Comments

1. M. Menius says

   March 6, 2012 at 9:40 pm

   Some of these word combinations are so weak it causes me to question the legitimacy of the “sale”. I have often wanted to devote a day to research questionable domain sales to determine how some of them were put to use, if at all.

2. BullS says

   March 7, 2012 at 12:49 am

   M Menius…welcome to the world of BullS domains..

   Don’t believe what posted on the internet.

3. ri.sk says

   March 7, 2012 at 2:19 am

   Some of the names are ok, but don’t forget that many of
   them sold below $2,000, and at that level anything is
   possible.

4. David A says

   March 7, 2012 at 3:39 am

   Just for fun, I went to my bookmarked sales pages, and randomly picked some names that were reported as being sold by Sedo and Afternic in January and February of this year.

   planspot.com – sold for $2500, site says it’s launching in April.

   thenight.com – $8000, to EMI Music, just a holding page at this point.

   spotware.com – $4200, to a trading company.

   kaahee.com – 7500 EUR, construction page

   blackvue.com – $10,000, to a Korean retailer.

   falseclaimsactattorney.com – $2800, to what looks like a law firm.

   clearskys.com – $3188, to a tech firm.

   electriccandy.com – $1888, construction page.

   If I had more time it would be interesting to research this some more, and go back to domains sold in previous years. But given that these were sold in just the past couple of months, I was surprised to see the number that already had some sort of content.

5. ::::: Crowd Funding World ::::: says

   March 7, 2012 at 5:57 am

   again, high selling prices for strange names

6. web domainer says

   March 7, 2012 at 6:27 am

   Mike, it would be interesting to ask what percentage of names sold by Sedo, Afternic are owned by them (ie portfolio sales) vs 3rd parties?

   And whether there is any statistically measureable price delta (%) between the average price obtained for portfolio domains vs 3rd party offered domains.

   Freakanomics Radio founders (U of Chicago economists, one of them a Nobel Prize Winner for behavioral economics) did a study in Chicago and found that when real estate agents sold their clients homes, they achieved 6% lower average prices, than when they sold houses they held for investment; suggesting that brokers did not necessarily achieve the highest prices for their clients – despite being a hefty commission.

   Aware of any such studies? If so, would be a distinct favor for domainer in sharing such info. Tx for your insightful reporting

7. Michael H. Berkens says

   March 7, 2012 at 7:43 am

   Web

   In one weekly report late last year Afternic reported this info

   In a week where they had $1.1 million in sales $430K that week were from owned and operated domains.

   http://www.thedomains.com/2011/12/28/afternic-com-sells-1-1-million-in-domain-names-430k-of-those-owned-operated-domains/

8. Bob Mountain - NameMedia / Afternic says

   March 7, 2012 at 10:55 am

   @M. Menius. I run business development for Afternic / NameMedia. These sales are all legitimate, we report domain sales to Mike Berkens and others on a weekly basis and would not risk their trust by misreporting domain sales for whatever short term benefit we might receive, if any. We sell primarily to end users and most of the domains we sell are built and in use in less than one year.

   @Web Domainer. As far as price differences between our house portfolio and 3rd party domains, our sales reps are on commission, the higher the sales price, their more money they make. That’s pretty good incentive to get the most money we can for all domains. Most domain owners give us strict guidelines on discounting so we’re not going to sell a domain for any less than they’re comfortable with. Sales of 3rd party domains were up 92% in 2011 compared with prior year so it’s working pretty well.