Month: April 2010

Great Domains has announced the sale of Species.com.  Over the years, the Endangered Species Fund of Canada operated a website on the domain that accepted donations to help protect endangered species like Amur Leopards, but wind the clock back to the late nineties and the owner of the big ticket domain, listed the domain for sale for just $1,400. 

Domain names back in the nineties at times sold for rockbottom prices – which many gawked at, while others like Rick Schwartz gladly paid.  Like Rick’s purchase of Men.com for $15,000 in 1997, which he later sold just three years later in 2000 for $1.3 million.

Depending on how much confidence you place on Valuate.com appraisals – the domain name is valued at $476,000 – which makes the domain name a steal at $37K ten years later when it was originally listed for under $2K.

It’s quite amazing to see the domain names that show up on the pre-release list each day, keeping in mind, that just because the domain name expires and sits in a pre-release status, doesn’t mean the owner can’t get it back in time before it deletes. 

Here’s another case where a great domain name has expired: Birkenstocks.com.  Obviously, this one is a little different.  While some domains expire after a company shuts down, Birkenstock is still in business and owns several domain names like Birkenstock.com and Birkenstock.de. 

When you visit Birkenstock.com you can choose the country you want to visit.  Say for example, you want to buy Birkenstocks in the USA, you can jump to BirkenstockUSA.com. 

Birkenstocks.com was originally owned by the company and at one time was a destination website for birkenstock sandals.  However, on April 4, 2010 that all changed when the domain expired.  As of today, the name is set for auction on NameJet on May 9, 2010 and currently only has five bids.

Dwight Schrute of The Office, wears Birkenstocks
 
According to Wikipedia, the Birkenstock brand traces its roots to a German by the name of Johann Adam Birkenstock. Birkenstock was registered in 1774 as a “subject and shoemaker” in local church archives. Then in 1967, shoes started being sold in the USA after American Margot Fraser “discovered” the Birkenstock sandals while on a holiday in Germany…

If you haven’t seen Birkenstocks lately, you’d probably recognize them on the TV Show The Office. As Wikipedia points out, Dwight Schrute keeps a spare pair of Birkenstocks in his car for special occasions.

Valuate.com appraises the domain name at $277,000.  But this is a name you probably want to avoid. The word Birkenstock is trademarked.  And it’s probably only a matter of time before the company realizes the oversight.  Or, goes after the new owner at some point in the future.

There aren’t many domain names that get appraised at $498,000 by Valuate.com that expire. 

But what’s really surprising, is that one company not only allowed VideoEditing.com (appraised at nearly 500K) to expire, but they also allowed another great domain name to expire:  ComputerAnimation.com. 

These two domains bring the total to over half a million dollars in dropped names.  And chances are, if these two domains are expiring, you’ll be seeing others from the same company:  A New Light Productions, Inc. based in Asheville, NC.

A New Light Productions, overlooks renewals
 
According the company’s profile: “A New Light Productions Inc is a private company categorized under and located in Asheville, NC. Our records show it was established in 1986* and incorporated in North Carolina*. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $500,000 to $1 million and employs a staff of approximately 1 to 4.”

They did business on VideoEditing.com which expired on March 27, 2010 and now heads to auction at NameJet.

It’s insane to let these names go.  But the amount of great domains that are dropping appear to be on the rise, either through mistakes or just plain lack of interest.

In case you haven’t looked lately at the aftermarket, the number of great domains expiring, seems to be on the rise. 

It doesn’t take a lot of time to find great expiring domains, when others have already done the legwork by placing pre-bids on domains days and weeks before the name even goes to auction.  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Fortunately, for those of you who don’t have the time to search for expiring domains, there are plenty of bidders placing bids early, making it easy to spot great names receiving interest.  Alot of bidders know perfectly well how to win a domain without competing against other bidders: wait to place your bid.

Great names dropping all the time
 
The lists of expiring domains is a smorgasbord of keyword domains from product names to geo names and everything in between.  Names like ComputerAnimation.com (valuate Appraisal: $41,000), New-Jersey.com (Valuate Appraisal: $43,000) and Ambivalence.com (Valuate Appraisal: $17,000).

We do most of our shopping at NameJet and SnapNames when it comes to expiring domains.  He’s a shortlist of great domains getting ready to head to auction over at NameJet:

FilmEquipment.com
StereoSpeakers.com
Subsidies.com
SkiMaps.com
ComputerAnimation.com
MovieOuttakes.com
InsuranceExams.com
Ambivalence.com
Computerize.com
EarnaDegreeonline.com
GlenArbor.com
KneeDeep.com
New-Jersey.com

That’s just the shortlist of .coms.  The list of great keyword domains in .net and .org is even longer.