Comments

1. Alan says

   September 20, 2010 at 10:40 am

   Before anyone gets carried away remember Mike said a lot of these have been developed in sites. DoItYourself.com for example gets over 2,000,000 visitors a month.

   This is not a domain asset sale but a company with developed products which just happen to be on a domain. Without any content these domains stand alone would be worth a fraction of $650 million.

   No difference than a goto.com sale or ask.com sale but of course, the people will be out saying I cant believe they sold all those domains for $650 million. They never – they sold developed properties on domains.

   Let the humor begin.

   Congrats to Internet Brands .. great sale.

2. MHB says

   September 20, 2010 at 10:53 am

   Alan

   Absolutely right, this is not a domain sale but a sale of a company that has built a nice profit stream using a few great generics and a lot of fair domains into sites.

   $20 Million a year in profits is no joke.

   My favorite domain off the list is:

   3fatgirls.com

3. Alan says

   September 20, 2010 at 10:59 am

   LOL … 2fatgirls.com and 4fatgirls.com are available .. 3 is a lucky number 🙂

4. Chris says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:01 am

   Yes, these are developed sites, attracting (in total) a lot of uniques per month. At this price, Internet Brands seem to have leveraged their assets well.

   Interesting that Internet Brands only have a small number of short, pure, top class generic domains (Autos.com, Gardens.com, Loan.com, Vasectomy.com + say, DoItYourself.com, and one or two other good ones)…

   …Great tho these generics are, mostly their portfolio is 2/3 word descriptives/brandables – or TM Forum-type domains/sites.

   I’d have expected a higher quality raw portfolio with the resources Internet Brands had at their disposal…

5. Kevin says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:03 am

   Fantastic acquisition and great PR for our industry!

   Some killer domains in that network and well developed.

6. MHB says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:07 am

   Alan

   3 is the perfect number

   4 is way too many

7. Alan says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:26 am

   LMAO! As long as they all leave in the morning any number works for me.

8. Gazzip says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:29 am

   WOW, very nice indeed, Can you imagine how much the top domainers portfolios could be worth if they were developed in a similar way. EEEEK

   What do you reckon Autos.com, Loan.com and Doityourself.com would be worth
   (just the domains without development?)

9. Meyer says

   September 20, 2010 at 11:34 am

   w0w.
   This has me scratching my head.

   I thought blatantly profiting from well known TMs was
   cybersquatting and an IP lawyer’s bread and butter.

   Maxima, Nissan, Corvette, Audi, Dodge and others.

   How did they get away with it this long?

10. Mike says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:36 am

    Not many premium names there. I could only find autos.com, gardens and possibly carsdirect.com.

11. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:38 am

    Chris

    Just checked the spam folder of Word Press your comments were trapped in there, now approved

12. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:41 am

    Mike

    Loan.com is a great generic as well as DoItYourself.com and Vasectomy.com

13. Chris says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:42 am

    Many of those domain names include trademarked terms… Acura, Mustang, Corvette, Chevrolet, etc…

    Any reason to think that those companies can’t get those domain names back if they wanted to?

14. tricolorro says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:44 am

    “My favorite domain off the list is:

    3fatgirls.com”

    3fatgirls.com is unregistered.

    It’s actually 3fatchicks.com.

15. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:45 am

    I like my version better

16. Mike says

    September 20, 2010 at 11:58 am

    Yes, there are 3 more premium as you mentioned. Loan.com, Doityourself.com and vasectomy.com . Others were not that great domains.

    That showed the power of development of the domains.

    I looked at Autos.com and I don’t know which CMS they are using for the articles. Any one knows it? I am pretty sure it isn’t WP.

17. Gazzip says

    September 20, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    “Others were not that great domains. That showed the power of development of the domains.”

    True, I’d prefer the domains owned by verticlescope.com or wnnmedia.com…mmmm 🙂 tasty tasty!

18. Brad Mugford says

    September 20, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    There sure are a lot of TM terms in the mix.

