Don’t ask me what’s so special about the number sequence 029, but it must be important to someone because 029.com just sold for $110,000 USD at auction. Two more number domains, 980.com and 123123.com, fetched $40,000 and $20,000 each.

There were a number of other miscellaneous odd sales. RandomActsOfKindness.org sold for $25,000, which is quite a bit for such a long name. Kinderspiele.de (German for “Kids games”) garnered €16,000. Two more long names, IndependentFinancialAdviser.co.uk and DressUpGamesForGirls.com, sold for £9,975 and $15,000, respectively. Booking.travel also fetched $11,000– one of the best sales ever for the forlorn .travel TLD.

Generally very long names are not thought to have significant value. But these sales show that a domain is always worth what a buyer is willing to pay. In this case, it was quite a bit.

Photo | clix

Continue reading: 029.com sells for $110,000

CreditCards.com and NetQuote announced this week an upcoming acquisition of sites CreditCards.com and NetQuote for $350 million USD. The former contributed $145 million to the deal, while the latter made up $2205 million of the sales price.

The sites sold for so much because of their high traffic and revenue, but the sites’ enormous success is no doubt due in part to the use of premium domains. Quality, single-keyword domains convey a sense of confidence to visitors and are easy to remember.

Although it can be hard to justify a high price tag of a premium keyword domain, these domains really do pay off in the long run.

Source | Newfound News

Continue reading: CreditCards.com and NetQuote acquired for $350 million

When domain owners list names for sale, one of the last places they think to list names is Facebook. But domainer Mike Mann made a smart move when he decided to list his generic .co domains on his Facebook page. He sold Flying.co for $3,500.

Some of the other domains Mann has listed include news.co and bank.co. My guess is his strategy is so successful because he is friends with a large number of domainers. I would not list domains on Facebook or Twitter unless I had an extensive network of domain contacts.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Domainer sells name on Facebook

It’s been a hot week for ccTLDs. O.co just sold a few days ago for $350,000, but now domain Poker.ca has sold for a jaw-dropping $400,000 USD. Also of note is SEC.de, which fetched €136,500.

Other recent ccTLD sales include PW.ca for $60,000, StockCharts.co.uk for $48,000 and Material.pl (”fabrics” in Polish) for $25,155. Meanwhile, IDN Haushaltsauflösungen.de garned $16,125. The name is German for “financial resolutions.”

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Poker.ca sells for $400,000

I read a thread in a domain forum today that had some excellent tips for selling domains. Here’s a run-down of the most useful advice:

• Identify potential buyers and contact them directly. Email is fine, but you should have a professional address. Phone calls and faxes are much more effective, however.
• Be concise and to-the-point. Anyone interested in your domain will research what it is worth themselves.
• Be courteous at all times.
• Use an established domain sale or auction service. Many Internet users are leery of buying from unknown individuals.
• Provide potential buyers with your full name and phone number. This greatly increases their confidence and trust in you.

And of course, don’t give up! Selling a domain takes time.

Continue reading: Tips for selling domains

Today is a big day for domain sales. Domain idol.com has just sold for €120,000 ($155,000 USD). No information about the buyer has been released, but perhaps the sale is related to the popular US show American Idol?

Three-letter and four-letter .com domains are particularly valuable because they are not only easy to remember, but are very brandable. Many company names are three or four-letter acronyms.

Other sales of note include winportal.com for €13,000, translate.us for €3,300 and barbecue.org for $2,500.

Continue reading: Idol.com sells for €120,000

In a completely non-fictitious sale, domain fiction.com sold for $90,000 USD. This is a great domain for any publisher or writer, though only a best-selling author like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling could afford it.

In addition, FreeMarket.com fetched $93,000. Three-letter name CXC.com sold for $21,000, DistanceLearning.net $30,000 and Ethics.net $22,500.

Several notable ccTLD sales have also taken place in the last week. Everest.fr garnered $22,000 USD, while websitedesign.com.au just missed the $20,000 mark at $19,360.

Continue reading: Fiction.com sells for $90,000

Internet marketing firm Generation Zero Group Inc has agreed to buy the domain Find.com and associated website for assets worth $16.69 million USD. Most of this amount consists of Generation Zero shares worth $13.5 million, while the rest is made up of $13.5 million in cash and promissory notes.

The domain Find.com is worth quite a bit, but as for the search engine that goes along with it, who cares? It’s hard to tell if GZG paid a fair price for the package because information about Find.com’s revenue is unavailable.

My guess is that earnings aren’t very high. The domain is probably worth more than the site. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to buy a domain without buying any website that goes with it.

Continue reading: Find.com sells for $16.69 million

Two-letter domain Mr.com sold at auction this week for $24,712 USD. This name is generic yet relevant enough to be used for a wide variety of the websites. Personally, I think the buyer got a great deal. This name should have sold for a lot more, especially considering it is only two letters long.

Also of note is the sale of 363.com for $41,000, ccTLD docs.com.cn for $31,000 and boxing.net for $15,000. Indian domain budgetair.in also fetched $20,000. Another winner is kopfhörer.de (German for “headphones”), which garnered $8,185.

Continue reading: Mr.com sells for $24,712

Many people think selling a domain is as simple as listing it, waiting for a buyer, making a few negotiations, and then transferring it. This may be true in many instances, but not in NBC’s sale of women.com to DONE! Ventures.

DONE! Ventures entered into a contract with NBC to buy the domains woman.com and women.net for $1 million. All was fine and dandy until the NBC CEO canceled the deal. Now DONE! is suing NBC to honor the contract.

In the meantime, NBC has forwarded the domains to a dead website. As a result, they lost all their inbound links and Google PageRank. DONE! says this significantly reduces their value and wants a court to transfer them to a third party until the dispute is settled.

I don’t know much about the deal between the two companies, but as far as PageRanks and links are concerned, DONE! doesn’t have a leg to stand on. When you buy a domain, you’re buying just that and nothing else. Links and PageRank are third-party factors that make a domain more attractive, but the seller has no control over them. DONE! should suck up the loss and be a man.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: NBC and DONE! Ventures fight over failed domain deal

Although the exact sale price is unknown, a prominent domain auction house announced the sale of Slots.ca for over $200,000 USD. Sure, it’s not quite the same as Slots.com’s $5.5 million sale, but hey, it’s a start for Canada’s often forgotten .ca extension.

No information about the buyer is known, either. But this sale is important because it gives domainers a benchmark for the value of .ca domains. It is rare for the same .com and .ca domain to sell in a period of just a few months.

If you were to look at the sales and them as a basis for .ca’s value compared to .com, the .ca sale price is about 3.6% of the .com. Does this mean all .ca domains are worth 3.6% of their counterparts? Of course not. The market is often unpredictable and keywords differ in importance from place to place. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use the sale to get an idea of how much you should pay for a .ca.

Continue reading: Slots.ca sells for over $200,000

Fannie Mae, an American corporation whose sale of mortgage-backed securities is one of the many causes of the current recession, made headlines today with its purchase of KnowYourOptions.com for $50,000 USD.

The company will more than likely use the domain to create a website about financial awareness. Since the recession, many consumer advocates have argued that the mortgage industry preys on uneducated individuals, and that consumers need to become more financially literate. Fannie Mae no doubt wants to regain its reputation as well.

Another great name, VideoDating,com, also sold for $50,000 USD– to a different buyer, of course. A Canadian individual bought the name from domain success star Steve Newman.

Photo | Future Atlas

Continue reading: Fannie Mae buys KnowYourOptions.com for $50,000