good while to recoup
that investment, but it's a pretty good bet poker will never go out
of style so time is on the new owner's side.
Enom's
Club Drop is starting to make some noise. The expiring domains
auction service scored it's first Top Ten two-bagger this
week, hitting #3 with Ambient.com at $22,000 and #8
with FastPitch.com at $8,100. Club Drop used to be
reserved for Enom resellers but has just been opened to anyone with
an Enom account. Club Drop author Christopher Ambler will be
the subject of our August cover story. He'll help us give you
an inside look at the drop process that few people have seen before.
GreatDomains
is back this week with the #4 domain, Cursors.com at $12,500.
They've had a lot of activity in recent days that should produce
some other notable sales once the deals are finalized. If someone
was going to prevent a .com sweep, you just knew it would be Sedo.com.
It's a rare week indeed when they fail to place a country code
domain on our Top Ten. They did it again this week, landing the #5
position with Salon.co.uk at $11,055. That was one of
three domains Sedo placed on the big board. Here's a look at the
full list of top winners for the week ending Sunday, July 4:
Domain
Name Journal's Top Ten
Reported Domain
Sales - Mon. June 28, 2004 - Sun. July 4, 2004
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on
Rates in Effect Tue. July 6 |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
Miss.com |
$35,000 |
Afternic |
2. |
PartyPocker.com
|
$26,500 |
Pool |
3. |
Ambient.com
|
$22,000 |
Enom
Club Drop |
4. |
Cursors.com |
$12,500 |
GreatDomains |
5. |
Salon.co.uk |
�9,000
= $11,055 |
Sedo |
6. |
Mova.com |
�5,200
= $9,569 |
Sedo |
7. |
PokerMillionaire.com |
�5,000
= $9,201 |
Sedo |
8. |
FastPitch.com
|
$8,100 |
Enom
Club Drop |
9. |
DrakeHotel.com |
$7,700 |
Pool |
10.
(tie) |
PatentOffice.com |
$6,100 |
Pool |
10.
(tie) |
BackstagePass.com |
$6,100 |
Pool |
Keep in mind that these are the highest
value sales that have been reported in the past week.
This column is meant to be an educational tool, not a
complete list documenting ALL high value domain
sales. Such a list is impossible to produce because many
sales are kept private at the insistence of buyers, sellers
or both. |
You can see Sedo elbowed everyone else out of the way
in the middle of our chart, taking positions 5, 6 & 7. At $9,569,
Mova .com just missed the five-figure mark. Looks like poker was
the theme of the week with Sedo's PokerMillionaire.com going
for $9,201 to place 7th. After Club Drop's second entry, Pool
stepped in to run the rest of the table. #9 domain DrakeHotel.com
looks like a nice buy at $7,700. It's one of the more common
hotel names in the world and packs an added traffic bonus (203
with the extension in Overture). We actually had 11 domains in the Top
Ten this week since Pool shoehorned a pair into the 10th slot; PatentOffice.com
and BackstagePass.com each went $6,100.
You might recall BackstagePass.com from a previous
mention in the Pipeline. Another of those sales was finalized at Pool
this week, a $5,600 deal for FashionForum.com. When you
check the WhoIs records to see who ends up with these domains you
usually see some familiar faces. That was the case with
FashionForum.com which went to Thunayan
K. AL-Ghanim (Elequa). Pool's other winners included FHSAA.com
and FreeStar.com at $4,100 each. FHSAA.com scores a
whopping 1,056 with the extension in Overture. Being based in Florida
we are very familiar with the acronym which stands for Florida High
School Activities Association. They regulate all high school
sports in the state of Florida and have their own site on FHSAA.org.
This is a startling example of how much traffic even a well-known
non-.com domain loses to its .com counterpart.
Also at Pool, we saw Cruisepath.com glide in
with $3,600 and 3-letter CJF.com go for $3,300. A
pair of geographical domains also topped the 3K mark: Morrisville.com
at $3,320 and Orangeburg.com at $3,101. CatholicMass.com
returned a heavenly $2,700 while SofaCovers.com soaked
up a tidy $2,272. GoToMyComputer.com commanded $2,250
and Netspot.com was in the right place to catch $2,250.
Others over 2K were AtWork.com which sold for $2,100,
FunyJunk.com (2,890 in OT with the extension!) at $2,050
and StreetRaceing.com (317 with the extension) at $2,025.
The latter two are misspells that obviously attract a lot of visitors.
Pool's best .net sale was tabloid.net at $1,650.
Sedo also racked up a long list of nice sales between $3,000-$5,000.
A new TLD domain, Erotica.info, was the best of those,
going for �4,000 ($4,918). That was good enough to place that
name at the top of our new extension chart. Lottoziehung.de
(German for "lottery drawing") drew �3,950 ($4,856),
Kurzreise.com ("short trip") added $3,688 and ComputerService.net
went for �2,888 ($3,550). Another German country code domain,
MailOrder.de, sold for �2,500 ($3,074), the same amount
fetched by Digiarts.com. Two others hit $3,000 even;
Green-Card.com and ProWein.com (German for "pro
wine"). Sedo also had a superb week with new TLD domains as
you'll see in a few moments.
At Afternic, SoulDates.com enjoyed a $4,499
night out. AgentDirectory.com added $3,688 and ProspectLeads.com
generated a $3,200 sale. Just as pure domain sales are
enjoying a big rebound, domain based businesses are also going for increasingly
higher amounts. The big one this past week saw LastMinute.com buy
out Germany's LastMinute.de in a deal worth �46.7
million ($57.4 million) in cash and stock.
In the Pipeline:
PaintballGun.com, mentioned in this section last week, is
still waiting for payment at Pool. The auction for that domain ended
at $21,830.
Miss.com moves onto our Year-To-Date Top 40
chart in a tie for #28. The $35,000 domain knocked 3 misspellings of
download.com off the lower rungs of the chart and raised the entry fee
to $27,000. Here is the complete list
of big winners so far in 2004:
Domain
Name Journal's Year-To-Date Top 40
Highest Reported
2004 Domain
Sales through Sun. July 4, 2004
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $)
Based on Rates in
Effect When Sales Were Originally Reported by DNJ |
- Domains entering the chart this
week are highlighted in green - |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
Mercury.com |
$700,000
(700K cash + $400,000 in goods & services) |
Private
Sale |
2. |
ME.com |
$460,000 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
3. |
Smoking.com |
$325,000 |
GreatDomains |
4. |
Commerce.com |
$180,000 |
Sedo |
5. |
Beef.com |
$150,000 |
GreatDomains |
6. |
IQTest.de |
�123,625
= $147,635 |
Sedo |
7. |
TourismAustralia.com |
AUD
$201,000 = US$146,200 |
Pvt
Sale |
8. |
Sexkontakte.de
"Sex contacts" in German |
�110,000
= $141,175 |
Sedo |
9. |
Truck.com |
$101,000 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
10. |
Kreuzfahrten.de
"Cruises" in German |
�70,000
= $88,853 |
Sedo |
11. |
Kazalite.com |
$83,500 |
Pool |
12. |
Sedo.com |
$80,000 |
Private
Sale |
13. |
BackCountry.com |
$75,000 |
Private
Sale |
14. |
Boxen.de
"Boxing" in German |
�56,500
= $72,509 |
Sedo |
15. |
Stop.com |
$62,500 |
Moniker/
DomainSystems |
16. |
ClearDay.com |
$60,000 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
17.
tie |
FKK.de
|
�40,000
= $51,333 |
Sedo |
17.
tie |
Busen.de
"Bosom" in German |
�40,000
= $51,333 |
Sedo |
19. |
Mirror.com |
$50,000 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
20. |
CarFinancing.com |
$46,000 |
Pool |
21. |
Hardcore.co.uk |
�25,000
= $45,951 |
Sedo |
22. |
Meningitis.com |
$45,000 |
Private
Sale |
23. |
Faces.com |
$38,700 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
24. |
Metropol.com |
�30,500
= $38,230 |
Sedo |
25.
|
Nackt.de
"Nude or Naked" in German |
�30,000
= $38,081 |
Sedo |
26. |
Fotos.com |
�30,000
= $35,793 |
Private
Sale |
27. |
Cairo.com |
$35,001 |
Sedo |
28.
