Six-Figure Sale of Hedonism.com and Largest .Info Sale Ever Reported Headline Another Hot Week for Domains 

by Ron Jackson
  

.Info provided the other big news, with Camping.info attracting $28,100 at Sedo.com in the largest sale ever reported in that extension (eclipsing NewYork.info which sold for $28,086 in 2004). Well-known .info investor Tariq Ghafoor of Tempe, Arizona made the new landmark sale.

In a trend we have noted several times over the past year, the market continues to broaden with the success of .com spilling over to other extensions. Half of this week's top ten domains were non .coms, including a pair or .nets, a .org, a .info and a .us. The high flyers for .net were #4 ERE.net, sold for $21,450 at Afternic.com and #6 Tarot.net, which went for €17,425 ($20,990) at Sedo.

America's rapidly rising country code, .us, scored with #8 Football.us, selling for $18,510 at Sedo. That is the second highest .us sale reported this year (trailing only Jew.us at $29,500) and it ranks 6th among all country code sales so far in 2006. Germany's .de and Great Britain's .co.uk also have two sales each among the top six. Standing shoulder to shoulder at the top of the Year-To-Date Country Code Chart with those more established ccTLDs is a good sign for .us, an extension that was opened to public registration less than four years ago.

.Org also crashed the party on the top half of the Big Board, thanks to the €13,987 ($16,849) sale of RapidShared.org at Sedo. Sedo put more domains on the chart than any other venue, including four of the first ten and six overall. SnapNames.com was right behind with five entries, led by #9 RiverPark.com at $17,000. Afternic and Enom's Club Drop also had multiple entries (Afternic with three and Club Drop two). Club Drop's leader was a nice Spanish language domain, #5 Espacio.com ("space" in Spanish) at $21,100.  

Here's a look at the complete Top 20 for the week ending Sunday, March 5:

While .com had plenty of competition on the top half of the chart, the world's most popular extension ran the board on the second half. Moniker provided bookends for that section of the chart with #11 MemberSolutions.com ($14,600) and #20 DataDubai.com ($10,225). SnapNames squeezed four entries in between that pair. 

.Com Supporting Cast

SnapNames also had the seven highest sales that didn't make the chart. That impressive group included SoftPhones.com at $9,800, MedFirst.com at $9,354 and Matahari.com at $9,313. HealthRecords.com revealed $9,150, ItalianCharmBracelets.com dangled $9,100, NuclearPowerPlant.com generated $8,511 and Skooters.com zipped off with $8,311.

Also on the winner's list at SnapNames were Tech24.com ($6,900), HomeInvestments.com ($6,324) and Mowing.com ($6,188). SkiMasks.com covered $5,655, EmploymentDiscrimination.com drew $5,566 and RevShare.com returned $5,200. ResearchJobs.com earned $5,100, MiamiInsurance.com billed $5,066 and PhysicianMalpractice.com cost $5,001.

The SnapNames hit parade continued with OnlineComputerHelp.com ($4,933), HomeWiring.com ($4,600) and Gurevich.com ($4,544). SanJoseInsurance.com added $4,200, BestTravelDeals.com booked $4,123 and StomachStapling.com tacked on $4,088. SnapNames had another 26 .com sales between $2,000-$4,000. You can check those out in the table below: 

Sedo supplemented their six chart entries with ColdCreek.com ($8,000), FrockCandy.com ($5,000) and RadioHound.com ($3,600). VOIPLook.com landed at $3,500 and AmericanFilms.com screened $3,045. Palacio.com and WineInvestor.com sipped $2,500 each and OnlineID.com let in €2,000 ($2,409).

It was also a busy week at Afternic where Withdrawal.com went for $7,500, FBEX.com brought $6,000 and PaidRefund.com produced $5,556. e-Bets.com won $5,250, PCFirstAid.com provided a $4,100 fix and ItzMail.com managed $3,400. 

Also at Afternic, Cogenics.com kicked in $3,200, MediaBuzz.com drummed up $3,000 and HomeImprovementProjects.com hammered out $2,750. BanquetRoom.com welcomed $2,500 and Piczi.com posted $2,222 while NewYorkCarInsurance.com and Leagle.com contributed $2,000 each.

Back at Enom's Club Drop, CommercialRealEstateBroker.com commanded $6,800, VirtualZoo.com attracted $3,300 and WaterbedFrames.com contained $2,900. SunData.com and ESPNPokerClub.com dealt out $2,100 each while ProBoard.com popped for $2,000. Club Drop also moved CreditCardCentral.com at $1,900, ItalianCookbook.com and BigBendNationalPark.com at $1,700 each and SurvivalSupply.com at $1,600.

