Premium domain names continue to be an outstanding investment. This is nothing new to domain investors, and despite a recent slowdown in the reseller market, the actual numbers confirm that the end user market remains strong.
Looking at DNJournal's List of Top 100 Reported Sales of 2006, 2007 and 2008, the top 100 median sales price changed from $124,000 in 2006, to $197,500 in 2007, to $175,752.50 in 2008. After 2007's massive upsurge of 59.27%, 2008 brought with it a 11% drop. However, 2008's median price is still 41.74% higher than that of 2006.
A New Age of End User Sales
As we pointed out last year, with domain values shooting up so rapidly, very few domain owners were devoting any of their resources to actually developing their domains. There was simply no point in developing a domain you just bought if you could flip it a few months later at a significant profit. Broadly declining PPC (pay per click) revenues did not affect this situation at the time, but they have now contributed to the rapidly falling liquidity among domainers.
None of these developments appeared to have any effect on end user sales, which remained very strong in 2008. This is understandable as end users do not care about PPC revenues and the small isolated world of the domainer-to-domainer marketplace.
Let's look at the 2008 numbers and compare them with those of 2007:
At the end of 2007, of the 105 highest priced domains sold in 2007, only 33 domains (31.43%) had been developed or redirected to a developed site, 3 (2.86%) were affiliate sites, and 10 (9.52%) were either abandoned or appeared to be under development. 4 (3.81%) domains didn't resolve at all and a massive 55 domains (52.58%) displayed PPC ads.
At the end of 2008, of the 101 highest priced domains sold in 2008, 56 domains (55.45%) had been developed or redirected to a developed site, 2 (1.98%) were affiliate sites, and 15 (14.85%) were either abandoned or appeared to be under development. 2 domains (1.98%) didn't resolve at all and 26 domains (26.74%) displayed PPC ads.
The most notable change is that the percentage of developed domains increased from 31.43% in 2007 to 55.45% in 2008.
Accordingly, the percentage of domains displaying PPC ads decreased from 52.58% in 2007 to 26.74% in 2008.
Much of the increase of developed domains can be accounted for by existing businesses (end users) purchasing these domains and using them for their websites. This is a very good sign for owners of premium domain names.
At the same time, actual development on part of domainers has remained virtually non-existent. Combined with shrinking PPC revenues, the future seems bleak for domainers who do not own premium domains and are unwilling to adapt themselves from an environment conducive to PPC parking and domain flipping, to one where the wholesale market has dried up, development is king, and opportunities abound for the small number of domainers who are, by accident or design, still flush with cash.
(Now the only thing that's missing is for those geniuses who brought us the 2007 bubble to start talking down premium domains and tell us that the sky is falling so they can scoop up our assets for pennies on the dollar. Then the cycle will be complete and we'll be back in 2001, as predicted here.)
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The 101 Top Domain Sales in 2008 |
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| #1 | Fund.com | $9,999,950 | Developed site |
| #2 | DataRecovery.com | $1,659,000 | Redirect to developed site |
| #3 | Kredit.de | $1,169,175 | Developed site |
| #4 | Cruises.co.uk | $1,099,798 | Developed site |
| #5 | Invest.com | $1,015,000 | PPC ads |
| #6 | SkiResorts.com | $850,000 | Developed site |
| #7 | Printer.com | $800,000 | Developed site |
| #8 | iReport.com | $750,000 | Developed site |
| #9 | Casino.de | $625,060 | Developed site |
| #10 | Jobs.ca | $600,000 | Developed site |
| #11 | Affiliate.com | $579,900 | Developed site |
| #12 | FinancialAid.com | $480,000 | PPC ads |
| #13 | Tell.com | $400,000 | Developed site |
| Systematic.com | $400,000 | Developed site | |
| Porn.net | $400,000 | Developed site | |
| #16 | DomainRegistration.com | $376,480 | Redirect to developed site |
| #17 | LowFare.com | $365,000 | PPC ads |
| #18 | Banners.com | $360,000 | Developed site |
| #19 | Phones.co.uk | $344,710 | Developed site |
| #20 | 770.com | $343,208 | Developed site |
| #21 | RVRental.com | $325,000 | Developed site |
| #22 | FinancialAide.com | $320,000 | PPC ads |
| #23 | 173.com | $302,790 | Developed site |
| #24 | SC.com | $300,000 | Redirect to developed site |
| FreeCreditReport.co.uk | $300,000 | Developed site | |
| iSearch.com | $300,000 | Developed site | |
| DVDs.com | $300,000 | Developed site | |
| Bookmarks.com | $300,000 | Developed site | |
| #29 | Floor.com | $275,000 | PPC ads |
| #30 | TripleCreditReport.com | $260,000 | Affiliate site |
| #31 | Seks.nl | $258,000 | PPC ads |
| #32 | Alice.com | $250,000 | Coming soon |
| #33 | Action.com | $230,000 | Coming soon |
| #34 | AR.com | $225,000 | PPC ads |
| InsuranceRates.com | $225,000 | Developed site | |
| #36 | OD.com | $220,000 | Coming soon |
| #37 | CPC.com | $201,750 | Developed site |
| #38 | Riva.com | $200,000 | Developed site |
| BJ.com | $200,000 | PPC ads | |
| OV.com | $200,000 | Redirect to developed site | |
| Thin.com | $200,000 | PPC ads | |
| #42 | MCC.com | $195,000 | PPC ads |
| Photograph.com | $195,000 | PPC ads | |
| #44 | WT.com | $192,000 | Undeveloped |
| #45 | 11.com | $188,888.88 | Undeveloped |
| 880.com | $188,888.88 | Undeveloped | |
| #47 | Pisos.net | $187,500 | Developed site |
| #48 | Offer.com | $180,000 | Coming soon |
| #49 | 444.com | $178,888.89 | Undeveloped |
| #50 | Tests.com | $176,505 | Coming soon |
| #51 | 248.com | $175,000 | Undeveloped |
| #52 | Auto.es | $173,682 | Developed site |
| #53 | Rainbow.com | $170,000 | PPC ads |
| #54 | 245.com | $168,888.88 | Redirect to developed site |
| #55 | Shoppers.com | $166,000 | PCC ads |
| #56 | Modern.com | $160,000 | PPC ads |
| #57 | Sexe.org | $151,400 | Developed site |
| #58 | Daytona.com | $151,395 | Developed site |
| #59 | SanJuan.com | $150,000 | PPC ads |
| CR.com | $150,000 | PPC ads | |
| Sumo.com | $150,000 | PPC ads | |
| Bellevue.com | $150,000 | Coming soon | |
| #63 | FruitBaskets.com | $142,500 | Redirect to developed site |
| #64 | MaturePorn.com | $130,000 | PPC ads |
| Newlyweds.com | $130,000 | Not working | |
| #66 | YB.com | $125,000 | Developed site |
| Auditors.com | $125,000 | Developed site | |
| Aftermarket.com | $125,000 | Developed site | |
| MoneyWatch.com | $125,000 | Redirect to developed site | |
| #70 | 246.com | $124,568 | Redirect to developed site |
| #71 | 25.com | $124,555.55 | Undeveloped |
| #72 | Athlete.com | $122,000 | Developed site |
| #73 | Casas.net | $120,930 | Developed site |
| #74 | MyrtleBeachCondos.com | $120,107 | Developed site |
| #75 | Ringtones.org | $120,000 | Affiliate site |
| Revolution.org | $120,000 | PPC ads | |
| OW.com | $120,000 | PPC ads | |
| #78 | Suchmaschinenoptimierung.de | $118,440 | Coming soon |
| #79 | TopModel.com | $117,650 | Developed site |
| #80 | EdistoBeach.com | $115,000 | Developed site |
| #81 | Eggs.com | $112,500 | Developed site |
| #82 | Relatiegeschenk.nl | $111,347 | Developed site |
| #83 | 242.com | $111,111.11 | Redirect to developed site |
| 252.com | $111,111.11 | Redirect to developed site | |
| #85 | Camps.com | $110,000 | PPC ads |
| GarageSales.com | $110,000 | Developed site | |
| Porn.mobi | $110,000 | Coming soon | |
| AutoClassifieds.com | $110,000 | PPC ads | |
| #89 | HotPorn.com | $107,000 | PPC ads |
| #90 | Deals.de | $102,182 | Developed site |
| #91 | Sevilla.com | $102,000 | PPC ads |
| #92 | Skyport.com | $101,000 | Redirect to developed site |
| #93 | Igen.com | $100,000 | Not working |
| Jake.com | $100,000 | PPC ads | |
| MoneyRates.com | $100,000 | Redirect to developed site | |
| Coffee.org | $100,000 | Developed site | |
| MeetPeople.com | $100,000 | Developed site | |
| Yemen.com | $100,000 | PPC ads | |
| Unet.com | $100,000 | Coming soon | |
| LT.com | $100,000 | PPC ads | |
| Cleaning.com | $100,000 | Developed site | |
Network Information Center (NIC) Mexico announced they are planning to re-open top-level .mx registrations after 20 years of restrictions.
