In a Godaddy auction that just ended a hour ago, the domain name PondPumps.com sold for $15,671.
I was in the auction until about $7K then dropped out.
Its a nice product domain, but with less than 50 visitors a month (according to Godaddy) I think the domain sold closer to a retail price, rather wholesale, which is what we hope to buy at in a domain auction.
We congratulate the buyer, and and send out a “what the hell were you thinking” to the domain holder that didn’t spend $8 to renew the domain.
With 50 visitors a month perhaps you get ten clicks in parking and between fifty cents and a couple bucks a month in parking revenue. The domain would be worth a Godaddy backorder due to it being a product .COM but without a solid list of end users I couldn’t imagine bidding on this over $100. Realistically if it were in a list of drops I wouldn’t even notice it as it just doesn’t stand out as particularly appealing. Best of luck to the buyer.
I believe that was a wholesale price honestly.
That domain should be worth 70K or more easily.
Which would you rather have PondPumps.com for 15K or Cheesecake.com in the upcoming Latona auction for a starting bid of 100K ? I’ll take PondPumps.com.
I saw it as 26 visitors at GD.
Tim,
“70k easily”
this is why I love this business – even the core investors in this industry can’t even agree on values relatively close to each other.
Mike drops out at 7, says 15k is more enduser, you say its 70k easily, I think 15 is fair wholesale
I have no idea nor really care about the pond pump industry but can one of you guys appaise my house….
is it $1M or $5 or $200k or $50m
🙂
Ok 26 visitors
I said it was less than 50
This domain is worth $5k – $8k max on reseller market… Prices of those pumps aren’t all that great to begin with.
Nice domain, it will be interesting to see if it was an enduser who bought it
No surprise FS owns pondpump.com …bet he got that one ALOT cheaper a few years back! 🙂
Per the domain owner, he sold it this morning. So that auction meant absolutely nothing if that’s the case.
I happen to have the .org (which is for sale by the way) so thought it was worth contacting him to try and get the .com but alas…
Steve
That is always a possibility with a Godaddy auction, did the domain owner how much he sold it for compared to the auction price
No he didn’t. In his words: “I received several offers and sold that domain name this morning.” – then ironically gave me a list of his other domains, in which I didn’t see a single one anywhere close to comparable to that…almost all of it pretty bad brandable stuff, even including some .mobi domains. I’m honestly shocked he even owned PondPumps.com to begin with given the rest of what he sent me. :O
Do these things break a lot or what?
I guess I do now! LOL Thanks for the heads up. I’ve had the domain for 10 years and wasn’t even aware the domain was up for auction. I should’ve had a clue from all the calls this morning.
Ocean
So how much did you sell it for?
$3700……at 11am this morning. Didn’t have a clue the auction was higher by then. Oh well….kudos to the buyer for creativity.
Oceansoft,
Good attitude. Odds are no domainer would pay $15,000 if it did not have an “expired label” on the name.
I’ve seen it a thousand times … names on the aftermarket sitting there for $200, expires – everybody thinks its gold and runs the name up to $2,000 or many times more
$3,700 is a good sale and kudos for the attitude.
Auction prices are not realistically the same price you will get if you try the sell the name direct so never fret over lost “imaginary” money.
Congrats
I’m still a little uncertain how he could receive the funds for the auction that had not completed yet. The account change isn’t completed yet.
Oceansoft,
The name did not sell for $15,000
what happens is GoDaddy auctions off names that have something like 7 days left where an owner (like yourself) can renew.
If the owner fails to renew then the auction winner gets the name.
If the owner renews then the auction is just void.
Unlike other venues GoDaddy is essentially pre-auctioning names to know which ones to keep.
So – your question about the funds. Well, there was no auction – you renewed the name so the auction is void.
Your site and DNJournal.com are my best information sources relating to the domain industry trends and news. With all due respect, I understand that today you can get much more value for $15K to increase your domain portfolio inventory, and this is why you use the categories “wholesale” and “retail” to express your dissapointment for not meeting your expectations. Your statement — “with less than 50 visitors a month (according to Godaddy) I think the domain sold closer to a retail price, rather wholesale” — prompts me to put in question your domain name acquisition criteria. What do you expect your reviewers to make of this? It would be interesting to put this domain side by side with the “product” category domains that you offer for sale for this price. I have a relativey large number of names with zero or nearly zero traffic which I would not trade for “pondpumps.com” . The “‘wholesale” vs “retail” distinction and “nearly zero traffic” criteria does not make much sense to me. Few years ago I was able to register and I accidentally lost adventure.com to ENOM because it had zero traffic when I registered it, and it was on my list of more than a hundred of expired domains with zero traffic when I lost it. I lost this name and many more in the circumstances that I had then thousands of names in my portfolio, hundreds to renew monthy, had 30 days of ENOM’s “grace period”, and very low cash reserves.
