Joyful Noise: GospelMusic.com Sells For $150,000 And .Org Hits a New High!    

by Ron Jackson
  

In fact, Lottery.org went for four times more than the previous .org leader, Libtiff.org, which changed hands for $16,915 in July 2004. That sale was one of four Sedo placed on our new Top Ten chart, marking the third straight week they have put a quartet of best sellers on the Big Board and the fifth straight week they recorded more Top Ten entries than any other venue.

9 of the 10 domains on this week's chart cracked the five-figure mark, including #3 Tutorial.com which went for $30,100 at Ebay. Afternic.com claimed the #4 slot with BirdFlu.com going for $19,875 to edge out Sedo's #5 entry, Elea.com at $19,798. SnapNames.com hits the Daily Double this week with #6 GreatHires.com at $16,650 and #9 CreditDebt.com at $11,250.

A newcomer to our Top Ten chart, DNBroker.us made their debut with the $12,000 sale of USACreditCard.com. The domain scores an even 100 with the extension in Overture. That sale occupies the #8 position on our new list. Let's take a look at the complete Top Ten, then we'll run down all of the notable sales reported this week (including a .info sweep of our New TLD chart):

Sedo rounded out their quartet of big winners with #7 WebTip.com at �9,100  ($12,011) and #10 Schumacher.de at �7,210 ($9,515). Tim Schumacher, the CEO of Sedo's parent company, Sedo GmbH, was the buyer of Schumacher.de.  .de is the country code for Germany where Schumacher is an extremely popular surname. Sedo is well-known for their sizeable and consistent country code sales and this week was no exception. We recently published an article written by two Sedo executives about potential opportunities in France's .fr extension. As if to underscore the point, Sedo sold Dating.fr for �7,000 ($9,238) this week. They also moved two German IDN's, Grundst�ck.de and Grundst�cke.de (singular and plural versions of "estate" in German) for �4,000 ($5,279) each.

Sedo's .com sale list was also impressive with FineCrystal.com commanding �6,500 ($8,578) and MonsterZone.com adding �6,000 ($7,918). FXCounters.com accounted for another �5,500 ($7,258) and ScubaTravel.com surfaced with $7,000. Other winners included TrendsReport.com ($6,500), CarTrim.com ($5,279) and 0c.com (number zero and letter c) at $5,000. 

Afternic had a very strong sales week as well. 121s.com racked up $7,250 and Phentermin.com added another $7,000. In a very nice .net sale, HousingInsurance.net attracted $5,500. Aileron.net also made the Afternic leaders list at $2,450. In other .com sales ThinClientServer.com posted a phat $5,250, UsedRobots.com cranked out $5,000 and GrassHeap.com piled up $3,888. StudentLounge.com gathered $3,088, Mediacentric.com claimed $2,888 and NYShop.com sold for $2,100.

SnapNames complemented their two Top Ten entries with RadioShow.com at $5,655, HerFirstOrgy,com at $5,600 and DoctorMD.com at $5,100. GradeSchool.com turned in a $5,020 report card, Purifier.com cleared $5,000 and SpaceMap.com located another $1,600.

Pool.com had plenty of bathers this week. BeSexy.com looked good at $3,201, DietGuide.com fattened up the bottom line with $3,100 abd BondageGallery.com tied up $2,555. 4Players.com reeled in $2,390, Studio1.com snapped up $2,238 and PlanTrips.com brought home $2,222. TheTsunami.com swept up $2,100, the same amount was paid for HealthDrugs.com and Porngraph.com added $2,010. Other notable sales included Chinaoa.com ($1,950), AshevilleHotels.com ($1,600) and SexMature.com ($1,500). On the .net side, Pool sold HandTools.net for $2,100, FreeGameDownloads.net for $1,150 and TravelDeals.net for $1,024. Pool also continues to do a brisk trade in .ca (Canadian country code) domains. ElvisPresley.ca ($750), Campus.ca ($575) and TBS.ca ($290) were among the .ca's that went to new homes this week.

GospelMusic.com was the 800-pound gorilla at GreatDomains this week, but they also sold Grants.net for $9,000. Chicago's Ira Zoot sold MedallionBank.com for $5,000 and NYPoker.com for $3,750 in a pair of private transactions. In other deals,  Infinity Networks sold IPBN.com for $4,000, GoRegister.com changed hands for $2,900 and Brinkle.com moved EuroPaintball.com for $1,500. Enom's Club Drop  scored with a five-word domain! HowToMakeAWebsite.com went for $2,900, the same amount Enom got for BizLoan.com. They also picked up $1,200 for AfricanAmerican.net.

Off the beaten track, India's .co.in continues to make some noise. Jeff Williams sold DVD.co.in for $1,750 and in a pair of smaller transactions another seller picked up $250 each for Exercise.co.in and Investor.co.in. .Name sales are extremely rare birds but one was sighted this week - PromDresses.name at $200. 

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Our Year-To-Date chart gets 6 new members this week, led by GospelMusic.com which ties GED.com for the 3rd largest sale so far this year.  Here are the biggest winners to this point in 2005:

New TLD Section

.Info ran the board on our new extension chart this week, taking all 8 positions. Four of those hit the four figure mark, including #1 Snowboard.info which went for $2,640 at Sedo. Sedo also had the runner-up, a very nice 3-letter combination, DGA.info, that went for $2,046. A 3-letter domain also tied for the #3 slot. LSD.info, sold by PPCIncome.com, and Webcasts.info, which I sold in a private transaction, each went for $1,000. 

Sellers did receive funds for .biz and .us domains that would have made the chart but we can't include them until the transfers to the buyers are complete. That should be done by next week. One of those is a $3,000 .us sale that will rank among the top five in that extension this year.  With those domains out of the picture this week, some low level .infos that wouldn't normally make the list filled out the lower half of the chart and gave .info a clean sweep.

Here's a look at the complete New TLD list for the week ending March 20:

As you can see, PPCIncome got a second sale with #5 BlueCrab.info. Three sales at SnapNames rounded out the list. One of those, FreeCellPhones.info, looks like a good buy at $165. That highly searched term returns a huge 322,360 without the extension in Overture.

Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart gets two new entries this week, both .infos. We are currently listing sales of $1,200 and higher. .Info leads .biz 21-16 in the number of sales at that level so far in 2005. Here is how the new extensions stack up through March 20:

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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