Joseph Peterson’s weekly roundup of expired domain sales.
During the past several months, LLLL.com domains (4 letters, for those just joining us) have multiplied in value among wholesale traders who expect to flip to China or resell to one another. For years, values had stagnated in the $15 – $50 range; but suddenly prices at auction and in the forums began to rise, climbing 10 – 20 times higher as word spread. Mailing-list domain brokers who wouldn’t have been caught dead featuring LLLL.com’s in 2014 are now listing them prominently and hungry for more.
Yet certain kinds of LLLL.com domains were valuable before this spike in the Chinese market. For instance, the CVCV pattern of alternating consonants and vowels has long been sought after. Coincidentally, the West prizes precisely those letter patterns China disdains – and vice versa. Chinese buyers and their intermediaries state a preference for LLLL domains excluding A, E, I, O, U, and even V. Meanwhile, the Western retail market sets a premium on pronounceability, which almost always requires vowels. Moreover, because letters such as “Z” and “Q” (beloved by China) start few English words, LLLLs built from those letters are unlikely to serve as English acronyms; therefore they find little retail demand in the USA. In other words, the Chinese LLLL market and the non-Chinese LLLL market barely overlap at all. And while values in the former have skyrocketed, prices in the latter remain more or less as they were last year.
NameJet’s top expired domain auction last week, KIRI.com ($9.3k), as well as AZEA.com ($2.1k) illustrate the type of LLLL.com sales we’ve seen for a long time and which, I’d say, are oriented to the Western market. These two are brand names meant to be spoken aloud outside China. Even QIME.com ($1.7k), whose Chinese buyer seems to be breaking my “rule”, may only be a CVCV in a nominal sense. My guess is that it’s Pinyin: “Qi Me”. SZVR.com ($1.6k) is a departure from the “no V” habit, but it’s possible that “VR” (meaning virtual reality) has entered Chinese as a loan word. That I don’t know. As for RSRV.com ($4.9k), well, it’s probably an English word stripped of its vowels. Reserve Petroleum Co. uses it as their stock ticker. And a Belgian clothing store sees it not as “reserve” but as “reservoir”. For all I know, Ammar Kubba was thinking of RVs when he bought the thing.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
KIRI.com | 9300 | Tavares.com | 5725 |
Icona.com | 5400 | RSRV.com | 4864 |
FutureFinance.com | 4600 | YuPay.com | 3869 |
GetAWebsite.com | 3200 | Creeks.com | 3080 |
Cards.org | 2900 | MoldTips.com | 2900 |
ExoticTravel.com | 2850 | Wenge.com | 2677 |
Nutrition Explorations.org |
2651 | ColoView.com | 2500 |
ChineseWok.com | 2400 | Concrete Furniture.com |
2189 |
AZEA.com | 2100 | LuxuryRetail.com | 2100 |
AutoForum.com | 2077 | SweetLand.com | 2021 |
Tavares.com ($5.7k) is a surname – perhaps best known through the Tavares Brothers, a 70s music group. Apparently, they’re still performing; so when the Whois profile updates, we may see them as the buyer. Several brands use the name Icona, including a New Jersey beach resort, another pop singer, and the “world’s first titanium car“. Wonder what AutoForum.com ($2.1k) and LuxuryRetail.com ($2.1k) will have to say about that last item … Speaking of hard surfaces, here comes ConcreteFurniture.com ($2.2k).
Wenge.com ($2.7k) is an African wood. A brave IT company has gone against the grain and given its colocation monitoring software the name ColoView.com ($2.5k), which makes their service sound for all the world like an anal probe. Unsurprisingly, a product of the same name is used in rodent colonoscopies. (What! Hire a naming consultant and deprive the world of such gems?)
