Website.com Changes Hands for 750K at Sedo in Year's Largest Reported Sale

by Ron Jackson
  

The Website.com news has been bouncing around for a few days now, so that item might be a bit anticlimactic for some of you domain news buffs, but have no fear - we have many more interesting tidbits for you, including still another six-figure sale that ranks number 2 on our new Top Ten list. That involves the $100,000 purchase of Lunch.com by InnovationHQ.com in a private transaction. That was one of two six-figure blasts InnovationHQ fired from their double-barreled domain shotgun this week. You'll find details on the other one are in our Rewind section a bit further down as it involves an Ebay auction that ended in February that has just now been verified.

SnapNames.com was in major butt-kicking mode this week, sweeping positions 3 through 5 on the Big Board and taking half of the chart entries overall. They rode Skateboard.net to #3 at $29,250 and TranslationServices.com was close behind at $25,500. Skateboard.net was one of only two non .coms on the new list, with the other being #6 Dachausbau.de ("roof finishing" in German) which sold for �10,000  ($12,017) at Sedo.

Eight of this week's big winners cracked the five-figure mark. DotcomAgency.com posted one of those with #7 RaisingStandards.com going for �5,875 ($10,207). Another, #8 PrincessPoker.com,  changed hands at Ira Zoot's DigitalEstates.com for an even $10,000. Zoot, who hails from Chicago, is a pretty fair poker player himself, so I wouldn't have wanted to be the one sitting across the table from him negotiating that deal.  

There may have been another major five-figure sale this week, but neither the buyer nor seller has verified the $75,000 winning bid placed in an Ebay auction for Amman.com. The price looks reasonable considering Amman, a city of 2 million, is the capital of Jordan and a key metropolis in the Middle East. In addition, the high bidder has a 100% feedback rating, so we would guess this one is the real deal. While Amman.com will have to remain in uncharted waters for now, there are several others on our new leader board for the week ending July 24 that are ready to take a bow now:

SnapNames.com rounded out their trio of five-figure sales with #5  eCommercials.com at $12,138. They then anchored the chart with a nice 3-letter .com, #9 TWM.com ($8,864) and #10 DrillBit.com ($7,545). As usual, the domains SnapNames placed on the chart were just the headliners on a long list of notable sales. 

Their other big hitters included TheCruiseLine.com at $6,200, VehicleInspection.com at $5,850 and NYProperty.com at $5,600. EasternStar.com lit up another $5,288, PartySongs.com belted out $5,101 and Mobilcom.com commanded $5,100. VetCare.com dispensed $4,490, PersonalInfo.com added $4,110 and PersonalizedMugs.com left a $4,001 print. Not far behind were Puffies.com ($3,888), IslandsOnline.com ($3,800) and TopFinance.com ($3,548).

Also at SnapNames, PowerTabs.com lifted $3,500, PressKit.com attracted $3,488 and ItchyEyes.com scratched out $3,433. OldToys.com fetched $3,400, $3,234 blossomed from LittleFlower.com and SpyCamera.net snapped $3,108. HealthAdministration.com managed $3,033, LaetitiaCasta.com (a well-known super model) and Dixie.net brought $3,000 each and CulturedPearl.com cultivated $2,938. 

SonicBox.com ($2,900), SkinToons.com and MarketingMatrix.com ($2,600 each) and Vsex.com ($2,501) helped round out the SnapNames roster. Support also came from BostonJob.com ($2,488), Vunus.com ($2,350) and ScrapbookPhoto.com ($2,188). LandscapingLights.com ($2,121) and BungalowHousePlan.com ($2,100) closed the curtain on the 2K+ sales there.

Sedo could have just taken their three-quarters of a million for Website.com and gone home, but of course they didn't. They poured more black ink onto the ledger with GreenCard.net ($7,250), RentalCars.net (�5,500 = $6,609) and Bricks.co.uk (�3,500 = $6,084). MegaCable.org hooked them up with another $5,000 and two more strong .nets, Currency.net ($4,500) and RentalCar.net (�3,500 = $4,205) kept the party going. .Org weighed in again with TSX.org going for �2,000 ($3,476) and Holzhauer.com kicked in $3,888.

