Who owns the best Groupon domains?

With its traffic base nearly 7 million visitors in July 2010, Groupon has attracted plenty of attention, not only by the media and venture capital companies, but by domain name speculators looking to cash in on the company’s popular name.  But not all domain names were registered after Groupon’s astronomical rise in popularity, many domain names were purchased years before. 

So who owns the best Groupon domain names in terms of traffic?  Is it Groupon?  Below we take a look at several Groupon related domain that could make or break the owners.

Grupon.com

In August 2009, while Groupon.com flirted with almost 1 million visitors according to Compete, Grupon registered just under 200 visitors. 

But as Groupon has risen to nearly 7 million visitors per month, Grupon.com now takes in over 2,000 visitors per month to its parked page.  The domain was first registered in 2004.

Goupon.com

In July 2010, Goupon.com had an estimated 1,973 visitors.  It’s trajectory followed the same path as Grupon.com, with traffic in the hundreds in August 2009.  The domain was first registered in 2007.

Groupon.net, Groupon.org, Groupon.co

You may expect that the .net and .org would benefit off the .com’s traffic, but that’s not the case in this scenario.  Neither Groupon.net or Groupon.org register any significant traffic.  In fact, Compete hasn’t collected any data from the names.  While Compete isn’t the most accurate analytics tool, even if it was off by thousands, neither site is even shows a blip.  Groupon.net operates an asian web site called BIZHARD, which appears to be running malware.  Groupon.org redirects to Groupon.com through an affiliate link, but doesn’t appear to be owned by Groupon according to registrant records. 

Now the .co on the other hand, which re-directs to Groupon.com, does register traffic.  In June 2010, the web address experienced over 1,500 visitors.   And it’s been getting traffic for months.  While it’s negligible, it appears the .co typo does better than the long established .net and .org domains.

Grroupon.com, Gropuon.com, Groupoj.com, Grouupon.com, Geoupon.com

One person decided to register a number of typos, but the risky bet hasn’t paid off, as none of the names register any traffic according to Compete’s tracking statistics.  Chances are, the owner may elect to drop these names when they come up for renewal.

Groupon

The slump in traffic to other domains, hasn’t stopped Groupon Inc from registering other web addresses.  The company also owns Groupons.com, Groupon.info, Groupons.info, Groupons.net, Groupons.biz, Groupons.org, Groupon.biz, and Group-on.com – most of which redirect to the company’s main web site.

The company even launched a blog, LiveoffGroupon.com, where Josh Stevens writes about living off groupons while traveling nationwide.

Despite the site’s popularity, looking at the traffic numbers of other websites and parked pages, it’s hard to argue that owners of alternate domains and typos have actually benefited.

Coupons.com (which also owns coupon.com) sits at 10,000,000+ visitors per month, from a high of over 15MM in November.  The site launched it’s own “daily deal” service in March.  If you’re wondering whether the popular phrase “Daily Deal” is developed, it is.  The founder, Boyan Josic, launched his own group buying service, in a space that is becoming more and more crowded.