Month: March 2010

Finding domain names on the aftermarket, especially on auction sites can seem daunting but it doesn’t have to be. 

There are a number of pay-services that can help you find better domains and provide statistics alongside them.  But have you considered using the Search or Advanced Search features on websites like SnapNames and NameJet? They’re easy and free to use and you’ll be surprised by what you can find that others have not. 

While the aftermarket search tools don’t provide much in the way of stats, it doesn’t take years of experience to spot a good domain.

If you prefer to pay for services instead of finding the information on your own, that’s one way and it can certainly be timesaving – but the technique many follow is to simply use the site’s search engine in a variety of ways.  For example, watch what others are bidding on, then search for similar names that are expiring that have 0 or few bidders.

Get Acquainted with NameJet’s Improved Advanced Search Engine
 
Far from being an advanced search engine, NameJet’s search feature has come along way in the past year.  You can start finding names without having to pour through the drop lists using keywords that interest you.  Have you seen some of the names that people bid on?

Take a look at RankMyDoctor.com and RankMyHospital.com on NameJet right now.  Both names are in PreRelease and head to auction on April 16th, 2010.  Both names have over 40 bidders each.  Neither domains have pagerank nor traffic, but both names have seemed to grab the interest of buyers – dozens of them.  These names don’t interest us at all, but it’s an interesting example of what you can find on NameJet if you’re looking for similar names – or if you can’t afford to buy RankMyDoctor.com once it heads to auction.

Take a look.

A simple search on the keyword phrase “rankmy” will show you there are several domain names starting with the keyword “rankmy” on NameJet that have 0 bidders and all go to auction the same day as RankMyDoctor.com.

RankMyPhysician.com
RankMyNursingHome.com
RankMyChiropractor.com
RankMyInsuranceCompany.com
RankMyWord.com
RankMyWall.com

All of the names with the exception of RankMyWall.com and RankMyDoctor.com hold an appraisal value according to Valuate.com – with RankMyWall.com appraising at $45 and RankMyDoctor.com appraising at $35.  The rest of the names in the list (including RankMyHospital.com) all appraise at $0.  Maybe these names are catchy or someone has plans in mind, but with as many bidders as they have, they will probably auction off at an overvalued price.

Using the site’s own search tool is easy and free and quick.  Search on keywords without bids that interest you.  We regularly search on keywords like “Military” and watch the name up until minutes before its backorder due date, then snap it up for less than $100 since no other bidders got involved and we didn’t place a  bid prematurely.

The keyword “social” also appears to be on the drop and attracting bidders.  A simple search at NameJet shows results like Socialtips.com with 0 bidders and SocialMedias.com with just 2 bidders.  SocialMediaJobs.net is also listed with 0 bidders.  These names aren’t necessarily great or even good, but the point is, once in awhile you’ll discover names that are great or good that no one else has uncovered.

If you’ve got the time, hunting for a domain name on the aftermarket, can be easy and fun, especially if you’ve already got keywords in mind.

Most domainers might be familiar with past sales of “fly” domains. Fly.com sold for a whopping $1.5 million in 1999 and was acquired in 2009 by Travelzoo for $1.8 million.   Fly.co.uk sold for $181,042, Fly.co.za sold for $65,000 in 2010, and even Fly.ma sold for over $4,000 in 2007 via Sedo. Domain owners work in mysterious ways, and fly.net is one example.

The domain name expired on March 4, 2010 and is up for auction over at NameJet with a mere 4 bidders and a high pre-bid of $300. The domain itself gets over 1,000 unique visitors per month alone according to Compete and it’s a keyword that is searched globally over 1 million times per month. That’s an exact match type.

Why Fly.net expired, is anyone’s guess

The original owner of the domain going back to 1997, Chris Townsend, also owns slack.net – which is still an active and registered name. Fly.net is a huge domain to let expire, so either Chris Townsend has been slacking on renewals or for other reasons — the name just hasn’t been renewed.

If this name makes it to Auction on April 8, it’s going to be one whopper of an auction on NameJet.

UPDATE: Shortly after we ran this story, the owner of Fly.net renewed the domain name.  Although NameJet still has the domain listed for PreRelease, when NameJet refreshes their database today, the name will no longer be up for auction.

Sedo GreatDomains has been ringing up some significant sales recently. The premium domains auction site and parking program, also reported the sale of MusicVideos.com for $250,000. The competition for auction sites and domain parking programs has heated up over the last few years, but Sedo continues to beat the competition.

The new owner of the category-killer names (WeddingGifts.com and WeddingGift.com) has not been revealed while the registrant information points to Sedo Transfer Service – but the pair of Wedding Gift names managed to attract one savvy investor – who moved to acquire both the singular and plural to own the .com category.

The keywords “Wedding gifts” was searched globally (exact match) in the month of January approximately 110,000 times, while “wedding gift” was searched over 40,000 times. For comparison purposes, “birthday gifts” was search just over 130,000 times globally and “gifts” reached 1 million searches.

Other Notable Wedding Domain Sales

Weddings.org sold for $34,500 in 2008 in a Private Sale

WeddingPlace.com sold for $16,000 in 2008 on Afternic

WeddingChocolates.com sold for $12,611 in 2006 on SnapNames

GayWedding.com sold for $10,100 in 2008 on Sedo

WeddingCatering.com sold for $10,000 in 2007 on Moniker

WeddingGift.net sold for $3,600 in 2008 on NameJet

Ron Jackson of DNJournal, the domain industry news magazine, is reporting that Moniker has brokered the sale of Guns.com for $800,000 shattering the 2010 .com sales records of .com domains by over 100 percent. The next highest .com sale of 2010 is PartySupplies.com for $360,000 which was also sold at Moniker, followed by Biking.com and Boating.com each for $250,000 which sold on Afternic in February.

Though the buyer hasn’t been disclosed, for the price tag of $800,000, it’s hard to imagine this name not being developed. In terms of visitor traffic, the URL guns.com had over 13,000 visitors in January 2010, and reached as many as 30,000 unique visitors in January 2009. As far as the search engines, GunBroker.com ranks at the top with over 1.5 million unique visitors per month for the search term “guns”. ImpactGuns.com gets nearly half a million visitors, followed by NRA.org with almost 200,000 visitors.

Here is some of what Ron Jackson had to say about the transaction:

You might recall that Guns.com was in Moniker’s live auction at the DOMAINfest Global conference in January but did not meet reserve. After that event Moniker brokers continued to work hard to close a deal for the category defining domain and have now succeeded. The name was transferred on Friday and the WhoIs record currently has privacy listings…

Previous Sales of Gun Domain Names

If you’re curious about previous sales of Gun-related domain names, here’s a list of sales pulled from NameBio:

GunVendor.com sold for $28,000 on Sedo in July 2009

SpearGuns.com sold for $14,000 on Monkier in April 2009

PaintballGun.com sold for $10,299 on NameJet in December 2008

GunSpace.com sold for $5,000 on Afternic in April 2008

Guns.tv sold for $140 on Sedo in June 2008