Since February 1, 1989, the registration of first level .mx domains has been extremely limited. At first it was only to be used by educational institutions, but in 1996 that too was taken away with the .edu.mx extension.
Throughout its 20 years of history, NIC Mexico has always tried to help local users promote their ideas, business, and culture through a variety of extensions including .com.mx, .gob.mx, .edu.mx, .org.mx, and .net.mx. However, it believes it is necessary to take the next step by opening direct .mx registrations and promoting the development of the Internet in Mexico on a larger scale.
The re-opening will tak place in phases, giving first priority to current holders of .mx domains under the various classifications. The process will be articulated in February and launched in May, so stay tuned!
[via NIC.MX]
(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com
Having had a good nights sleep, after much drinking and partying at the Mansion, enjoying a wonderful lunch at the Ivy restaurant on an absolutely beautiful day here in LA, after reading your comments to my post on the Live auction results, and many other blogs, I’m ready to share my thoughts on yesterday auction.
I was pretty active in the auctions, selling 1 name in the live, 1 in the silent and buying 2 names in the silent and 5 in the live, so my perspective is both as an observer and as a participant.
In bad economic times, people spend less, and buy less.
Simple
As a buyer, your only going to buy if you see value, or something that really fits in well into something you already own.
This is what you saw yesterday.
In such economic times, the less proven, more risky, investments are a tough, tough sell.
So when your looking at 10 of the 200 domains in the auction, being either .me or .travel domains the times really take a toll.
.me domains, which were flying off the shelves, at big prices in NY just a few months ago, is a very high risk, unproven extension (I say this even having bought some of those high fliers).
.travel which has never taken off, is a even more of a risk and unproven extension, so no one expected any big numbers from them.
Such domains are the first to suffer in a bad economy.
Those 2 extensions accounted for 5% of the live auction domains.
The next domains as a class to suffer the most, are those priced above $100K.
So out of the 200 domains, the 21 with a reserve price of over $100K, none of them sold (not counting rodeodrive.com which had a stated reserve of over 100K but sold for $60K).
That accounts for another 10% of the auction.
In all 30% of the domains sold.
So we have now accounted for 45% of the domains up for auction.
So what about the rest?
Many were overpriced.
adblocker.com for example, a nice name but no better than trafficanalyzer.com which sold for $5K, had a reserve of $10k-$25K.
privatepractice.com another nice name had a reserve of over $25K, but was certainly no better than lawreview.com which sold for $8K.
goods.com had a reserve of $50K+, but was that a much better domain, than 2 domains that sold; errors.com which had a $5k-$10K reserve or range.com which had a $15K reserve?
You get the idea.
Finally a lot of these domains that did not sell, we have seen before in recent TRAFFIC auctions:
autoclassifieds.com
comptroller.com
babyfood.com
bachelor.com
dealerships.com
discounttravel.com
zimbabwe.com
Just to name a few.
Sure the prices of these domains were reduced from previous auctions, where they failed to sell, but prices of everything are down. People aren’t jumping all over shares of Bank of America at $7, even though they are basically “on sale” trading at $15 just a couple of months ago.
Seeing the same names again and again, takes the excitement out of the auction.
Of all of the domains making a return appearance, only husband.com and wife.com, which had previously been offered only as a group, at a much higher price, sold separately.
Want a better auction:
Sellers are going to have to adjust their prices if they hope to sell in the wholesale market. You can not price your names at retail and then offer them to other domainers.
Moniker.com is going to have to get strict on pricing. If people don’t want to reduce their price to a wholesale level, then the domain can’t make it into the auction.
Accept no domains priced over $250K.
Any domain priced over $100K better be the quality of screensavers.com.
95% of the domains must be .com, .net or .org’s
Accept no domains that went unsold at a previous auction within the last 2 years.
80% of the domains need to have a reserve of $25K or under including commission.
Those are my suggestions.
You have to adjust to the economics of the world.
If you don’t you have a result like yesterday.
Let’s remember this is a wholesale, domainer to domainer auction.
Retail sale remain strong across MostWantedDomains.com and many other domain sites.
Fly.com just sold today for $1.76 Million.
If this domain was offered at the auction for $500K, it would have gone unsold.