RL,
I know the question is for Mike but traffic is just one component of a name. Probably 99% of names that sell have ZERO type in traffic
I wouldn’t take the comment to heart. Some people like traffic while others understand the value is in development whereas more (the endusers) dont really give a damn about existing traffic unless its substanial and relative to the domain.
I remember when someone who owned Banks.com said the majority of the traffic was for people searching for information on the surname Banks when anyone selling it would obviously try the financial route for more value. In a case like this the traffic is fairly ireelvant to the buyer.
Most people do not buy names based on traffic although they like to say they do. Out of every 100 names you buy in auction I can almost gaurantee you 95% of them have no traffic – 10 years into this game people would have stopped buying if all they cared about what traffic.
Again, wouldn’t focus too much on that comment.
I am very satisfied with your instant comment, Alan. It would be great to clear some very fundamental issues like that. You appear to be in a position to do this. I find that most of the domain speculators, including the international media conglomerates, continue to keep potential buyers in dark to make profits from the sales of worthless domains.
RL,
I have to give the industry a lot of credit. Over the last few years we are getting more transparency (Mike is a BIG part of this) and more competition between venues so I wouldn’t go as far as saying there are international conglomerates who continue to make profits from sales of worthless domains.
Sure, there are probably some who sell anything but ultimately you have to find buyers and buyers usually only get burned once or twice before going somewhere else.
There is a lot of speculative money in this industry – lots, quite likely $100’s of thoushands spent every day but even these buyers are not using fake monopoly money – they are using real cash to buy investments.
PPC traffic is real – I know someone who paid $6,000 for a name in auction last month and is earning almost $5,000 a month in parking from it but these finds are few and few between.
What people are seeing now – again, whether they want to admit or not – are brandable and exact search names ready for development because the money is slowly coming in from developers, end users and main street where these people see much more value than just how much PPC revenue you can earn.
Look at DNJournal every week – have you ever been able to find rhyme or reason?
Look at SnapNames top 500 names in auction?
Look at NameJet’s Most Active daily email?
Again, no rhyme or reason.
However unlike a car which can be measured for fuel efficency, safety features and more we deal with assets that have the most value tied to an intangible factor.
How much is mortgagerates.com worth to someone who parks?
How much is it worth to a developer?
How much to a single loan officer?
How much to a mortgage company?
How much to a national mortgage lender?
How much to an investor who just likes the name?
6 questions and 6 vastly different answers.
Auctions are a good way to find a semi- liquid value – but NOT real value since the target market for domain auctions is general domainers, although many people like Snap, Moniker and SEDO are doing things to bring end users in.
That even leads to another question – who is an end user? I think most people will say an end user is simply anyone that will pay a price comparable to traditional media pricing.
$60k for an ad in the new york times or $60k for a domain name.
99% of businesses will probably opt for the ad. Thats how young this industry still is.
There is always value in good names but even that is hard for many to figure out.
No one is an expert – most people would not buy 50% of Frank’s portfolio, Mike’s portfolio, ours, Kevin Ham’s, Mike Mann’s or anyone. Some just have a lot better finds then others which make up for the junk they bought along the way.
Its a learning curve, one that took many of us 10 years or more to get to but there is gold here – it just sometimes takes losing a little to figure it out which is probably one of the few things we actually do have in common with every other business 🙂
Alan,
I highly regard your comments about the domain industry nature. All valuable domain portfolio original creators and holders are experts with unique experiences and all have achieved distinct results. Than you for your response. I am looking forward to our further future communications.
Alan,
That was a really great Post!
Thx,
Vito.
RL
“”Your statement — “with less than 50 visitors a month (according to Godaddy) I think the domain sold closer to a retail price, rather wholesale” — prompts me to put in question your domain name acquisition criteria.””
Well RL here is the answer:
Simply you can’t buy everything.
So you have to choose.
For me when I acquire a domain I look for 2 things.
Is it a good buy.
