An auction of some really good Geo .Me domains concluded yesterday on NameJet.com
You probably didn’t know about it.
Don’t feel bad, your not alone.
Personally I saw no press releases, blog coverage, or even one story on the auction.
There was a small box of domains on NameJet.com’ home page about it, but there was no way to click on any link to find out about all the domains in the auction you could only do it one at a time and only for the highlighted domains.
I was going to write about the auction a few days ago, to give it some publicity and just before clicking the “Publish” button on Word Press, I decided to just grab the domains for myself.
Here’s what I got:
| akron.me | $250 |
| boise.me | $230 |
| toledo.me | $80 |
| pasadena.me | $80 |
| anaheim.me | $80 |
| kissimmee.me | $79 |
| northdakota.me | $69 |
| charleston.me | $69 |
| torrance.me | $69 |
| stpetersburg.me | $69 |
| provo.me | $69 |
| norfolk.me | $69 |
| glendale.me | $69 |
| capecoral.me | $69 |
| brownsville.me | $69 |
| batonrouge.me | $69 |
| gainesville.me | $69 |
| flagstaff.me | $69 |
| fargo.me | $69 |
| desmoines.me | $69 |
| chapelhill.me | $69 |
I saw many City .Me domains not even get the $69 minimum bid and out over all the 20+ backorders I placed I saw no more than 3 other people in anyone auction, and I only got outbid on one domain.
Now you could say you people didn’t bid because they had no interest, but when I see a state .Me with only 2 bidders, I think it was poor promotion off site and poor promotion on its site, that caused this auction to be a non-event.
Nice grabs. I love Bruce Marler, but I don’t really like geo.me’s. I just think they’re really far down on the list of extensions and as far as branding goes, it’s a stretch to make it “all about me” for a geo.
Of course, I’m heavily biased (I have all but 3 of the names you have listed in the .IN extension and about 500 more besides… and no it’s not for marketing to people in India, it’s all about what’s “in” that city/state)…
But that’s a great deal regardless. Best of luck with them!
I am not a huge fan of .me, but one word, two word major city domains are pretty killer in any extension. You could create a really cool network with them. Strange that the auction was not promoted?
Why dint your friend Bruce Marlor buy state.me names? Don’t he think they worth more than US $69? He own lots and always talk about .ME. If they sell for this cheap, why he invest in them so much? Are you going to build big state website and make the money like Bruce?
Poof!
I don’t know, my guess is that Bruce didn’t know about the auction but if you want to know go over to his blog and ask him
well, now everybody is busy chasing .co names…
I own names from a .cctld that matches a state abbrev. Similar to a name like Newyork.ny , not the .com but the next best thing IMO
It’s very frustrating when there are few popular domaining sites and newsletters, specially one I am thinking about where it would have costed less than $100 to announce such event.
I still prefer GEO domains in COM/NET/ORG or the local ccTLD, but for those prices there are some very nice potential values.
Venue and promotion really does matter. If no one knows about the auction, the bidding will not necessarily reflect true market value.
Brad
@Name – yes, those are a popular “hack” as well, but I’m not sure they are “the next best thing to .com”. I’ve spent quite a bit acquiring cities in Indiana though 🙂
I see “category killer” .me domains on ebay fairly regularly that don’t get a single bid. Truth of the matter is that the extension is worthless. They do not rank at all on Google.
Check out Missouri.me on Google. Searching for “missouri” the site still does not rank in the top 1000 after all this time. That is proof that Google has no respect for .me.
I still think theoretically you could turn them into profitable businesses or pawn them off on some unsuspecting domainer but in my opinion trying to build a business on a .me is starting way further back in the race and the difficulty of making up all that lost distance to a .com, .net or .org is much more difficult than the initial save on money justifies (even if the domain were free).
Good luck with them. I am sure that you will do fine.
Many great California city .MEs went. Anaheim.me was nice… I grabbed Riverside and I already owned SanBernardino and Malibu (it just dropped recently). Great branding potential imo… NorthDakota.me was a looker, but I went for places I know/live near.
Replace that ” me”to “co”
Same story…..
Wow… NorthDakota.me for $69. Yea, I had no idea this auction was going on or I would have bought a state.me for a couple hundred.
“Replace that ” me”to “co”
Same story…..”
I agree completely. I have no idea when everyone when to the koolaid party for .co but I clearly was not invited.
Troy
Epic fail. Useless names, useless extension. domainers don’t need hype and promotion to find gems so the fact that there was no action is more of an indication that no one cares about .me as opposed to them being unaware of the existance of the acution. Next time you want to blow out a couple K thats burning a hole in your pocket try giving to a charity that is NOT a registrar
It’s too bad that NameJet didn’t do a better job promoting these – really seems like they are missing the boat on promoting within the community.
Those are some great buys MHB – congrats!
Would someone type Microsoft dot co or Microsoft dot com?
Would someone type BullShitDomains dot co or BullshitDomains dot com??
The 675,000 citizens of Montenegro thank you 🙂
“Check out Missouri.me on Google. Searching for “missouri” the site still does not rank in the top 1000 after all this time. That is proof that Google has no respect for .me. ”
WOW !
It’s a business. No more and no less.