(tie) |
Miss.com |
$35,000 |
Afternic |
28.
(tie) |
Spamzilla.com |
$35,000 |
MarketEvolver |
30. |
CleanEnergy.com |
$31,950 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystems |
31. |
Humor.de |
�25,520
= $30,449 |
Sedo |
32. |
DiscountDrugs.com |
$30,010 |
Namewinner |
33.
tie |
AntiDepressants.com |
$30,000 |
Private
Sale |
33.
tie |
Actor.com |
$30,000 |
Sedo |
35. |
NewYork.info |
�22,000 =
$28,086 |
Sedo |
36. |
XPart.com |
$27,981 |
Moniker
/ DomainSystem |
37.
|
Messaging.com |
$27,600 |
Pool |
38. |
HotelReservation.com |
$27,500 |
Sedo |
39. |
NQ.com |
$27,000 |
Afternic |
40. |
Computadoras.com
(Spanish for "computers") |
$27,000 |
Pvt
Sale |
Unforgettable
Footnotes:
Below are landmark sales where the price level (denoted
by X characters) was released but not the exact price paid.
This will allow us to note significant sales that are among
the Year-To-Date leaders but cannot be ranked
numerically due to a confidentiality agreement that
kept the exact price private. Date shown indicates when the
sale was first reported in Domain Name Journal. High
- Mid - Low indicates the range within the price category
shown by multiple X's. |
Juegos.com
(June 29, 2004) |
High
$XXX,XXX |
Pvt
Sale |
Woman.com
(Feb. 10, 2004) |
Low
$XXX,XXX |
Sedo |
CellularPhones.com
(May. 11, 2004) |
Low
$XXX,XXX |
Pvt
Sale |
IS.com
(May 4, 2004) |
(No
range) $XXX,XXX |
Pvt
Sale |
B�cher.de
(Mar. 16, 2004)
{"books" in German) |
High
$XX,XXX |
Sedo |
New TLD Section
This was an excellent week for the rapidly growing new
extensions. Six of the seven domains on our Super 7 chart went
in four figures with the last one just missing the mark by $47! All
three new TLD's, .info, .biz and .us were represented on
the new list though .info, as usual, took home the lion's share of the
money. As we noted earlier, Erotica.info led the way after
going for $4,918 at Sedo (which had 5 of the 7 charted
sales).
#2 domain TopTen.info sold for a solid $3,378.
My first job was as a teenage (me, not the audience!) radio DJ so I
have always loved domains like this. I have Top20.info and Top40.biz
myself, so it's nice to others share the same appreciation I have for
these names.
.Biz nailed down the #3 position with Branchen.biz going
for $3,071. That's the German word for "industries"
so it is a perfect match for the extension. I saw some interesting
statistics this week that showed Germans have registered three
times more .info domains than .biz. However Americans have
shown a slight preference for .biz over .info, registering about
577,000 .biz compared to 503,000 .info. There are links to those stats
near the end of our Lowdown
section if you would like to read more on how registrations break down
by country.
The #4 domain is Industrial.info at $2,400.
That has been in escrow at Afternic the past few weeks but the deal is
done now. If you need any more evidence that new TLD's are
coming of age, check out the number 5 domain - it has not one but two
hyphens and still went for four figures! Normally that
would be the kiss of death for any extension but it didn't keep Made-in-Germany.info
from going for $1,216! Here is a look at the complete Super 7
for the past week:
Domain
Name Journal's New TLD Super 7
Reported .info, .biz & .us Domain
Sales June 28, 2004 - July 4, 2004
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on
Rates in Effect Tue. July 6 |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
Erotica.info |
�4,000 = $4,913 |
Sedo |
2. |
TopTen.info
|
�2,750 = $3,378 |
Sedo |
3. |
Branchen.biz
(German for "industries") |
�2,500 = $3,071 |
Sedo |
4. |
Industrial.info |
$2,400 |
Afternic |
5. |
Made-in-Germany.info
|
�990
= $1,216 |
Sedo |
6. |
Satellite.info |
$1,000 |
Pvt
Sale |
7. |
Opportunity.us |
�775 =
$953 |
Sedo |
Gregory Williamson of DandyDomain.com
was the buyer of the #6 domain, Satellite.info, acquired in a
private transaction for $1,000. He has pointed it to a
satellite TV affiliate site for the time being while he decides
whether to develop or resell the domain. Another reader, Michael
Zielinski, picked up the #7 domain, Opportunity.us at Sedo
for $953. Zielinski has been very active in .US space in recent
weeks.