Sedo is always known for strong country code sales. Some of their other winners in that category were VGO.de (�4,100 = $4,927), Tanken.de (�3,000 = $3,604) and DigitalPayments.co.uk (�2,000 = $3,476). They even cashed Ticket.nu for �1,000 ($1,201), marking one of the few sales we've ever seen from the Niue country code extension.

At Pool.com, a buyer took a $5,055 shine to RhinestoneShoes.com and PetAdoptions.com found a new home for $5,050. Flirty.com attracted $4,200, BangleBracelets.com brought $4,138 and HighSchoolProms.com cost $4,113. FreeMP3Ringtone.com ($4,099), HispanicWedding.com ($3,288) and Biosys.com ($3,200) helped fatten up the deposit bag. The "longest domain of the week" winner was CommercialRealEstateProperties.com at $2,699. LasVegasReceptions.com welcomed $2,650, DownloadMP3Ringtones.com drew $2,400 and DolphinWatching.com sited $2,155. Other notables included MenOnMen.com ($2,070), IncomeTaxEvasion.com ($1,838) and BattlingDepression.com ($1,605). 

Back at DotcomAgency.com, CerealBowls.com crunched $4,500 and TelescopeReviews.com spotted $4,000 while TurkeyFriers.com and RoomAirPurifier.com collected $3,600 each. In an interesting illustration of how domain valuation has been rising, Dotcom Agency owner Ian Andrew told us that the domains they've sold over the past three months averaged 134 times the annual revenue those domains had been producing! Everyone thought Marchex set the benchmark when they paid about 8.5 times annual earnings for the Ultimate Search portfolio last year, but I'm sure domain owners would rather use Andrew's yardstick!

Afternic.com took $4,200 for Bruc.com and added $3,888 for iCache.com. They also stored $2,888 from DigitalMemory.com and made $2,500 from ManuelTorres.com. 

Rewind: At the end of February, an auction for WhatIsMyIP.com ended at a stunning $386,100 at Ebay. Since the high bidder and seller both opted for privacy protection, we were never able to verify whether or not the sale price was legitimate, so the domain was never charted (though we did report the auction results in our March 8 column). We have new information now. InnovationHQ.com, a well-known player in domain acquisitions (and the buyer of Lunch.com for $100,000 this week) has confirmed  that they did indeed pay that amount for the high traffic domain which currently scores 6,315 with the extension in Overture. That makes WhatIsMyIP.com the fourth highest sale reported so far this year, and it now takes a place on our Year to Date chart below. 

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With the Website.com and Lunch.com sales, plus the coming out of WhatIsMyIP.com, our Year-To-Date Top Sellers Chart gets three new members this week and they are all six-figure heavyweights. The minimum entry level to make this list is now $35,000. Here are the sales leaders so far in 2005: 

New TLD Section

Last week, .info snapped .biz' 6-week streak in the #1 position on our New TLD chart. This week .US takes a turn in the spotlight. Twisters.us heads our new extension list after being sold by Omni Marketing Group for $2,625 in a private sale. 

After being unseated from the throne last week, .biz comes back with a powerful performance this week, taking four of the remaining seven positions on our new chart. #2 Coupon.biz leads the .biz assault after changing hands for �1,667 ($2,003) at Sedo. .Info isn't about to go away quietly either, taking positions 3 and 4 with Cook.info at $1,500 and Psychotherapy.info at $1,200. Dale Porter of the TheNameStore.com bought Cook.info in a private transaction while Pyschotherapy changed hands at Sedo.

Still another four-figure sale at Sedo landed Archery.biz in the #5 position. That nice one-word domain went for an even $1,000. Here's a look at the complete new extension leader board for the week ending July 24: 

A pair of .biz domains sold at Sedo took two of the last three positions on our new list. #6 Central.biz booked �750 ($901) and #8 DPM.biz went for �450 ($782). Nosh.info was sandwiched in between those two after being sold by Howard Hoffman of PPCIncome.com for $800 in a private transaction. In another .info sale, John DeMayo picked up LeadGeneration.info for $650 at Sedo.

It currently cost $2,400 to make our New TLD Year-To-Date chart so only Twisters.us was able to crack the Top Sellers list this week. .US has only 10 of the top 49 sales, but the American country codes holds 3 of the 5 biggest ones. .Biz, which has enjoyed a bit of a breakout this year, has 11 chart entries but .info remains the runaway leader with 28. Here are the highest reported New TLD sales through July 24:

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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