New Year Gets Off to a Great Start With Six Figure Sales Igniting Another Domain Market Explosion

by Ron Jackson
  

As the market gathered momentum throughout 2005, we frequently found ourselves doubling the size of our usual Top Ten list so we could accommodate all of the weekly sales above $10,000. With the dawn of a new year we decided it was time to permanently expand our Big Board to 20 positions. Yet, here we are, the first time out of the box, with so much action that 9 five figure sales fell short of making the chart despite the additional space! Not that anyone is complaining mind you. That's the kind of problem we like to have.

Before we start our sales round up, let me alert you to some other big changes that we are introducing this week. The domain sales charts have been reorganized and expanded, prompting us to move to a new two page format. As I noted above, the Big Board is now a Top 20 list that features the highest sales, regardless of extension. A new Global Contenders Top 20 chart and a Country Codes Top 10 list also make their debuts this week. 

The Global Contenders chart will give the non .com global extensions .net, .org, .biz and .info a stage of their own. .Com normally dominates the top chart which overshadows the healthy sales activity that is also being enjoying by the other gTLD's as the domain market continues to broaden. The new list will allow you to better track trends in all parts of the business. That is also why we are rolling out the new Country Codes chart which will list the top sales among the ccTLD's like Germany's popular .de, the United Kingdom's rapidly growing .co.uk and America's emerging .us extension. The two new charts also allow us to retire our old New TLD chart and move .biz, .info and .us to the proper categories alongside their older siblings.

Since there will now be a total of six charts (three weekly and three year-to-date), we are avoiding the congestion that would result on a single page by moving the Year-To-Date Charts to a new page of their own. That page is now on our main menu so you can quickly access the current leaders from anywhere on the site. The change will also eliminate the need to scroll through the longer YTD lists when moving from section to section in the weekly report that will remain on this page. Note that the first YTD charts will appear next week. Since this is the first week of the New Year, the charts on this page are, of course, the top year-to-date sales as well.

While there won't be any YTD charts this week, we are releasing our final 2005 Sales Charts. You might want to bookmark these links because these charts are great for showing potential customers actual prices from comparable sales in the past year. Click here for every sale of $10,000 or more in 2005 and here for every New TLD sale (.info, .biz or .us) of $1,000 or more. 

OK, now that the housekeeping is out of the way, let's talk about SALES...and there is a lot to talk about! A pair of six figure beauties lead the charge, both sold at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. #1 FlashGames.com rang up an astonishing $226,950! That would have ranked among the top 20 sales in all of 2005. It might make an interesting office pool to bet how many weeks it reigns as the #1 sale of 2006. The #2 spot went to another blockbuster, CancunHotels.com at $120,000.

Sedo.com had a huge week, taking 7 slots on our new leader board, including four of the first ten positions. #3 CheapGifts.com led the Sedo charge at $90,000. They also scored big with #5 Darts.com at €45,000 ($54,507), #6 eGay.com at $49,999 and #7 Ich.de ("I" in German) at €40,000 ($48,451). Ich.de was the only non .com on this week's chart and all 9 of those five figure sales just off the chart were also .coms, giving the king of extensions a phenomenal opening week.

Afternic.com had a pair of top ten entries including a University of Florida fan's dream domain, #4 Gators.com at $55,000. #10 FranchisesFor Sale added another $26,000 to the Afternic ledger. SnapNames.com also had two in the first ten and overall they racked up 8 entries on the Big Board. Their heaviest hitters were #8 VacationWorld.com at $45,400 and #9 DiscountWebhosting.com at $28,251. Here's a look at the complete leader board for the week ending January 8:

As you probably noticed, 7 of the 8 SnapNames entries on the chart were in the same format, keyword+world. The same person likely dropped all of those domains, which amounted to a six figure mistake! Hard to believe things like that still happen...and that wasn't all of them! SnapNames had four more in five figures, RetirementWorld.com at $13,750 and a trio at $12,250 each; MedicalWorld.com, DoctorWorld.com and ConventionWorld.com. SnapNames also sold WGM.com for $10,500. 

Sedo had all of the other five figure domains that finished just off this week's chart. IKS.com went for $12,000 and three others; TotalSource.com, PhotoSights.com and Best-Price.com, fetched $10,000 apiece.

.Com Supporting Cast

While the biggest .com stars will adorn our leader board each week, we've set up this new Supporting Cast section to track the extension's many other sales winners. SnapNames cornered a huge chunk of the market this week, supplementing their 8 charted domains with standouts like ExerciseWorld.com at $8,487, ActionPhotography.com at $8,300 and SeventhAve.com at $8,211. Verkauf.com kicked in another $7,900, DomainTrade.com drummed up $7,512 and 5R.com commanded $7,100.

