Category: News

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

It truly is mind-boggling to see the domain names that individuals and organizations allow to expire.  Some of the most promising domains end up on the aftermarket and fetch top dollar by buyers. 

It’s not the owners who reap the rewards though.  It’s the business savvy aftermarket companies and their partnerships with the registrars who make out big.  Everyone has their reasons for letting domains expire – they forget to renew the domain, they go bankrupt, they just don’t care — the list goes on and on.  But when it’s simply a mistake or oversight, it’s one of those things that give domainers a chance to pick up a great name at a great price.

Top domainers like Frank Schilling made a killing in the early 2000s when many gave up on the power of the internet and let their domains expire.  And he’s amassed a portfolio of domains that is virtually unmatched. Yun Ye, who sold his portfolio of names he snapped up on the drop, raked in millions.

It is Mind Boggling in this day in Age
 
While the number of killer names that are dropping will never equal the flow of names in the early 2000s, great domains are still dropping all the time and that’s why it’s amazing to see some of the names that end up on the aftermarket. 

Take TennisCourts.com for example.  The domain name expired on February 26, 2010, and it’s now up for auction on NameJet.  The name is appraised at $114,000 according to Valuate.com.

CRG also known as the Customer Relations Group allowed CustomerRelations.com to expire.  It expired on February 23 and is now up for auction on NameJet, as well. Valuate.com appraises the name at $13,000.  Customcabinetry.com expired on February 11.  It’s valued at $15,000.  The list is endless.

While the volume of GREAT expiring names has certainly slowed down over the last 10 years, the volume of drops is still high, given the number of subpar domain names like 18900000000.net  (which is also on NameJet) that someone chose to register. 

But if you have the time, there is plenty of opportunity for you to turn someone else’s oversight, into something big for yourself.

With spring right around the corner, big gun National A-1 Advertising has launched their category-killer domain name Camps.com into a full fledged website. 

National A-1 has been making headlines lately in quick succession, most notably after relaunching Pizza.com, then with the sale of Poker.org for $1 million. 

While we haven’t seen any press releases on the launch of Camps.com, its one of many great names listed on National A-1’s Catnip.com landing page.  National A-1 has also launched other resource/directory sites this year including Antiques.com. 

Camps.com allows you to find camps, add your own camp for free, read camp-related articles, and even submit your own stories.  Simply parking domains isn’t cutting it for some of the largest domain companies, and National A-1 has long been increasing their web presence.

From the Camps.com About Us Section

Welcome to Camps.com – you’re one stop reference for anything and everything camp related. Searching for the best in education, arts, games, or sports camps? Camps.com has you covered! Use our search engine to find specific camps in your area or get a listing of all the camps in your neck of the woods. Why spend the summer months twiddling your thumbs when you could be honing skills for your favorite activities? Interested in trying something new and don’t know where to start? Camps.com has the answer! Whether it’s spelunking caves in the Appalachian Mountains or nature hikes in the California’s Redwood forests, you’ll find a camp for it at Camps.com.