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“Snooki” from MTV Jersey Shore: You Never Know Which Domain Names You Own Will Be Catchy

Snooki
Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi has created herself a brand that continues to receive buzz. And the catchy name has certainly increased the value of the related domains.

Whether you watch reality shows or not, you’ve probably heard something about Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi.  Snooki (often incorrectly spelled Snookie, is the self proclaimed “guidette” from Marlboro, New York. 

She made big headlines in the NEWS when a man punched her in her face during a bar confrontation that was aired on MTV’s Jersey Shore.  She got the name “Snooki” in middle school.  According to Wikipedia, “her friends called her “Snooki” after the character “Snooki the cootchie crook” from the film Save the Last Dance because she was the first of her friends to make out with a boy.”

While we don’t own Snooki.com or Snookie.com, catchy names like this have been the interest of many domainers for years and year.  Take a look at Mocus.com – the brand names nursey, and you’ll find dozens of catchy names listed for sale.  The prices range from $2,000 all the way up to $60,000 for loli.com. 

The keyword snookie had 246,000 Exact Local Searches in December.  Snooki had just under 15,000, while Snooki only had 260 [Globally].  If you take a look at Compete, site traffic for the domain name snookie.com has gone from zero in March 2009 to well over 1,000 unique vistors per month as of December 2009.

While Snookie.com has been enjoying an increase in type in traffic, it remains parked but listed for sale.  Snooki.com is a broken page.  If you take a look at the website a few years ago, it was a full fledged web site for a cartoon cat character and the site offered downloads and other merchandise, but it’s no longer online.

What’s the Point of this story?

The reason we bring this up, is that you just never know what’s going to happen with certain domain names you own.  While it can become costly to hold onto domain names that others turn away, events and people could change things.  Your next domain name, even a hand registered one, might be that catchy name or phrase that some upcoming individual or company really wants.

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Nationwide Insurance Buys NationwideSeries.com for $6K for NASCAR Series; MORE SEDO Sales

NASCARNationwide Mutual Insurance purchased the domain name NationwideSeries.com for $6,000 at Sedo’s GreatDomains.  Nationwide Insurance has been the title sponsor for the NASCAR Nationwide Series events since 2008. 

The events are NASCAR’s second most popular racing series, supported by more than 75 million fans, including 2.7 million who annually attend NASCAR Nationwide Series races — according to information taken from Nationwide’s web site.

Owning the domain name gives Nationwide the chance to build an online presence to promote their partnership with NASCAR and create a community for fans to go that is completely focused on the racing.  With a separate media platform, Nationwide can build in social media, fan pages, statistics and much more to draw in thousands of visitors.

Related Nationwide Series Domain Tidbits

Nationwide Insurance also purchased NASCARNationwideSeries.com on Jan. 15th, 2010.

Nearly every other TLD of the phrase NationwideSeries is available for hand-registration.  Looks like Nationwide is only focused on owning the dotCOMs in a number of variations.

TheHotLap.com, a separate website focusing on news, photos and features about the Nationwide Series, gets as many as 9,000 visitors per month.

Other Notable Sales Recently at Sedo

implant.eu 5,010 Euro
podium.com   7,900 £
crystalblue.com   11,300 $US
usagardener.com   8,250 $US
betin.com   10,000 Euro
burj-al-arab.ru   7,000 $US
fastnacht.de   5,950 Euro
annonce.net   8,000 Euro
jordanien.de   17,850 Euro
daviderossi.com   9,350 $US
photobox.dk   7,000 Euro
musik-total.de   9,520 Euro

About the NASCAR Nationwide Series

The NASCAR Nationwide Series is a stock car racing series owned and operated by the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. It is promoted as NASCAR’s “minor league” circuit (often compared to Triple-A baseball), and is a proving ground for drivers who wish to step up to the organization’s “big league” circuit, the Sprint Cup. Nationwide Series races are frequently held in the same venue as, and a day prior to, the Sprint Cup race scheduled for that weekend, encouraging fans to attend both events.

