Misspelled Domain Sells for Over $240,000 and Farm.Com Fetches $200,000 As Industry Reaps Another Strong Sales Crop

by Ron Jackson
  

That, of course, is a common typo for "mortgage" which is a high value keyword. Based on the current Overture score of 455 with extension, this domain will bring in a lot of good leads, leads that multiple advertisers are presently bidding over $4 per click to get. Still we wouldn't want to hazard a guess on how long it will take for the domain to pay for itself in new loan business.

This week's co-headliner, Farm.com, is also a very interesting story. Massachusetts entrepreneur Tom Bird donated the domain to the 90-year-old Boston Foundation after learning the value of the URL had soared since it was first registered in the 1990s. Bird wanted to let the non-profit group (which supports hundreds of local charities) sell the domain to help fund it's good work. 

The foundation enlisted Afternic.com to help them find a buyer for the domain, which they quickly succeeded in doing, overseeing the $200,000 sale of the name to Pets United LLC. That company already owns such gems as Horse.com, Dog.com and Fish.com. They purchased Fish.com through Afternic for $1 million in November in the highest reported domain sale of 2005. 

Afternic waived their sales commission so that the foundation could keep 100% of the sales proceeds. Afternic President and CEO Roger Collins said "Donating the fees was the least we could do to not only aid the mission of The Boston Foundation, but also help fulfill the donor's philanthropic vision." Kudos to Mr. Bird and Afternic for their selfless contributions to this worthy organization. 

Those two six-figure sales were the tip of another mammoth domain sales iceberg this week. All but one domain on our new Top 20 chart hit at least five figures. Moniker/DomainSystems wound up posting three of the top five sales, also scoring with #4 IR3X.com at $68,000 and #5 Orleans.com at $45,450. IR3X.com is another amazing story. The high traffic domain (3,722 with the extension in Overture) had previously been purchased at Sedo.com just two months ago for only $2,599!

SnapNames.com had the most chart entries, taking five slots on the Big Board, including #3 FreePicks.com at an eye-popping $91,250! SnapNames also posted back to back winners with #6 BigBang.com ($30,050) and #7 LagunaBeachRealEstate.com ($27,350).

After being challenged by a wide variety of extensions last week, .com reasserted itself this time out, taking all but four of the chart positions. The other four all went to Country Codes, with #8 History.co.uk headlining that group after selling for a healthy £12,500 ($21,667) at Sedo. 

Canada's .ca had another big week with #12 Traffic.ca going for 15,000 CAD ($12,902) at Sibername.com  and #16 Financing.ca pulling $12,000 at Pool.com. Those were part of a boatload of excellent .ca drops that we told you about last week. You'll see many more completed .ca sales in our ccTLD section below. 

A hot rumor going around this week says AOL bought Games.com in the $10-$11 million range. We haven't been able to confirm anything but the public WhoIs record did change a few days ago with AOL now shown as the owner. Here's a look at the complete all extension leader board for the week ending Sunday, April 2:

As you can see above, #14 BilligeHotels.de ("cheap hotels" in German) completed the quartet of ccTLD's on this week's Big Board. The €10,440 ($12,623) sale at Sedo gave that venue four chart entries. Afternic paired their Farm.com blockbuster with two other charted domains, #9 Spywarebot.com at $20,000 and #20 FairFX.com at $9,875. Also notable this week is the appearance of a new venue on the main chart. FinestNames.com debuts with the $10,000 sale of BetterDeals.com (which tied for 18th).

.Com Supporting Cast

There were lots of tasty morsels in the .com supporting cast this week. At Enom's Club Drop, OfficeJetSupport.com billed $8,300, Vornamen.com vacuumed up $2,600 and NaturalCancerCure.com prescribed $2,500.  

Sedo's success continued with Abiz.com at $7,000, FastDigital.com at $6,500 and ACData.com at €5,000 ($6,045). They added $5,000 for GameSwap.com, booked $3,800 for BookThis.com and bagged €2,900 ($3,506) for Busunternehmen.com ("bus company" in German).

Back at SnapNames, BigAndTallStore.com took in $6,988, MetabolicDiseases.com drew $5,700 and Enic.com kicked in $5,655. WashingtonMutaul.com (typo) went for $5,300, BibleBook.com put $5,199 in the collection plate and DatabaseAdministrator.com deposited $5,100. A close cousin, DatabaseAdministration.com tacked on $5,013 while a new owner paid $4,599 to lounge on USFurniture.com.

The SnapNames roster also included AnnuityBuyers.com ($4,500), Newstand.com ($4,300) and a pair at $4,200; MustangFootball.com and eConsultancy.com. ProAir,com provided another $4,100. SnapNames had 20 more sales ranging from $2,000-$3,800. You can check those out in the table below:

At Afternic, BaseballCap.com tipped $5,500 and AutoID.com added $4,000. SoulCast.com earned a $3,000 shout out while RuralAmerica.com and Coppertown.com took a shine to $2,088 each. Another pair, StretchIslandFruitLeather.com and CreditIndependence.com contributed $2,000 each.

In other notable .com sales, Moniker/DomainSystems moved Love2Love.com for $6,175 and Pool produced $3,600 with GambleCasinos.com, $2,060 with NVIC.com and another $1,590 with ToothCrowns.com.

