.CO.UK Takes a Turn in the Spotlight With Sedo's $55,000 Purchase of Domain.co.uk  

by Ron Jackson  

Sedo has special plans for the domain. They will use it as a platform to promote the rapidly growing .co.uk extension. In a press release this week, Sedo said new co.uk registrations have been averaging 80,000 a month this year and their aftermarket sales of the TLD have been booming as well. Sedo is the world leader in  country code TLD sales and the ccTLD's seem to be exploding in popularity. Last week, Sedo had the #1 domain on our chart with a .de (German country code). This week, in addition to topping the list with a co.uk, they placed two .se's (Sweden's country code) in the Top Ten. The operators of the .se registry only recently relaxed some of the very strict rules they had on access to the extension. As a result Sedo said they are seeing investor interest in the TLD spiking upward. 

Spain may be next in line as they are also considering a liberalization of the tight rules governing that country's .es domain. While .com is unquestionably the global king, .de and .co.uk now rank #2 and #3 in worldwide registrations which might surprise some Americans who have always viewed this as a .com .net .org world. 

While ccTLD's have eclipsed .net and .org, no one is going to catch .com in registrations or overall dollar value any time soon. 8 of this week's leaders sport that popular extension including #2 domain Searching.com which went for $27,000 at GreatDomains. They wound up landing a solid 1-2 punch, also claiming the 4th spot with Loco.com at $17,500. 

Sedo's tour de force included a pair of high dollar 3-letter .coms, #3 EUU.com at $26,583 and #5 BRV.com at $16,241. SnapNames.com kicked off the second half of the chart with FreeResume.com at $13,211 and wound up with three domains in the Top Ten. BuyDomains.com slipped into the middle of Snap's pack with #7 ShoeWarehouse.com at $12,500. After two more SnapNames entries, Sedo reappeared with a pair of head-turning .se's (the Swedish words for "cruise" and "cruises") that tied for the 10th position at $9,500 each.

The new extensions shared in the bounty too with the New TLD chart leaders coming in 4K, 3K, 2K and 1K flavors - even better than Neapolitan ice cream! We'll have more on that later but first we'll give you a look at the week's complete Top Ten followed by a rundown of all of the key reported sales around the industry: 

SnapNames had a very impressive week. In addition to their trio of charted domains that included #8 WeddingAccessories.com ($10,101) and #9 MilitarySecrets.com ($9,600), they piled up a bevy of additional high dollar sales. Bleem.com went for $9,000, followed closely by DiscountLegal.com at $8,800. Addeco.com added $6,700 and Stimulate.com provided a $6,200 jolt. Snap also scored smartly with ScholarAid.com at $4,300 and UniversityofVirginia.com at $2,051. The best .net we heard about there was a very nice 3-letter word domain, Cue.net at $1,284.

Sedo's November run has been mind boggling. They remind you of America's Olympic basketball Dream Team, able to score from anywhere on the court. They proved it again this week with 5 Top Ten domains in 3 different extensions, including the two Swedish domains that were purchased by the same buyer. As usual, the charted domains are just the start of the Sedo story. In addition to .com, .de, .co.uk & .se, they had winners in .net, .cn, .info and .biz! We'll save the latter two for our new extension section but there will still be no shortage of domains to talk about.

Sedo had the highest .net sale reported this week, Nubile.net at �6,500 ($8,639) and collected $6,500 for another one - UnitedNet.net. In addition to their #1 ranked Domain.co.uk, they scored in that extension with Encoder.co.uk at �6,500 ($8,639) and Address.co.uk at �1,500 ($2,864). They even had another .se up their sleeve, selling the international domain name D�ck.se ("tires" in Swedish) for �4,180 ($5,556). 

Sedo can always be counted on for a stein full of .de sales as well. This week they had MobileServices.de at �3,480 ($4,625), Segelreisen.de ("sailing trips" in German) at �3,222 ($4,282) and Bildbox.de at �2,320 ($3,085). From China's .cn extension they added Touran.cn at $2,000. Sedo's sheet also included Vilatel.com at �4,062 ($5,399) and Debate.com, which we think was the bargain of the week at just $2,500. 

If that is still not enough for you, how about a German term in .org going for well into four figures!? Sedo received �2,000 ($2,659) for Kostenlosespiele.org ("free games" in German). Sedo also had a bang up performance on our new TLD chart, taking the top four positions and five of eight overall. That is coming up shortly but first we have some more stops to make on our tour of the leading sales venues. 

I caught up with Afternic.com's Michael Collins just as he was leaving town for this week's ICANN meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. Afternic's top domain was also the #1 reported .org sale this week, VNIS.org at $7,500. That is also the highest 4-letter acronym sale we can recall in .org (that didn't show signs of strong existing traffic). Afternic's other winners included PokerFan.com at $4,500, NastyTeens.com at $3,900 and Crisis.net at $2,200. 

At Enom's Club Drop, GiftWorld.com came wrapped in a tidy $5,307 package. SecurityTech.com added $4,207 and RealEstateBlog.com contributed another $3,007. HandbagDiva.com brought a $2,309 purse and InstantLive.com turned in $2,307.

Hollywood came calling at ImpressiveDomains.com, shelling out an even $7,000 for KickAss.com. The buyer was Los Angeles based KickAss Pictures. Over at DotcomAgency.com, Ian Andrew added two more nice ones to his long November sales list. TimeToLive.com clocked in at $2,774 and VoiceTraffic.com dropped $2,200 in the deposit box. For the second week in a row David Berube from BCompany.us sold a two-letter .org for four figures. Last week it was LN.org at $1,800. This week it was VS.org at $2,500. The VS.org buyer is a friend who is still a little upset about letting KingTut.org go for $900 a couple of weeks ago. After the sale he learned that the buyer was the Smithsonian and that they are rolling out a site on the domain to promote a new worldwide King Tut tour. He believes he may have left some money on the table but if he had charged too much he might have had a band of angry mummies on his trail. I'm sure that will make him feel better.

One other domain worth noting. A seller told us his company sold RestlessLegs.com to the giant pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline for $97,000. However we have not seen documentation of the sales price and GSK has not responded to our inquiry about the domain (which does show a WhoIs update this month). Without further corroboration we can not chart this one, but if the facts are accurate it would rank among the top 20 domains on our year to date chart. Restless Leg Syndrome is a medical condition that can cause severe sleep deprivation. 

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Speaking of our Year To Date chart, it gets one new member this week. Domain.co.uk comes on board in the #27 position. Here is the complete rundown of reported sales above $28,000 (our arbitrary cutoff figure to keep the numbers somewhat manageable) thus far in 2004: