March 8th, 2010
Although many huge domain sales are reported by leading industry news source DNJournal, others are never made public.
I have always wanted to know exactly how much the Danish hosting company one.com paid for their domain. The company started in 2002 in modest surroundings under the name B-one at b-one.net. But in a short time, they got a lot of customers. And one day, they announced they had bought the amazing domain one.com and changed the company name to this as well.
One.com was originally owned by a company called One OSS, LLC, in Michigan. In 2005, it changed hands to a local law firm, Braun Kendrick Finkbeiner – maybe following a liquidation? Then in August 2006, the Danish hosting company suddenly took control of it.
I obviously do not think this domain sold for a small amount, but I would like to know exactly how much. Unfortunately, annual reports for one.com are only available from the period after the domain was bought. Before that, the legal entity behind B-one was TJNF ApS, but this company’s annual report covering the period the transfer of the domain took place gives no hint whatsoever as to the sales price.
So I guess it will remain one of those great sales that go unreported. Who knows – maybe the buyer got a super deal. In any case, he is now living in sunny Dubai and raking in millions from his successful business…
March 5th, 2010
According to Domain Name Wire, French cosmetics giant L’Oreal has bought the domain name makeup.com for a seven figure sum.
The domain was sold in a private auction, and one of the other participants tells the news blog that he gave up when they reached a low seven figure sum.
Meanwhile, Newfound Names reports that a huge domain sale has taken place. The super premium name autoinsurance.com has changed hands from its former owner in the United Kingdom to InsuranceBroker.com LLC.
A source tells the blog that the domain made $40,000 a month just by parking. Newfound Names therefore figures the sales price was at least $5 million and probably more.
There is still some serious cash to be made by those who were awake in the mid-90s 
March 3rd, 2010
The highly successful domain networking event DOMAINfest is coming to Europe for the first time.
DOMAINfest Europe will take place in the Czech capital of Prague on October 6-7, the organizer DomainSponsor has just revealed.
The event, held at the InterContinental, will differ somewhat from the regular event in the United States:
“Instead of having formal sessions in which the audience sits and listens to panelists and speakers, the two-day DOMAINfest Europe event will be designed to get each guest actively involved in small group and 1-on-1 discussions around highly relevant topics. Subject matter experts will be invited to share their knowledge and facilitate these discussions, but it is expected that every guest will have something insightful to contribute.”
As usual, though, there will be a live domain auction held by sister company Moniker.
February 27th, 2010
Right now, the Indian state of Uttarakhand is organizing a large spiritual event called the Kumbh Mela in the city of Haridwar. The local and federal governments have bought a full-page advertisement in The Economist costing tens of thousands of dollars.
This festival does sound very interesting. But if you want to know more about it, you need to enter a rather terrible URL. Instead of investing a few thousand (that is my guess) that it would cost to buy kumbhmela.com or kumbhmela.in, which are for sale, the organizers are using this domain to inform about the event:
www.kumbhmela2010haridwar.gov.in
There are two other websites mentioned in the ad, and they are not exactly fantastic either:
www.gmvnl.com
www.kmvn.org
You can also email for more info, but that is hardly much easier to remember:
dd-tourism-ua@nic.in
But wait – it gets worse. Oddly, kumbhmela2010haridwar.gov.in does not even exist. It is not registered. Instead, the organizers are using this one:
www.kumbh2010haridwar.gov.in
So, four different extensions and difficult-to-remember addresses, with the main domain not even existing. The good news is this event only takes place every 12 years, so there is plenty of time to get a better domain before 2022…
February 24th, 2010
They have the world’s most valuable domain name and one of the most precious brands in the world. But it seems even Google has been trying to save a few bucks during the years.
A historical look-up of google.com over at DomainTools reveals that the domain was originally registered in 1997 at Network Solutions, who pretty much had a monopoly back then.
Network Solutions has never been famous for its cheap prices. And Google did, in fact, in 2002 switch to competing registrar AllDomains.com.
A year after that, though, the Mountain View people’s new registrar was swallowed by MarkMonitor, which is known for handling large companies’ domain portfolios.
By the way, although Google is famous for google.com, the company has a huge domain portfolio (including many typos won after arbitration). According to DomainTools, the email address dns-admin@google.com is associated with about 6,799 domains.
Back in 1997, google.com was administered by a guy named Larry Page. Seems he is not the domain administrator anymore
February 19th, 2010
As first reported by Elliot’s Blog, the domain name sex.com is for sale in a foreclosure auction. This is probably the most famous domain in the world with a history so colorful it has so far been the subject of two books (one of them being Sex.com: One Domain, Two Men, Twelve Years and the Brutal Battle for the Jewel in the Internet’s Crown
). Among other things, it has been stolen and later returned to its rightful owner.
Well, if you want sex.com, you must join the auction on March 18 with a certified bank check of $1,000,000. The domain was last time sold in 2006 for an undisclosed sum, but according to insiders probably around $14 million.
Domainers do not entirely agree how much this one will fetch. Some argue that the domain is difficult to monetize nowadays because of the failing paid porn industry (most people go for the free stuff). Others believe a “mainstream” company such as Playboy could make good use of it.
If you think it might cost you more than your budget allows, why not go for another great 3-letter dot com? I am currently auctioning off zli.com at domain market place Sedo. Like sex.com, this one also has two premium letters (l and i) and it is pronounceable. So pretty much the same But mine has a reserve price of under $5,000. And who knows? It just might be that “zli” means sex in some African language…
February 16th, 2010
The domaining community is often described as small. Almost all the major players know each other and show up at the same (relatively small) trade shows. But in fact there are many more people selling domain names than you might think at first.
An exact search for “this domain name is for sale” on Google turns up no less than 19 million results, and one for “this domain is for sale” another 2.2 million results. Many of them come from domains that may not be for sale through the big sales channels such as Sedo and Afternic, but are nonetheless for sale by their owners.
One example is short.com that is listed on neither, but is for sale with the owner welcoming “serious inquiries”. This is indeed a great domain, and as the number four listing in the search results, it is certain to get quite a few visitors.
The domain thisdomainnameisforsale.com is, cleverly, owned by a domain trader who forwards it to a domain listing page. But ironically, the website at thisdomainisforsale.com does not seem to be for sale or used in any other way…
February 14th, 2010
The domain name magento.com sold for $29,500 at Pool.com the other day. This was an expiring domain auction, and a very tricky one, I think…
Magento is a hugely popular eCommerce software developed by Varien. Now, since it is only a few years old, Varien had to settle for the domain magentocommerce.com, as a German company by the name Magento was already using magento.com.
Now that the German company let magento.com expire, this was an opportunity for domainers to acquire a name that gets loads of type-in traffic. According to EstiBot, the domain is worth a hefty $151,000.
The problem is that Magento is a registered trademark of Varien. And the company forbids developers and others to use the word Magento in domains. On the other hand, Magento is open source software; the trademark is brand new; and hundreds of developers seem to be using domains with the word Magento included already.
Since the whois record has still not changed, I do not know if the new owner is indeed a domain investor or Varien itself. If it is not Varien, it will be interesting to see if the company will file a complaint. And if so, what the outcome will be.
February 4th, 2010
One of the most industrious people in the domaining industry is Francois Carrillo of Domaining.com. He always comes up with new ideas for selling and monetizing domain names.
Among his latest ventures is BargainDomains.com. This is pretty much what is it says – a place to find domains at a discounted price. But whereas anyone can claim that their domains for sale are bargains, this site actually uses valuations from Valuate.com to justify the use of the word “bargain”.
Domains listed for sale on the site must represent a discount of at least 60 percent compared to their value according to Valuate.com. And their appraised value must be at least $1,000.
For example, RedJeans.com is currently listed for sale at $995. The domain is appraised at $5,000, so the discount amounts to 80.1 percent.
Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of BargainDomains.com, but I do think it is a very interesting and quite fair pricing structure, even though domain valuation is not an exact science.
February 3rd, 2010
It is impossible to give an exact valuation of domain names. It often comes down to how eager the buyer is, and how much seller is willing to sell for. Sometimes, a domain that seems to have no immediate value fetches a huge sum. Maybe because it is brandable or just happens to be the name that buyer wants to use for his new venture.
So although you cannot give a precise value of a given domain, there are some tools out there that certainly can offer great assistance. The most used and popular is EstiBot, which has just been released in a new and very powerful version 2.0.
Type in any domain or group of domains, and EstiBot will return an appraisal based on a huge number of metrics. It will check how many characters the domain is made up of; which extension it is (e.g. .com); if other extensions are taken; traffic to the site; how many monthly searches are made for the keyword; the number of advertisers; and previous similar reported domain sales.
Here is a screen shot of the first part of the valuation of BIZDomains.com:
The new version even helps bring potential buyers and sellers together by letting them contact each other via the system.
Although domain valuation will never become an exact science, EstiBot is a great tool both for domain investors and everyone else who wants to get a rough estimate of the potential value of a domain name.
Most features are free, but if you are a power-user looking to get valuation for a huge number of names and additional functions, you will need to buy a subscription.