Those "world" domains just kept on spinning gold at SnapNames with MagazineWorld.com making another $7,000 and AirlineWorld.com booking $6,487. SalesRepresentative.com earned $6,600, DVU.com deposited $6,100 and SpaceMuseum.com contributed $6,099. WPSD.com dialed in $5,701, SeasonGreeting.com welcomed $5,600 and AAABestHomePage.com posted $5,299. A couple of one-worders also made the roster; Kandles.com at $4,488 and Weiners.com at $4,222 (the latter name was purchased by DNS Research, Inc.).

SnapNames had 27 more sales ranging from $2,000 to $3,700. Those are listed in the table below:

Back at Sedo, Leihen.com ("to borrow" in German) paid back €5,000 ($6,056), Self-Improvement.com attracted £3,000 ($5,305) and BestReviews.com received €3,900 ($4,724). MajorPoker.com dealt out anther $3,700, NatalieEmpire.com provided $3,300 and HotelBuchen.com ("book hotel" in German) reserved €2,290 ($2,774). 

At Enom's Club Drop, FreeTrailer.com hauled off $6,000 and 10109.com zipped up $2,100. Afternic added to their pair of Top 20 entries with OUAM.com ($5,450), CapitalNews.com ($3,488), SleepSoundly.com ($2,500) and SpaceCadet.com ($2,000). In a private sale, FishingSeason.com reeled in $4,500 and FantasyBooks.com conjured up $2,200 at BuyDomains.

Global Contenders

Now for our first Global Contenders report. This new section and chart will open up some interesting new story lines this year. It will make it much easier to follow the fortunes of old-timers .net and .org and to see if newcomers .biz and .info have matured enough to hold their own in head to head competition with their better known bunkmates.

As expected, .net and .org won the overall numbers game on our first Top 20 G.C. chart, taking eight slots each. However .biz and .info avoided a shutout by taking two positions apiece and both .biz entries landed in the first 10, including a #2 domain that topped the week's highest .net sale. Not bad for the first time around the track.

.Org, an extension we have always liked and had good success with, is #1 on our inaugural chart, thanks to Cetus.org attracting $4,750 at SnapNames. Cetus is a large organization of notary publics. Next in line is Alice.biz with an impressive €3,000 ($3,634) sale at Sedo. The same venue also sold #10 Double.biz for $1,400. 

The top .net sale was #3 BeeGees.net which went for $3,100 at SnapNames. Snap dominated this chart, sweeping 15 of 20 positions. Their other winners included #4 Basic.org at $2,800 and #6 Bars.org at $2,176. They also placed three more .nets on the upper half of the chart, #5 Periodicals.net at $2,601, #8 Ebenezer.net at $1,828 and #9 Qwerty.net at $1,750.

Enom's Club Drop slipped into the first 10 with #7 FCR.net at an even $2,000. Here's a look at the complete Global Contenders Top 20 for the week ending Jan. 8:

Three-letter domains are always in demand and that was obvious on this list which sported six of the popular acronyms (four .nets, a .org and a .info). .Info had to settle for the last two rungs on the ladder with Pig.info packing on $750 worth of pork at DNForum.com and Marbles.info shooting $650 at StrictlyNames.com. The extension usually has four figure sales every week, so look for a stronger performance next time out.

Country Codes

Now it's on to another swath of new territory and our first Country Codes chart. Here we'll get to see how another newcomer, .us, can do against entrenched ccTLDs like .de and .co.uk. Like .biz and .info on the Global Contenders chart, .us scored twice in its first spin around the oval. 

This chart will give the country codes a long overdue performance tracking platform. Their importance grows weekly as local search becomes more and more important to Internet users. Germany's .de can be expected to rule this chart as it is the world's second most popular extension, second only to .com. Indeed, #1 Ich.de demolished the competition on the debut list after going for €40,000 ($48,451) at Sedo. That is one of three .de's on the chart. #3 Kreativ.de cooked up €4,500 ($5,451) and #6 Furniture.de delivered €3,050 ($3,694).

Austria's .at also showed up well this week, taking two of the top five spots, including #2 Restaurants.at at a healthy €7,500 ($9,085) and #5 Partyzelt.at ("party tent" in German) at €3,500 ($4,239).

If you really want to talk about domination on this chart you have to first give the leading sales venue their props. Sedo.com swept all 10 positions on the list! This isn't likely to be the last time that happens either. They have practically owned the ccTLD space since they opened their doors. 

In it's first face off with older rivals, .us managed to grab #8 with Good.us at $1,100 and #10 with Celery.us at $800. A couple of seldom sold extensions also took home Country Code trophies this week. #7 Casino.sc (Seychelles ccTLD) raked in €2,800 ($3,392) and #9 TV.hn (Honduras ccTLD) tuned in $1,000. Here's a look at the complete Country Code Top 10 for the week ending Jan. 8:

The UK's .co.uk picked up it's first chart entry with the solid $4,750 sale of Bernstein.co.uk. While we have initially set the Country Code chart at 10 positions, we will expand it to 15 or 20 when needed and there's no doubt that will happen several times in 2006. Things are heating up for the ccTLDs so the time will soon arrive when this list will features 20 entries week in and week out.

*****

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 in collecting 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 night publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.