Arabic Surname Tops This Week's Sales Chart And .US Notches It's 2nd New TLD Win in a Row

by Ron Jackson  

The biggest sale that was released allowed .net to make a rare appearance in the #1 position on our Top Ten chart. That after Almousa.net sold for �30,000 ($39,324) at Sedo.com. Almousa is a popular Arabic surname. Those with a sharp eye will recall this exact domain changed hands just a month ago at a considerably lower price. The buyer immediately relisted the domain and turned a nice profit for his spadework this week. The sale helped Sedo pick up where they left off in 2004, running roughshod across our Big Board. They racked up 5 of the 10 positions on our new list.

Several players staked a claim in the top half of the chart however. Afternic.com took the #2 slot with the $15,000 sale of Dater.com.  SnapNames.com answered with a double-barreled blast, landing positions 3 & 4 with RetirementCommunity.com at $12,000 and Annuaire.com at $11,211. GreatDomains then danced into the spotlight with Choreography.com, #5 at $10,000. 

Sedo regained control of the action therest of the way out, sweeping 4 of the last 5 places on the Top Ten. The only thing interrupting their impressive run was WebQuest.com Inc.'s private sale of #9 Gubi.com for $5,800. Let's take a look at the complete top sellers list, then we'll continue with a bevy of domain beauties that changed hands just off the chart:

As you can see above, Sedo's strong closing run included a trio of German country code domains, HDDVD.de, HD-DVD.de and Bahhnurlaub.de, with each going for �6,500 ($8,522) to share the 6th position on our chart. Smartrade.com ran the anchor leg for Sedo, coming in 10th at $5,000. Sedo also had a big hand in the action just off the chart with a mix of .coms and de's. ShemarMoore.com went for �3,700 ($4,851), DataEncryption.com unlocked �3,200 ($4,196) and Bookwork.com paid off at $4,000. A couple of Germany related domain also did well in .com; Arbeitszeugnisse.com ("letters of reference" in German) at �2,500 ($3,279) and Dresden-Hotels.com at �2,350 ($3,082). 

Sedo's run continued with Adeon.com and Discoverer.com each returning �2,000 ($2,622) and the duo of Aldar.com and ICSolutions.com adding $2,500 each. BeautyForum.com turned heads with another �1,800 ($2,360) and R3.net rang up $2,000. The .de's on the Sedo board included Krebsschutz.de ("cancer protection" in German) at �3,480 ($4,562), Myself.de at $3,400 ($4,457) and a pair at �2,500 ($3,279); Hotel-Oesterreich.de and Cars.de. The latter looks very cheap to us, even though cars isn't the monster word in Germany that it is here in the States.

SnapNames supplemented their pair of Top Ten entries with a pair of nice .nets; BostonHomes.net at $4,701 and Gamers.net at $4,050. They also racked up $4,200 for SportsCentral.com and $3,550 for Telefile.com. ShootingGallery.com was another bulls eye at $3,433 and Nomade.com added $3,433.

At Afternic, DeuceBigalow.com attracted $5,000, RoundTwo.com scored a $2,888 knockout, NanoPrime.com returned $2,650 and EagerBeaver.com chewed through $2,500. Meanwhile over at Enom's Club Drop, MIZ.com commanded $4,607, Hecho.com added $3,607 and a prescription for LittlePharmacy.com cost $3,108.

In the Pipeline: An auction for 74.com ended at $12,500 Jan. 6 at Ebay. We know the seller, who is an experienced domainer, but collecting for high value domain auctions at Ebay has always been a challenge. We'll keep an eye on it to see if the transfer actually takes place. 

*****

Now that we have two weeks of data to work with we start a new 2005 Year-To-Date Top Sellers chart with the 12 best sales we've seen in this young New Year. If you missed our expanded list of 2004's top sales (more than 300 domains that went for $10,000 and up), there is a link to that list at the bottom of this chart:

New TLD Section

.Info dominated New TLD sales in 2004, winding up with 72% of the reported sales that were $1,000 or higher.  Will this year be different? Too early to tell, but .US has gotten out of the gate quickly, taking the #1 position on our new extension Great 8 for the second week in a row. Last week the American country domain did it with the highest .US sale reported to date, CellPhones.us ($12,250). This week it's on top again with Dot.us, a domain that changed hands in a private transaction for $2,200.  

.Biz looks like it may be more competitive this year too. That extension takes #2 and #3 this week with a pair of German terms, Anwalt.biz ("lawyer" in German) at $2,163 and St�dtereisen.biz ("city tours" in German), an IDN at $1,311. Germany was the first country to latch on to .info in a big way, but .biz has always done better in North America than Deutschland. If the TLD starts gaining acceptance similar to .info in Northern Europe it will give the registry a major boost. .Biz took 3 positions overall this week.

Of course it's not time to count .info out by any means. The new extension leader took 4 of the final 5 slots on this week's chart, with its best showing coming from #4 DogBreeders.info at $983. Sedo matched it's showing on our main chart by taking 5 positions on the New TLD list. Here is the complete rundown for the second week of 2005:

The second half of our new chart opened with a pair from Sedo, Kruse.info at $649 and Strategy.biz at $557. ShowerDoor.info and Gradual.info tied for the final slot at $500 with the former changing hands in a private sale and the latter being sold at Afternic. .Name is another new extension but not one we track because sales have been virtually non-existent. However this week Marc Schatte sold PersonalInjury.name for $395. Looking ahead to next week, we know of a .info transaction being wrapped up for over $4,000, but we'll withhold the name until the deal is completely done. 

Our first Year-To-Date New TLD list for 2005 debuts with 8 names this week, all in four figures.  .Biz has taken the upper hand early on with 4 of the 8 available positions. .Info and .US have two each with America's extension nestled in the #1 slot. If you missed the expanded list of 2004's New TLD sales leaders we ran last week, there is a link at the bottom of the chart that will take you to a list showing every sale from $1,000 up last year (over 200 sales all together).

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.