The question to be asked is this: Did Michael purchase these names because he likes them? No. He bought them because he’ll most certainly get some decent ROI on them.
I Personally don’t like .me names.
Forget about whether they are worthless or not. CAN YOU GET A RETURN (make money) ON THOSE NAMES?
Yes. They were bought at the right price.
It’ll be the same story for .co. Someone will find value in them. It’s about positioning yourself to make a profit. Thats all.
It is possible that quite a few domainers were aware of the auction from scanning the list daily BUT asked themselves the wrong questions 🙂
As for me? I wasn’t aware of the auction lolol
“@Name – yes, those are a popular “hack” as well, but I’m not sure they are “the next best thing to .com”. I’ve spent quite a bit acquiring cities in Indiana though 🙂 ”
Indianapolis.in is a lot better than Indianapolis.net for me. Everyone in Indian knows what the .in is (Indiana state abbrev) and most US does too, especially those looking to go and visit etc.
@Name: I’m glad you like my name 🙂
Regarding the value of names: Would you spend $250 hoping to sell ‘sometime’ or $500-$1000? I wouldn’t.
Would you spend at least $10,000 to develop a bigcity.me? I would not.
So there’s your value.
@ David Castello – The 675,000 citizens of Montenegro thank you.
and please keep passing the kool-aid 🙂
.me is so yesterday.
You’re not cool in domain circles unless you spend $50,000 or more chasing .co’s.
Ohhhhhhhh…..whiskey river, candy mountain…… 🙂
Paul, ranking for Missouri does nothing for my customers…. Ranking for targeted terms that convert for advertisers in specific communities does. Just ask the legacy media companies that have came to us for help…
And Mike is right, I will honestly say I did not know about the auction or I would of been there. Not sure if that is my bad or namejets. I would of picked up more than just a couple states.
Not sure if I think .co is not going to be real popular some day. More so then other extensions. I think it will be easy to remember. It will be the next best thing. If you’re lucky enough to have the .co and .com one doesn’t have to think that hard.
I bet Google will recognize .co as the net best thing. All these different extensions have got to become very confusing. As an investment and owning 5,000 domains, I vow never to buy another ext. except .com. Lost a lot of money on good generics of other extensions.
I have to wonder how Sedo sells nets and orgs and get a good price tag for them sometimes.
I picked up one CA city – for just $69, mostly because I live there. I was also surprised how few bidders there were. Bad marketing by NJ! Very cheap speculation IMHO. I’d like to eventually acquire some other extensions down the road….. bit if I can’t? Who knows? Maybe I’ll ‘be like Bruce!’ 😉
I personally only like the .ME for
cities – locations – ventures in
the state of Maine (ME) or for
catchy phrases… I have these:
CoffeeTimeWith.Me
CraftWith.Me
OcieanView.ME
PalmCoast.ME
~Patricia Kaehler – DomainBELL
Google ranks sites based on relevant content and how popular they are wih users.
This is NOT based on an extension, True, new domains and extensions can be in the Google sandbox, if sites are not developed with great content, user traffic and links.
Look at formspring.me, for example, which opted to use formspring.me over formspring.com, and which is ranked one of the top 500 sites in the world, with millions of users and revenues.
Youand.me, another popular site that ranks already extremely well for onee of the internets top words ‘dating’ ‘number 30’ with 10,000s sites competing on that the dating word. , and the founders also opted to brand the site as youand.me and not youandme.net and youandme.com which they have, or notify.me, a venture-funded startup that is doing very well.
I’m one of the top SEO marketers in the world, and I’ve had no problems ranking .me sites, or any extension as long as there’s RELEVANT CONTENT. It does not matter what extension you use. Per domaining, as in reselling and flipping domains, sure, DOTCOM is king. But this is completely false about ranking.
Wow, I wish I would have known about this auction. I sold several Italian geos (cites) dotme to a Consortium, and they’ve developed all these names and are doing very well. I invest in many extensions: dotcom, dotorg, co.uk (if in the UK), us. (if the USA), and dotme (as these are great blogging sites for cities)
I feel DOTME is the #7 best extension after:
1) .com
2) .net
3).org
4).co.uk
5).de
6).ca
if you have premium key words —
if you have solid Geos (states, major cities, countries)
1.com
2).net
3).org
4).me
if you have catchy names, i.e, call-to-action verbs like equip.me, join.me, trade.me, click.me, call.me, love.me, date.me, loan.me, guide.me, phone.me, watch.me, chart.me, see.me, luv.me, lend.me, help.me, route.me… you will do extremely well — many of these names referenced above have already had great resell value — these names will sell —
as the SEO expert mentioned above, .me is NOT about Montenegro, Maine, or the Middle East (unless that’s how the site is developed)
Formspring.me, as also mentioned, is one of the most popular sites/Facebook apps in the world. Why does Despicableme.com redirect to Despicable.me (it’s cute, brandable)
I’m a Dotcom and Dotorg guy, but Dotme is doing fine, especially considering the Great Recession. I wish I would have known about this auction.
By the way, Missouri.me – great site – I’m sure you’re on the way to something big here, if not already.
I wish I had known about this auction. I picked up a few .ME geos during the landrush:
beverlyhills.me
tampa.me
NewYorkCity.me
TampaBay.me
CostaRica.me