The series was previously called the NASCAR Busch Series and the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series. In December 2006, NASCAR officials confirmed that Anheuser-Busch, parent company for Busch Beer, would not renew its sponsorship of NASCAR’s No. 2 series after the end of the 2007 Season.

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Blogging about Domain Names: Landing Big Sponsor National A-1 Advertising on Fusible.com

National A-1
NATIONAL A-1 PAYS TOP DOLLAR FOR PREMIUM DOMAINS, FOCUSING ON THE BEST OF BOTH GENERAL AND ADULT-ORIENTED NAMES.

While our aim is to make money developing and selling domain names, we also have a lot of interest in blogging about the industry and our own experience as domainers. 

We’re still figuring out the whole domaining thing – but we’re enjoying it. While we don’t make money full time with domain names, we spend a lot of our free time blogging about them, typically about topics that interest us as we learn more and more on how to improve the way we do things.

This week, we landed a big advertiser on our website:  National A-1 Advertising, one of the most talked-about and most exciting domain companies — who own some of the best properties on the web like free.com, girls.com, pizza.com, cash.com and literally thousands more of the same top caliber.

National A-1 is in a rare class of Domain-related companies who certainly bring buzz and attention to the industry. 

It’s a very generous sponsorship and we are grateful for it. 

And a BIG THANKS goes to Francois for his fantastic platform (http://www.domaining.com/) that allows domainers to reach out to the masses.

If you have a premium name – not just a great name – for sale, National A-1 offers top dollar.

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DomainingTips SnapNames Auction Nets $66,295 Falls Short of 6-Figure Goal; Valuate Appraisal $58,145

auction paddle

The auction held by Andrei over at DomainingTips in conjunction with SnapNames netted $66,295.   Here are the results based on the closing numbers that we took a snapshot of.

necklace.net $10,145
offended.com $9,075
dullard.com $7,550
hydronicheating.com $7,265
armchair.net $7,240
epilator.net $7,240
fleetinsurance.com $4,940
management.mx $4,940
tuning.mx $4,940
petferrets.com $1,680
personalorganisers.com $980
chromeshocks.com $300

As we wrote about earlier, Andrei has a HUGE project planned and his goal was to raise six figures in cash selling his domain portfolio over at SnapNames.  The auction which just ended minutes ago, had a dozen names meet their reserve.

It should be interesting to see if Andrei will move forward with his plans, considering the auction finished strong, but fell short of his six figure target.  According to Valuate.com, Andrei’s names that did sell finished slightly higher than the Valuate.com appraisal.

Valuate.com Appraisal:  $58,145

Here’s the breakdown of Valuate’s appraisals, by domain:

Necklace.net $25,000
FleetInsurance.com $7,200
Offended.com $6,100
HydronicHeating.com $5,500
Armchair.net $4,300
PersonalOrganisers.com $3,300
PetFerrets.com $2,200
Dullard.com $2,100
Epilator.net $2,000
ChromeShocks.com $380
Management.mx $35
Tuning.mx $30

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Can He Do It? Trying to Raise Six Figures from Domains, Quickly

money

Andrei, from DomainingTips.com, has a HUGE project planned.  Now all he has to do is raise six figures in cash selling his domain portfolio over at SnapNames.  The auction which has a little more than 1 day left, already has nearly $50,000 in bids with only 10 names catching bids so far.  The top bids include names like Necklace.net for $9,645 and Dullard.com for $7,550.

If you questioned whether you could raise cash quickly if you own similar names to Andrei, the final auction prices later tomorrow will erase all doubts.  Despite all the negative publicity in recent months about SnapNames, the auction platform is going strong.

The need to raise cash for a HUGE project might be the one of the most interesting aspects of this auction.  Good luck to Andrei!

Why’s Andrei Selling?

Simply put, in Andrei’s own words: “I’m launching a HUGE project (the most important thing I’ve been involved with since I started making money online) and need low 6 figures at the very least in order to make things happen. Will I include a case study on the blog? Of course, stay tuned!”