Category: Video Games

The phrase Silkroad Online refers to a popular Korean fantasy (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) or MMORPG.  According to WikiPedia, “MMORPGs are very popular throughout the world. Worldwide revenues for MMORPGs exceeded half a billion dollars in 2005, and Western revenues exceeded US$1 billion in 2006. In 2008, Western consumer spending on subscription MMOGs grew to $1.4 billion.

World of Warcraft, a popular MMORPG, had over 11.5 million subscribers as of December, 2008.”

The domain name SilkRoadOnline.com was sold through GreatDomains.com for 7,610 Euro (or about $11,000 USD). 

While the Registrant still shows Sedo, we’re assuming the name was picked up by the game’s creators.  The domain itself gets over 2,000 type ins per month, while the Korean Servers official website over at joymax.com gets about 16,000 visitors per month.

Other Related Tidbits

MMORPGS.com is parked at Sedo.  Type in visitors to the domain is over 1,000 visitors per month.

MMORPG.com is a fully developed online multiplayer games web site that gets nearly 200,000 visitors per month.  In Dec. 2008, it received well over 1 Million visitors.

MMORPG.org is parked at Sedo.  Type in visitors to the domain is over 2,000 visitors per month.

Demand Media appears to own MMORPG.tv.  The name sits parked.

Worldwide, Exact Global Searches for the phrase “MMORPG” is nearly 1 million.  The phrase “Silkroad Online” had over 200,000 exact global searches.

Believe it or not, Massivelymultiplayeronlineroleplayinggame.com is registered.  We could be wrong, but based on the landing page, Kevin Ham looks to be the owner.

We just hand-registered MassiveMultiPlayergame.com (it was deleted and available again, and aged over 5 years).  MassiveMultiPlayergames.com is owned by Frank Schilling.

Very few MMORPG related domains appear on SnapNames or NameJet.  However, MMORPGmods.com is listed on NameJet with 0 bidders at the time of this posting.

Other notable GreatDomains sales that accompanied SilkRoadOnline.com include SuperMortgages.com which sold for $7,500, and nghenhac.com that sold for $15,100.

Through Eric Borgos’ Bored.com Network of Entertainment sites, he developed a simple formula of unique, content-focused minisites that connected people in ways that it was engaging and fun.

Eventually, the Bored.com website was pulling in $35,000 a month in profit, before Eric sold the website and 170 other sites to JW Media for $4 million+.

We have featuerd Eric Borgos and his company Impulse Corp. previously on Fusible.com — which Impulse Corp. has interested us as domainers and domain developers.

Eric may have sold Bored.com, but he owns the Dumb.com network.

The original Bored.com wasn’t flashy or web 2.0, but it made money through it’s engaging features that drew in users. And the Dumb.com Entertainment network is also simple, linking to sites within it’s own network of engaging content and games to play.

Lower PPC, Fewer Domain Sales?

Amid the buzz of lower PPC and fewer domain sales, one thing is for sure, developing your domains creates more potential. You can put Adsense ads on your site, sell direct ads — you’re in control. Developing groups of names within a network, makes each brand stronger. 

If you’re spending money each year renewing your names with less revenue to sell, why not try your hand at development?

Although there are several sites offering domain development services, if you can’t afford those services, try giving eLance.com and other freelance sites a shot to see if you can land an affordable, reliable developer.  Then start designing and creating and working with the developer to build and test.