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Sedo handles domain sales worth $22 million in Q2

Kevin Murphy, August 2, 2010, Domain Sales

Sedo oversaw almost $22 million in domain name aftermarket sales in the second quarter, predominantly in the .com namespace.
The company’s Domain Market Study, published today, also shows that .co.uk, .de and .eu continue to be the most popular domains in the ccTLD market.
Sedo said that 11,146 domains were sold for a total of $21.6 million in the three months to June 30. That’s down from 11,942 names totalling $23.2 million in the first quarter.
The Q1 results included the $1 million sale of Poker.org.
Sedo had no public seven-figure sales in Q2. The most expensive domain to change hands was cgm.com, which went for $365,000.
The other two of the top three sales were German – kredit.com and software.de. Domains under .de accounted for almost half of all ccTLD sales: 49%.
Of course, .com continued to dominate overall, representing 46% of all sales and 74% of all gTLD sales.
But .net continues to be, on average, the most pricey TLD, with a median sales price of $581 versus .com’s $510. The .biz TLD has the lowest median, at $380.
Q3 is likely to see a sharp spike in sales data by dollar value. Sedo is currently trying to broker the sale of Sex.com, which will certainly fetch seven figures, if it sells.

Cybersquatters already hitting .co

Kevin Murphy, July 21, 2010, Domain Sales

Just over 24 hours after the general availability launch of the .co top-level domain, the secondary market is already beginning to fill up with dodgy domains.
Aftermarkets including Go Daddy and Sedo are currently listing some names that are unarguably typosquats of famous brands, and plenty more that very probably wouldn’t beat a UDRP complaint.
Go Daddy Auctions currently has almost 200 .co domains listed, Sedo over 500. Of those, I managed to find a few dozen dubious registrations, mostly on Go Daddy.
It beggars belief that, with millions of decent greenfield domains available, somebody had the failure of imagination to register wwwgoole.co. But they did. It’s currently listed on Sedo.
Other probable typosquats found on Sedo this evening include yahhoo.co, listed with a £10,000 price tag, as well as yayoo.co, geogle.co and barclys.co.
Go Daddy has listed some more obvious brands: poptarts.co and tostitos.co for the foodies, sanfranciscogiants.co, washingtonnationals.co and seattlemariners.co for the American football baseball fans.
Somebody who pays way too much attention to Rick Schwartz registered bpoilspill.co for the quick flip.
Cartoon characters for sale include mariobros.co and goofy.co. Celebrities duncanbannatyne.co and mikeposner.co both get squatted.
Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft all get targeted, with yahoomaps.co, iphonedeals.co, facebookme.co and bingsearch.co all receiving price tags between $5,000 and $50,000.
For the Brits, centerparcs.co, virginuk.co and bbciplayer.co are also all up for auction.
Bear in mind that these are just the domains that have been registered and listed for auction in the first 24 hours. There’ll be plenty more not yet on the market.
I’d estimate about 5% to 10% of Go Daddy’s .co auctions are currently UDRP fodder.
This is why trademark holders hate new TLDs.

ICANN registrar’s domain listed for sale on Sedo

Kevin Murphy, June 28, 2010, Domain Registrars

When selecting a domain name registrar there are often clues you can use to determine broadly whether a firm is entirely reliable, but this one is new to me.
Vivid Domains, a small-time, seven-year-old ICANN-accredited registrar, currently has its primary domain, vividdomains.com, listed for sale on Sedo.
It’s listed as a “domain without content” too, which looks even more peculiar.
According to DotAndCo, the company recently relocated from Florida to Grand Cayman.
WebHosting.info notes that, having chugged along for some time with only a few hundred domains under management, Vivid’s registration base has leapt from about 400 to over 1,900 in the last two weeks.
KnujOn’s registrar audit report (pdf), released at ICANN Brussels last week, notes that the anti-spam company was unable to locate a business registration for Vivid.
I’m not suggesting Vivid is dodgy, but these are the kind of clues I would use when deciding whether to give a registrar a wide berth.

Kredit.com sells for a fraction of Kredit.de

Kevin Murphy, June 15, 2010, Domain Sales

Kredit.com, which means “credit.com” in German, has been sold via Sedo for a fraction of the price that Kredit.de sold for about 18 months ago.
Sedo reported today that the domain changed hands recently for €220,000, which works out to $271,000 at today’s exchange rates.
For comparison, the German ccTLD equivalent, kredit.de, went for €892,500 in December 2008, also via Sedo. At the time, that amount translated to $1.25 million.
A generic ccTLD selling for roughly 5x the .com is a fairly uncommon occurrence, perhaps demonstrating how strong the .de namespace is locally. I can’t imagine such a wide discrepancy in valuations between a generic .com and .co.uk.
Kredit.com was originally registered in 1996. It’s currently parked, with an Irish address listed in the Whois.