Cards.org ($2.9k) is a notable .ORG sale, but NutritionExplorations.org ($2.6k) did nearly as well. (More on that domain below.) Someone spent $2.9k on MoldTips.com without registering Mold.tips. In fact, none of the bidders bothered to do so. GetAWebsite.com ($3.2k) is a call to action any domainer must be familiar with, thanks to spammers who ransack the Whois database looking for web design clients. In case you’re curious, GetA.website is owned by Radix, the registry selling .WEBSITE domains.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
Stanhope.com | 1965 | Alternative Energies.com |
1900 |
MarkWay.com | 1709 | C3.org | 1701 |
QIME.com | 1700 | KHI.net | 1650 |
ItsTheLaw.com | 1621 | SZVR.com | 1609 |
Drony.com | 1523 | iNightLife.com | 1410 |
Swiff.com | 1410 | GiftCardStore.com | 1409 |
SwetsWise.com | 1260 | Dynamic Diagrams.com |
1160 |
PowerBikes.com | 1120 | FYPS.com | 1106 |
Chateau-Theme.com | 1010 | VRM.net | 960 |
KHI.net ($1.7k) and VRM.net ($1.0k) continue the LLL.net trend I discussed last week. Drony.com ($1.5k) fits the drone market, although it competes with a rival spelling: Droney.com isn’t what you’d expect. Stanhope.com ($2.0k) is the surname of comedian Doug Stanhope, among other Stanhopes. Swiff.com ($1.4k) sounds a bit like Swiffer. But there seems to be little ambiguity about whom MCHammer.com ($580) targets; so it’s possible that we’ll hear a UDRP panel singing “can’t touch this“. Buckle up, domainers; ItsTheLaw.com ($1.6k).
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
BridalTips.com | 909 | JustBeCool.com | 907 |
EliteLimos.com | 904 | Beeing.com | 898 |
EquityExchange.com | 898 | 85509.com | 810 |
AOLS.com | 810 | Nova Engineering.com |
797 |
UniSpec.com | 784 | NEXL.com | 715 |
ESM.org | 710 | Flapa.com | 710 |
Riske.com | 700 | PenSys.com | 659 |
CreditAnalyzer.com | 609 | GreenFuels.com | 595 |
91901.com | 592 | SWTS.com | 580 |
MCHammer.com | 580 | RentalTool.com | 576 |
AuditService.com | 563 | ECFD.com | 533 |
79238.com | 530 | Majara.com | 520 |
MogulApp.com | 500 | 36709.com | 491 |
JustBeCool.com ($907) – that’s my mantra. Doesn’t seem to work; but maybe if I took up bee keeping at Beeing.com ($898). (Excellent name for that purpose, by the way.) Last week saw a few environment-related domain auctions: EnvironmentTimes.net ($139), GreenFuels.com ($595), GreenEnergies.com ($316), and AlternativeEnergies.com ($1.9k).
AuditService.com ($563) makes sense for forensic accounting. NovaEngineering.com ($797) will be an upgrade for 1 of the many companies that have built websites around inferior versions of that name: NovaEnging.com, NovaEngInc.om, USANova.com, Nova-Consulting.com, AquaNovaEngineering.com, and the like.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
Charter Consulting.com |
490 | 39091.com | 490 |
CasinoBonus Online.com |
461 | GNYP.com | 441 |
TravelNorth.com | 437 | Blouses.net | 431 |
IconRealty.com | 415 | NEPHP.org | 410 |
TaxResearch.com | 409 | ULIC.com | 386 |
83507.com | 350 | CSSJuice.com | 340 |
GreenEnergies.com | 316 | PollocksToy Museum.com |
310 |
MMData.com | 309 | TableTennis Scotland.com |
300 |
LaVozAlmeria.net | 285 | AcuityCMS.com | 265 |
CyberShare.com | 260 | Azaret.com | 247 |
Blouses.net ($431) indicates the current wholesale value of .NET keywords. In the lower price ranges, we do see more 3-word domain sales: CasinoBonusOnline.com ($461), PollocksToyMuseum.com ($310), TableTennisScotland.com ($300), etc. But don’t forget GiftCardStore.com ($1.4k) above. In Spanish, the definite article (the “the”of “el” / “la” / “los” / “las”) hardly counts as a word, since including “the” is often expected. LaVozAlmeria.net ($285) matches a .ES news website.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
TastyEats.com | 232 | QuickSilvers.com | 222 |
LiveOffer.com | 219 | iLoveChat.com | 210 |
14275.com | 210 | StoneSaw.com | 200 |
KCMuseum.com | 195 | Nutrition Explorations.com |
190 |
BelgeNet.com | 190 | DXPI.com | 179 |
TechTrain.org | 175 | Lyxia.org | 171 |
NewsKnife.com | 171 | SimpleFolders.com | 161 |
226.tv | 160 | PNGSDP.com | 159 |
