Big Country Code Sales Highlight Week Before Christmas With Luxembourg Leading The Way

by Ron Jackson  

In one of the largest .fr (French country code) sales we've seen, Chiron Vaccines International bought Meningite.fr for �12.000 ($16,045) in a private transaction. Chiron has been snapping up meningitis related domains in multiple extensions all year. Meningite.fr ("meningitis" in French) ranks #3 this week, one step ahead of still another ccTLD winner, Bod.co.uk at �6,000 ($11,551). Sedo accounted for that sale and wound up claiming 3 of the top 5 positions in another banner week for that company.

CompareCellPhones.com sold for $17,130 at Enom's Club Drop to take the #2 slot and prevent a country code sweep of the first four. .Com also took the final six positions. Sedo ignited that streak down the home stretch with #5 Adep.com at an even $10,000 - quite a nice price for a 4-letter acronym with little apparent existing traffic (0 in Overture with the extension and only 16 links in Marketleap). Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com weighed in next with #6 PayID.com at $9,725.

SnapNames.com and Afternic.com have been delivering strong performances week in and week out and that didn't change this time around as they each scored two Top Ten hits to close out the chart. I'll let you check those out for yourself, then we'll continue our rundown of the top sales for the week. 

Before going to the chart I want to mention two things that have us very optimistic about industry prospects for 2005. One is Ebay's $415 million purchase of Rent.com this week. That is an ongoing business with $40 million in annual revenues but still the impact of a domain based enterprise going for that kind of money is bound to have a positive impact on domain prices. Couple that with the spectacular percentage gain in online retail sales this Christmas season (while brick & mortar sales growth has been anemic at best) and you have a lot of eyes opened to how critical an internet presence is to any entity that wants to stay in business in the years ahead. Now let's check out that new Top Ten:

SnapNames and Afternic took turns in positions 7 through 10 and that pattern continued just off the chart as well. SnapNames took #7 with SwingLife.com ($9,000) and #9 with GlobalBank.com ($7,700). Afternic answered with #8 Tabletop.com ($8,333) and #10 Webaroo.com ($6,950), then SnapNames stepped up again with IPPhones.com at $6,900, the week's 11th best reported sale. SnapNames' other winners included Archdiocese.com at $5,656, 144.com at $5,655 and GlobalName.com at $4,430. They also added $4,200 for UserManuals.com, $3,900 for HatPins.com and $1,811 for RepairAuto.com. 

Sedo turned in another powerful week as well. In addition to taking 3 of the top 5 on the big board, they dominated the New TLD chart, taking 7 of the 8 positions there (including one that ranks among the Year to Date leaders). We'll address those in the New TLD section of our report a little later.  Right now let's recognize their other original extension winners like EdYoung.com at $6,200 and Blogged.com at �4,300 ($5,751). They also collected �4,000 ($5,348) each for T100.org and the German TLD mouthful Briefmarkenversteigerung.de ("stamp auction" in German). DNAce.com added $5,000 and Beethoven.org turned in a �2,900 ($3,875) masterpiece. DNAce.com looks like a misspell of "dance" or an acronym for "Domain Name Ace" but we believe the buying interest was related to a DNA processing product that uses DNAce as a brand name. Sedo also scored with a 3-number Swiss country code domain, 118.ch at �2,300 ($3,073).

Enom's Club Drop continues to impress with steady success in the drop catching game. In addition  to having this week's #2 domain they found $5,407 in the collection plate for LoveGod.com. Cupholders.com overflowed with another $3,707 and QuickestPaydayLoan.com kicked in $3,107. A couple of high traffic misspells also scored well; Drangonballz.com (522 with the extension in Overture) attracted $2,410 and Dargonballz.com (292 with extension) brought in $2,007. Also, an auction for BrainInjuryLawyer.com just ended at $7,707 today (Nov. 21). That one will be eligible for next week's chart.

At Pool.com F150.com towed in $4,444 and Swifer.com (752 with the extension in OVT) brought home an even $4,000. They also earned a nice check with a misspell of their own, Dragenballz.com (255 with the extension), going for $3,000. Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com supplemented their Top Ten entry with EricksonUSA.com at $6,400 while Afternic added to their pair of Big Board winners with BuyingSpree.com at $2,288. 

In other notable sales, DotcomAgency.com collected $4,800 for SupplyChainPlanning.com and another $5,510 for the matching set of DentalLaser.com and DentalLasers.com. TrickThatBitch.com (77 w/ext. in OVT) went for $4,020 at Namewinner.com, where GameCollector.com accounted for another $1,230. Anunt Patel added to his growing chain of dating websites by acquiring MeetLocals.com for $3,488 from BuyDomains.com. He already owned MeetGirls.com, MeetPeople.com, SingleMen.com and SingleWomen.com, among others.

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Our Year To Date chart remains unchanged this week as no sales cracked the current $28,000 entry barrier . Here are the top 77 sales thus far in 2004: