Talk about a great domain name, MerchantAccount.com a “category killer” premium domain name is up for sale.
According to the press release announcing the sale “When merchants are searching online to set up a new account or to change their merchant processing provider, Merchant Account is one of the most searched terms in the business that results in new applications. The purchase of this domain could be paramount to taking a merchant processing business to the next level through search engine/online marketing and brand recall.
Although the MerchantAccount.com website has not been updated in many years, it already ranks in the top 30 results for the keyword Merchant Account on Google and in the top 10 results on MSN (as of 8/13/08), due to the existence of an active website since 1996.
The pay per click keyword “Merchant Account” on major search engines pay as high as $15 per click to their website.
MerchantPortfolios.com Christina Wilson +1-866-448-1885 x303 +1-508-872-6900 x303 Christina@merchantportfolios.com
Wow. I think this domain will end up in the 2.3-2.5 range. Anyone want to gamble on the sale price? lol
I think it would be at least $1.5m to a regular investor. I have a friend who is in the merchant account world. They basically offer merchant accounts to businesses and earn lifetime residuals on every credit card transaction. He is making millions every year. It is essentially an annuity stream. To a big company like Bank of America, First Data, etc., I bet this would be in the $3m range. What’s the spread, Craig 🙂
I hear what you are saying Bill. It is easier for big companies to go direct than ever before.. and cut out the middle man. I think the price will be boosted by a big player entering the arena. How humiliating would it for a Bank of America to get trumped by a Wells Fargo? I mean the current site is a joke, but it has been live for years. It even has the same META tags on most pages. Good god. A good SEO firm can get this to the top of page #1 results in a couple months for highly competitive terms. The domain alone is worth 1.5, but having the initial rankings and history brings it up a Mill. You can’t buy site history. Most of the domain sales I have seen are for parked domains. I have seen too many top notch domains that are sandboxed take years to optimize for. This is a very unique situation.
Spread? 200K 🙂 I am sticking with my 2.3 – 2.5. What is your final guess? I’ll bet a sub-crappy domain from my portfolio worth about $2K
Good points on SEO. It seems that a lot of domain value gets cluttered in dreams of parking. I remember when someone bought pizza.com recently, they changed the site to a parked page. Why do that when the site is ranked #1 for the keyword pizza!?
I would say $2.95m if a big company and $2m if not a company in the space…
Two separate issues:
What is the domain worth?
What will it sell for?
The sales price is going to depend on several factors, including how the domain is marketed. Right now they issued a press release, are they going to advertise it?
Right now the domain is being represented by someone not in the domain business.
I have written to them to see if they have a BIN price or if they are holding an auction or exactly how the domain is going to be sold.
Is there is time frame for sale? This would effect selling price as well.
What is the domain worth?, $2M-3M
MHB,
Good points. It looks like the company marketing it is in the merchant account M&A world. Although they may not reach all the right domain investors, they might have tie ins to decision makers in that industry.
That would be interesting if all domain sales moved from traditional auctions/domain channel to industry specific M&A firms. They can get the opportunity in front of key decision makers as opposed to waiting for decision makers to stumble upon domain oriented news.
We’ll see what the future brings. This multi house auction should be pretty cool at TRAFFIC NYC…
Bill
That is what we all say, we need to reach the end users not just the domainers.
That’s why I think its interesting to follow this one and see how it turns out.
As far as TRAFFIC I still predict the overall amount of sales will not dramatically increase with all the different auctions, still think its a zero sum game
My bet – it does not sell. Agree and know the PPC costs of traffic in this space are very high and the residuals on setting up accts are great as well, but I am wagering that no end user steps up right now to pay past the reserve (of which I have no idea). As a result, we do not see end-user value and the domain does not sell.
If auctioned, I see $280,000 and the reserve not being met. I could be way off, but the money is in development + media exposure by the end user. From a pure SEO perspective, creditcardmerchantaccount.com would be better yet loses the media brandability. Thus, the price will be determinant on end user foresight. Big banks like to brand their bank versus offerings it seems…even BAC with loans.com – just redirects.
MerchantPortfolios.com – nice domain name – let the buyer come directly to the domain name owner – should sell for around $300k
MerchantPortfolios.com is not for sale. They are the site handling the sale of MerchantAccount.com
Grrrrrrrrrr…
Why do I feel bad now for stopping bidding at $204 for acceptcreditcardstoday.com at Snap?
As for the Q at hand, I agree the domain is worth millions but don’t think the end users in that industry yet understand the value of domain names so it either won’t sell or will go for between $250-500k.
So has this sold?