In a couple of other notable sales, AChorusLine.com kicked up $7,488 at Moniker/Domain Systems and ArizonaBlog.com brought $4,000 in a private transaction (with escrow done at Sedo).

Global Contenders (.biz, .info, .net & .org)

.Info got off to a slow start in 2006, but it looks like the four-letter extension is coming out of its winter hibernation. Led by the largest .info sale ever reported, Camping.info at $28,100, the young global TLD put a pair of domains on the top half of our new Global Contenders chart. #1 Camping.info is also the highest sale in this category this year, besting all sales in the much longer established .net and .org extensions. #10 Motel.info stuck another feather in .info's cap, being acquired by FunKen Lin for $2,511 at KeywordDomains.com.

.Net had two powerful sales this week, with #2 ERE.net attracting $21,450 at Afternic and #3 Tarot.net turning over for $20,990 at Sedo. .Org also did well, taking half of the entries on the upper end of the chart, with #4 RapidShared.org leading the way at $16,849. .Org also had the most chart positions overall, outpointing .net 8-7. The other three slots went to .biz. Two of those were nice one-worders sold at Sedo; Bake.biz and Mediation.biz which each attracted $2,409.

Among the venues, SnapNames has virtually owned this chart in 2006, but Sedo turned the tables this time out sweeping 10 of the 20 positions. SnapNames was held to five spots and Afternic had three. Here's a complete look at the Global Contenders for the week ending March 5:

There were nine more four-figure sales off the chart and SnapNames accounted for all but one of those. They moved Ericsp.org ($1,450), CRBT.org ($1,425) and Tampere.net ($1,350), as well as TAW.net ($1,300), RiceForPeace.org ($1,250) and RollerCoaster.net ($1,161).

SnapNames also sold PerfectMatch.net for $1,050 and GayCult.net for $1,024, while Afternic added $1,000 for L0.net (that is the letter "L" and the number "0"). 

In a couple of additional .info sales, Park.info went for $950 in a private transaction (purchased by Motel.info buyer FunKen Lin) and CSN.info sold for $800 at Sedo.

Country Codes

Football.us scored a big touchdown for the American country code this week, going for $18,510 at Sedo in the second highest .us sale this year (and the 6th highest sale among all country codes). The #1 domain nearly doubled the price of runner-up Video-World.de which went for $9,781, also at Sedo. As we have noted before, Sedo seems to own this chart and this week was no exception as they took 11 of the 12 entries. Moniker/DomainSystems prevented a sweep by handling the sale of #11 BOTW.co.uk for $1,250.

There was a remarkable amount of variety on this week's chart with seven different country codes represented, plus an IDN domain, #6 Schönheitsoperationen.de ("beauty operation" in German) at $6,023. An even bigger IDN sale in .net will be on our Global Contenders chart next week. 東京.net (東京 is "Tokyo" in Japanese Kanji characters) closed for $10,000 after the deadline for this week's report (each Tuesday report covers sales in the previous 7-day period ending Sunday night). We'll give you all of the details on that one next week.

Sweden's .se had several nice sales in 2005 and it looks like that extension will be in the thick of things again this year. #3 Chat.se went for $9,637 this week at Sedo. #4 Monday.co.uk followed with another score for the UK, piling up $7,985.

.US had another hit with #5 Ask.us at $6,200 (purchased by Chris Zouzas, the same guy who made the year's highest .us sale - Jew.us at $29,500 in January). .US wound up with three chart entries, a number equaled only by .de.

In another highlight this week, we saw the year's highest .tv sale with FunKen Lin selling #7 FreePorn.tv to the owner of FreePorn.com for $5,100. Here's a look at the complete Country Code chart for the week ending March 5:

A couple of other extensions we rarely see on the chart made appearances this week. Argentina's .ar took the #8 slot with Citco.com.ar at $5,000 and Micronesia's .fm turned up at #9 with London.fm going for $4,939. That one looks like a natural for a web radio station. 

Now that you're up to date on what happened over the past seven days, check out how the leaders stand year to date in all categories by visiting our Year To Date Charts page.

*****

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better,  just drop a note to [email protected].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Richard Meyer of DotCom Group, LLC also provides invaluable help in collecting data for these sales reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday night publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.