iEstates.com

Sedo is going to hold a domain auction of 1 character .CM domains from May 12th to May 19th.

All the domains have a reserve range of $1-$499.

Here is the list:

L.cm

1.cm

W.cm

B.cm

Q.cm

5.cm

J.cm

X.cm

C.cm

R.cm

6.cm

K.cm

D.cm

S.cm

Y.cm

7.cm

F.cm

T.cm

Z.cm

8.cm

M.cm

2.cm

G.cm

U.cm

9.cm

N.cm

3.cm

H.cm

V.cm

A.cm

P.cm

4.cm

i.cm

I know that .cm domains have not taken off, but a one character domains in any extension have value and I see them selling on a pretty regular basis on Sedo.com in off extensions

By Incurable Hippie (Flickr)

With some of the recent sales of .CM (Cameroon) domains at various domain auctions, we  asked what those domains were actually worth. Well, it seems their resale value just took another drop, as McAfee called .CM the “Most Dangerous Country Domain” in their latest “2009 Mapping the Mal Web” report. .CM replaces .HK (HongKong) from this spot and .JP (Japan) is considered the world’s safest ccTLD and .GOV the safest non-country TLD.

“This report underscores how quickly cybercriminals change tactics to lure in the most victims and avoid being caught. Last year, Hong Kong was the riskiest domain and this year it is dramatically safer,” said Mike Gallagher, chief technology officer for McAfee Labs. “Cybercriminals target regions where registering sites is cheap and convenient, and pose the least risk of being caught.”

Cameroon, a small African country that borders Nigeria, jumped to the number one spot this year with 36.7 percent of the .cm domain posing a security risk, but did not even make the list last year. Because the domain .cm is a common typo for .com, many cybercriminals set up fake typo-squatting sites that lead to malicious downloads, spyware, adware and other potentially unwanted programs.

More details can be found in McAfee’s report summary.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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We told you about the earlier results of the .cm auctions at NameJet.com at the beginning of the month.

However, the prices of  many of the .cm domains selling at NameJet.com, have been in a free fall, as bidders are passing on their chance to grab the domains.

.cm auctions have been operating differently than normal NameJet.com auctions.

Normally when a bidder defaults at NameJet.com auction, the domain is re-auctioned.

However, with .cm domain auctions, NameJet.com has not  been re-auctioning domains, but rather simply offering them to the next highest bidder.

Many times,  the next highest bidder didn’t want the domain either, resulting in an actually selling price well off the initial price.

Here are just a few examples:

Sex.cm sold on 9.1 for $51,300, rejected by the 2nd high bidder on 9.15 at $51,100 and sold on 9.16 for $21,700.

Tv.cm sold on 9.1 for $5,200, rejected by the 2nd high bidder on 9.15 at $5,100 and sold on 9.16 for $2K.

Home.cm sold on 9.1 for $2,013, rejected by the 2nd bidder on 9.15 at $933 and sold on 9.16 for $60.

CreditCard.cm sold on 9.1 for $7,300, rejected by the 2nd bidder on 9.15 at $6,999, rejected by the 3rd high bidder on 9.16 at $6,300, sold to the 4th high bidder on 9.17 for $1,580.

The worst price drop of a .cm domain name, I have on my sheet, is Free.cm

Free.cm sold on 9.1 for $17,800, rejected by the 2nd bidder on 9.15 at $7,800, rejected by the 3rd bidder on 9.16 at $3,300, and sold to the 4th bidder on 9.20 for $310.

So free.cm went from selling for $17,800 all the way down to $310.

And you thought the stock market was bad.

While many seem to bet on the potential traffic they may be able to get from .CM domains and the official .CM launch should be well underway today after being moved for several times, Kevin Ham and his company Reinvent have quietly retreated from the ccTLD and the wildcard causing all of the .CM domains to resolve has since been removed from the zonefiles.

Reinvent provided this official statement to DNN:

We are no longer involved in .CM wildcarding. There has been some suggestions that we could take advantage of the .CM wildcarding and register high traffic .CM domains. While we are in a position to take advantage of this, we have not registered one .CM domain. We no longer have any ties to Republic of Cameroon and .CM wildcarding. We wish both Cameroon and NETCOM the very best and much success.

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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Just in from the .CM registry for the third time they have a start date for the Go Live registrations.

The Go Live registration for .CM domain opens on September 18, 2009 at 08:00am UTC.

The .CM registry also announced that all domains won at Namejet.com will be turned on as soon as paid for.

Here is the official notice:

“”"Netcom.cm Sarl has decided to move the registration platform for .CM top-level domains to its own server instead of a hosted version with Cocca. This will allow Netcom more flexibility and control over the zone.

Sunrise domains which have been validated and had at least two name servers were connected on August 28, 2009. We kindly ask all registrars to provide us the missing name server information, so that the few remaining domains can also be connected.

All landrush domains that had only a single application and at least two name servers defined have also been connected on August 28, 2009.

The landrush domains which are auctioned at NameJet will be connected once we receive the information from NameJet that the domains have been paid for and to which registrants the domains should be allocated.

GO – LIVE Information !

The Go-Live will start on September 18, 2009 at 08:00am UTC.”"

As you know, over the last few weeks, I have been reporting on the rollout of the .CM ccTLD, and not a post goes by, where I haven’t gotten at least one, and usually several comments from domainers, to the effect that, all that the .cm extension is for, is to serve as a typo of a .com,  and its only value is from misdirected traffic.

So?

For years I have seen .com typos and misspells,  sell for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars and not once did I hear anyone comment negatively on it.

Take the domain qoute.com currently at auction at Godaddy.com.  The domain is a clear typo for quote.com, already has 32 bids with a high bid of $755.  The domain according to Godaddy is expected to get over 1,000 visitors a month.

I would venture to say that no domainer has a problem with anyone bidding on this domain and owning it, although its only value lies in the traffic it receives from being a typo of quote.com.

Isn’t this the same industry that applauded the sale of the typo of Voyuer.com for $112K a few years ago?

Isn’t this the same industry that had several bidders, at a live TRAFFIC auction, bid up the price of the typo domain mortage.com to $242,000?

Assuming no trademark issues, why is a misspell of a generic.com fine with everyone but a generic .cm viewed in a negative light?

I personally see no fundamental difference between a typo .com domain and a .cm.

I think you either have to be in favor or both or against both.

Any other position is inconsistent.

I know many of you have no interest in .CM domains, however everyone should be impressed by the amount of money in the domain channel, now that the 1st weeks total for the .cm auctions have been tallied.

According to NameJet.com,  2,000 .CM domains were auctioned by NameJet.com, at an average price of $625, for a total of $1,250,000 in auction fees.

In addition, for each domain won at auction, registrants had to spend an additional $350 for a two year registration which totals another $750,000.

So your looking at domainers spending $2 Million dollars in one week on an unproven, highly speculative extension.

The good news for all domainers, as it shows there is PLENTY of money out there ready to invest in domains.

More good news is this was not just one big sale involving one buyer and seller, but rather multiple bidders, showing there is a lot of people willing to spend money on what they perceive to be a good domain at a reasonable price.

This hopefully will translate into big sales at the TRAFFIC auctions in October In New York.

One Interesting note about these .cm auctions.  In the event the high bidder refused to pay for the domain, NameJet.com has been awarding the domain to the second highest bidder, rather than re-auctioning the domains.  This is what many have been suggesting for some time for general namejet.com auctions.

Next up:

Another 6 days of .CM auctions, with another 2,500 domains, starting Tuesday.

The SnapNames.com Monthly Showcase Auction which also starts Tuesday.

The .Biz single letter and number auction by Sedo.com scheduled for September 30

Then of course the RickLatona and Moniker.com auctions at TRAFFIC.  Both companies are still accepting domains for NY auction.

Well thanks to a few domainers, we complied a list of 44 of the 500 .cm domains that went to auction today.

FreePorn.cm topped everyone’s list selling for $13,700.

Here is the domains we have record of, and of course we are missing over 90% of the domains that sold today (assuming the other 450 domains sold for even $500 on average, probably low, there is over $300K in sales)

Today at NameJet.com, the second of its 9 days of .cm auctions, the .cm domains we tracked sold for almost $115K.

Once again there were 500 .cm domains auctioned off at Namejet and we tracked 40 of them.

The highest sale today was for Yellowpages.cm for $30,100.

Everyone should keep in mind that the amounts listed below are just for the auction, each winner still has to pay $350 for a 2 year registration in addition to the auction amount

We picked up 4 domains today which are included in this list.

Here is the full list of what we tracked:

As you know the first of 9 days of .CM auctions at closed at NameJet.com today with Hotels.cm and Sex.cm leading the pack.

For just the .Cm domains I had on my list, NameJet.com hauled in $486K.

Namejet.com said they had 4,500 .cm domains going to auction and I only had 200 on my list.

My list therefore reflects only 5% of all .cm auctions, although I’m pretty sure I have many of the high sale domains on my radar.

No matter how you feel about .CM domains, you have to be impressed with the amount of cash spent today on domains.

If I tracked almost $500K lets assume another $250K for the other 450 auctions I did not have on my list which had a $50 Minimum.

So much for wondering if domainers will spend their money at auctions.

Auction houses take note:

If domainer’s perceive value, there is plenty of money in the domain space for acquisitions.

Personally I bought 3 domains today, which will go nameless, while the .CM auctions are still ongoing.

Here are the .cm domains that I tracked today.

Interesting to note the second domain and last name on this list, and the difference in price.