There were at least a half dozen other decent sales
reported to us this week. At Sedo, Yugioh.biz (a wildly popular
trading card game) went for �666 ($819) and Consumers.biz
sold for $700. Howard Hoffman of PPCIncome.com
also collected $700 for Milena.biz, a very nice price
considering it is a European female first name in the .biz extension.
Back at Sedo, Golfplaetze.info (German for "golf
courses") sold for �550 ($675), Staat.info ("state")
went for �550 ($675) and Apeldoorn.info (a city in the
Netherlands) sold for the same amount.
Erotica.info takes up residence in our Year-To-Date
New TLD Top 25 after that $4,918 sale at Sedo. That was good
enough for the #21 position. Here is a look at 2004's
top new extension sellers through July 4:
Domain
Name Journal's Year-To-Date New TLD "Top 25"
Highest Reported 2004 .info, .biz & .us Domain Sales through
July 4
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $)
Based on Rates in Effect When Sales Were Originally Reported
by DNJ |
- Domains entering the chart this
week are highlighted in green - |
|
Domain |
Sold For
|
Where
Sold |
1. |
NewYork.info |
�22,000 = $28,086 |
Sedo |
2. |
Casino.info
|
�17,500
= $20,899 |
Sedo |
3. |
HMS.info |
�9,280
= $10,492 |
Sedo |
4.
tie |
Tampa.info |
$10,000 |
Pvt
Transaction |
4.
tie
|
Moscow.info |
$10,000 |
Sedo |
6. |
Vitamins.info |
$9,500 |
Afternic |
7. |
RioDeJaneiro.info |
$9,000 |
Pvt
Transaction |
8. |
Stocks.us |
$8,062 |
Sedo |
9. |
Party.info |
�6,000 = $7,166 |
Sedo |
10. |
Book.biz |
$7,000 |
Galcomm |
11. |
BDSM.info |
�5,500
= $6,947 |
Sedo |
12. |
Reifen.biz
"tires" in German |
�5,500
= $6,894 |
Sedo |
13. |
Vancouver.info |
�5,000
= $6,378 |
Sedo |
14. |
Beach.info
|
�5,000 = $5,972 |
Sedo |
15.
tie |
Finanzen.info
("Finances" in German) |
�4,900
= $5,888 |
Sedo |
15.
tie |
Steuer.info
("Tax" in German) |
�4,900
= $5,888 |
Sedo |
17. |
InvestmentFonds.info
("investment funds" in German) |
�4,750 = $5,673 |
Sedo |
18. |
Vacations.info |
$5,500 |
Pvt
Transaction |
19. |
CityGuide.info |
�4,000 =
$4,773 |
Sedo |
20. |
Woman.info |
$5,000 |
Sedo |
21. |
Erotica.info |
�4,000 = $4,913 |
Sedo |
22.
tie |
Meningite.biz
("Meningitis in French & Italian) |
$4,250 |
Sedo |
22.
tie |
Meningite.info
("Meningitis in French & Italian) |
$4,250 |
Sedo |
24. |
Grafik.info |
�3,500 = $4,249 |
Sedo |
25.
tie |
Houston.info |
$4,000 |
Pvt
Transaction |
25.
tie |
Washington.info |
$4,000 |
Pvt
Transaction |
Unforgettable
Footnotes:
Below are key sales where the price level (denoted
by X characters) was released but not the exact price paid.
This will allow us to note significant sales that are among
the Year-To-Date leaders but cannot be ranked
numerically due to a confidentiality agreement that
kept the exact price private. Date shown indicates when the
sale was first reported in Domain Name Journal. |
Fashion.us
(May 25, 2004) |
$XX,XXX |
Private
Sale |
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.
|