Bogota.com Bags The Week's Top Domain Sale  and New Extensions Enjoy Their Biggest Week Ever 

by Ron Jackson
  

Of course when you talk about the really big bucks there is almost invariably a .com attached to the end and that was again the case this week with Bogota.com cruising to the top of the chart after going for $159,500 at SnapNames.com. With respect to sales venues, SnapNames and Sedo.com ruled this week's leader board with Sedo taking 5 positions and SnapNames 4. Due to a three-way tie for the final slot, there was an extra rung on the ladder this week. A pair of new extension medical domains filled the other openings after going to a major drug company in a private sale. 

SnapNames also had the #2 sale, raking in a tidy $50,000 from CasinoRoyale.com. Sedo followed with a sweep of the next four entries, led by #3 Game.com.cn (China) at $35,000. That is only the second significant .com.cn sale ever reported to us and it is five times higher than the previous one, Yisou.com.cn at $7,105 just 3 weeks ago.

Sedo also placing two .co.uk domains in the top six. #4 ChainReaction.co.uk exploded at �17,000 ($20,081) and #6 OnlinePharmacy.co.uk dispensed �10,000 ($17,218). Another .com, #5 InternetX.com, was sandwiched in between those two at $19,000. 

A couple of gigantic sales appear to be moving through the pipeline. In the most extensive mainstream press article ever written about the domain business, Business 2.0 magazine said CellPhones.com is under contract for $4.2 million. Current owner Michael Bahlitzanakis, who is featured in the article, confirmed that to us, but the deal is not yet complete. Also, Payment Data Systems said they have agreed to sell Bills.com and associated trademarks to Alivo Holdings for $964,500 however the actual transaction has not been completed there yet either.

Returning to this week's done deals, a nice two-letter domain, EC.org occupied the lucky #7 position after going for $15,260 at SnapNames. There were a total of 15 sales of at least five figures this time around the track. We'll run all of those down for you, along with dozens of other noteworthy deals, but first let's take a look at the complete leader board for the week ending November 20:

SnapNames completed their quartet of Top Ten entries with #8 MovieWatchers.com doing $15,259 at the box office. Sedo's LoveClub.com joined Meningitis.us and Menigitis.biz in the anchor position with those domains commanding $15,000 apiece. I'll have details on the meningitis sales in our New TLD section a bit later on, as well as information on two more five-figure .biz sales. Also joining the five-figure club this week were Lockets.com which went for $12,752 at SnapNames and XVN.com which changed hands for $10,000 at Sedo.

As always, Sedo's list was salted with nice country code domains. ABN.de went for $9,449 and UltimateBet.tv paid off with a �5,500 ($6,500) return. CarJet.de delivered �4,000 ($4,724) while MyVideoTalk.de and Anif.at (Austrian country code) added �3,000 ($3,544) each. In the global extensions .net did well for Sedo with P8.net notching $7,000, Cukurova.net bringing $4,000 and XVN.net going for $3,000. 

In the .com column at Sedo, ChambreStudio.com recorded �5,000 ($5,906), HotelMap.com located $5,500 and BioClock.com ticked off $5,000. TheNatureOfWater.com soaked up $3,000 and a CentralNic subdomain, FamilyWatchdog.us.com got an unusually large $3,000 bone to chew on.

Back at SnapNames, .com dominated the action with the winners including CitCard.com ($9,600), FEMAJobs.com ($9,350) and DenverLawyers.com ($7,600). Kickboxer.com punched out $6,799, GTFCU.com contributed $6,055 and TheProducers.com procured $5,724. NYCChildSupport.com and DenverAttorneys.com billed $4,600 each, Davy.com tucked $4,400 into his coonskin cap and Torahs.com totaled $4,366. Myomassology.com ($4,100) and NotebookPrices.com ($4,000) also cracked the 4K mark. A boatload of additional SnapNames sales ranging from $2,000-$3,700 are featured in the table below:

At Afternic.com, FastMarkets.com fetched $3,000 and a trio of domains including SolutionPartners.com, LocalExperts.com and LiveHockey.com landed $2,500 each. Another quartet weighed in at $2,000 each; PeeblesHydro.com, ParadiseRoad.com, ExtraBet.com and ConsultingMarket.com. 

At Pool.com, PrivateYachtCharters.com sailed with $3,633, LasVegasRentacar.com rolled $2,700 and a typo, ebaumswolrd.com tacked on $2,050. In a couple of private sales, LatPro.com picked up Latino.org for $6,000 and the Castello Cities Internet Network secured CayoLargo.com for $5,000.

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Bogota.com joins our Year To Date Top 60 chart at #13 this week after going for just under 160K. Our entry level for this elite list rises to $60,000 this week. Here is a look at the complete 2005 YTD leader board through Nov. 20: 

New TLD Section

It was a dream week for the new extensions with the three highest .biz sales ever reported coming in the last seven days. Those were part of an avalanche of four and five figure sales that also featured .us and .info domains (all told ten domains landed in that range, forcing us to expand our New TLD chart for the first time). 

As you saw on our mainstream chart, Meningitis.us and Meningitis.biz led the New TLD parade at $15,000 each. Dirk Krischenowski sold both domains to the Sanofi-Aventis vaccine unit. The company will probably use the American ccTLD to promote Menactra, a new meningitis vaccine they launched this year in the U.S. The .biz version had sold at Sedo for $1,925 in February 2004 so that is a gain of more than 700% in the last 18 months.

.Biz also scored in a big way with #3 Cards.biz at $11,750 and #4 Find.biz at �9,000 ($10,630). In an interesting anomaly, Find.biz sold for almost twice as much as Find.net did this week. The owners of Phonebook.com bought both of these .biz domains via Sedo. Domain veteran Bob Deemer was the seller of Cards.biz. Bob told us that he wasn't much of a .biz fan at first but is starting to warm up to the extension. Five-figure sales do have a way of winning you over. 

Still another .biz took the #5 slot. That was Rune Langhalle's �5,500 ($6,500) sale of Offshore.biz, also at Sedo (a venue that claimed half of this week's charted sales). That is another domain that saw a terrific price rise over the last couple of years. Langhelle had acquired it for $600.

.Info took the next spot with #6 Chinese.info at $5,500. Buyer FunKen Lin of Taiwan used some of the funds from his $12,300 sale of SantaClaus.info last week to acquire the new domain. Here is a look at the complete New TLD leader board for the week ending Nov. 20:

#7 Blogs.info was sold at Afternic with Andrew Allemann making the acquisition there.  .US followed with a pair of sales made at Sedo. #8 Junk.us went for �1,350 ($1,595) and #9 Poetry.us brought �1,199 ($1,416). AvianFlu.biz anchored the chart after going for $1,250 at Sedo. Just off the chart, Easter.biz slipped $886 into the basket, also at Sedo.

Another noteworthy deal is in the pipeline. HTML.info was sold at the NamePros.com forum for $4,300. The name is still in escrow, but we know both parties in the transaction, so we aren't expecting anything to derail that deal. New extension sales have really blossomed here in the fourth quarter of 2005 and Sedo has had especially good success with .US. They just issued a press release detailing the growth of the American country code over the past year. 

The sales wave allowed six domains to crack our Year-To-Date New TLD Top 50 chart this week. Three of those soar into the Top Ten. All of those new members forced several domains off the lower reaches of the chart and increased the entry fee to $3,255. Here are 2005's highest reported new extension sales through Nov. 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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