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News

Your Sold Domains. Where are they now? Check out the Stats of Eric Borgos, InsuranceQuotes.com, More

Insurance Quotes

Many of us hope to develop our best domains, but when an irresistible deal comes along, the odds are you might just sell the name you had big plans for.  Have you ever wondered what really happens to these domains?  In the case of Eric Borgos, one of our favorite domainers we enjoy covering who has been highly successful at both domaining and development, has sold a number of quality names that have gone on to be very successful web sites. Eric also sold Bored.com and several related properties for over $4 million. 

His domain marketplace at NameShopping.com offers domain shoppers a little bit of everything, including great domains and bargain-basement prices in some cases – like his sale of TrueRomance.com for $1,000.  Or one of his earlier sales: Cookies.com for $5,000.

Here are some quicky stats from just 2 domains that Eric Borgos has sold that will make you think about your own domains. And who knows, you might think twice the next time you get an offer on one of your own domains that you know has lots of potential — especially if you only own a very small handful, like us.

InsuranceQuotes.com
 
Eric sold InsuranceQuotes.com for $85,000.  Many times names that even sell at this price, still end up parked.  But not InsuranceQuotes.com.  Type in “insurance quotes” into Google, and it’s the #2 result on Page 1 just below Progressive.com. The site gets over 10,000 unique visitors per month.

TotalPorn.com
 
TotalPorn.com was sold for $11,000.  While it might not sound like such a great name to you, the owners who purchased the name saw its potential. Since launching, traffic to the web site has climbed quickly to over 30,000 visitors per month.  While much of the traffic might not be organic, the new owners are onto something.

Eric’s NameShopping.com is definitely worth looking over.  There are thousands of names listed and you might find your diamond in the rough.

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News

National A-1 Relaunches Category-Killer Domain Name Pizza.com, with Fresh New Look

Pizza.comNational A-1, owners of some of the best domain names in the world, have given Pizza.com a fresh new look. 

The site now offers pizza news, pizza games, pizza coupons, supplies, and listings.  There are even pizza fun facts like, “Domino’s Pizza is the world leader in delivery.” If you remember the old site, the new look and feel is more vibrant and inviting to visitors.

What’s the History of the Pizza.com Domain Name?
 
It all started with a hand registered domain name in 1994 by Chris Clark who paid a small registration fee to continually renew the domain name.  That name paid off in the tune of million+ dollars in 2008.  The original Sedo deal of $2.6 million fell through, so the final sales price is unknown.

NJ.com even ran a story just over a week ago about Pizza, which opened with Pizza.com and DDC.com.  In the story Sean Moriarty is even quoted as saying, “It’s probably the best generic domain name in existence..”

Devan Moriarty, along with rest of the world, is crazy about pizza.

The two-year-old insists that her dad, Sean, play Charlotte Diamond’s “I am A Pizza’’ whenever they get into the car. It may be two-plus minutes of silliness (“I am a pizza/with extra cheese/plum tomatoes/onions and mushrooms’’) but little Devan can’t get enough of it.

Her dad loves pizza, too. Moriarty, a former Morristown resident, is CEO of pizza.com. DDC, a domain development firm where Moriarty is an executive, bought the pizza,com name…

Categories
News Video Games

Blizzard knows domains; Warcraft.com, Diablo.com, Battle.net, many more

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, the makers of some of the most popular computer games of all-time, ranging from World of Warcraft to Diablo, not only focus on creating amazing entertainment experiences, but they also focus on using generic keyword domain names for their company and several of their products.

The company’s web site  runs on the domain name Blizzard.com: a site that gets well over 500K unique visitors every month.  They’ve owned and operated Blizzard.com as their company website as far back as 1996, but that’s just one of many names they’ve owned and operated since the early nineties.  Other names include Battle.net and Diablo.com.

While Blizzard doesn’t own every one of their product names, like Starcraft.com (Starcraft Marine who manufacture boats and pontoons own starcraft.com), the operators of Blizzard Entertainment certainly understand the value of domain names – and they have understood the power of domain names and the internet for years and years.

Their domains may not be “category-killer” names as one of our readers has pointed out (thanks ggc), but they certainly are premium generic keyword names that have been built into their own online successful brands – rather than just sitting parked, or changing owners every few years to the next highest buyer.

With an amazing track record of developing computer games, they’ve been matching their games with domain names.

Diablo, the action/RPG game is matched up to Diablo.com.