This is the difference between retail and wholesale, end users and investors.
I have sitting in my e-mail waiting for me to respond over 30 offers of $2,500 or more from the last 2 days.
There are buyers out there for quality domains.
Lots of them.
Godaddy is spending $3M plus production costs to advertise domains during the SuperBowl.
As people are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands each week, more and more are looking to start an online business, and why not.
Did you see Amazon’s earnings yesterday?
While retail storefronts are losing their ass, online businesses are making profits.
Yes profits.
So yesterday we sold one domain, cosmetics.net for $25K, and bought lawreview.com, heatingequipment.com, trafficanalyzer.com, claypottery.com and complementary.com and still have money left over.
Interestingly, something I haven’t read anyone else comment on is the auction held a few hours later at the Playboy Mansion.
Just a couple of hours after the Live auction at DomainFest ended, another auction of art, jewelry and sports memorabilia started at the mansion.
My wife’s birthday was Tuesday and she always wanted a string of pearl. Personally I hate white pearls but kind of like the black Tahitian pearls.
Well among the over 100 items for sale at the mansion last night was a beatuful set of black Tahitian pearls valued at $25K. I placed the one and only bid on them at $4K and got them for her.
There were plenty of other bargains, most bought on the first and only bid.
Many items went unsold.
Bottom line, domains were not the only items yesterday that failed to sell, and yes, that blue topaz diamond ring worth $35K went unsold for $5K.
and some good domains went unsold that should have sold.
A couple of days ago we wrote a post entitled “Is it a Buyer’s Market for Domains”
Today the answer is clearly yes.
Via PRNewsWire:
Travelzoo (Nasdaq: TZOO), a global Internet media company, today announced that it has purchased the Internet domain name fly.com for $1,760,000 in cash. Travelzoo intends to use this domain name for a new information Web site to be launched in February.
“We are delighted to acquire fly.com for our new offering,” said Brian Clark, senior vice president and general manager, search products, Travelzoo. “The name is a perfect match for Travelzoo’s renowned approach: simple, fun, and world class. Where others see doom and gloom we see opportunities to serve travelers and advertisers with innovative approaches to finding the best values in travel.”
The domain name purchase was brokered by Sedo.com, LLC.
Congratulations to all parties involved.
Have a great day,
Sahar
The Moniker.com live auction from the DomainFest show just concluded, with just 62 domains out of 200 domains selling for a total of $665,000.
We will have further thoughts and analysis tomorrow, however first impressions was a surprising lack of interest in .me domains compared to just the New York Traffic show just a few months ago.
.travel domains as expected garnered little interest.
This auction was in stark contrast of the low/no reserve auction of just a few days ago, where almost 60% of the domains sold.
Here is the complete list of domains that sold:
wife.com $100,000
rodeodrive.com $60,000
freewireless.com $50,000
consumerelectronics.com $45,000
freecreditreports.net $30,000
husband.com $25,000
cosmetics.net $25,000
range.com $22,000
errors.com $20,000
datefinder.com $19,000
artclasses.com $15,000
detour.com $15,000
golfbag.com $13,000
reserved.com $12,500
alert.me $11,000
contact.me $10,000
payperlead.com $10,000
artistmanagement.com $10,000
bridgette.com $10,000
fajitas.com $10,000
toyrecalls.com $10,000
lawreview.com $8,000
petbirds.com $7,500
homevalues.net $7,500
movie.info $7,000
electricoven.com $7,000
diploma.net $6,000
pucks.com $5,500
lenders.org $5,500
england.mobi $5,500
alabamaforeclosures.com $5,000
europe.travel $5,000
devotion.com $5,000
trafficanalyzer.com $5,000
save.me $5,000
customizedhomes.com $5,000
palmreadings.com $4,500
smokin.com $3,500
rumours.com $3,500
discountshops.com $3,500
sugarfreerecipes.com $3,250
free.travel $3,000
information.travel $3,000
claypottery.com $3,000
evaluated.com $3,000
landforeclosures.com $2,500
virtualmaps.com $2,500
city.travel $2,500
septictankcleaning.com $2,000
corporateplanes.com $1,700
heatingequipment.com $1,500
famouschefs.com $1,500
homeinsurancepolicy.com $1,500
australiarestaurants.com $1,100
vote.info $1,000
complementary.com $1,000
cardstores.com $1,000
metalsmarket.com $850
fixedapr.com $500
bailoutpackages.com $500
incrediblebargains.com $500
commercialmodeling.com $500