Pool Rakes In A $46,000 Pot With TiltPoker.com to Post Week's Top Domain Sale  

by Ron Jackson
  

Pool also sold #3 Cabalas.com for $15,100 this week. That domain has far more traffic than TiltPoker.com (1,976 with the extension in Overture) but will attract far less per click from advertisers. Sedo.com slipped #2 Medals.com in between the two Pool domains, after collecting �17,000 ($21,977) for that name. That was one of four domains Sedo placed on the Big Board. Their other entries were all country code domains headed by Jakt.se, a Swedish ccTLD that went for �7,999 ($10,339) to place #5 this week. Jakt means "hunting" in Swedish. Sedo also scored with #8 Snog.co.uk at �7,500 ($9,696) and #9 Ski.ch (Swiss country code) at �7,000 ($9,049). The latter looks like a very nice buy to us. Switzerland's ski resorts are famous worldwide making this word a perfect match for the local extension.

Though the major sales venues dominate the chart each week, private seller Bob Deemer slipped into the #4 position this time around by attracting $12,500 for BedtimeStories.com. It was a big week for Deemer (a former moderator at DNForum.com) who also had the biggest sale on our New TLD chart, collecting �2,277 (just under $3,000 at today's exchange rate) for Dividends.us. In another private sale, 1VisionMedia.com bought FranchiseVideos.com from Mark Milburn for an even $10,000, tying for #6 on our new list. Bob Bardel of 1VisionMedia told us they will use the domain to show videos detailing business franchise opportunities.

7 of the 10 domains on this week's chart hit five figures. That's a bit less than we've seen recently but no surprise at all for an Easter holiday week. Many offices were closed from Good Friday through Sunday, so the numbers posted came from what was a 4-day week for many. In light of that, it was another strong performance for the domain market. Here's a look at the complete Top Ten for the week ending March 29:

Snapnames.com and Afternic.com claimed the other openings on the Top Ten. SnapNames tied for #6 with GlobalMeds.com at $10,000 while Afternic anchored the chart with PICC.com at $8,000. SnapNames also had the highest sale below the Big Board, moving SysPage.com for $7,666. MTech.com added another $6,600 and a pair of nice .nets, FreeCellPhone.net and Plane.net, went for $4,100 each. SnapNames also auctioned off a pair of 3-letter .coms, receiving $4,660 for SSQ.com and $1,700 for IIY.com. Their list included an impressive .org sale as well with Relationships.org going for $3,556. CoolBikes.com ($3,005) and OnlineResearch.com ($1,974) rounded out the SnapNames roster.

At Sedo, BStreet.com and VermontGeneralStore.com commanded $7,000 each while DesignerOutlets.com and Pyar.com added $6,000 apiece. Sedo scored with three more ccTLD's as well. PokerGames.co.uk went for �3,700 ($5,622), Travel-Shop.de (German country code) brought in �3,500 ($4,524) and Agentur.at (Austrian country code) produced �2,778 ($3,592).

The winner's circle at Afternic included PayCentral.com at $5,500, VivaPoker.com at $5,000 and FOJ.com at $4,500. PM-Global com contributed another $4,200 with Tavlingar.com adding $2,688 and TalkOn.com calling in $2,000. Afternic also had a nice .net sale, PaidSurveys.net at $3,150.

Pool's resurgence wasn't limited to their two domains in the Top Ten. $5,470 blossomed from SeedsDirect.com, BirthdayGiftBaskets.com came with $4,115 worth of love and WebhostGuide.com dialed up $3,200. VIPCruises.com docked with $2,173, WiredBlog.com transmitted $2,000 and MartialArtist.com kicked in $1,700. On the .net side, PeepShow.net revealed $1,605 and CasinoHotel.net checked in with $1,111. Pool continues to sell a lot of .ca (Canadian country code) domains in the low 3-figure range. HomeVideos.ca was the top one this week, going for $300.

Elsewhere, .co.in aficionado, Jeff Williams continues to do well with the Indian country code extension. He sold 28 domains in that TLD last week for a total of $26,500, just under $1,000 each.

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Our Year-To-Date chart gets 3 new entries this week, led by TiltPoker.com which moves in at #17. The new members boost the number of sales of $15,000 and up to 74. Here are the biggest winners to this point in 2005:

New TLD Section

After running the board last week, .Info had to make way for .us and .biz this week. In fact, the American country code extension locked up the top spot with Bob Deemer's �2,277 ($2,943) sale of Dividends.us at Sedo. On the day of the sale, the 2,277 euros converted to an even $3,000. We usually do not know what the conversion rate was on the day of sale so we do the conversion for our charts on the day our column is published.

.Info answered its younger challenger by reeling off three straight four-figure sales to take positions 2 through 4. #2 Diving.info went for $2,630 at Dot.us, #3 Socrates.info attracted $2,262 at Sedo and Stevia.info added $1,551, also at Sedo (a venue that racked up 6 of the 8 available chart positions).

.Biz accounted for still another 4-figure sale with PAK.biz wrapping up $1,034 at Sedo. The chart was filled out with a pair of German .info IDN domains and another .us entry, Cool.us. Timothy Allen of Dallas sold that domain for $750 at the DomainState.com forum. Here's a look at the complete New TLD list for the week ending March 27:

A plural/singular IDN set, Aktienb�rsen.info and Aktienb�rse.info, took back to back slots at #6 and #7, going for $970 and $776 respectively at Sedo. In a private sale, Alta-Badia.info went for �525 ($679). Alta Badia is a popular resort area in Italy. You might recall that the non-hyphenated version of this .info sold three weeks ago for $3,069. 

Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart gets four new entries this week, a .us and three .infos. We are currently listing sales of $1,200 and higher. .Info widened its lead over .biz to 24-16 in the number of sales at that level so far in 2005. However, we have word that one seller has a number of strong .biz sales currently in escrow that might narrow the race. Though .us is trailing in quantity it is scoring strongly with quality, holding four of the year's Top 10 new TLD sales and two of the top three. 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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