Warcraft, the game with over 11 million players online, is setup with Warcraft.com.  If you type warcraft.com into your browser, you’re redirected to Blizzard’s battle.net page for a 10 day FREE trial to World of Warcraft.  Battle.net receives over 1 million unique visitors per month according to the latest Compete.com profile.

The List goes on and on.  To top it off, they acquire the .net and .org versions, too.  From Blizzard.net to Warcraft.org.

If you’ve wondered if there are end user companies out there who get domain names – Blizzard Entertainment is a great example of an innovative company with a great portfolio of names.

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News

National A-1 Advertising Officially Launches BETA Site for Category-Killer Antiques.com

Antiques web siteNational A-1 has unveiled the BETA version of Antiques.com – the premier resource to find, buy, sell, and collect antiques of all kinds. 

While the site launch was originally planned for November 2009, it’s now online and to an Antiques enthusiast, the new site looks amazing and has a number of great features such as free listings for businesses, articles, online services, and much more. 

We wrote about the pre-launch and countdown back in November and have been tracking the progress of the web site. 

You can take a look at the “before” pictures of the web site in our previous stories.  Antiques.com reached a 2009 high of over 7000 unique visitors in November 2009, but traffic slightly dipped as the launch date came and went.  Now the web site is online and it’s on Page 2 of Google search results for the term: antiques.

What do you think of Antiques.com new look? 

Let us know your thoughts in the Comments.

About Antiques.com

Antiques.com is the premier resource to find, buy, sell, and collect antiques of all kinds. Our store locator will locate shops in your local area, plus thousands of flea markets, events, and auctions across the country. Vendors can create custom pages and list items for sale and our Articles section has dozens of videos and is open to all authors. Happy hunting!

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News

GOLF Domain Name Sales are ON FIRE, GolfZone.com sells for $50,000; Just How Popular are Golf Names?

Paula CreamerGolf-related domain names are Hot Tickets, especially on Sedo.  GolfZone.com recently sold for $50,000 – a name that was orginally registered in 1996 and sat parked on GoDaddy for the last 5 years before selling through Sedo’s Marketplace.

The new owner looks to be based in South Korea.  The registrant information was last updated on January 29, 2010, and the new registrant is Gabia, Inc – a South Korea domain registration and services company.

Just How Popular are Golf Domains and Web sites?

The category-killer domain name Golf.com – a web site that has golf news, videos and more – gets well over 1 million unique visitors per month.  PGAtour.com gets over 2 million visitors per month. 

The Exact Global Monthly Search volume for the term “Golf” was over 2.7 million searches last month alone.  “Golf Clubs” topped over 500,000, and some of the top searches involved golf accessories such as “golf balls”, “golf shoes”, and “golf bags”.

Some of the well-known Domainers like Mike Berkens of MostWantedDomains.com owns 100+ golf domains ranging from Golfclubbags.com to GolfingTrip.com.  Kevin Ham owns golf domains like GolfShirt.com.

One of the most popular Golf names owned by Domainers is GolfClub.com, owned and operated by the Castello Brothers.  The site is developed and according to an interview by DNJournal, GolfClub.com booked over $1 million in Sales in its first year as a brick and mortar business.

Golf domains are HOT.  Developed golf domains are even HOTTER.  Golflink.com, a site run by Demand Media, hit nearly 1 million unique visitors last July.  They also own GolfSpan.com, a site they purchased in 2007 that provided instructional golf videos.  GolfSpan.com is now a GolfLink landing page, that takes visitors to the Golf Link web site.

Notable Golf Domain Sales over $5,000

Sedo has had a lot of success brokering the sales of golf-related domain names and even have Golf.org listed for sale.  And there are plenty of golf domains expiring each and every day.  Over at NameJet, over 200 names containing “golf” appear to drop on average per day – with today’s list including WinterGolfResorts.com and DiscGolfBaskets.net.  At the time of this posting, both of those names, and literally hundreds more have 0 bidders.

Golf.tv sold for $600,000 in February 2003 in a Private Sale
GolfClubreview.com sold for $55,350 in May 2006 on SnapNames
Golfplatz.de sold for $31,460 in August 2009 on Sedo
GolfClubs.net sold for $30,000 in November 2007 on Moniker
OnlineGolf.de sold for $23,970 in June 2009 on Sedo
CanadianGolfer.com sold for $15,000 in December 2009 on Pro Forma
Golfonline.de sold for $14,200 in August 2009 on Sedo
Golfbag.com sold for $13,000 in March 2009 at Moniker/DOMAINfest Global
TexasGolf.com sold for $11,500 in July 2008 on Sedo
Golfers.org sold for $5,500 in April 2007 on Moniker