Charity e.co auction kicks off with $10k bid

Kevin Murphy, June 7, 2010, Domain Sales

The four-day auction of the domain name e.co started less than an hour ago at Sedo, and it has already attracted a five-figure bid.
.CO Internet, the Colombian firm behind the newly liberalized .co ccTLD namespace, is using the auction to plug its upcoming landrush, which kicks off June 20.
Juan Diego Calle, CEO of the registry, previously said e.co is “perhaps the shortest, most memorable digital brand in the world”.
Proceeds from the sale will be donated to the charity of the winning bidder’s choosing.
Due to the high-profile nature of the auction, wannabe bidders have to fill out an application form before posting their bids.
The bidding will conclude during a live event at the Internet Week show in New York this Thursday.

Coupons.info sells for over $17,000

Kevin Murphy, May 27, 2010, Domain Sales

Go Daddy might be currently giving away .info domains as freebies when you buy a .com, but that doesn’t mean they’re all worthless.
Coupons.info has just sold through Sedo auction for $17,600, easily the priciest recent .info sale I can recall.
It looks as if the transaction closed yesterday, with the domain now redirecting to its new owner’s existing site at allcouponsdirect.com.
The seller had held a reserve price of $7,000, so I’m guessing he’s a happy bunny today.

E.co up for charity auction at Sedo

Kevin Murphy, May 26, 2010, Domain Sales

Sedo is to host a charity auction for the domain name e.co, under a deal with .CO Internet, manager of the newly relaunched Colombian ccTLD.
The auction will run from June 7 to June 10, with the final hour hosted live at the Internet Week show in New York, simultaneously webcast to the Internet Retailer and TRAFFIC conferences.
The winner of the auction gets to choose which charity the sale price is donated to.
Juan Diego Calle, CEO of the registry, said e.co is “perhaps the shortest, most memorable digital brand in the world”, which is hard to argue with.
You’ve got to hand it to .CO Internet, and to its PR outfit BM, they’re doing a hell of a job keeping the pre-launch .co buzz going. New TLD applicants take note.
Could we see seven figures? It seems quite possible.
Let’s hope the winning bidder throws the money at a worthy cause and doesn’t blow it on a donkey sanctuary or something.

Second-tier TLDs gain aftermarket traction

Kevin Murphy, May 4, 2010, Domain Sales

The average aftermarket selling price of domain names in second-tier TLDs is creeping up, according to the latest numbers from Sedo.
Sedo’s latest quarterly sales review shows that namespaces such as .biz, .info and .org are selling for far better money than they were a year ago.
In fact, the median selling price of .biz, .org, and .net domains is now higher than that of .com.
The price of .biz names, which only accounted for 1% of overall sales, has almost doubled in the last four quarters, up 97% at $537.
The .info namespace fared almost as well, recording a median price of $418, up 91% on the $219 recorded in the second quarter of 2009.
The long-established .org has also appreciated over the last 12 months. Its median price rose 45% to $550.
While there’s no doubt that .com is still where the high-end money is, the median price for a .com was only $510, a 24% increase over the same period.
Sedo has started reporting median prices because big one-off sales can have an impact on the mean averages it also reports.
Its full Q1 Domain Market Study report can be downloaded here.

Three-digit .coms fetch high prices

Kevin Murphy, March 11, 2010, Domain Sales

A few short, meaningful, numerical domains have shifted on Sedo today.
Among them is 313.com, which sold for $25,000. Its end-user value mostly likely lies in 313 being the area code for Detroit, a city of almost a million people.
Similarly, 949.com has sold for $13,560. It’s the dialing code for Orange County in Southern California, as well as being used in various radio stations’ frequencies.
Meanwhile, 421.com has sold for 8,955 euros ($12,229).

F**k.in beats SwearBox.com

Kevin Murphy, March 1, 2010, Domain Sales

This just in from Sedo… fuck.in has fetched 1,050 euros ($1,400) at auction.
Surprisingly low for something with such lovely pun value, I thought, but it still managed to beat the much more useful SwearBox.com, which sold last week for (continue reading)