Joseph Peterson’s weekly wrap-up of expired domain name sales.
Names get around. For instance, take Rothwell.com, which expired and sold at NameJet during the past week for $8,100. King John – the villain of Robin Hood legends and real-life signatory of the Magna Carta – granted a tiny town of Rothwell in Northamptonshire the perpetual right to hold a Monday market, which they still celebrate with a “guard of halberdiers” and drinks of “rum and milk”. Over the ensuing 811 years, villagers emigrated and took “Rothwell” with them as a surname. Some founded IP law firms in the USA like Rothwell Figg. Other Rothwells named law firms in Australia. And some stayed behind in England to manufacture audio electronics such as guitar pedals, all branded with “Rothwell”.
Any of those companies could sensibly upgrade to Rothwell.com. Yet the owner appears to be a person living in Utah named Rowell. Hmm … Curiously, the 7,694 UK residents of Rothwell pronounce their town name not as “Rothwell” but as “Rowell” – and have done since medieval times. They celebrate the “Rowell Fair”. King John’s 1204 A.D. manuscript says “Rowell”. So either this registrant used “Rowell” as an alias – a sort of inside joke; or else his ancestors came from Rothwell (in Northamptonshire or West Yorkshire). Quite the coincidence!
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
Rothwell.com | 8100 |
OmahaHomes.com |
6400 |
HealingFoods.com | 5001 | LincolnRoad.com | 5000 |
Syntegrity.com | 4122 | CarParts ForSale.com |
3882 |
CareerBridge.com | 3720 | OrangeCapital.com | 3456 |
SchoolNews.com | 3000 | PlatinumCapital.com | 2910 |
OmegaFinancial.com | 2510 | DreamCasino.com | 2445 |
TCSGroup.com | 2119 | GreenMagic.com | 2112 |
HolyLand.org | 1601 | Packy.com | 1600 |
XEYE.com | 1515 | AboutForex.com | 1259 |
R4I.com | 1212 | VanMark.com | 1210 |
Madon.com | 1135 | SmallPower.com | 1105 |
ROG.net | 999 | CorporateCars.com | 886 |
NANE.net | 860 | Freelance Network.com |
842 |
GUEX.com | 815 | Canker.com | 792 |
Binary Solutions.com |
765 | TimelessBody.com | 722 |
NMRG.com | 716 | WWEN.com | 687 |
Decloud.com | 626 | CBOP.com | 591 |
Vibrators.org | 579 | X1I.com | 565 |
Knowledge Space.com |
552 | Ataris.com | 531 |
9186.net | 519 | SIBM.com | 519 |
WebHound.com | 499 | OILR.com | 491 |
35878.com | 480 | ConPlus.com | 473 |
KBE.net | 463 | GKDesign.com | 460 |
JuicyClips.com | 459 | YBB.org | 435 |
BSV.org | 410 | HMEA.com | 405 |
92696.com | 379 | K9O.com | 370 |
170Million Americans.org |
330 | QVB.net | 325 |
RMFE.com | 320 | ChidrenStories.com | 310 |
21593.com | 310 | O-2.com | 310 |
Rival.net | 303 | Fistful.com | 302 |
37703.com | 255 | NNHT.com | 210 |
WineProject.com | 202 | ArizonaSenate.org | 182 |
74886.com | 181 | AjiraAirways.com | 180 |
Trauma-ALFest.com | 170 | Alzheimer Answers.com |
161 |
WaterLady.com | 93 | CarInsurarance.com [sic] |
89 |
Syntegrity.com ($4.1k) functions as an upgrade for such websites as SyntegrityGroup.com, SyntegrityNet.com, and Syntegrity.com.au. OrangeCapital.com ($3.5k) does likewise for sites like OrangeCapitalPartners.com, OrangeCapitalManagement.com, and OrangeCapital.ca. PlatinumCapital.com ($2.9k) is yet a third example of this pattern. Just ask PlatinumCapitalMortgage.com, PlatinumCapitalPartners.com (not to be confused with an identical .NET), PlatinumFunds.net (doing business as Platinum “Capital Management”), Platinum.com.au (a.k.a. “Platinum Capital”), or ThePlatinumCapital.com! Ditto CareerBridge.com ($3.7k), which is a name used by government programs in Connecticut and Washington state – plus at least 3 companies. Nothing new here: Prices are high when Demand > Supply.
LincolnRoad.com ($5k) almost certainly refers to a pedestrian mall in Florida, “the Miami Beach counterpart to Fifth Avenue in New York, or Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles.” That quote comes from the matching .ORG website, which for me ranked 3rd in SERPs behind LincolnRoadMall.com and LincolnRoadMall.info. When there is doubt about who among competing websites really represents something, ownership of the definitive domain can become urgent.
CorporateCars.com was a good buy at $886. One single sale ought to generate a bigger commission than that. Both ChildrenStories.com ($310) and AlzheimerAnswers.com ($161) would be better with the customary apostrophe “s”. At first glance, Packy.com ($1.6k) looks like a great brand name for packing; and it may prove to be. But it sounds like a racial slur (based on “Pakistani”) within the UK. Fistful.com ($302) was equally strong, safer, and cheaper. CarPartsForSale.com ($3.9k) is especially interesting, given the timing. .FORSALE enters general availability next week.
Ataris.com ($531) most likely refers to the pioneering video game company. If you thought (as I did) that Atari had gone the way of the dinosaurs, well, it turns out they still make games. By now, kids that cut their teeth on Ataris are all grown up. There’s even a rock band called “The Ataris” – perhaps an homage to games like this one, featuring a pixelated Indiana Jones.
Names get around.
Mike says
Bloody hell, some of those prices are ridiculously cheap . Well how long until we can only get few hundred $ for .com ?
Joseph Peterson says
@Mike,
Remember, we’re looking at a mixture of wholesale and retail buyers. There’s often a wide gap between the 2 valuations, owing to market risk, labor cost in selling, and poor liquidity. So $400 might be dirt cheap in a retail context but prohibitively expensive for a domainer.
Depends on whether we’re looking at an end-user purchase or something midway through the supply chain.
Bob says
It was chidrenstories.com it was a typo missing the ‘l’
Fooled me too for a minute.
Joseph Peterson says
Good catch! I hadn’t noticed.
That makes 2 typos in the list. Each week averages a few.