Uruguay.com Changes Hands in One of the Biggest Sales Reported This Year

by Ron Jackson
  

Uruguay.com was the headliner in another week of impressive domain sales with every name on our new Top Ten cracking the 5-figure mark. Another deal in that lofty range fell just short of making the Big Board. A pair of sizeable private transactions backed Uruguay up at the top of our new list. Ken Cunliffe of TopNames.com acquired #2 Fights.com for $62,000 and Chad Wright of Webquest.com Inc. got the keys to #3 Tractor.com for $45,000. 

SnapNames.com posted the first of their four Top Ten entries with #4 eWeb.com at $30,150. Their winner's list included a pair of .nets, #6 Christ.net at $18,350 and #8 e-Hentai.net at $14,610. The latter name may not look pretty but it is a very strong traffic domain (9,733 with the extension in Overture). The only other non .com on this week's chart is #5 Spile.de (a typo of spiele, the German word for "games") which went for $25,500 at KeywordDomains.com. 

On the new extension side of the ledger, the big news is .biz landing the #1 domain on our New TLD chart for the 6th week in a row. We'll save the details on that for our new TLD section which is coming up later in this report. Right now let's take a look at the complete mainstream leader board for the week ending July 10:

In another notable private transaction, England's Jon Wheatley acquired #8 DomainForums.com for $15,000. SnapNames rounded out their quartet of big winners with #9 Dealmaker.com at $13,000. Sedo anchored the chart with two domains tied at #10; Imprimeurs.com ("printers" in French) and Anti-Virus.de which each went for $12,241. DotcomAgency.com also had a five-figure sale that fell just short of the chart; MovingToCanada.com at $10,800.  

SnapNames had an exceptionally busy week with over three dozen sales in the range we normally report (typically 2K and up for .coms). SUVRims.com rolled out $6,000, SeeIt.com saw $5,548 and $5,388 flowed from IndianCreek.com. ViaHardware.com commanded $5,123, SUVWheels.com spun off $5,000 and $4,626 sprouted from Etre.com. HeavenAndHell.com provided a home for $4,548, Avitar.com added $4,266 and PortablePool.com provided $4,045. Other top performers included VegetarianRestaurant.com ($3,988), Equifacts.com  ($3,600), OnlineLending.com ($3,548), GalapagosVacation.com ($3,434) and TicketCharge.com ($3,191). 

Gris.com was another step back at $2,976, followed by Victory.net ($2,900), DigitalZone.com ($2,706) and WeddingHumor.com ($2,655). EMailAttachments.com downloaded $2,638, followed by a quartet of domains at $2,600 each; Newswatcher.com, MyanmarMP3.com, GJP.com and Almost-Famous.com. The hit parade at SnapNames continued with IslandShop.com ($2,450), ArabiaOnline.com ($2,403), AlbanyNY.com ($2,383) and a pair at $2,300 each; Pharm-International.com and Epigee.com. 

Vedo.com and GlobalSpectrum.com added $2,270 apiece while HispanicScholarship.com booked $2,162. BaldBeavers.com kicked in $2,130, T2ed.com contributed $2,101, RealMoneyPoker.com and GardenTreasure.com brought $2,050 each and CompositeLumber.com sawed off $2,005 to seal still another deal at SnapNames.

Sedo's sales list featured Cartouche.com ("cartridge" in French) at $7,800, FindYourCar.com at $6,300 and BigFishGames.de at �5,000 ($6,120). They also sold a pair of three-letter .coms, UJU.com for $4,500 and SEI.com for $4,000 (an absolute steal for a letter combination of that quality). Coinbox.com contained another �3,000 ($3,673). 

As always, Sedo scored with country code domains from around the world. eOnline.co.uk attracted �3,500 ($4,284), Cruise.cn (China's country code) reached port with $4,000 on board and Krydstogter.dk ("cruises" in Danish) added �1,600 ($1,959). .TV had an unusually good week with Tipp.tv (the German spelling for "tip") bringing �2,000 ($2,448) while Programm.tv and Casinos.tv tuned in �1,000 ($1,224) each. 

.TV made an appearance at Afternic.com as well with PokerNightLive.tv clicking for $3,500. Ameracare.com was worth $2,500, DCGuide.com contributed $2,100 and InternetVideos.com went for $1,850. 

Ken Cunliffe of TopNames.com was all over the place this week. In addition to buying Fights.com he picked up Jaggle.com from Club Drop for $3,507. To help offset his expenditures, he also sold a couple; Rachelle.com for $3,500 and JokeWorld.com for $2,500. 

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Our Year-To-Date Sales Chart gets three new members this week, led by Uruguay.com which joins 2005's top three after going for $175,000. Our list of the year's biggest reported sales currently starts at $32,500. If you are a regular reader you know that we raise the entry level for this chart as the year progresses to keep the length of the list manageable as sales pile up from week to week. As earlier sales are eclipsed by higher valued domains, they scroll off this chart, so at the end of each quarter we bring you a separate expanded list so you can see every sale of $10,000 or more reported from Jan. 1 through the end of the quarter that just ended. You can check that chart at at your convenience. In the meantime, here are the biggest winners reported so far in 2005: 

New TLD Section

Can anyone stop .Biz? That extension ran its streak of #1 domains on our New TLD chart to six weeks in a row this week with WireFly.biz doing the honors this time out after going for $2,735 at Afternic. There is a major wireless phone and gadget company at Wirefly.com. The buyer of the .biz is utilizing WhoIs privacy protection so we don't know if the same company bought the new extension version of the domain or not.

Wirefly.biz went for more than double the price of the runner-up domain, GCC.us, which I sold to a Michigan consulting company for $1,200 (I have another four-figure .us currently in escrow at Sedo as well as a four-figure .biz at Escrow.com which should finish near the top of next week's chart. Both have already been paid for and are just awaiting transfer). 

 .US also took the #3 slot this week with another four-figure sale, Micronet.us, which went for $1,000 at Sedo. #4 League.info completed the top half of the chart after being picked up by GPMGroup.com for $637 in an auction at SnapNames. Here's a look at the complete new extension leader board for the week ending July 10: 

.Biz took two of the three remaining new TLD sales reported to us this week, with the final slot left open. Prepaid.biz fetched $612 at Sedo where #6 Count.us went for $551. Wu Ming of Legend.name sold #7 Featured.biz to Ryan Karpilo for $500 in a deal done at DNForum.com. 

WireFly.biz was the only domain to qualify for our New TLD Year-To-Date chart this week. Our list of the year's Top 50 reported sales currently starts at $2,163. As we did for the mainstream chart, we have put together an expanded New TLD list that will show you every new extension sale of $1,000 or more reported from Jan.1 through the end of the quarter ending June 30. Check that out whenever you would like. In the meantime, here is the creme de la creme of New TLD sales through July 10:

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 represented on our charts who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Individuals like Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation also provide invaluable help by sending us 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 publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling prices - these are top selling domains. One of the biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in your pocket more often!

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

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