Not what is a good buy.
I’m not a flipper, never had been.
Nothing wrong with it and many people make a living doing it, but its not my thing.
So if I’m going to tied up $15K in a domain probably for a few years then I have to believe I’m going to see a sale in the next few years of of $50K or more and would like the domain to make me at least 5% in PPC, while I’m waiting.
So take a domain I bought a year or so ago RestaurantSupply.com for $21K.
That’s a name I think can sell in the six figures down the line and makes around $5K a year.
That was a good acquistion.
This domain has no very little traffic.
If I spend $7k on it I could turn 30 visitors a month into $30, giving me a the 5% returns I’m looking at with a 7K purchase price but not a a $15K price.
For me a single narrowly focused doma
MHB,
It is very interesting to see the real example, the “RestaurantSupply.com”. There are real businesses with plenty of goodwill, with “Restaurant Supply” phrase incorporated in their business names. The landing pages of the site are not spectacular but very effective in generating the stated annual income of $5K. It is much more interesting to me to observe that with relatively strong financial position and tens of thousands of names in your inventory you cannot replicate the results achieved by the previous holders of this domain, and then use the same approach accross the entire platform, repeating the same process thousan times. Imagine what this kind of solution would be worth to you and how much its value would be depreciated by broadcasting it to anyone and everyone. The dream solutions exist. Search engine giants could instanlty make an arbitrary chosen small portfolio make millions in no time. And they can also instantly break an arbitrarily chosen portfolio income generating stream (the Geosign portfolio is a good example). One of the main strategic resasons for them to do so is just to protect their market share and their long term interests, not to sacrifice a big fortune for a small one. There are other ways of achieving the desired results. Thus for example, I just added RestaurantAccessory.com to my portfolio at the price of $7.95 plus overheads, a small change, just to make a point. Unlike the term “supply”, the word “accessory” is something nonessential but desirable that contributes to an effect or result. Results: 365,000,000 for the former and 66,500,000 for the latter in Google search. I do not expect this domain to make any money or and possibly a few cents. I may be lucky if for example someone registers restaurant-accessory.com and proceeds to make livelihood with it, and then it may generate ROI 10 x or more. I am looking at “what is a good buy” and for me “it is a good buy”. Consider what 21K can buy. It can pay the annual registration costs of 2500 .com names. Would the previous owners of RestaurantSupply.com, or anyone else be able to reproduce their SEP/SEO results for RestaurantAccessory.com to make it earn $5k a month for a fraction of $21K? It may appear that a market for thousands of websites in hundreds of categories in its entirety is too broad in scope for any but the largest companies to tackle successfully. This is not the case because many venture opportunities exists today and more will emerge in the near term future for the portfolio holders to partner with the right associates and venture sponsors. It is astonishing that companies such as Dark Blue Sea (Fabulous), for example, that will provide the landing page for the doman that I just registered, despite having a relatively huge capitalization, hundreds of thousands of names of their own, excellent starting position in 2004, lots of cash, very low overheads, has not been able to innovate then and definetely not now. You are my hero! Consider long term business strategies that include working closely with small to medium size small business groups and individuals who may need products services and solutions including advertising, marketing, lead generation and commerce applications customized for their specific needs, product distribution management and accounting applications.
RL
Just keep in mind there are a LOT of ways to approach domaining and mine is just one.
I’m also not the domainer that has his own G5 so I’m far from the most successful guy out there.
Just sharing some thoughts with you.
You should probably change the headline to this blog post now that the truth has been revealed. 🙂
MHB,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. It was very valuable to me to learn about your domain acquisition criteria.
My postings would be incomplete without asking the final question that is very relevant to your original post. Which of the two domains is more valuable in absolute terms to the Garden Industry, regardless of the content or earnings: (1) pondpumps.com and (2) pondaccessories.com? The analytics for pondpumps: 26 visitors /month; The analytics for pondaccesories: 7 visits per month, $0.70 earnings at FABULOUS per month average? Would it make any difference to a target buyer who sells garden pond products how many clicks any of the above listed domains collected?
I would be very interested to help to clear the issues I have relating to the domain industry myths and popular beliefs harmful to the masses and the individuals including yourself. Alan has been very helpful to stear this post in the right direction. Thank you!
I have no further questions. Thanks again.
Hi,
I agree with Tim.. surely it would have been a whole sale price… Anyways it would have been sold better..