Long Isn't Always Wrong: 3-Word .Com Shares Spotlight With Highest .US Sale Reported To Date

by Ron Jackson
  

GreatDomains locked up the #2 slot with the $40,000 sale of BBGuns.com. Sedo rang up four positions on the Big Board (including 3 of the top 5) and posted the biggest .co.uk sale of the year with #3 With.co.uk at $33,707. CollegeGrants.com was #4 at $32,439. That gem was picked up by InnovationHQ.com in a private transaction. Sedo completed the top half of the chart with Apertio.com at an even $20,000.

For the first time in over a month, a domain made the chart without hitting five figures, but that happened only because buyers requested that prices be kept confidential on two sales that were well above the 10K mark. A very nice Spanish keyword domain went for $25,250 at SnapNames.com and Sedo sold a .biz for just under $14,000. If the buyer had allowed the name to be released, it would have been the highest .biz sale reported to us to date. 

Though .biz missed that chance to set a public high water mark, .US did not. Tariq Ghafoor sold Industry.us for $17,000 in a private transaction this week. That's the #1 American country code sale reported to date, eclipsing CellPhones.us which went for $12,250 in January. With Industry.us at #6 our new chart showed more variety than we've seen in quite some time, sporting a .us, a .net and two .co.uk's, along with the usual complement of .coms. Afternic.com had the big .net sale, Dog.net at $15,000. That is the second best .net sale we've seen this year. 

We have many more impressive sales to tell you about, but first let's take a look at the complete Top Ten for the week ending Sunday, March 13:

SnapNames hit the Big Board Daily Double this week with #7 Jimmy.com at $15,501 and #9 Kenny.com at $13,750. Sedo anchored the chart with their second .co.uk on the elite list, MyWay.co.uk at �5,000 ($9,563). The British country code has really been flexing its muscle in recent months and solid sales like this are becoming commonplace for the extension. 

The rest of Sedo's sales list had a very strong .com flavor this week. Unilink.com and eGlow.com commanded $9,000 each while Fussballwetten.com ("soccer betting" in German) went for �5,700 ($7,586). Vemma.com added �5,000 ($6,654), followed by St�dtereise.com (an IDN meaning "city tours" in German) at �4,500 ($5,989) and Food24.com at �3,000 ($5,737). Sedo also scored with Incosoft.com ($4,400) and a pair of sales that look like bargains for the buyers, CaliforniaLaw.com at $4,000 and Pastries.com at $2,900. Sedo's other country code sales included Sprachferien.de ("language vacations" in German) at �5,000 ($6,654) and Jung.at (Austrian country code) at �3,500 ($4,659).

SnapNames also had plenty of firepower on their sales report. In addition to their pair of Top Ten entries, they posted $8,200 for ChicagoLawyer.com, $7,489 for ThinkBlue.com and $6,700 for VTP.com. LoanServicing.com added $6,599 before ViceSquad.com staged a $4,656 raid. Other goodies included FindHelp.com ($4,100), FitnessStore.com ($3,700), LawInc.com ($3,321) and BrandDevelopment.com ($1,916). 

Afternic shared in the bounty too. ClubWear.com dressed up the bottom line with $9,000. ZoomImaging.com also looked sharp at $6,200. In a nice .org sale, UAU.org went for $5,450. Afternic also scored with Sangeet.com at $5,000, MailOrderChocolates.com at $3,600 and Rovio.com at $3,107. GayCops.com whistled up another $3,000.

At DotcomAgency.com, AntiqueGlobes.com turned in $8,515 while  TheListeningPost.com rang up $5,000. The company also sold TrendsReport.com through a Sedo listing for $6,500. The top seller at Enom's Club Drop this week was SDRAM.com at $7,100.  

InnovationHQ.com continued their shopping spree by getting PaymentProcessing.com from Mitch Kingsbury for $2,500 and FreeMMORPG.com from GiantNames.com for $1,500. For all of you non-gamers scratching your heads, MMORPG is an acronym for Free Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Free MMORPGs are a growing trend with gamers who do not like paying monthly fees. In another $1,500 sale, ChooseDomain.com sent TravelCreator.com to a Glasgow travel agency. Meanwhile back on the .org front, GreatDomains had a nice 2-letter sale with QT.org going for $6,000 and StateGov.org changed hands for $1,000 in a private transaction.

In the Pipeline: An Ebay auction for Tutorial.com ended at $30,100 March 10 but the domain has not been transferred yet. The buyer is a well-known domainer so unless a problem develops with the seller, this one should be completed.

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Our Year-To-Date chart gets 8 new members this week, even though we have bumped the entry fee up another notch to $15,000.  Here are the biggest winners so far in 2005:

New TLD Section

It was another breakout week for the new extensions. As we noted earlier, Industry.us paved the way, changing hands for $17,000. Seller Tariq Ghafoor sent the plural version, Industries.us to the same buyer for another $1,000. The biggest .biz sale we have heard of to date also occurred this week at Sedo, but unfortunately the buyer declined to allowed the name in that transaction of nearly $14,000 to be released.

The biggest new TLD trend this year has been the emergence of .biz and .us as contenders for the throne that .info owned throughout 2004. The distribution of chart winners was as equal as possible again this week, with .info and .us taking three positions each and .biz claiming two. .Info was #2 this week with Ultraschall.info ("ultrasound" in German) going for �2,250 ($2,996) at Sedo. .Biz was #3 with an impressive 3-letter sale, also at Sedo, where GMG.biz went for �1,500 ($1,998). Another 3-letter domain, CUX.info, was #4 this week, selling for  �800  ($1,065) at Sedo.  Here's a look at the complete New TLD winner's list for the week ending March 13:

.Info, .us and .biz alternated positions to close out the chart. Dale Porter sold #6 PressKit.info for $900 at TheNameStore.com, Tariq Ghafoor (the seller of Industry.us) sold #7 ProcessManagement.us for $750 in another private transaction and #8 Shopping24.biz went for $740 at Sedo.

I personally parted with a trio of three-letter domains in private transactions this week, selling CSE.biz for $625, NSP.biz for $500 and SFG.us for $350. All went to small business buyers who have proven (at least in my business) to be a reliable and rapidly growing market for new extension domains over the past year. I also received a four-figure payment at Escrow.com for a .info today. I'll report that domain after the transfer to the buyer's registrar is complete. In other sales, the UK's Stuart Smith sold Sharon.us at Dot.us for $350 and LifeJackets.us for $325 at Sedo.

Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart gets three new entries this week, one from each of the three extensions we track. The race for the most entries on the YTD best sellers list continues to be tight, with .info clinging to a 19-16 edge over .biz. .US trails in quantity but has made its own statement by producing two of the three biggest sales reported so far this year. Here is how the new extensions stack up through March 13:

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.

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