    Brad

19. don says

    September 20, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    Your missing another big component of their traffic, they acquired expert hub earlier this year with lots of legal related domains, not sure how much this makes up of their traffic

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Internet-Brands-Acquires-iw-2654547464.html?x=0&.v=1

    Its a great buy and gave a nice bump to the Quinstreet Share price, up nicely from the $12 range you were indicating Mike

    What I think it does is helps bring more attention to the generic + traffic model and sheds light on companies that are simply churning out the bogus content biz model that are yet to be profitable to date…this along with the Bankrate buy a few years ago show that VC funds are paying close attention to this space.

20. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    Don

    Demand Media for better or worse is going to be the catalyst for this model on the street

    Lets hope the IPO goes very well despite some issues demand has, including lack of profit

21. Deke says

    September 20, 2010 at 12:52 pm

    Publicly traded company that deals in VERY blatant trademarks ? What a joke.

    I’d say they are bad news for the industry….. and they make domainers like me look bad.

22. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    Deke

    They don’t deal in trademarks they use domains they have every right to use to develop out sites.

    How many camera shops in the world do you pass that have a “cannon” sign hanging out?

    Nothing wrong with it.

23. Alan says

    September 20, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    I have to agree with Mike. A lot of trademark law is very misunderstood by many domainers.

    On one hand some people think registering a variation of Coca Cola and putting ads on it is ok while others think it’s a blatant use of trademark infringement (which it is).

    The missing component of trademark law really comes down to use and parking pages do not qualify as anything other than bad use. Some of the most popular sites in the world have a trademark in the domain like peopleofwalmart.com, bmwblog.com, etc and when you use a TM in a domain as an intent not to solely capitalize on the brand but almost as a fan site (good or bad) it can be often seen as legal use. Of course, the interpretation of this is best discussed by a real lawyer (not me) but it’s not a very complex law boiling down to the way the domain is used. Since parking pages do not qualify as use for the most part its no wonder why TM laws are misunderstood since most domainers do not develop but would rather argue how their site (I mean parking page) is use. Its not.

    Even a better example are celebrity names. It’s perfectly ok to create a fan site on britneyspears.com as long its good use. In the high profile Madonna.com case back in 2000 Madonna won the rights since the owner was directing traffic to a porn site and clearly had no vested interest in the name other than trying to capitalize on the name. Now, if the owners name was Madonna or the owner created a legitimate fan site this probably would have turned out different.

    Nissan.com is the most famous TM case that continues to be ongoing. Most domainers would say hey that clearly is a TM infringement owning that name but the owner’s last name is Nissan and has a computer company called Nissan Computer. It’s probably the most interesting read out there when it comes to long term domain disputes – in fact, the entire case is available on nissan.com

    Anyone registering a domain purely to park should always use common sense and when in doubt consult an attorney.

24. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    Trademark law is pretty confusing for attorneys much less ordinary folk but Alan is quite correct.

    If you haven’t check out this case you should it lays out the law pretty well and gives you an idea of how trademark terms can be used by other than the trademark holders

    http://www.thedomains.com/2010/07/11/federal-court-rules-against-toyota-in-domain-case-buy-a-lexus-com-buyorleaselexus-com/

25. BusinessWebsites.com says

    September 20, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    Don’t forget that this company was originally CarsDirect.com and it also held the record for the most VC funds received the during the 1998-2000 run-up. This funding equaled $400 Million. I’m pretty sure some of the investors money was returned for pennies on the dollar but I’m not sure how much.

26. Einstein says

    September 20, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    I have to add my 1.5cents here on tm law:

    IIRC, you can have a website that says UsedDellParts.com if that’s what you’re selling. Now if you sell HP parts there or do something fishy is totally different. Companies don’t like it because they want to control everything but apparently you have a right to describe what you’re selling.

    I believe that was decided on used Lexus cars and a couple won against Toyota without a lawyer. The reasoning was that new and used cars are part of the marketplace and Toyota can’t have a monopoly on everything through the chain (imagine not being able to place an ad to sell your used Camry because Camry is a tm)

    In short, F UDRP, we need more US court reasoning.

27. MHB says

    September 20, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    The couple in the Lexus case were car brokers and they were selling cars other than Lexus as well, court said that was Ok too

28. tricolorro says

    September 20, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    ” 3fatgirls.com is unregistered.

    It’s actually 3fatchicks.com.”
    —
    “I like my version better”
    —

    Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said:

    “A fat girl by any other name is still a fat girl!”