Global Contenders (.biz, .info, .net & .org)

This was .org's week to shine in the Global Contenders competition. The popular extension that is closely associated with non-profit organizations, swept half of the new GC Top 20 Chart, including 6 of the top 10 and ALL of the first three! Foreclosures.org led the way at $9,201 with ICLNet.org in the runner-up slot at $6,100. Both of those domains were sold at SnapNames, a venue that racked up 14 of the 20 chart entries.

The .org romp continued with #3 MyWay.org going for €5,000 ($6,045) at Sedo. .Net finally got in the game with the $3,750 sale of PokerKing.net at Afternic and .info scored with the €3,000 ($3,627) sale of H5N1.info at Sedo (H5N1 is the bird flu virus that has been making news around the world). .Biz wound up getting shut out this week.

3-letter domains continue to be a category that never seems to go out of style. 7 of the 20 chart positions went to 3-letter combos, 4 of them .nets and 3 .orgs. The biggest were .orgs though; #7 EMA.org at $3,010 and #11 LEG.org at $2,052 (the latter may have gotten a boost from being a word as well as an acronym). 

Here's a complete look at the Global Contenders list for the week ending April 2:

There were a dozen more 4-figure sales just off the chart. SnapNames had eight of those, including Rhinoceros.net ($1,302), YTS.net and MNP.net ($1,161 each) and Opossum.net ($1,058). On the .org side of the ledger, SnapNames sold ISDSWorld.org ($1,250), FranceBoston.org ($1,160) and a pair of 3-letter .orgs at $1,000 each; MYI.org and IVL.org. 

Others cracking the four-figure barrier were Sprayers.net ($1,300 at Enom's Club Drop), Shkarko.org ($1,051 at Pool), Zip-Codes.net ($1,000 at Afternic) and Phone-System.org ($1,000 at Sedo). A pair of .infos were another step back. Dartmouth.info went for $900 in a private sale and Videotheken.info brought €500 ($605) at Sedo.

Country Codes

The Country Codes followed up their strong showing last week with another impressive outing, racking up four 5-figure sales. Canada's .ca deserves a lot of the credit, with that extension accounting for 16 of the 22 domains on our new ccTLD Top 20 chart (a three-way tie for the final position created the extra slots). This flood of good .ca's occurred when CIRA (the organization responsible for administering .ca) released a huge backlog of expired domains that had been in limbo for a month while they retooled their deletion process.

Despite the onslaught of .ca's, Great Britain took the #1 spot, with History.co.uk selling for £12,500 ($21,667) at Sedo. The .ca rush then started with #2 Traffic.ca going for 15,000 CAD  ($12,902) at Sibername.com. Germany's .de squeezed three entries onto the list, led by #3 BillegeHotels.de ("cheap hotels" in German) which sold for €10,440 ($12,623) at Sedo and #7 Pruefungen.de ("tests" in German), sold for €5,000 ($6,045), also at Sedo.

America's country code, .us, and Spain's .es, are also represented on the leader board. .US scored with #5 Sale.us going to Chris Zouzas (via Sedo) for $7,750. That gave Zouzas a matching set after his $8,000 purchase of Sales.us last week. Spain's entry was #8 Anuncios.es ("announcements" in Spanish), a domain that attracted €5,000 ($6,045) at Sedo.

The Canadian beauties included #4 Financing.ca ($12,000), #6 Balance.ca ($6,100), #9 PlaneTickets.ca ($5,655) and four rare two-letter domains. All of those sold at Pool.com which has been the most successful company in the .ca drop catching race. 

 Here's a look at the complete Country Code Chart for the week ending April 2:

If you're impressed with all of those .ca sales, wait...we're not through yet. 28 more Canadian domains cracked the four-figure mark. All but one of those sold at Pool, the exception being TorontoHotel.ca which sold for 2,000 Canadian Dollars ($1,720) at Sibername.com.

Pool's haul included Auditors.ca ($2,900), Router.ca ($2,800), RealEstateMortgage.ca and Insane.ca ($2,600 each) and Zellars.ca ($2,451). Tycoon.ca raked in $2,201, OnlineBlackJack.ca won $1,850 and BPM.ca brought $1,827. Dork.ca drew $1,826, MovieStars.ca took a $1,725 bow and MLSOnline.ca sold for $1,662. 

The hits just kept on coming with CreditCounselingService.ca ($1,600), CanadaIntire.ca ($1,483), Stapels.ca ($1,301) and a pair at $1,250 each; Fraternity.ca and Binders.ca. AutoTransport.ca unloaded $1,166, Fence.ca fetched $1,161, HollywoodPoker.ca dealt out $1,075 and Administrator.ca posted $1,051. Pool brought the four-figure parade home with PokerChamps.ca at $1,050 and Bulldozer.ca at $1,000.

Other extensions also had four figure sales. India, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Austria all had €1,000 ($1,210) entries with IGO.in, Finance.cc and EAT.at doing the honors. The U.S. also got into the action with a pair of nice 3-letter domains at this level, ATE.us ($1,200 at Sedo) and FBO.us  ($1,000 at Afternic). 

We'll close the show with a few more .ca's one step back (all sold at Pool). BusinessComputers.ca went for $975, DSO.ca drew $935, BusinessChecks.ca cashed $924, FullTiltPoker.ca anted $905 and Fridge.ca chilled out with $875.

Now that you're up to date on what happened over the past week, check out how the leaders stand year to date in all categories by visiting our Year To Date Charts page.

*****

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 who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Richard Meyer of DotCom Group, LLC also provides 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.