RMDeafSchool.net | 159 | AMZB.com | 155 |
BrianMitchell Music.com |
154 | SecondLaw.com | 151 |
FarmToConsumer Foundation.org |
150 | YourApparel.com | 149 |
See NutritionExplorations.com at $190? Now scroll up to view the price paid for NutritionExplorations.org! TastyEats.com was a good buy at $232. KCMuseum.com ($195) probably refers to Kansas City. “PNG” stands for the nation of Papua New Guinea; and PNGSDP.com ($159) for many years showcased their sustainable development program.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
Tutorex.com | 149 | BPD-Water AndSanitation.org |
139 |
DogConnector.com | 139 | Environment Times.net |
139 |
SEOPro Software.com |
135 | TopNaman.com | 125 |
ANewWay.com | 120 | PreGroup.com | 120 |
CheatUniverse.com | 119 | MyPalmdale.com | 113 |
WolfCoach.com | 110 | New-Life.com | 110 |
RLVP.com | 102 | Medical- Missionaries.com |
100 |
Fiancee.org | 100 | AirKauai.com | 99 |
RaoHang.com | 99 | OMG99.net | 99 |
Rare RealEstate.com |
89 | TrainExpress.com | 89 |
Druvan.com | 83 | ThaiMassage Therapy.com |
82 |
TheCyberSpot.com | 80 | NWMaps.com | 80 |
Hawiaa.org | 80 | OptarSSII.com | 80 |
If you’re looking for data on hyphenated domains, you really ought to check out this series on Sedo end-user sales, since Europe is where hyphens live. But at NameJet, Medical-Missionaries.com ($100) and New-Life.com ($110) provide a wholesale benchmark. ANewWay.com ($120) – now that was cheap.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
VOIPP.com | 79 | CarTuning.org | 79 |
KGregoryBooks.com | 79 | BibleQuestion.com | 79 |
TableFan.com | 79 | Islolup.com | 79 |
CatcoraCooks.com | 79 | IXKZ.com | 79 |
NanoWeb Technology.com |
79 | ClubMud.com | 72 |
IraqTax.org | 70 | JobsUSAGov.com | 70 |
CSMIntl.com | 70 | LifeSkills-Center.org | 70 |
LegendsFrom Europe.com |
69 | HSANet.org | 69 |
YESH-GVUL.org | 69 | WiserDrivers.com | 69 |
TurboCatUSA.com | 69 | WomanBusiness Grants.com |
69 |
DebtLess.net | 69 | GeekReporter.com | 69 |
TutorSD.com | 69 | BarEast.com | 69 |
RefBlog.com | 69 | Cloud Symposium.com |
69 |
WrinklesVanish.com | 69 | Oxandrin.com | 69 |
UnitedNEBank.com | 69 |
Oxandrin.com ($69) is a drug that promotes weight gain after surgery. Why on earth pharmaceutical companies don’t care to control such domains is beyond me. Some referee would probably enjoy owning RefBlog.com ($69). Likewise some geek GeekReporter.com ($69).
Acro says
On the subject of LLLL .com domains, random “jumbled” up letters might have been selling in the sub-$100 territory in the past, but clean/good letters or specific combos have been selling in the thousands of dollars.
Unfortunately, the Chinese are now playing a game of mass-spamming LLLL .com owners with offers that max out at $300 or between 1600 – 1800 yuan.
These annoying offers for letter combinations that are great acronyms for Western buyers, are not related to the true value of LLLL .com domains. Anyone telling you otherwise, has some crap letters to peddle.
Joseph Peterson says
Average wholesale or floor prices were what I was referring to – and for the bottom end of the LLLL.com category. Not retail. As I mentioned, certain kinds of LLLLs have long seen high $xxx or $x,xxx prices even on the wholesale market. And the letters Chinese buyers don’t care for will often do best in the U.S. retail market – even if the selling cycle is much slower.
But the fact remains that, as recently as December 2014, I sold a batch of LLLL.com domains for $23 apiece – simply to get rid of inventory that had been clogging my portfolio. Domainers at that time were not prepared to offer more than that amount – not for LLLL.com’s like those I was liquidating. And even at $23, the stuff was very slow to move.
Naturally, I’d already had better sales within the LLLL category – more than 1000 times better, in fact. But those $23 sales are indicative of wholesale conditions half a year ago. The landscape now is utterly different. Floor prices are substantially higher. So even LLLL.com’s priced 5-10 times higher than mine and of similar quality have been changing hands quickly.