    …or something like that.

    🙂

29. Domo Sapiens says

    September 20, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Amazing comeback, in 1999 just carsdirect . com lost over 70 Million USD

    This figure caught my eye:
    (Rounding things up)

    They paid : 640 Million USD for 640 Million Yearly Visitors. (* one buck per “pair of eye balls”)

    The bottom line is : this is educated money , surely the “Number crushers” looked at it, analyzed it, the purchase was made at a perfect time when the company it’s in the black even under this recessionary enviroment, it proves “domains/development (of the right kind)” can be done in a profitable way, it’s is viable…

    I looked at the names and aside the marks it looks like a very balanced portfolio eg: doityourself.com a beautiful name/portal to own at this current stage in the economic cycle.
    (I think I own the spanish version..I need to check on that)

    Lastly…
    How much is F Schilling portfolio worth with hardly any overhead ?

    Cheers.

    Domo
    assuming everybody had 2 eyes.

30. Steroids UK says

    September 21, 2010 at 9:46 am

    I wouldn’t even pay reg fees for most of those 🙂

    the moral of the story is crap sites /domains with viewers are still worth big $

31. Stephen Douglas_Successclick.com says

    September 21, 2010 at 10:31 am

    I’m really confused. This pile of domains looks like it’s a CADNA.org hunt farm. I remember when I purchased these identical types of domains in 1999, about 150 of them, including “usedporsche.com” and “fordrepairs.com” and was hit by an avalanche of C&D’s. Back then, it was serious. I deleted the domains, and three months later, a federal case ruling came out that stated EACH domain owner had to be sued separately for TM infringement. The car companies had included hundreds of domain buyers listed in one juggernaut of a lawsuit for TMI. Their lawsuits were dismissed. arrgggh

    NOTE: Am I the first to note that CADNA.org seems to “infringe” on the automotive site “CADNA.COM”? That’s okay tho, right?

    oh well… On to Future Trend domains!

32. TheBigLieSociety says

    September 21, 2010 at 10:39 am

    “oh well… On to Future Trend domains!”

    Make your reservations for .VEGAS early.

    The big (secret) Domainer events ramp up around New Years in .VEGAS and then merge into the annual CES – Consumer Electronics Show(s) including .X .XX .XXX AV the back-bone of the .NET

33. Meyer says

    September 21, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    I’m glad to see Stephen basically agreed with my observation.

    If I owned any of those domains, TM owners would have me in
    federal court within months.

    We realize the TM owners can pick and choice who they attack.
    Maybe, the TM owners gave IB guide lines to maintain a good
    working relationship.

    I’m sure the TM owners want to have a good working relationship
    with the owner of Autos,com and other automotive websites.

34. tricolorro says

    September 21, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    “Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said:

    “A fat girl by any other name is still a fat girl!”

    …or something like that.”

    Sorry my original quote is inaccurate:

    The correct quote is:

    “A fat girl by any other name still weighs as much”.

35. Stephen Douglas_Successclick.com says

    September 22, 2010 at 6:56 am

    @TheBigLieSociety

    Love your handle, but I don’t respect any handle if it’s not known well enough to identify you (such as “Acro” and others).

    When I talk about “Future Trend Domains”, it has nothing to do with new domain extensions like .Vegas. You’ll find out by the end of the year the exploding interest in prodserv domains that represent what’s coming for consumer/business trends.

    There are some noobie domain investors (I can’t even call them ‘domainers’) who’ve already picked up some domains that could be worth six figures in less than 2 years. These investors don’t even understand the process of domain evaluation, yet were savvy enough to research new technology and pick out some ass-kicking domains. I’ve had to convince several of them NOT to sell them right now. They’ll love me for it later, and hopefully send me a little bonus when they sell when the domains mature. 😉

36. juneymaroone says

    September 24, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    Tons of TM names there no doubt about it, if a craft lawyer is reading this and looking for a pay-day you might have found it. They definitely profitted from those TM holders in this sale there is no doubt about it, that is not using it as a fan site lmfao

37. Dr. David Richards says

    January 19, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    It’s amazing to think about how valuable web domains have become. They’re selling like real estate was 10 years ago.