$85,000 Sale at SnapNames Headlines Another Banner Week in the Domain Business   

by Ron Jackson  

Last week we pointed out how rare it is for a domain selling for five figures to miss making our Top Ten chart. However, for the second week in a row, there have been so many big ticket sales that some that would normally be shoe-ins missed making the Big Board. Of course, that's the kind of crowd no one is going to complain about!

This week SnapNames.com finally broke the stranglehold Sedo.com has held on our chart the past four weeks. During that run, Sedo took at least half of the positions on our Top Ten every week. This time out SnapNames rang up four chart hits including the big winner, SalesTraining.com at $85,200. It is amazing to think that just a few months ago SnapNames was operating with a flat fee system that would have earned them just $69 for catching that domain! Though they were late moving to the auction format, the decision to finally join the crowd (and a new agreement giving them exclusive rights to auction names deleting from NetworkSolutions.com) has restored this drop-catching pioneer's fortunes in a big way. 

As big as that SalesTraining.com sale was, there was one even bigger sale this week involving DigitalPhotography.com. Unfortunately, that one cannot be charted because the parties involved have an agreement to keep the exact price private. However, the buyer, Ian Andrew of DotcomAgency.com, did tell us that he paid six figures for the domain. 

Sedo was overdue for a little breather after their torrid run the past month, though with a top sale of $50,000 for Cultura.com they're not exactly lounging around! Cultura is a Spanish word but the domain was bought by a French company that uses the word as their brand name. Cultura.com placed #2 on our chart and helped .com rack up 9 of the 10 positions on this week's list. 

SDO.com claimed the #3 position after selling for $35,000 at PerfectName.com, a venue that has long been known for having one of the best 3-letter .com collections in the business. As it happens, this sale brought down the curtain on the PerfectName.com site. Owner Greg Ricks sold the domain last week (the new owner currently has it pointed to a PPC page) and will deal with future customers on a person to person basis. 

Afternic.com placed two domains in the Top Ten this week, #4 Digame.com at $22,000 and #10 BooksAnywhere.com at $10,500. SnapNames completed the top half of the chart with their sale of another nice 3-letter .com, #5 VOC.com at $20,100. 

Baseball fans will recognize the value of the #6 domain, Nationals.com at $20,000.  Washington's D.C.'s new franchise (formerly the Montreal Expos) will be known as the Washington Nationals. That being the case you won't be surprised to learn that Major League Baseball was the buyer, acquiring the domain from Maryland lawyer John Lilyestrom. 

In another private sale,  Anastassios Tsiligiannis of Greece sold Travelopia.com for $17,270 to claim the #7 position. Tsiligiannis also sold the .net, .org, .info, .biz and the .us to the same buyer with the latter five going for an additional $532 each. The package was purchased by the owners of Hotelopia.com and HotelBeds.com (part of FirstChoice.co.uk). 

Let's take a look at the complete Top Ten, then we'll continue our breakdown of the bountiful sales week that ended Sunday, Dec. 12: 

As you can see above, SnapNames rounded out their quartet of big winners with a great geographical domain (and the only non .com on this week's chart) Beijing.net at $16,988 and CareerBuild.com at $11,100. 

Sedo had another five-figure sale that just missed the chart, ErosWeb.com at an even $10,000. Their sales list also included solid hits like SearchFox.com at $9,000, MyCash.co.uk at �6,000 ($7,972) and Surabaya.com at $7,500. Of course, the company can always be counted on for strong German .de sales as well. This week those included Internet-Telefonie.de at �3,700 ($4,917), Paloma.de ("dove" in Spanish) at �3,500 ($4,651) and Siptel.de at �3,200 ($4,253). Other standouts from the Sedo roster were Beethoven.org at �2,900 ($3,854), UKiss.com at $3,500 plus Almousa.net and Genomicode.com at �2,500 ($3,321) each. 

Back at SnapNames, the gold vein runs deep beneath the Big Board. They added $9,400 for Anpe.com, $9,100 for Seesaw.com and $6,400 for ATech.com. Paintings.net and LiveCity.com contributed $5,600 each while WhiteDove.com feathered the nest with another $5,100. Other winners included Lacey.com ($5,050), FirstAidKits.com ($4,655), Retainers.com ($4,544) and Xtremes.com ($4,500). .Org also got in the game with Chicken.org scratching out $5,200. Also notable were Viable.com at $3,402, HorneyWives.com at $3,000 and RiskManager.com at $2,947. Neno.com kicked in another $2,050 and BabyModel.com struck a $2,001 pose.

Afternic supplemented their two new Top Ten trophies with 2S.com and EmeraldPassport.com at $5,000 each. Enom's Club Drop turned in another solid week as well, dialing up $5,207 for CarPhone.com and $4,107 for LeapYear.com. Tranies.com popped up at $3,607, followed by MagicCircle.com at $3,307 and GatlinburgRealEstate.com at $3,009. LamasBonita.com ($2,706) and SegaGames.com ($2,407) were also among the big winners at Club Drop.

At Pool.com, Toelf.com made the biggest splash at $4,300. RioVerde.com and AppleIpods.com contributed $3,900 each while StandardCharter.com brought in $3,300 and TicketSeller.com grossed $2,500. At Namewinner.com, AISD.com commanded $5,020 and OnlineRecipe.com stirred in another $2,560. Meanwhile Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com reported the $4,600 sale of Saw2.com. Elsewhere, Greenhouses.net changed hands for $2,000 in a private sale and ISP.cc went for $400 (notable only because .cc sales have been rare at any price). 

In the Pipeline: An Ebay auction for Assholes.com has ended at $15,700 but the domain hasn't been transferred yet. The seller is a reliable domainer and if the buyer proves to be trustworthy as well this one could be heading for the Big Board next week. One domain mentioned in this section last week, eTrust.com, which went for $25,600 in a SnapNames auction, is still awaiting transfer.

*****

Our Year To Date chart expands to 77 names this week after getting three new members. SalesTraining.com moves in at #21, Cultura.com moves into a tie for #34 and SDO.com takes over at #48. Here is the complete rundown of reported sales above $28,000 thus far in 2004: